Cell Phone Providers

[mscher]

Re: Cell Phone Providers

Hello All,

I'm in the hunt for possibly changing cell phone providers. The contract is coming due.

For the last five years we've had Qwest/Sprint and have been very happy with it but we're shopping.

We have four phones (family) and will require the same number with a different plan.

So far, T-Mobile is the least expensive and Verizon is the most expensive with the others falling somewhere in between. Features and plans being comparable.

As mentioned, I have experience with Qwest/Sprint and am quite happy. They are middle of the pack, cost wise.

What is your experience? Any you don't like and any you do?

I guess I have to ask, Why change at all, especially if you are happy? You have got the hassle of more contracts, maybe new phone purchases, etc.

It seems that when most phone contracts are up, they simply go month-to-month at the current rates. Is your plan(s) different?

Anyway, about your original question, for me, IT'S ALL ABOUT THE SIGNAL!! If you cant use the phone when and where you want, the best prices or customer service is worthless.

We have used Centennial Wireless phones for our primary residence phone, + wife, kids and my phone, when OTR trucking, for 4 years. Good signal at our house (a must). We did have a problem with too much roaming, when I was truck driving, but the Centennial rep suggested nationwide free incoming calls, for just a couple of bucks extra and it saved us lots.

Not sure if they are available in your area. Also, we almost NEVER have a dropped call,(unless my wife hangs up on me )

As I said, a good signal wherever you want to use it, is priority one, IMO.

Good luck.

 

[muskyone]

Re: Cell Phone Providers

I have unlimited txt and pic mesg for 10 bucks Verizon to Verizon 500 to anyone else. And unlimited veri to veri calls 10 bucks nation plan no roaming unlimited internet

 

[ondarvr]

Re: Cell Phone Providers

I'm on the road most of the time and so are most of the people I work with. When we each had our own phones, almost everybody had Verizon. Not always the least expensive, but sometimes it was, it almost always had by far the best reception though, even out in the sticks.

AT&T was OK if you were on a main highway, or in a city, out in the country it was spotty.

T-Mobil is a joke, we were just forced to go with them on a company wide plan and most of us hate it. It was the cheapest, but it can be very difficult to do business with the poor coverage and voice mail system, some of us even pay for our own phones (out our own pockets) to not use T-Mobile.

In some areas of the country T-Mobile does work OK, but not many though.

 

[wildmaninal]

Re: Cell Phone Providers

Just a long shot here but I was just thinking, so forgive me ahead of time .......Even though these gas stations sell pre paid cards, pre paid does basically the same as the monthly plan services. You could inquire on what is the majority service that is sold on their pre paid cards, it might be t-mobile, sprint, cingular, etc etc. It would be interesting to ask a convenient store employee what sells the most for pre paid, see what service comes out on top. This would also give you an idea what cell service works good in your area.

 

[SgtMaj]

Re: Cell Phone Providers

I worked for a major cellular carrier for 4 years.

As far as phones go, the razr isn't bad, as long as you don't have the first generation razr. If you bought it no more than a year ago, you should have a 2nd gen razr. The thing is, no phone today will pick up like the phones in the past did. It's because they are WAY underpowered now. Take the Star-Tac for example. It used 1.3 watts of power, but today's razr uses less than .6 watts, and some phones only use .3 watts. Still, it is mainly the carrier's fault for using relatively cheap equipment. The Jupiter probe sent out a signal that was only 3 watts, and yet we're able to fully pick up everything it sent from millions of miles away. Of course a lot of our cellular signal problems are caused by interference from all the other electronics and cell phones out there. Also, geography can play a part, but by and large the main factor is "cheap" (we're still taking in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per tower) equipment, and rf engineers not configuring the towers properly.

Umm, yeah, ditto what was said about making sure you know exactly what's in the contract. But I would add to that that you should also know what's not in the contract. I was fired from US Cellular about 3 hours after bringing it to the attention of management that we were inadvertantly putting children in danger through their policy of adding data access to customer's accounts even if they did not ask for it. This gave children access to programs such as webdate mobile and my flirt pix which let pedophiles connect directly to them without their parents knowlege, at least until the first bill, and often beyond that due to often confusing billing. Now that was beyond the fact that doing that was morally reprehensible from a financial standpoint because I saw dozens of parents who were blindsided with bills in the thousands of dollars from their teenagers having racked up data useage at $3 per song downloaded plus $.01 per kilobyte, plus all the other application fees. I've even seen a bill for $3000 from one mother whose daughter simply surfed the web on her phone. Now I'm sure the fact that they are raking in millions annually from unsuspecting parents has nothing to do with their unwillingness to deal with the other ethical dilema of knowingly putting our children in danger, but one browse through all the pre-teens on my flirt pix, is enough to make any parent cringe; even MySpace has SOME safeguards... so you would expect maybe something, but no. Of course they said my termination had nothing to do with that, it was just coincidental timing, despite the fact that I had a perfect record and had won every award ever offered to someone in my position with the exception of one new one that was just introduced one cycle prior to my termination... never written up, never late... funny how those coincidences seem to happen. I would have sued, except that within about 2 hours of leaving I realized that I was free at last, and it felt GOOD! Now I work for a place that has as of yet not touted one time how supposedly morally ethical they are, yet I find them to be FAR more ethical than US Cellular could have ever dreamed of being. Meanwhile, USCC continues that policy while constantly touting how ethically superior they are supposed to be.

Anyway, I digress. The point is, make sure they aren't adding extras in on you that aren't mentioned in contract (the example above also isn't mentioned in the contract anywhere).

I've had Verizon for the last 4 months now, and so far the only thing I havn't been pleased with is that it took them a month to combine my wife and I's individual plans into a family plan. I have the LG En-V for the full QWERTY keyboard with the Verizon plan, and comming from a former repair tech, I'm genuinely impressed with it. I have stepped on it twice now and not the slightest crack in the LCD. Dropped it on concrete once, and there's barely a scratch.

 

[DJ]

Re: Cell Phone Providers

Great points from everyone. I am also thankful for the phone advice.

As I said, I'm happy with what I have but we need some new phones (2). So, I'll hit up Qwest and see what they can do.

I hate to leave them, we have a "grandfathered' plan that is pretty hard to beat, cost wise.

Thanks all.