What cell provider do you have and do you like them?

[Bulldog1401]

Verizon for a long time, hands down the best connectivity in my area.

However....I commonly recieve voicemails up to 2 days late!

And I think they periodically manipulate your "minutes used" to push you toward a higher minute package.

Call them on it and they will deny everything.

Like someone else said, they will take your money if you let them.

 

[XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq]

I've seen the late voicemail thing from Verizon too. Honestly, I suspect they have some form of throttling feature on their towers that just refuses to accept weak signals.

My phone is typically in my office which is in the basement. If I take it out with me that's when I'll suddenly get the voicemail notifications. Even with my antenna booster attached it will say have a reasonably good signal (3 bars) but I still can't make calls.

 

[Dargo]

Verizon for a long time, hands down the best connectivity in my area.

However....I commonly recieve voicemails up to 2 days late!

I sometimes get that with AT&T too. I haven't seen any particular reason to cause it. It just happens sometimes.

 

[Doc]

I have AT&T and have been with them for 10 years. I'm satisfied with the coverage I get. I have heard Alltel does cover some areas where AT&T is weak, but I suspect Alltel has it's weak spots also.
Now that I have an iPhone I'm stuck with AT&T. I really like the iPhone and would get another one if I ever lost or broke this one.

 

[Dargo]

I really like the iPhone and would get another one if I ever lost or broke this one.

Yup, you said a lot there. As much trouble I had with the initial released iPhone I have to admit that there isn't any smartphone that is even close to the iPhone right now. I tried the new Blackberry Storm that Verizon has and touts as their answer to the iPhone. Honestly, it isn't close. I ended up just getting the LG Dare. For a regular phone, I do like it quite well. One big difference is that with AT&T, if I only have one or two bars, I can forget making a call. I always get "call failed". If I only have one bar on the Verizon phone, it seems to make a call just fine. I assume that may be part of the difference between CDMA and GSM technologies. Cingular/AT&T used to be CDMA and I loved the service.

I guess I'll try the two for a while before I decide which way I want to go. If Verizon had the iPhone it would be a no-brainer. I've read some places that they had first option on them but wouldn't pay the king's ransom that Apple wanted and that AT&T was the 2nd choice. It's my understanding that Apple's exclusive with AT&T expires in 2010. I guess we'll see who wants to pay Apple's extortion money then. I hate Apple's computers but I do think they have the best smartphone. I'm willing to pay a premium for their phone but will never pay a premium for one of their computers again unless they do like they did with the iPhone and make major software changes and upgrades.

 

[Pigtails]

This is an area of expertise for Pigtails the better half. I am sure she has signed up for every available service provider/service possible since all cell service in our area went digital. We cannot receive any digital signal at our remote mountain home since the analog was turned off in September. We now have a Globalstar satellite phone that works about 30 minutes out of the hour and a bunch of different computer phone programs that she has purchased/signed up for to work off the satellite internet. The best so far she hooked up today is something called "Happyjack, Majicjack or some kind of jackshit". She does not even tell me what she is trying anymore as I have said to hell with all of them. Phone service of any kind in our remote location just sucks period...

I am quite sure with the cost of phone equipment, different vendors, services and equipment she has bought I am headed for bankruptcy and will need a federal bailout in the near future. :

If he only knew!!

 

[k-dog]

I had Cingular (now AT&T) and they tried to rip me off on the bill so I switched to Sprint and then Cingular tried to slam me with a early termination which was bogus (I took my numbers with me to Sprint) and they finally took it off and closed my account.

I had a Blackberry through T-Mobile for work but the coverage wasn't that great and then it got switched to Verizon which is great for coverage. Can't say much about bill or customer service as I don't deal with them since it is work.

 

[Catless]

mtntopper/pigtails:

Have you tried running a hardwired booster and external antenna? Whoops, more money to spend.

I run a 3 watt Wilson booster + a Wilson "Trucker" external antenna and have had very good luck in the remote mountainous regions of the Western U.S.

The old analog "bag phones" were 3.0 watt. Most digital cell phones today are about 0.3 watt (I think). A hardwired booster might make the difference. A good external antenna is key. You must have a phone that has an external antenna connection with this setup..........

Wilson has been very good to me. I "smoked" one of their boosters (my fault) and they still replaced it under warrantee (after the warrantee had expired).

I use AT+T/Cingular.

grd

 

[Pigtails]

Catless,

Yep we tried that too. We even had a new digital bag phone with it. It didn't work. Decided to give it up. Went to Global Star. I like it. It is definitely better then nothing. Then I discovered VOIP. hehe. Use both Skype and Magic Jack.

 

[Catless]

Right on!

Glad you found somthing that works and that you are happy with! I spend some time in Denver, Some time in N/ Central Nevada, Some time in N. Park Colorado, and lot's of time driving to and fro.........It's all good.

grd

 

[jwstewar]

I start with the recent history of my cell phones only going back about 8 years or so.

We used Sprint because at that time they were the only carrier that would allow me to use my phone both at work and home without paying a roaming charge one way or the other. Constantly had dropped calls and service at home usually worked, but once in awhile you wouldn't have any service.

Probably 4 years or so ago we switched to AT&T Wireless which was then bought out by Cingular which is now back to AT&T. Much better coverage no (or very few) dropped calls. Works great at the house - even in the basement. I've driven all the way from work to home (over an hour) and talked to Monica the whole way w/o dropping the call.

We did run into an issue with them a couple of months ago. We had an old checking account we were trying to close out that was stored in their account. When Monica paid the bill, she entered our new account. It still charged the old account, just so happened there was enough money in the account to cover it. The next month I paid the bill. Same thing happened - except this time there wasn't enough money to cover it. The bank charged us NSF. By the time we knew what was going on and got in touch with AT&T they had sent it through 3 more times. $100 in NSF fees. I got them to credit our bill for the NSF fees. Then all of sudden they said we had a late bill and turned our phones off. I guess our bill was something like $102 so we owed $2. So I paid it and go the phone turned back on. When we got the next bill they charged us a $25 Returned check fee and a $36 reactivation fee. I was really pissed. I did get them to take those charges off the bill. Funny their website worked the last couple of times we've used it.

As far as Verizon goes, I've heard good things about them from the people in Columbus and that is what the company has switched to because of their coverage area. But for us at the house, if we go outside, turn around in circles, hold our head a certain way, you can make a call badly digitized call. We had a delivery person at our house (Sears) where they have to call in and "report" the delivery. It was funny watching him try to make that call.

When they were building our house, the excavator that did the footers and basement walls had Nextel for all of this guys. They couldn't get service at all. I guess Sprint still doesn't have Nextel on the same network. But their office would call Monica's cell in order to reach their onsite foreman.

I would be nice to have Verizon as we could then just add our Suburban as another phone to our plan and not have to pay for minutes - which I won't be doing because of the price GM wants for minutes.

 

[Dargo]

We did run into an issue with them a couple of months ago. We had an old checking account we were trying to close out that was stored in their account. When Monica paid the bill, she entered our new account. It still charged the old account, just so happened there was enough money in the account to cover it. The next month I paid the bill. Same thing happened - except this time there wasn't enough money to cover it. The bank charged us NSF. By the time we knew what was going on and got in touch with AT&T they had sent it through 3 more times. $100 in NSF fees. I got them to credit our bill for the NSF fees. Then all of sudden they said we had a late bill and turned our phones off. I guess our bill was something like $102 so we owed $2. So I paid it and go the phone turned back on. When we got the next bill they charged us a $25 Returned check fee and a $36 reactivation fee. I was really pissed. I did get them to take those charges off the bill. Funny their website worked the last couple of times we've used it.

Although different circumstances, their billing practices as much as their dropped calls is what is causing me to consider a move and to buy a "test" Verizon phone. Today will be a test. I'll be driving for 10 to 12 hours all over Indiana. I know that with AT&T I will get about a dozen dropped calls where I'm going. It will be interesting using Verizon to see if they are any better. I "paired" my new Verizon phone to my car yesterday, so I'll be using the Verizon handsfree through the Acura's phone setup. This way I'll be comparing apples to apples, so to speak with dropped calls. I pretty well always use the handsfree function in my car. I have it setup so when I get within about 30 feet of my car, the phone and car automatically pair. Sometimes it's annoying when I'm talking to someone on the handset while walking to the car and suddenly my handset 'goes dead' and I can hear them talking from inside my cay. But, that's user error. I don't count that as any "problem".

 

[rback33]

OK. I voted last night, but am finally taking the time to say what I actually have and why. I have Alltel. For a long time it was the only thing that really worked out here. I had Cell one for several years since one of my friends best friends ran the retail location here. It was OK in some areas, but CONSTANTLY had billing issues. I mean EVERY month. I have had Alltel for just over 8 years now and love it. My brother has worked for them for over 5 years now and my baby sis just started with them this fall. The only service issue I have had was the email on my Moto Q. I figured out what the problem was eventually, but am still pissed their tech support people were not smart enough to figure it out. Verizon and Alltel have both been ranke at the very top of Consumer Reports. This was important when my in-laws decided to change a year ago. Alltel does not technically cover where they live in the KC area so they have Verizon now. They can actually make calls from my house that they could not before. I am looking forward to the VZ-Alltel merger. Everyone I generally call has Alltel so it's mobile to mobile, but several have Verizon so....