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Thread: Best Cell Phone Coverage

  1. #1
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    Default Best Cell Phone Coverage



    Opinions please, I'm looking to change my carrier and wonder what you all consider good. I'm using T-Mobile which is awful.

    TIA!
    ___________
    Chris in Florida

  2. #2

    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    Good coverage with Verizon. The only other service I tried was Qwest and it didn't have the range of Verizon - if I went to the mountains, it was roaming with Qwest. Qwest has done away with their mobile service, which is good.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    Well seeing that i work for att mobility and have been a cellular communications tech for 15 years, coverage is a broad term. you can be in one area and get crap on one carrier whilst getting good coverage on another carrier same location. Depends on the specifics of what "coverage" your trying to describe.

    1. do you get good or bad signal?
    2. do you drop allot of calls?
    3. are your calls consistantly crappy?

    What are the problems you are experiencing? I can help as i am somewhat of an expert in the field.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    Verizon, but I work for them so I would consider my opinion bias.

  5. #5

    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    Tee Hee previously posted:
    "Verizon, but I work for them so I would consider my opinion bias."



    i agree, im not going to sell you att stuff cause Tee Hee and i both know that it is relatively even playing field for all carriers to a degree. What i look for in a cell company is customer service, price, plan availability device selection.

    You can have the best "coverage" in the world but if the network isnt maintained or optimized your connection could be total crap. I do know we run a very tight ship where i work and in the 3 years i have worked there all the outages on the network were caused by external sources. All the companies are growing the network, cleaning up crap spots etc.

    Just to give an idea as well why jimbob cell phone company doesnt put a cell tower in a no coverage area with 30 people wanting coverage is it runs appx $300,000 to initially put a site on the air. that includes the land lease, tower, radio equipment etc.. and if the revenue generated off that tower doesnt pay for itself in i think it is 5 years they dont put one up. To run the site it is about $10,000 a month.

    I will say this though verizon and att have the better networks, better customer service, better equipment (cell phones etc) so i would really choose between the two. When sprint bought out nextel (i was a nextel employee for a while as well) they bought a crappy network that was not suited for high capacity nor high data. t-mobile is behind the times in certain areas plus they are fairly new to the states as a mobile company compared to the others. I hear cricket is a good prepay service but you get hammered on roaming out of state.

    If it were up to me i would weigh the options between verizon and att and make my choice.

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    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    DEEZLPWR previously posted:
    " i work for att mobility"

    Tee Hee previously posted:
    "Verizon, but I work for them"

    Cool, dueling insiders!

    How much of a service is the quality of the phone itself, how much the provider? In other words, if I got a better phone would my service improve?

    Most people seem happy with Verizon though I wouldn't mind having ATT and an iPhone but just because it's a cool gadget. Really I'd just like a phone that works when I want it to, no texting, no camera, no email, no web access, etc. though I think it's cool to be able to. :lol:

    I hate contracts and prepaid so if I make a change and have to get suckered into one I want to be able to live with it for a couple years. It's no easy for me to get a new contract because I have my credit locked so it can't be checked. Most, if not all, companies assume that makes me a dead-beat and won't even talk to me because of that.

    So tell me what makes a good company and service.
    ___________
    Chris in Florida

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    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    My wife had AT&T when she had a corporate cell phone and she had great service now that I'm thinking back. It didn't matter where she was, it worked and that included her trips to Europe, sounded as good as when she was local. Problems was that it probably was $100+ month.

    Jimmy,

    Just a mention of Qwest and my blood pressure rises. That company has no idea what customer service is about. I despise them with very good reason. I won't even start because I'll end up with the longest rant this board has even seen. :rant:
    ___________
    Chris in Florida

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    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    Chris, Qwest sucks. I use Liberty Bell Telecom for my house phone.

    As for cell, I find that we got service if we stood on some high rocks in the middle of the Maze in the middle of Utah. Plus, we get coverage in many of the mountain locations and all through I-70 from here to Moab.

    Their customer service can be kind of retarded and you can get a new phone before your contract expires, IF you sign up for another two years.

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    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    Isn't Liberty Bell a Qwest reseller?
    ___________
    Chris in Florida

  10. #10

    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    Chris previously posted:
    "My wife had AT&T when she had a corporate cell phone and she had great service now that I'm thinking back. It didn't matter where she was, it worked and that included her trips to Europe, sounded as good as when she was local. Problems was that it probably was $100+ month.

    Jimmy,

    Just a mention of Qwest and my blood pressure rises. That company has no idea what customer service is about. I despise them with very good reason. I won't even start because I'll end up with the longest rant this board has even seen. :rant:"

    Oooohh.......if you guys are insiders that means you can hook us up with deals right? I'm waiting for the new Nvidia Tegra phones to come out, but when they do.......

    I have ATT right now and am reasonably happy with their coverage. If I was gonna switch carriers, I'd have a look at Sprint. They have the best deals on Data plans and "all inclusive" plans, and also have decent 3g data covereage nation wide. If I didn't want Data, I'd probably go with Verizon as they seem to have the best coverage for voice stuff. I do like being able to surf the web and check email on my phone, but thats not the case for everyone.

    From what I hear, T-mobile, while the most inventive and innovative, lacks coverage in a big way. I got to design the lighting for one of the rooms for the big sales meeting they had here in 2007 and they really have some cool ideas about combining voice with data with VOIP. Also cool that they were the first to use the open source Google Android operating system on one of their phones. That said, it still doesn't make up for the fact that they have the crappiest coverage in the business.

    JH

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    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    Chris previously posted:
    "Isn't Liberty Bell a Qwest reseller?"

    Not that I am aware of. You get to talk to a real person and their techs know their stuff. Therefore it must have NOTHING to do with Qwest. :lol:

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    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    IIRC when I checked out Liberty I found they use Qwest techs for service. Scared me away!
    ___________
    Chris in Florida

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    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    Haku previously posted:
    "Oooohh.......if you guys are insiders that means you can hook us up with deals right? I'm waiting for the new Nvidia Tegra phones to come out, but when they do.......

    I have ATT right now and am reasonably happy with their coverage. If I was gonna switch carriers, I'd have a look at Sprint. They have the best deals on Data plans and "all inclusive" plans, and also have decent 3g data covereage nation wide. If I didn't want Data, I'd probably go with Verizon as they seem to have the best coverage for voice stuff. I do like being able to surf the web and check email on my phone, but thats not the case for everyone.

    From what I hear, T-mobile, while the most inventive and innovative, lacks coverage in a big way. I got to design the lighting for one of the rooms for the big sales meeting they had here in 2007 and they really have some cool ideas about combining voice with data with VOIP. Also cool that they were the first to use the open source Google Android operating system on one of their phones. That said, it still doesn't make up for the fact that they have the crappiest coverage in the business.

    JH"


    data or voice it all rides on the same equipment. and no i cant get perks for anyone not even myself.. :(

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    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    DEEZLPWR previously posted:
    "data or voice it all rides on the same equipment. and no i cant get perks for anyone not even myself.. :("

    Hijack over?

    How much difference is the phone itself?

    What's the best overall company for coverage?
    ___________
    Chris in Florida

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    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    Verizon works great.... however cricket has great coverage on China Wall hahahaha

  16. #16

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    Ive used all the major carriers here in Colorado except T mobile and so far The best ones I have had was Verizon and Cricket.

  17. #17

    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    Chris previously posted:
    "Hijack over?

    How much difference is the phone itself?

    What's the best overall company for coverage?"

    I do know that some phones get better reception then others, and price doesn't always figure into it. Heck, even a firmware upgrade can really make a difference alot of the time. Not sure what phone you have, but there is a website at www.xda-developers.com that is all for enthusiast who use the HTC phones (largely smart phones or the like). For the phone I have, the ATT Fuze, someone hacked the radio firmware and made it much much better then it came from the factory, both reception and battery usage wise. So its not always the hardware even.

    That said, no coverage is no coverage, and I still think even with the best phone you can find for reception that you'll find T-mobile is lacking. All of the carriers have coverage maps of where they cover, and so far the best I have seen is Verizon, especially for voice/edge (edge is their slower data coverage). ATT is a close second I think, with the rest somewhere behind. Despite it not being quite as high a coverage, Sprint has some really good deals if you want an all inclusive Voice/Data/Text plans, but if you don't use those then going with the bigger name stuff is good. I found it funny during that sales meeting I worked to find that T-mobile put the "big red monster" aka Verizon in a totally different class from everyone else as far as hardware coverage and sheer customer volume went. Guess it says something when a competitor considers you too big to compete with.

    I'm getting a bit long winded here so I'll finish up. I do find that the mid range phones without the "smart" stuff often have very good reception and are better at its primary purpose, being a phone. They'll have very decent battery life and reading some reviews should see which ones get the best reception. I had a little LG flip phone before my current one, and the call quality, battery life, and reception seemed better, and it was free with the plan.

    JH

  18. #18

    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    verizon great

    Nextel sucks

    and I have both so there has been plenty of side by side comparisons over the last 10 years.

  19. #19

    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    Stay away from Sprint. They are fawkered up. Damn them lil buggers! There customer service sucks and they cant bill correctly.

    Is it normal for a cell company to bill a month in advance?

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    Default Re: Best Cell Phone Coverage



    i have verizon. and i seam to get pretty decent coverage. i haven't noticed anyone having reception when i don't.

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