What cell phone service is best? (1 Viewer)

[jeff lam]

Not wanting to spend a lot for service. I need free long distance, unlimited or near unlimited night's and weekends and a bundle of anytime minutes maybe 200+/month. I don't think roaming would be a problem but no roaming charges would also be a plus. Anything like this for $30 or less/month?

 

[Leila Dougan]

It depends on what's available in your area and the kind of phone you want to have. I pay $29.95 a month for all that you describe (250 anytime minutes, unlimited weekends but not evenings) with Voicestream. All the cell providers offer similar deals so your best bet is to check out their respective websites and find one that has what you're looking for. If you want to ask questions, www.howardforums.com is a great place.

 

[Brett Hancock]

It all depends on what you are looking for in a plan,

Voice Stream offers the most minutes out of any provider but there service is not so great. Dropped calls, bad clarity. But it is cheap price wise for the amount of minutes that you get.

Sprint PCS(in my opinion the best). There clarity and service is great. I have never had a dropped call and the calls are clearer then my home phone. For the level of quality the price is great.

Of course this is just in Seattle so Im sure it is different in other places.

 

[GordonL]

Your primary consideration should be which provider(s) has the best coverage. Once you've determined that, pick the plan which meets your needs. If you pick a provider based on plan features first, you might end up with something that doesn't work where you expect it to.

Ideally, you need to get responses from folks who live in your city because coverage from specific providers varies from location to location. For instance, here in the DC metro area, Cingular provides great service but I hear its lousy in parts of CA.

 

[JamesMH]

Since you in California, I'd wait until Voicestream starts next month, I think I might switch to them.

AT&T will be GSM soon too. Then you can roam on their signals.

I'm in SoCal an use Cingular, its pretty good.
I've found the GSM phones to have the best voice quality, better than CDMA (Sprint/Verizon) and a much better than TDMA (AT&T).

Cingular and AT&T nights start at 9pm now, Verizon starts at 8:01pm. Not sure about Sprint.

 

[Tim Kilbride]

I am in New Orleans...I do travel pretty extensively, and by far Sprint PCS is the best. The key, if service anywhere you go is the issue, is to get a dual mode phone. I travel to some of the smallest, off the beaten path towns throughout south La. and Tx. and I have coverage everywhere. There are plans available that start around $34/month.

Please understand I have been through umpteen phones and systems, and I work with a lot of guys who travel as I do and they all don't seem to have the coverage and sound quality that I do.

Just my .02

Tim K.

 

[Chad Ellinger]

Cingular is moving over to GSM, and that's one of the reasons I'm going to drop them and go with Verizon. Cingular and Verizon have the best coverage around, but I've heard nothing but bad things about GSM (its the same technology VoiceStream uses). Not only that, Cingular has some of the worst and most inconsistent customer service I've ever had to deal with.
GSM is incompatible with the new third-generation cell network technologies (3G) that are coming out soon, and that's why I'll be switching to Verizon's 3G network in the next few months.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

As Gordon mentioned, your primary concern should be which provider has the best coverage in the areas you plan on using the phone. The least expensive plan does you no good if you cannot use the phone when you want.

I am paying $30/month for 300 anytime minutes, including long distance, through Sprint PCS. All calls are treated as local calls as long as you are within Sprint's wireless network coverage. Also, as a Sprint PCS customer, they waive any monthly fees on my home long distance plan (AT&T was charging me $5/month for the priviledge of being their customer). I do not know if they still offer the plan, since I've had it for a couple of years now.

If they no longer offer the 300 minute plan, they do have one with 200 anytime minutes and a lot more night/weekend minutes for $35/month. Since we have two phones and never exceed the 300 minutes per phone, I didn't see the need to spend another $10/month.

 

[Todd Hochard]

Sprint is great in larger, metropolitan areas.

Except Orlando. I live two miles from one tower, and one (count 'em) mile from another, and I can't keep a call to save my life. Out in my yard, direct line of sight to the tower- doesn't help. This is a shame, as I would use it for ALL my long distance, if I could keep a call. It's not the phone, as virtually everyone I know with Sprint who comes by the house hs the same issue. Our friend's neighborhood eight miles away suffers the same coverage issue.

Everywhere else I've traveled (including the West side of Orlando), though, the PCS coverage has been fantastic.

 

[Andrej Dolenc]

I'm reasonably satisfied with Sprint PCS. Their coverage is decent. I just finished a 5 day trip around Lake Champlain in upstate NY and VT with another forum member (Jay H). Big cities we passed along the way I got a signal and was hunky dory. Smaller places along the way, especially on the NY side, were a bit spotty for coverage. Some places yes, some places no.

I only wish it was easy to send text messages thru a sprint fone. Apparently you can do it, by using the wireless web. But that's a separate service that they charge you for monthly or a per-minute charge if you don't have that.

Andrej

 

[David Lambert]

Sprint PCS

 

[Leila Dougan]

Jeff, perhaps you should check with other cell phone users in your area. Out here in Albuquerque, Sprint is very very bad. I live in the middle of the city and cannot get a decent signal in my apartment. My calls are also always dropping.

My other cell phone is through Voicestream. I've had nothing but great service with them. It varies from place to place so maybe you need some locals to fill you in on what works best in your area.

 

[Tony_Faville]

My personal experience with Sprint PCS was a nightmare.... the actual service was fine, it was the customer service that stunk to high heaven.

In a six month period of time I was hung up on three times, my wife was told "too bad so sad" (those exact words), I had to yell at a rep one time to stop interrupting me, I was called a liar twice and had countless questions go unanswered on multiple occasions, that was once I got past the 5 to 10 minute wait for a rep.

On my first call to Voicestream I was answered within 20 seconds, treated as a customer should be treated and have been treated that way every time I have had to call them since.

On customer service alone, I recommend Voicestream. Not to mention the fact that I have had great service as well.