Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

[dreever]

If this isn't the right place to ask this let me apologize in advance, but being cell phone challanged I need help.
My wife, son, and I have been getting by with Trac Phones but recently my son (wife too) think we should get some sort of family plan and better phones too.
So, what provider to choose? Verizon or AT&T? I've heard stories about both and frankly am more confused than ever looking at what they both have to offer. They both have strong points in what is offered, and then there is the media hype with the maps and dropped calls etc.
So any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Danny

 

[Spazz.]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

Go find six people, three on Verizon and three on AT&T. Whichever has more praise than complaints best out of three, go with that one. I have Verizon because AT&T's 3G coverage is nonexistent where I live. I love my Motorola Droid.

Personally, I don't think the pay-as-you-go are bad unless you really want media packages on your phones. If you just call and text, the p-a-y-g will probably end up being cheaper once you factor in all the add a line packages, taxes, and cost of new phones over a two-year-contract period that you're locked into.

 

[USMCj]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

If ATT has good 3G coverage in your area, then your choice is clear. Avoid Verizon like a bad STD! they will rob you every chance they get.

 

[Switchblade]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

AT&T gets our bucks, but we also have the advantage of a plan that is no longer sold adn they are stuck with us until we switch or quit. The only other company we looked hard at was Sprint. VErizon and everyone else are just 'also rans' in our book

 

[oldgrayone]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

I have had ATT for many years. I have looked at Verison each time we need new phones and ATT seems to always have a better package.

 

[Lindy]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

If you live outside an urban area where all the majors have uniformly good coverage, the choice may be highly dependent on where you live and/or spend most of your time.

We live in a small town. In this part of town, Verizon's coverage is minimal to nonexistent. AT&T's coverage is excellent. The other carriers vary a lot.

 

[cmh2007]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

I like ATT...I drive towboats allover the gulf coast and up the mississippi river and almost always have good 3g coverage

 

[Chiller]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

Call me silly....

The new HTC Droid from Verizon is doing everything I could want.

ATT's claim to fame....iPhone....rumor has that goes away this summer.

 

[elkkid3]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

We are on Sprint. They are the only provider that has coverage at the house. I would love to go back to Verizon, there CS is so much better...

 

[SmokinAce]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

I would suggest if you can do a trial with a money back guarantee that you look at all the companies you can. Find out which one works best for you and go from there. Every phone, provider and coverage area will be different. It helped me out finding a phone that worked in some of the remote places I work.

 

[Switchblade]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

If you own a Ford with SYNC, go AT&T. If you want to get an iPhone(Panty wannabe's and Panty 6's LOVE THEM!) your SYNC is going to only get better because Apple, Sony and some others are all teaming up to make SYNC some seriuos stuff....Can you say 'My Touch' on the dashboard with all your phone access, music, etc...cool things indeed!

 

[Onemoretime]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

The wife and I had ATT for a while and then I moved to a new house literally right down the street from the old place. I couldn't talk on my cell in my F'in house! I would also get dropped calls in a number of places around San Diego. All of my friends had Verizon and had no problems when they came over to the new place. Easy switch for me and we've been happy ever since.

Guess it just depends where you live...

 

[Phylodog]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Onemoretime</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

Guess it just depends where you live... </div></div>

Pretty much. I tried them all here in Indy before going to Verizon. You couldn't get me to go back with any of them for free at this point. Verizon does everything I need them to and I can't remember the last time I had a call drop. They've gone out of their way to take care of me a couple of times also. They've rewarded me for my loyalty and I plan to continue it.

 

[ggmanning]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

Verizon and AT&T are terrible where I live....you get in the woods or down by the river and no service. Part of the price for living in the sticks. US Cellualr on the other hand is very good....just depends on the towers in your area.

 

[JCH]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

I don't know who to suggest but let me tell you this...

There was a very serious outbreak of tornadoes yesterday in Oklahoma. I have AT&T. I tried to call my wife and find out how long until she would be in the driveway because I already had the tornado shelter door open. My phone wouldn't work. It said "searching for signal" while at my house. Normally i have 5 bars and 3G coverage at my house. I switched to the land line and my wife's phone rang and rang and rang. She never answered. When she got home she said the phone never rang. She has AT&T as well. I'm very disappointed that during a time of percieved crisis, my phone wouldn't work.

 

[shark0311]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Switchblade</div><div class="ubbcode-body">If you own a Ford with SYNC, go AT&T. If you want to get an iPhone(Panty wannabe's and Panty 6's LOVE THEM!) your SYNC is going to only get better because Apple, Sony and some others are all teaming up to make SYNC some seriuos stuff....Can you say 'My Touch' on the dashboard with all your phone access, music, etc...cool things indeed!</div></div>

I have a BMW X5 with similar technology...it works with any smart phone. Verizon has consistently had the best coverage for me except in the Cumberland Gap. My business has roughly 20 cell phones with at&t and have nothing but problems with their service. Nextel/Sprint was always an issue for us as well.

If you have poor coverage in your house I suggest one of these:

Repeater

 

[Lindy]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

Phone problems, both landline and cellular, are perfectly expectable in an emergency like that.

Land line telephone systems are designed to handle about seven percent of the lines connected to a given central office switch going off-hook at once. More than that, and people won't even get dial tone.

I don't know what the design criteria are for cell phones. And the load is dynamic, because people are moving around, and a number of other reasons, including that the destination of a given call originated by a cell phone might be another cell, or it might be a land line.

But here's a tip - you and your wife should agree to communicate during an emergency by text message. The SMS is a store-and-forward system, and a text message may get through when all the voice circuits are busy for an extended period of time. A text message will get delivered if the called party moves from a cell where there is no capacity to one where there is, independent of when the message was sent.

 

[ubet]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

I have had damne near 7 DIFFERENT cell phone companies iin ten years and they all have good points and bad its just what do you need from a phone company and what do they offer. The best I had all the way around was Alltel though I would go back to them in a heartbeat bit Verizon took them over around here.

 

[JCH]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Lindy</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Phone problems, both landline and cellular, are perfectly expectable in an emergency like that.

Land line telephone systems are designed to handle about seven percent of the lines connected to a given central office switch going off-hook at once. More than that, and people won't even get dial tone.

I don't know what the design criteria are for cell phones. And the load is dynamic, because people are moving around, and a number of other reasons, including that the destination of a given call originated by a cell phone might be another cell, or it might be a land line.

But here's a tip - you and your wife should agree to communicate during an emergency by text message. The SMS is a store-and-forward system, and a text message may get through when all the voice circuits are busy for an extended period of time. A text message will get delivered if the called party moves from a cell where there is no capacity to one where there is, independent of when the message was sent.
</div></div>

Lindy, that is all a great idea but AT&T's SMS wasn't working either. My iPhone said "searching for signal" for several hours. Then all of a sudden I got 7 text messages at the same time.

 

[Lindy]

Re: Help! What cell phone provider to choose????

You evaded my point.

My point was not that SMS always works, but that if you can <span style="font-style: italic">send</span> a text message, it will be eventually be received by the addressee, when they recover any kind of service.

And your experience demonstrated that perfectly well.

Satellite voice systems work most of the time, but even they get overloaded.

Nothing works all the time - even amateur radio using high-power HF transmitters utulizing Morse or packet modulation - but text messaging has an increased probably of working over cell systems than voice traffic.

de AK5N