Cell phones.......Your experiences please

[jfh230]

Like others have said, the company that has service in your area is the one to go with. In our neighborhood its only verizon and even that is spotty at times. Fun summers eve pasttime is watching people walk up and down the street pointing this way and that trying to get a signal. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Talk to your neighbors and to the people in the areas that you will be using the phone the majority of the time and see who they use. Try their phones to get a feel for the service clarity and see if it is acceptable to you. No provider will be able to give you 100% coverage. Dropped cell calls are much more acceptable in business now than a few years ago. Still frustrating mind you from both ends. I use mine for travel calls and all long distance when I am in the office. Saved the cost of a second land line and my overall phone bills have been reduced. Its not perfect but I'm happy.

Jack

 

[TOMLESCOEQUIP]

Don.......I had a rep who was one of those "we sell any companies service" stop and two out of three phones had little or no signal at my shop and I'm about 3 miles off I 77. We want a phone for trips without fear of large roaming charges, and basically will use it 90% of the time locally for my shop.........Kind of like an extended leash so my family can contact me on the road...........I really need just good basic service.........By the way........my house is 25 miles northwest of the shop.........toward Wooster OH ( a town that doesn't start with a "C") Tom

 

[fivestring]

I've used Verizon, Sprint, Alltel and Cingular. Like others have said, look at the coverage of the area you are going to use the phone.
I currently have Cingular with the rollover minutes and family plan. I have Alltel for my parents. Alltel uses digital and analog (at last I heard) and can pick up in the mountains where digital-only carriers can not. Analog fades in and out... digital is either on or off, no if's, ands or buts about that.
If Nextel had better prices, I would probably try them but for the same package I have with Cingular, they were almost half-again as high.
Around here, Cingular has more coverage area.

 

[TresCrows]

Verizon and Cingular have the best coverage most places. T mobile and some others have "Kooler" (my 19yo neice) phones. The Motorola units are usually beter than the SamSung and all that but may not have as many "trick" features. Better???, I mean by that range, sound quality etc. My wife and I have had cell phones now since 1994. We are in different places all the time and we use them like walkie talkies--a new option by the way. The phones have "saved" us each several times a great deal of trouble. I am in fact considering dropping my land line entirely and go strictly mobile. We each have the Motorola flip phones and have been with Verizon for 7 years now, other companies previous. Good luck. J

 

[Chuck52]

I have the Cingular family plan too. No real complaints with the phone service, but watch out for errors on the bills. I've been with Cingular for about three years, but just started the family plan with three phones three months ago, so my kid in college would have a phone. Three months; three badly incorrect bills. They don't seem to be able to figure out that the son's phone across the state is still in the "home" area and should not incur roaming charges. They also routinely include toll charges even though I have nationwide long distance....they didn't do that under my old plan. So, three times now, instead of the approximately $70 the bill should have been (which is a few dollars more than it should be, but is caused by charges I can't get taken off) I've gotten bills for $150-$190. They fixed each bill without complaint, but each time took about 30 minutes of my time....I also wonder if lots of folks just give up and pay the extra charges. My bill is several pages long because of the three phones, and it might easily confuse some people....like me! /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif


Chuck

 

[TOMLESCOEQUIP]

I had a couple customers coming in from out of town call me when they got within 20 miles of the shop.......Its been really nice to talk them in direction wise by the landmarks they tell me they pass as they get closer to my shop. I don't necessairily need a "kooler" phone, just basic relieable with a minimum of frills, and a resonable amout of minutes and roaming. Most of my use will be local, and within the surrounding states, but with a few southern runs each year. I just want a feel for the best service/ fewest problems..........Don't we all !!............Tom

 

[gws]

New cell towers in your town do you no good if your not using the cell phone belonging to the company that put in the towers. Find a local deal and get a coverage map, find out what provider covers the area you need to be in. NO ONE covers everywhere. NO ONE is perfect in all conditons. My office cell phone doesnt work in my home yet the tower is only 2 miles away. My wifes personal phone works fine and the tower for that provider is 10 miles away.

Most cell companies have a 30 day return policy.

 

[OkeeDon]

<font color="blue"> I am in fact considering dropping my land line entirely and go strictly mobile. </font>

I'm 90% considering that when we move and have to change numbers, anyway. The only reason I don't, now, is that we have had the same number for 31 years, I know the new legislation allows me to keep my old number on a new cell phone account, but I'm not sure how that works when we will be moving to an area where the old number would be long distance, and we already have good cell numbers that many of our friends know. Our family, and many of our friends, are all on Nextel, so we haven't made a "phone" call to them for some time - everything is Direct Connect.

The only real problem I see with dropping a land line is that we will have no fax connection. There are services out there that will assign a fax number that can be accessed over the computer, but they aren't free, and I don't need any more fees -- it would almost be as cheap to keep a land line for that purpose. Maybe if someone came up with a good way to connect a fax to a cell phone...or maybe they have, and I don't know about it?

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

I have had Verizon (when GTE Wireless was the name) since it first came out. I still have the original Bag phone in my car trunk. (not on line at the moment but that thing had some good analog power).

I think that all the cell phone services have degraded the past several years. They "tower dump" to get new people on line and generally the service has become worse.

I would never dump my wired service at this time until they get their act together.

Tom

 

[dieselsmoke1]

Seems to be luck of the draw coverage. My Nextel works well at office and home, Brides USC works home, her office and at her parents. Neither do all four. Guess we have our answer.