I have had verizon wireless for 3 years, it has been an okay expirience, I get decent coverage and reception. However I am paying an arm and a leg for my plan, the thing is I have 200 anytime minutes & free nights and weekends. The problem is, I use about 600 minutes a month during the day, and I usually pay for the overages (my bill is usually $190 a month).

I saw a couple plans for T-Mobile, that were really good, however I never heard of this company.

Cingular, also has their rollover plan for $40 a month, with 1000 anytime minutes. However I assume they are somewhat new.

Basically, I need some opinions on a good plan, price of plan is a bonus, and a good provider.

Also is Cingular any good? Or T-mobile?

T-mobile used to be Voicestream. I hear good things about them but in my area their coverage sucks. Then don't know much about Cingular since they arn't in my state. I have Verizaon myself and like it but then again have a good plan.

t-mobile is a big provider in europe. (not the best one, not the cheapest one, just big) :)

I have been with Sprint for about 3 months now and their service has been very good, especially when I go out of state.

All I heard before I signed up with them was how poor service they had, but tell you the truth, I didn't have one problem with them so far.

Cingular's Rollover minutes do sound good.

Sprint :agree:.

Verizon, bar none. Their America's Choice plans are excellent. I've used service with every other provider, and I keep coming back to Verizon. No one can match their nationwide coverage. I would upgrade your phone and service contract with them, you can get some really good deals right now.

I'd have to go with Sprint, I use them right now and they are great, especially in the "rural" areas.

Right now they're offering a free phone instantly and you an unlimited vision plan for $40/month (check out the special offers section on sprintpcs.com)

and if you know a friend that has sprint right now (hint hint :D) you could get a $10 service credit for being a referral

i hate cingular's customer service, but have to admit their plans are decent. verizon doesn't work too well in my area (chicago)...havn't used any others..

How exactly does Sprint do roaming? Are you roamig in anywhere but big cities?

Originally posted by daveman
How exactly does Sprint do roaming? Are you roamig in anywhere but big cities?

from my days of being a sprint rep...

sprint built their pcs network from the ground up. nearly every major metropolitan area is covered by the sprint network as wlel as many rural areas (if you're in illinois, nearly all of northern illinois is covered with most of central and southern also being covered) and you can make and receive calls for free when you are anywhere on the sprint network (if your plan includes long distance). if you travel outside sprint's network (in montana for example) you will be charged a roaming charge($0.40/min i think) because sprint has to use the cell phone towers of another company. your phone will say roaming on it. all sprint phones are programmed to search for a sprint signal BEFORE the signal of another company.

I switched from Cingular to SprintPCS recently. I've been impressed so far. No problems at all, even when traveling. I really think it all depends on where you live though, and what coverage maps looks like in your area.

I just purchased a new mobile phone and went with Sprint. For $30 a month, you get 300 anytime minutes and unlimited nights (9pm-7am) and weekends (9pm Friday – 7am Monday). Great service so far.

ive used 3 service providers . My first being pacbell , which is now cingular . They were decent , nothing to brag about , coverage was average , prices were high ... then again , things have changed , and now they have roll over minutes . I used sprint , what a nightmare , when hooking up the phone , i had some ghetto princess on the phone , who couldnt even spell "canyon" properly . The coverage completely sucked , the quality of voice was horrible . When ever i called in for service , i felt like i was calling a gangster rap convention , i would never recommend them . So , it came down to t-mobile or att , t-mobile here in california is on the cingular network , which i said i was not impressed with . I decided to go with att , i didnt get the most minutes for my money , but coverage is great here , they are the first GSM network in southern california , I only pay 39.99 for 800 minutes plus free nights and weekends , and have never had a problem , unlike the problems i had with sprint and cingular

I've had pretty good results from Cingular, the reception in my area is pretty decent. I think I might switch to a Motorola phone because I've heard they get better reception than Nokia.

If you want to see who has good coverage in your area, you might want to try looking at this site (http://www.berkana.com/tower.php3)(hopefully it still works), it will display maps of any wireless radio tower in the USA that is registered with the FCC. Sometimes you can tell what companies use which towers, othertimes you can't.

may i recommend nextel... i personally have nextel, their plans may be a tad bit high.. but they offer the direct connect feature, and no-roaming no long distance nationwide...

also the wireless web is on a per month fee.. that means you pay 10 bucks a month and get unlimited web... as where i think with verizon (correct me if i am wrong) you use your cell minutes to surf the web...

good luck in choosing a phone

hmmm , when i was buying my phone , the att rep told me nokia has the best built in reception of any phone . I have since changed over to a panasonic phone . According to some people i speak with , they dont even know im on a cellphone , plus the clarity of the voice is better then anything ive heard yet , now on the other hand , this is the type of phone that if you drop it , say goodbye

http://www.attws.com/personal/ps/view_equipment_details.jhtml?deviceKey=4457786

the phone is actually just a tad bigger then the picture

as far as surfing the web via cellphone browser , its a nice thought , but it just annoys the hell out of me , i cant stand trying to use a phone keypad as a keyboard ... its just not the same

It *really* depends on your area. Cingular stunk in Inglewood (no reception, missed calls, etc.), and Sprint has been much better. Ask people, everyone has a phone, ask them. Who are they with, how is the coverage, where are the drop spots?

Originally posted by vigor


Also is Cingular any good? Or T-mobile?

I have used Sprint and AT&T and I think AT&T is better.

My friend has t-mobile (voicestream) and he's happy with them. they have decent plan 3500 anytime minutes for $50 month.

shoot... i like nextel and all... but they just advertized on tv and they said cingular has a plan... 1000 anytime minutes and they rollover for up to a year... 39.99

My wife just changed to Verizon this past Sunday, we've had AT&T, Cingular, and Sprint, and they all sucked horribly compared to Verizon, especially AT&T. I don't know T-Mobile, so I say...

Upgrade your plan with Verizon...

I like SunCom, great service everywhere I have been, From Myrtle Beach, SC, Virginia where I am, Boston, Buffalo and even Canada, always had service, I also have NextTel with internet that my job provides, I believe their direct connect will eventually take over, use it like a walkie-talkie sorta, it dont count against minutes coming in or going out, I can talk to other people in our company 4-5 hours away like they were sitting next to me

I have used Cingular and AT&T. Cingular was terrible, and had very few minutes. I hear that T-Mobile shares Cingular's network, and it sure seems that way, because both of them have poor coverage areas. I have been very happy with AT&T (formerly LA Cellular).

I've got a motorola with tmobile(I think its like the v80, built in aim), love their service. Here SprintPCS is real good.

I have two cell phones.

I have my prepaid tracfone (mostly emergancies) -- it goes through Verizon. And then I have a regular one that's through T-Mobile. I haven't had any problems with any of them. I use my regular cell phone more often than my tracfone though. Good coverage on both -- not a lot of static, and no loss of signals.

I have a TracFone and in my local area, it's great for limited, no contract use.

But, in some areas, it's DOA or reception is poor. Common problem because of mountains and towers.

I have a Nokia 6160 with AT&T and some weird looking phone with Sprint. I hate the Sprint one and I hate everything that goes with it service etc. All of my friends who have used Sprint hate them. I have been using AT&T since 1995-6 (they were cellular one back then) and they have been great. Thats when phones were really really big but yet so cool hehehe

(my battery back then was twice the size of my phone now..)

It all depends on the coverage area where you live and work. I've tried quite a few companies here and landed with Sprint , which I'm happy with.

I am with AT&T now after being with sprint, cingular, nextel, and one other (can't remember the name).

Pricing, quality of the network, and number of anytime minutes was a big issue for me, and AT&T seems to have it all covered. Plans will be different depending on your calling area, but here in St. Louis it seems to be the better deal. :)

My 2-yr Cingular contract just expired a couple of months ago so I've been researching this since then for upgrade options because my old phone doesn't have some features available now that I want like AIM. And it helps to be working in the Telecom industry. ;-) There are several types of plans from digital to analog available now. Some digital services won't let you onto an analog service so you may not get much coverage. Many of these all digital plans use GSM, so if you plan to stay within a major city or along the major highways, then you might try an all digital plan such as those from T-Mobile (who bought out Voicestream) or SprintPCS. T-Mobile probably has the most anytime minute plan if you remain in their coverage area. From what I hear, GSM is big outside of the USA so you may get decent international coverage. If you travel within the USA though, you may want to consider a multiband plan that will accept something else also like CDMA or TDMA such as those from AT&T, Cingular, or Verizon.

You'll also want to consider what features you want. Something like AIM may be available on several plans, but if you're not careful, you'll get charged more than you might think. Some services like Verizon have their own proprietary messaging and if you want to use AIM, you use up your minutes as internet time as long as AIM is running, but something like T-Mobile has a better AIM plan that I don't believe does that, but instead allots a certain number of messages per month. Cingular, on the other hand, charges per message. As someone mentioned, Cingular also has their new marketing gimmick of rollover minutes that apply to the mid to high level plans. This may come in handy if you use more daytime minutes than night. For myself, the daytime minutes on any of these plans still seem fairly pricey compared to my current Cingular plan with gives me unlimited nights and weekends for a total cell bill of $20/m, so as long as I call between their specified hours, I could have 3500+ minutes/month for $20/m. I don't really have any daytime minutes, but have voicemail on that plan for any daytime calls so even though my cheap plan doesn't have rollover minutes, I've never gone over the monthly allotment. I basically bought my plan to call what would normally be long distance on my land line as a local call and I have it for emergency purposes.

I think the bottom line is that you need to evaluate what you need in a cell plan. Take into consideration some uses and features you'll need the phone for.

I got in on that 3000 anytime minutes for $49.95 with Voicestream,now T-Mobile, I'm quite happy with it.

And there's no way I could use all 3000 minutes but I do manage to eat up around 1000-1500 of them each month (my toll free line is currently pointed at this cell phone).

I use Sprint PCS and have been very happy with them. Of course it depends on where you live. Here's a national coverage map for them...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/113637/102-9664680-6646515

I have Sprint with PCS Vision and a T-Mobile phone. T-Mobile has better internet services. For instance - instant messaging must be accessed via the web (which is quite slow) with the Sprint phone - not so with the GPRS T-Mobile network.