Who offers the best cellular service?

Currently I'm using Sprint as my cellular provider, but I'm not all that pleased with their service, prices, and sub par web access (which I use to make payments, check my invoice, change plan details, et cetera...it's very slow & several times I've had payments not go through and made changes to my plan which never took effect). I've had Cellular One in the past, but I didn't care much for them either. I'm just trying to gauge which provider you folks think gives the best overall service as I'm thinking about biting the bullet & pay the cancellation fee and move to another provider other than Sprint. Thanks in advance...

 

A lot depends on where you live. I am not familiar with the DC area, but in Salt Lake AT&T is probably the best one. T-mobile is getting to be pretty good too.

 

Verizon is the best far and away.

And no...I am not biased

 

Sprint seemed fine to me when I was in DC a few weeks ago...

Anyway, Verizon supposedly has the best coverage in pretty much every metro area, so you may want to check them out.

I actually moved away from Verizon to Sprint here in LA, but they all suck here.

While we're at it, I'll be moving to Philly in the fall. Any recommendations for cell phone providers there?

 

Well I have had 3 lines on Cingular for the last 5 years. I have used it extensively in Los Angeles, currently in San Francisco, and extensively in Seattle.

Service has been great, but there upgrade phones are horrible.

My contract is up in June, and I am thinking of switching to Verizon or Sprint for better phones in the the Los Angeles area.

 

Very happy w/ Verison in Michigan.

 

VERIZON..............

SPRINT IS THE WORSE

FOLLOWED BY ATT.........

 

I've been with Sprint PCS for 4 years. Given, I've had some billing issues but they were later resolved. No big deal. The service has not been that bad until I moved back to Ft. Worth. I live within the city but my block has very weak coverage if any. I've been going outside to make many of my calls. I've contacted Sprint about this & they say its a coverage issue. The area needs more towers. This issue is not just Sprint, but other cell providers are having the same problem. My friends say its due the "Bass Triangle", or some home owners that don't want cell towers too close to their homes. I don't understand what the problem is, the towers are smaller now & a great way to earn extra income by placing one the property. Maybe its a zoning issue? Still waiting for the issue to be resolved.

 

I've been with Verizon for seven years and have been extremely happy with them. Almost never a hiccup with them, and when there was the problem was solved promoptly. I would recommend them to anyone.

 

T-mobile has been good for the last 3 name changes ( powertel, voicestream). when i have had problems , they seemed to really care about fixing them. i cane be VERY persuasive on the phone with out using bad words. i also love machine guns, go figure.

 

BTW now that Cingular and AT&T merged to become the #1 cell provider, it will be interesting to see if they improve and give Verizon a run for its money.

 

As previosuly stated, I think it depends on where you are and the coverage area for each company in that region. I have used 4 different brands over the past couple of years in the Boston region...

Sprint= decent rates, good coverage, bulky phones, AWFUL customer service
Verizon= high rates, great coverage, bulky phones, ok customer service
ATT= low rates, inconsistent coverage, good phones, good customer service

After the recent experience I have had with ATT, I am going to try T Mobile. The GSM feature is great if you travel or switch phones often but the spotty coverage is very annoying. It is steadily improving though.

 

I have had them all. Now, I have AT&T GSM. It was horrible at first... but now I must admit it has been much better.

DL

 

TCM, I would disagree. SPrint and Verizon has the best/most feature laden phones out there.

 

I have my service with Verizon for about 10 years. Here on Long Islang it works great but my wifes ATT# stinks. When we were out in Vegas last summer her phone worked great but I think for the whole week we were there my phone was just about unusable.

 

I have had just about all of them. For where I go my AT&T GSM service is the best I have had. I have had all of the CDMA providers(sprint, verizon, alltel) and they never worked in my home or most of the buildings I frequent. The GSM system with AT&T and Cingular isn't built up as well as the TDMA system so on the outskirts of civilization I lose service but I don't venture out that far very often. I have only gone into one building where my phone will not work.

I think it varies greatly in other markets, best to talk to people that are in your area to see what will work best for you.

 

I had a Cingular work phone for a time and hated it. Terrible coverage, and the phone wasn't far behind. Of course, I didn't pay for it...

Right now, I like T-Mobile. I can't offer a real price comparison, but I can tell you that when it's all worked out, I get a lot more for a lot less than some of my friends (who generally use either Sprint or Verizon). T-Mobile customer service is great (only had to use it once), the phones are good (Sony-Ericsson for me) and the coverage is more than adequate.

Don't even get me started on Nextel...

 

One thing I forgot to add. I had T-Mobile for a couple of weeks. But all calls from Sprint phones would not show up on the caller ID. T-Mobile could not get it to work. To me it is important to screen my calls so I cancelled their service. I don't know if this was a problem in my market or just a fluke.

 

Verizon is pretty good, but I heard T-Mobile is the best. AT&T is just horrible... cell service AND customer service.

 

I've been with T-mobile for a long time(back when they were Voicestream). I've never had any problems. Over the years I've tried them all and settled with T-Mobile. I'm a good customer(5000+ minutes a month) and they have always treated me accordingly.

 

att offers the best tdma service but the worst gsm service. they have some cool gsm phones available but those phones are not available for tdma users. i will see how cingular does before switching to verizon..sprint is the worse. the reason people use them, i think, is for the cheap rates.

 

I have been using Sprint for about 4 years now. about the only problem i have with coverage is at work but for myself this is not a problem since we can not use cell phones at work on company time.

I have been looking at switching to Verizon but am wondering what happens to the service if Vodaphone decides to dump there ownership in them.

 

Here's a European now in US viewpoint. Cellphone reception in the US is shockingly patchy compared with that in Europe.

I think this is largely a facet of sheer geographic scale compared to Europe, but for example: I can drive out along I90 from Boston and get regular barren patches. Its only the most major northern cross country interstate - I mean what excuse is there for not having perfect reception along the whole 3000 miles of the thing???

Same thing on the Acela from Boston to NY - I mean if I'm in a tunnel fine, but apart from that the reception is horrible along the route.

 

Dan:

I hear your complaint completely. I think the cell service providers like to make their users feel like idiots as my phone only seems to work after about 3 other tries and then standing on one leg pointing in a northern direction! It is not only Europe, when you cross into Canada GSM service goes to full bar with no problems. It is isteadily mproving in the US though.

 

I forgot to add this in my other post.
www.howardforums.com You can find a lot of info on there.
www.howardchui.com
has a lot of phone reviews.