In 2001 I delivered to just about ever tower in the MD,DC,VA area, to update all equipment for the new digital upgrade. Our company NAVL worked for Verizon,Sprint,Nextel,etc....
I have nextel and many other drivers had other providers and when driving up the 95 corridor we would pass by an area and had no service knowing that a tower was nearby. So it all comes down to the right service people to install and run the towers.

Just the info I've learned.

Just my .02 for the day

AT&T does not use CDMA. They are a TDMA carrier as we are(Cingular). Both Cingular and AT&T are doing a conversion right now to GSM. We are doing an overlay here in our TDMA markets so we are also running GSM now. We actually had to carve out spectrum to make room for the GSM. We had about 40% of our coverage as GSM before we started to convert. As for Motorola phones being the best, thats really just a matter of personal opinion. I can tell you they are not the major supplier for switches and radio equiptment these days. From my point of view they seemed to have put all their eggs into one basket with the Iden technology and GSM. We currently are running Ericsson TDMA and Lucent TDMA networks, and are in the process of installing NOKIA GSM networks.

But I digress... This thread really can open a can of worms. "the best" is really a matter of opinion and preferance. You will find people who love whatever carrier for whatever reason. You just need to find one that works in the areas you travel the most. Every carrier has strong points and weak points. While this may not help you in any fashion, I believe the more information you have the better choice you can make. If there is anything specific you want answered PM me and I will try my darndest to answer it of find an answer. My knowledge is mostly based on what we are doing here in the southeast and on the technical side, as I am not a sales person.

Nextel will be coming out with Nation Wide direct connect.
You cant beat that.


IT IS A DIGITAL WORLD :drool:

Nextel - Easy to use around town (No roaming, bad for travel)
TERRIBLE customer service here in Kansas City. But very easy to use, almost to easy, don't let you wife get one!! (My buddy got his wife one now she calls his ALL THE TIME!! Even when we're hunting!!!)
Cingluar - OK around town and great roaming, great for travel, good customer service!! My wife has one that we make sure we take if we are traveling!!

GSM is not proprietary for any one carrier. Both AT&T and Cingular decided to migrate to GSM around the same time. The problems both companies are having is that no where else in the world is anyone running a 800MHZ GSM network. We are the first and only as far as I know. Both companies decided on this technology for the ease of channel re-use and therefore efficiency in call volume. That and it is the "standard" in europe. When it comes to cellular services the united states is by far not the best. Japan and other European countries are by far ahead of us. But this helps us in a way that we dont make the same mistakes they did.

We have sprint, wife has verizon. There have been times when one phone works & the other doesn't. Everytime my wife has broken or torn up a phone verizon had her back up quickly. Sprint well they could care less. We had one phone this past week break & it only was 2 months old. Took it to nearest sprint store, 5 sales people standing talking to each other & only 1 working customer service. I tried to get one of sales people to help but said not his job. After waiting in line for 1/2 hr told need to drive about 20 miles to other store that works on phone. Drive 20 miles, wait in line 45 minutes & get told since we are a business customer we would have to call a 800 number to have them ship us a new phone. Call 800 number, set up as a back line for employees to get their voice mail, " please dial your voice mail box" Call store back & get new 800 number but get same VM message. Look in phone book, dial number & get person that says I have the wrong department, & need to call the first 800 number I got. Told them problem with that number & person says please hold. Ten minutes later someone comes on line & asks if she can help me. Tell her story & we start back at the begining again with orginal 800 number. Give up & try emailing them, 3 day later, another 3 or 4 emails & still no response. On 4th day got new phone in mail, with box to send old one back. I feel better now. Thanks

This is like a Ford-Chevy question. But here is my take on it, since I started with a "brick" phone back in the early 90's. (AT&T) here in Orlando. I have had Cinular (anolog) since around 1997 or so and worked great till I moved out of Orlando to the St, Cloud/East Lake area and the phone would only work in certain spots on my property (if you picked up one leg, put your other hand over your head and held the ant. with it) and never inside my house. Everyone with Sprint phones had no problems with sevice on my property. Was going to change but was told that a digital phone would work and give it a try. Worked great on my property and only have a weak aera in the back of the Orlando Int. airport which I travel a couple times a day. Works great here in Fla and like someone said in the keys. Works good in N.J. too but can remember not being able to use it some years ago in N.J. to make long distance calls. (they had a bad cloning problem back then) I also have Nextel for my drivers and wife. 2 way radio work great, phone service sucks! Don't even try using it during drive times. And I hate the "Please wait till the Nextel customer you are tying to reach is located" BS they say!!! So I guess it just depends on where you live and where you are going to use it. You can always get one of the special So. Fla clone phones, you can't beat the calling rates:D (the rules have always been different down there?) Just my .02 here in.Fla./N.J. Chris Good Luck with the One Design next year. You got to get me a demo ride when you come to St. Cloud this year. Get ahold of me when you get into town and I will help you out if you need anything.
Pete :) :cool:

My parents have Verizon nationwide and I talk to them all over the country with it and havent had any problem.
Nextel majorly sucks both 2way and cell (at least in central OH)
A nextel rep told me three years ago that there were going to be hundreds of new towers going up in my area over the next year and that service would improve dramatically, this was three yrs. ago and the service is still as bad today as the day that they told me that:mad: :mad:

Its funny ,a Nextel rep called me this summer and asked me to take a survey of there overall service.
:eek: Needless to say they got one heckuva arse rippin:rolleyes:

I would go with Verizon or ATT.

Oh yeah! I forgot about Nextel's customer service (what a joke):mad:

I think all cellular companies are about the same(in the words of Joe Pecci, Lethal Weapon 4)

I travel all over the country and my Sprint only works in and around big cities. Forget Iowa and most of the mid west. Works good on the east coast though.

AMBUSHER, ChrisK, eMotiondriver, you guys should have seen us (motorola) when Primco first came out....Motorola set them up with everything! I dont know all the details other then our dept was working like 100+hrs of overtime each week trying to keep their system together! I dont know how they finagled it into their contracts but i do know that anytime their system went down for more then like 20min, Motorola was getting charged like $10K/hr........needless to say Moto was loosing some BIG BIG money in the begining!!! :D