Best Cell phone Service???
 

Has anyone used Nextel all over the country? We are with AT&T and the coverage is great, but sometimes the bills get into the thousands. Who has had luck with what?

I've had at&t=o.k. service, worst customer service.
verizon=good service, o.k. customer service.
cingular=bad service , o.k. customer service.
sprint p.c.s.=worst service , good customer service
if you find a good company let me know, thanks.
Martin.

Cingular for years - never a problem w/ Nationwide service- no long distance charges - great service plans - BH

Martin,

I feel your pain. You would think somebody would get it down by now at a reasonable price.

I'm about to be hired by Nextel. So I say them!!! ha ha ha :)

I agree with "Just Once"'s list above.

Depends on where you are for service with some, sprint sucks everywhere from columbus to michigan, cingular, is just a piece of plastic with a lcd screen (ie, dont expect to try calling someone) verizon is best service around here, had it since october and no dropped calls.

Verizon is the best

travel w/work quite a bit. at&t seems to have the best coverage. hyperbaja was right, their cust. service has sucked the few times i've had to deal w/them. guess it really depends on your exact needs, but for actual coast-coast coverage trey seem to be best

My company uses Nextel because of the 2-way feature. My wife or I have also had AT&T, Sprint, Ameritech(Cingular), and Cellular One(Verizon) and T-Mobile(VoiceStream). Other than the 2-way I do not care that much for Nextel, phones are bigger and batteries do not last as long. Sprint was terrible. AT&T was pretty good but expensive. My wife currently has T-Mobile with a V60 phone. Works very well everywhere we have tried, several US cities and much of France.

Steve

:hothead: :hothead: :hothead: :hothead: :hothead: CELL PHONES

I have gone through such hell with AT&T if I get into detail you wouldn't believe it, example:

phone broke under warranty, they told me they don't give loaners, it took me 2 weeks to get a new one and I had to pay $20.00 shipping. or I could buy a new phone, even though mine is under warranty.:hothead:

I spent three hours trying to taget through to someone at cust. service when I got misscharged 300.00 canadian roaming from phone calls placed in put-in-bay. After going through 3 people I finally spoke to the "manager" (whatever) and I told her that I wanted that months bill for free since I wasted half my day on hold and *****ing., THhan she tells me I'm trying to get something for free. So I threaten to change cell companies, she says fine and pay the termination fees and she laughed. I lost it :hothead: and asked If they give a chit about thier customers. The ladie says to me that if her bank makes a mistake the doesn't change banks. and that I have virtue issues. WHAT THE ****:hothead: :hothead:
sorry needed to vent If this stops one person from getting an at&t phone than i'll be happy:D

Verizon....

They all suck, but AT&T is the one I have the best luck with.

that's kinda easy knowing what you do...cigular...it's the only one that works good in all the keys. others are playing with towers in the upper keys and it's a mess..mine also works in the bahamas...do i like them???F....NO! but they do have unlimited mins on weekends nationally so....

talk to ya soon chris

Martin, I feel your pain!!! (cept with sprint)

first the service flat out SUCKED!!!! mom would call, leave messages (like 5) and tell me to come home, but of course i didnt get them , she wouldnt believe me, then we would be sitting at dinner a few days later and it would ring new voice mail, 2 days late!!!! then calling in i would get disconnected at about 1:02 into it, getting charged for 2 minutes!!! Then i tried to get on a contract plan, to save 20$ a month but never contracted so i got charged 20more a month!!! that all pissed me off, but i was dumb and stayed with them! then What got me to switch was my 200$ bill (norm 35)!!! I guess I have a split personality that called to Iran then new zeland. I got pissed off, got dumb, then went and paid another 200 on a phone at verizon then 65 for the month, so I had to pay 500$ in phone bills that month!!! (no, mommy and daddy wont pick up the tab :( ) Calling sprint would get me the "It shows you have full coverage" crap. went to the store, the college punk -"um i uh, well um, buy a dual band phone, its only 200$" Then take the battery off and mione is a dual band phone, say i am on a dual band pjone now and they say, "no that sticker is fake" Why would it say Samsung model---- Dual Band Telephone if it wasnt dual band??? Oh well, Verizon rocks, no dropped calls, no bogus charges, good customer service etc....

Woah, i typed a lot. sorry to vent on here but, as i said earlier "SPRINT SUCKS"

the sad thing is I used to work for them and so, did some of my family I assure you they will not do "anything" for you, these day's customer service is a thing of the past and its a damn shame.

exactly............
 

Audacity is correct. Cingular was the only phone service working in The Bahamas. I've never missed a call in years with them! Somebody needs to take a grammar class - BH

You guys that say Sprint sucks may want to give them another look. They have been adding towers like no tomarrow. I very rarely have problems using my phone and more often then not my phone works were others do not. This includes Verison, Cingular, and others. When I had Cingular my phone bills were running around 1400 a month!!! AT&T would be about the same as best I could tell. My sprint bills have been running 120 bucks or so a month!!!! NOT BAD, with that kind of a savings I can deal with a dropped call every now and again. I often times travel with people with AT&T and others and to be honest when one is good the other may be bad, but my sprint seems to hang in there better then any of them. The best thing you can do is buy a GOOD phone. I had some problems with Sprint when I first started, but once I went to the Sanyo 5150 phone I have nothing but GOOD things to say about my Sprint. Hope all this BS helps but I love my Sprint and over the last 2 years it has gotten a LOT better.

Jon

ambuscher: sorry, I didn't mean to come across arguementitively, I meant to say they wouldn't do chit for me. your right though you would think that would help but theyseem to be so worried about scoring new customers that they could care less about the ones they've got. just my experience.
Martin

I wish this were true. I cancelled my AT&T cell phone because our company now uses Nextel. We have several telecommunication contracts with AT&T for phone and Data services. After several years past the original contract term they charged us $175 termination fee because a $75 offer was used that extended the term. After explaining the mistake on the part of accounts payable they said there were no exceptions. I then informed the manager that I would be terminating all company contracts with AT&T for voice and data because of their poor customer service and was told that is my right. So AT&T was willing to give up thousands of dollars in monthly revenue to hang on to a $175 fee. Good business practice, good bye AT&T.

CDMA technology is nothing new.....I worked at Motorola in the R&D supprot group when CDMA come out about 5yrs ago......i think t-mobile/verision use it and if AT&T dont allready use it (which i think they have been for a while) then they will soon. When i first joind the group at Motorola the cell switches were only handling about 100,000 call per hour......when i left they were handling just over 500,000/hr! :eek: the Technology is moving soo fast its mind boggling....what took us 4hrs to load a cell site with software from tape now take a whopping 20min on CD format!!!

Nextel will be a sweet system if they can ever get syncronised across the US..... The iDen system was actually made specific for them....soon they should have the system working so you can two-way someone from anywhere across teh nation!....there only problems right now is that some areas are behind in software. My buddy works for Nextel down in Tampa....his phone rocks anywhere in the US from what i have seen.....but my buddy here in IL has problems when he travels around.....he took his phone to a local shop in FL. they hooked it up and said he got some way old software version on it....but it was like 6mo old! Go figure...

Everyone has horror stories with cell phone company's. About the only thing youy can do is get what ever they say in writing so you have a way out incase it dont work as they say.. :)

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

From what I have read it seems that you guys that don't have to travel a lot have it made going with the largest local carrier with the best price. I travel a lot and used to use Verison and a couple of the other big ones Like the original question I could no longer afford the crazy bills that I was getting from my Long distance and roaming. I tried Sprint for a couple years but there coverage was horrible I think they had one tower in Michigan:rolleyes:
I now use Nextel and for me it's been the best coverage for the price. I am a high end user and made a deal with free L.D. free Two-Way and free incoming with 1000 anytime minutes a month for 59.95. Here is the problem My bill is now coming in at 300+ a month because of my higher usage I will be switching over to the 149.00 a month plan that covers everything (no surprises and I can talk without thinking about my minutes or a crazy phone bill.

O.k. back to your question I travel All of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Michigan. It is very rare that I don't have signal if I am on a major highway I always have signal. When I go on vacation like Key West I have had no problems. I believe there service offers the best options and cost for the traveler and the guy that has a use for two-way they have been saying for the last two years it will go Nationwide and still waiting.:rolleyes:

i agree jon, i am happy with sprint's service in florida. didn't get bahamas though but i do get signals when other phones don't. You can also always fight for lower rates with customer service, you just need to show them you'll leave unless you get a better deal.

james

I work with a guy that uses Sprint I am always letting him use my phone because he has no signal! especially inside buildings. Remember I'm not slamming here I'm just giving actual comparisons in the areas I mentioned above I am sure that in other areas my phone would be just as bad.

LOL O.K. now I have egg on my face I just picked up my phone to make a call and the flip ud piece just broke off at the hinges!!!!!
whatever plan you choose pay the couple bucks a month for the service plan.

chris i dont think anyone makes a phone that floats though LOL

Gotta busted phone? Don't buy a new one,I can fix most of them even if you drop em in water for under 30.00 bucks. give me a call ESP WIRELESS 231-777-1052, ask for Buck and tell them your a OSO member, and no I'm not soliciting. Just saving you some bucks

aero-offshore, that is great to hear, I have drowned three Nextel I 700s, and broke the hinge on an I 60 the day I bought it just by opening it. Nextel told me on all 4 occurances that the phone had to be replaced by a new one:rolleyes:
Good thing for insurance;)
I can't belive that they can not fix some of this stuff:confused: