Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: mosgood on June 13, 2005, 01:03:44 PM
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My verizon contract ends in 2 weeks.....
Anyone have any thoughts on better service?
I've been checking out Sprint becasue of their evenings start at 7p for an extra $5 and an additional $5 of every 100 hours over limit
Also, anyone get the Treo 650? Looks pretty nice.
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So far, of those I know, both private and business, more have switched TO Verizon than anything else. I've been more impressed with Verizon than any other service. I'm staying.
The only exception I'm aware of is the local construction industry. A LOT of them are on Nextel, and have swapped their "Nextel walkie Talkie codes" so they all talk that way. A few of them own racecars, and I do business with them. I hear them constantly talking that way with every construction business in the area.
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cingular role over minutes and no long distance is pretty good.
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I had Cingular for a long time, rollover is ok, and their long distance is the same plan that Verizon has. Cingular was 'ok' until they bought out AT&T, now their service is awful with dropped calls, loss of reception, but I will say their customer service is a little better than Verizon.
I'm sticking with Verizon, Cingular is a sinking ship.
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I've neither been impressed or depressed by T-Mobile, but then I'm hardly a wireless power user.
Charon
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I've been non-impressed with Cingular through most of my cell career, but my new phone is quad-band, meaning that it can use at least three domestic types of networks, and this has translated into some pretty darn great coverage. Something to consider, plus their national coverage is pretty good. It's getting harder and harder to be roaming to a different network.
Also, they have a pretty progressive way of handling roaming, you can get a plan that doesn't charge you extra for going to a T-Mobile or whatnot system.
Finally, I would not recommend Verizon to anyone who likes to use technology. They might have great customer service (I've heard this from others) and good coverage, but they explicitly lock out major parts of your phone from you so they can control every aspect of your phone use. You can't transfer ringtones to most of the phones via bluetooth, for instance, because they've disabled that part of the bluetooth stack so you can only get ringtones/logos from them. This extends to other functionality to, like using the phone as a wireless modem for your laptop, so even if you think that the logo/ringtone thing doesn't apply to you, there's a good chance that some aspect of their policies will. Just a heads up, other then that, I hear they're great. A couple of my friends sing their praises, even as they extend their peculiar blind spot to cover some of the 'excesses' of the Verizon marketing department.
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I'm on Verizon now. Years ago, I used Sprint PCS. If Sprint had service here, I'd probably go with them again.
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Originally posted by Sandman
I'm on Verizon now. Years ago, I used Sprint PCS. If Sprint had service here, I'd probably go with them again.
hmmm that seems to be thier achillies heal..... coverage.
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Well i would say your best bet is Sprint PCS, customer service has gotten so much better in the last year compared to what it used to be which was the only bad part about them. Sprint is also buying Nextel so with either of them you will end up on Sprint's network. Nextels only good feature is the push to talk feature which works great for business, not that great for individual customers. Sprint also offers TV on their new phones and I believe it's foxnews they use (could be wrong about that). Now i could be a little bias towards Sprint as i have worked for them for over 5 years but i have noticed that compared to my friends phones and service, Sprint would be your best bet. :D
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Nextel is ok because it's got the 2-way deal. If you talk to the same people a lot during the day, it beats having to get a plan with a lot of minutes. I have their lowest minute plan, because most of my daytime conversations take place on unlimited minute 2-way.
Verizon's "in" thing is about the same though, without the walkie-talkie retardedness. I wish Nextel would go to a free in-network calling plan too. The 2-way is nice because it's unlimited, but it'd be even better if I could just talk to those same people like on a normal phone.
Nextel also has free incoming call plans for about $7 more than their normal plans. Free incoming is really nice, and a convenient way to almost double your minutes depending on your usage habits.
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We have Cingular through our work and its customer service is outstanding. There are only a small handful of places in North America that I haven't been that has coverage. With our past phones the Motorola V600 we all had more dropped calls and screwy receptions but now with new phones the reception is tremendously better. I have noticed that since they bought AT&T it started messing up more but things are stabilizing for us.
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Originally posted by mosgood
hmmm that seems to be thier achillies heal..... coverage.
Yeah, but they're improving.
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Originally posted by Tarmac
Nextel is ok because it's got the 2-way deal. If you talk to the same people a lot during the day, it beats having to get a plan with a lot of minutes. I have their lowest minute plan, because most of my daytime conversations take place on unlimited minute 2-way.
Verizon's "in" thing is about the same though, without the walkie-talkie retardedness. I wish Nextel would go to a free in-network calling plan too. The 2-way is nice because it's unlimited, but it'd be even better if I could just talk to those same people like on a normal phone.
Nextel also has free incoming call plans for about $7 more than their normal plans. Free incoming is really nice, and a convenient way to almost double your minutes depending on your usage habits.
Yup.. been on Nextel since day one; low minute plan and last year I added the free call in feature. Works just great for me.. I have Vonage for the house/business fax and it's set to ring both my Nextel phone and the business/house lines on every call.. no matter where I am, I get the call. Lets me take a day off outta the office and I never miss a call, and I rarely run over on the minutes. Cheap, effective and the walkie talkie stuff is just icing on the cake.
I may replace the phone soon.. I'm running a VERY old Motorola i1000.. gettin kinda 'dated' after 5 years. Havent found another phone designed for plastic belt clip that I like.. they all seem so... gay. Anybody seen a robust phone bigger than a Credit Card for Nextel that comes with a belt clip? (gotta be able to withstand abuse)
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I have a Nextel i530. Has a rubberized case and a belt clip. The walkie-talkie function is actually damn cool when you need to be in constant communication with someone, like at a job site, and not have to keep dialing and answering the phone.
g00b
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Originally posted by rabbidrabbit
cingular role over minutes and no long distance is pretty good.
LOVE those roll over minutes. I got like 1800 right now.
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Whatever you get, be ready to use it well the first couple of weeks, so you can make sure it'll work for you before you're locked in. Most will have a two week period where you can use the phone and return it without paying an early contract termination fee...some are 30 days (i think Cingular is)
I'd go for Cingular or T-Mobile, just because I like the way GSM phones work. They use a SIM card that stores your acct info, and you can store your phone numbers on it to. At that point, switching to another phone is as simple as removing the SIM card and placing it in another phone.
I'm using T-Mobile, which I switched to because I worked for them for about two years, and was pretty impressed with their attitude toward customer service. They went from pretty crappy to just being announced as the top of the customer service heap by JD Power for the second year in a row. That doesn't mean wonderful though, as it's all mass-market customer service no matter who you go with, and with thousands of reps and some outsourcing, you're never guaranteed a good experience.
Their plans are generally very competitive, and all but one regional plan give you free Nationwide calling and roaming. If you go into a dealer, or call them at 800-937-8997 and give them your home address / work address / whatever, they can check their coverage map to give you a pretty good idea what your coverage should be. They also have a cool feature where you can check the minutes right on your phone by dialing #646#...really nice for tracking your minutes. Others might have that kind of feature too, but I dunno.
If you go with T-Mobile, stay away from the Motorola phones. I've had wonderful Moto phones in the past, specifically the StarTAC, but most of the phones they supply T-Mobile are lacking in some way or another, or just outright junk. Samsung makes pretty nice flip phones, no matter who you go with.
Last nice thing about T-Mobile is the one year contracts. They don't even have two year contracts.
Whoever you go with, I'd recommend starting the service and getting the phone directly from the company. Go to a company store (prefferably...and get a business card for the sales rep) or use their web site or 800 #. That way you're dealing with just one company. When you buy from a third party vendor, you are often entering into a contract with them AND the service provider, and if things go wrong and you have to cancel, you could be looking at two early termination fees.
Finally, I'll repeat this because it's important. Be ready to use the phone, and take it to areas you frequent...just give it a good workout before you're locked in.
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Thanks SOB.. good advice. I was more annoyed about losing this thread than any other when the oclub got locked down.. I need ta get a new phone soon. ;)
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the only advise i can give is stay FAR away from audiovox phones, terrible reception, ringer is so quiet you will not hear it in a car with low volume radio on.
LG phones are loud and devent reception, but i aleardy had mine in for service in the first 2 months.
i LOVE nokia phones, and they have worked the best IMHO, but my carrier does not use nokia any more (which makes me >< close to switching)
i have been with US Cellular for almost 10 years, and have been treated well the whole time, with the recent exception of this phone upgrade. my plan is $40 for 1000 anytime and unlimited nights and weekends, and free long distance. it's a decent plan, and you get tons of minutes.
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Cingular has excellent plans but God help you if you ever need customer service. Took them three weeks to activate my new phone despite numerous phone calls and a trip to a mall kiosk.
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I have Verizon since it has the best overall coverage in the country and I can find a store in just about any area of the country if I need help.
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Lets see... did 5 years with T-Mobile while it was bought by somebody else and eventually bought by T-Mobile. Service was good. Nothing spectactular, but I don't have any horror stories. My only gripe was when they dropped me from the phone insurance plan when I broke 5 in 2 months. Wasn't suprised it happened, just annoyed at no more freebies :)
Ended up switching to Sprint since all Sprint-to-Sprint calls are free, and everybody I know migrated to Sprint simultaneously. Got a Sanyo flip-phone, dunno what model, it was $300 when it was released. Digital camera, camcorder, all the bells & whistles I very rarely use. Service has been really good. I even got to keep my phone number from T-Mobile's service. No horror stories here either. Coverage hasn't been a problem either, and I've had it with me in some relatively remote places where I totally did not expect to have any signal, let alone being able to place static free calls.