Best Cell Phone Service

well we all have one thing to look forward to, and thats 11/24

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Nov. 24 is the deadline for cellular carriers to offer number portability in the top 100 U.S. markets. In other words, starting on that day, consumers will be able to switch cell-phone providers without losing their assigned cell-phone numbers. The industry is facing an enormous shift. The Management Network Group predicts that 30 million "ports" will take place in the first year alone, with 4 million occurring just around holiday time.

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now people will be able to jump carriers and KEEP their numbers, with this im predicting/hoping that the days of 1 and 2 year contracts....contracts all together will go away and we will have a more landline type atmosphere when it comes to mobile phones, like going month to month like you do now with your home phone carrier, same price but you can bail whenever u want and switch companies with no penalty. also someone else has predicted companies will come out with a "we will pay your contract penalties if you switch to us" promo... others say the wireless phone market is already too competetive and companies are making razor thin profits if any at all, i call that boloney! DO NOT sign up for a new contract now because u will be stuck in it until it expires, the other customers whos contracts have expired will be preferential treatment due to the real possibility the carrier will lose them due to their "fck you" attitude towards most customers.... the reason companies have treated customers like shyt is that they know they wont leave because they will have to get a new number and people dont want that so the carriers hold it over our heads, not so come 11/24 (hopefully)

the funny thing is wireless carriers (aside from verizon) are charging customers for cell phone number portability while they fight against it. verizon is the only company promoting it and not charging for it, at the beginning they were the biggest opponent of it but someone else said it is due to some research they did and they found out they had the most to gain by it....either way its good news for consumers....

oh, and cell phone companies BANK on large accounts such as businesses where the employees have had their numbers and their contacts know the number, thus making it nearly impossible to switch cariers because they would all have to get new numbers and let hundreds, maybe thousands of people know the new number etc....thats another reason they dont give a rats a s s about u or me...we dont have tens or hundreds of phones.

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Originally posted by unclescrooge
i've kept cingular only because of the number. i've had it for seven years and don't want to change it. once this number portability rule goes into effect, you can bet your :eek: that i'll be hunting for a better plan and service.

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I believe you can transfer numbers from one carrierto another now, we looked into that option when looking for new phones over the summer but cingular gave us a great deal on 2 v60t phones.

As of November 27, you can transfer a cell phone number from one carrier to another...in fact, rumor has it that you can transfer your HOME number to your cell phone. I havent confirmed that one yet, but it makes sense.

you speak the truth. Its November 24th tho

I use Cingular and I have been happy with it.

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Originally posted by masteraleph
I'm going to say either Cingular or AT&T, depending on where you live (my hometown doesn't have any Cingular reception...that's what I get for living in the largest demographic cul-de-sac in the US).

OTOH, I'm currently using Sprint PCS. Doesn't work as well at home as the AT&T, but for some reason AT&T (and Verizon for that matter) essentially don't work at all in my dorm (and you'd think that somewhere like UPenn would have universally good reception).

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Freshman? Or i'm just not getting why UPenn would have 'universally good reception'?

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Originally posted by GenoG
you speak the truth. Its November 24th tho

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Also this is only available in select areas right now, top metropolitan. So, if you live in rural area chances are you going to have to wait until this next summer to port your number to a new carrier.

i have AT&T and have had them for almost 3 year now. have never had another provider, but have had no need to switch. most of my friends have nextel, but a couple of them (one in particular, he's now switched to verizon) have had some serious billing headaches with them.

AT&T on the other hand, has goofed on my bill only twice, and when they did i called them and they immediately knew what the problems was, fixed the problem without any hassle whatsoever, and even gave me credit towards my next bill, because the billing problem they had with my account specifically would likely re-occur on the next month. and it did, but i was covered....

to me AT&T really seems to know what's going on, so i'm very happy with them.

Verizon seems to be pretty good to me. Haven't had any problems with them although I don't use a cellphone that much.

Unlike some others on this board, I am VERY happy with Sprint PCS. The calls are always very clear, and I never have a problem with my coverage in my area. If I got outside of a big city, like to Wyoming (went there this summer) then it'll go to analog roam. Oh, and the customer service isn't too bad at all. If I messed up and went over on my phone bill by making too many calls, I just call them and yell at them like it's their fault. I once got $300 phone bill down to $50 by doing that.

As far as the other services go, here is the way I see it. I think the big three are cingular, verizon, and sprint, with some others close behind. As far as these three go, I think sprint has the best quality phones, cingular has the best plans, and verizon has the best coverage. That's the impression I get at least. Anyone else think differently?

Had Voicestream/T-Mobile and then switched to AT&T over a year ago. No comparison....AT&T is so much better. T-Mobile had the price advantage for a long time but AT&T suddenly became almost even. Batteries would run out on my T-Mobile phone after just a couple of days of light use. AT&T runs forever. Maybe it's because there were no T-Mobile towers nearby (in Ft.Worth) which accounted for my marginal signal inside alot of buildings.....AT&T signal always strong. Anyway, that's my two cents.

I like Verizon except for ONE MAJOR issue. The fact that they don't have "no roaming". I get so pissed off because I can be in the city, where I'm supposed to be getting full service and if all the towers are tied up it will automatically bump me over to a roaming tower and I will get charged roaming. When I call customer service and complain I get nowhere. They just tell me over and over that I have to check my phone to make sure that it doesn't say roaming. I DO THAT EVERY TIME I MAKE A CALL!!! GRRRRRRR and somehow they still charge me roaming. When I call and tell them that I check my phone everytime all they say is that the charges are legit and they won't budge.

If they were to change thier plan to include no roaming like cingular then all would be right with the world of cell phones, but they don't. And Cingular is not worth switching to because of some of the other things that they are crappy about. It seems like every single cell phone company always has one little hitch to screw you over with. I wish there were just one that had everything I wanted.

Why is it that people over-react when something doesnt go exactly right? If i went by the oppinions here, there wouldnt be a provider left to choose from. :p

I like T-mobile in atlanta, but when I go to SC I have to use the Cingular networks, funny how there isnt a single T-mobile in SC.

I don't think I've ever had a problem with my billing but service here in c'ville sucks so hard.

I had sprint and dont get me wrong I had great service everywhere I went but they tried screwing me over with all these extra fees and and this other ******** so I dropped them and went to T-mobile. T-mobile is alright it does the job.

I had AT&T for a while and was generally pleased with them. I did get excellent reception for a while and a few times when we went camping way out where (I live just outside of the smokey mountains :) ) I was the only one with reception. It was in roaming... but at least I had the piece of mind that I could use my phone if an emergency came up.

Then my phone started getting a little old and worn out and wasn't working as well. My reception wasn't as good, etc. Now this is just from years of wear and tear not AT&Ts fault. But this started happening right around the time that my contract was up. I had been price shopping around a bit and I decided to go ahead and switch services to T-Mobile.

I looked at the T-Mobile place around here and the guy, who was actually very helpful and straightforward with me, told me about the number hopping deal where you just bring in your last bill, etc and they'll switch the number over to their service within 24 hours. That sounded good to me considering the hundreds of people who have my number. Well I went back to sign up for my new plan a few days before my AT&T service was going to turn off (I already called and cancelled). Turns out that like someone mentioned in a post, they were only required to let you keep your number in the large user based regions (big cities). They did do it in my area but T-Mobile corporate called and told them to stop. They said that if I wanted to wait till the very end of May that they would be allowed to do it again and I could keep my number. Well I couldn't be without a cellphone for that long because it's the only phone I have, we don't have a LAN line at our house, me and my two roommates just use our cells. So I went ahead and just got a new number.

I have been very happy with my service thus far. I got a Motorola V300 phone and I am extremely satisfied. With my new T-Mobile plan, I never have roaming ever. If my cell can see a cellphone tower then I have service reguardless of who's tower it is. It's a new deal that T-Mobile has with other providers. I tend to travel around alot and that is very helpful.

Both of my roommates used to have Cingular, and both of them got completely screwed over. One of them got his bill in the mail one month and it was like $400. He didn't go over his minutes but there were roaming charges out the whazoo on there. He never left our town the month of the billing and we can get great reception most anywhere around here. So he calls them up and asked about it and said that his phone should have at least said roaming if he was going to hop into roaming for no apparant reason. They essentially said tough luck you got screwed and were of no help and wouldn't provide him with any form of explanation. So he told them where to shove it and told them that he wasn't going to pay the bill. He never payed the bill and switched providers. He got things in the mail for a little while saying you owe us this much blah blah blah. Eventually they realized he wasn't going to pay and gave up.

The moral of the story is that any provider is going to vary in quality depending on your location and who runs the place in your area. Do your research, ask your friends.

Couldn't even think of using anyone but Nextel. They simply rock and are well worth the price.

In my humble opinion I believe Verizon is the best. I travel all over the US, hang out in most major airports. Drive on Mountain roads, go to metro and rural towns. Verizon has given me the best coverage with the fewest dropped calls. My contractors use Nextel, ATT GSM, Cingular GSM, and my brothers use Sprint PCS. I tend to have the interior coverage also.

Phone selection is a bit weak, but my calls getting to me is what matters to me and my calls getting through and not dropping and for me Verizon does it the best.

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Originally posted by rasputinj
In my humble opinion I believe Verizon is the best. I travel all over the US, hang out in most major airports. Drive on Mountain roads, go to metro and rural towns. Verizon has given me the best coverage with the fewest dropped calls. My contractors use Nextel, ATT GSM, Cingular GSM, and my brothers use Sprint PCS. I tend to have the interior coverage also.

Phone selection is a bit weak, but my calls getting to me is what matters to me and my calls getting through and not dropping and for me Verizon does it the best.

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I've learned to filter through info and learn what's truly a good company in my ares
Sprint PCS has this wonderful where it shows you and allows you to see the exact locations of their towers and how many are in your area. No more seeing those stupid coverage maps...

Verizon does offer the best reception service.
I rank Sprint PCS 2nd (in the areas that i travel to, such as NYC and DC) IF you have a Sanyo cellphone. Is you're using a samsung, i'll rank Sprint for you 4th best.
3rd, i give it to Cingular
4th, ATT and t-mobile

the above is taking NYC and DC into consideration.

i have nextel....


althou the features are cool the service sucks in certain areas and in some buildings reception is horrible

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Originally posted by G5_Todd
i have nextel....


althou the features are cool the service sucks in certain areas and in some buildings reception is horrible

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What keeps you with Nextel, why not try another provider?

Go to bed coolqf, it's late now :/

i've had cingular (previously pacbell) for 4 years now without a problem. i didn't pay my bill for 2 months and they didn't disconnect me or give me any late fees when i finally paid.

Verizon... never ever dropped a call in 3 years. Rarely loose service... and have been all over the south with it and always have service!

Verizon has the best coverage area bar none.

They've also been rated number 1 more than a few times for cell service in a few publications. Generally you can't go wrong with them.

I had T-mobile, I'm now on Cingular. The network is the same. CS quality is better on t-mobile.

I switched because I could not get any reception with my Sprint phone.

Any provider will have "dead spots". Try to find out which does not have such a spot where you work/live