Truth Or Dare — What Is the Best US Cell Company? 395
Epsilon Eridani writes "I am returning to the US after an extended time overseas and upon my return I need to jump head first into the data enabled phone bandwagon. I have to admit ... I am lost as to what is the best company to choose. Before I left the US I used a Sprint HTC phone running Windows with the 'simply everything' plan to communicate and stay organized and a Sprint Wireless Card to connect my laptop to the world. Coming back several generations of technology later, what is the best set up technology-wise to link phone and laptop or two to the Internet? (Open source solutions accepted too!) Can the Slashdot community verify some of the claims on quality of service before I give my first born up when I sign a service contract?"
T-Mobile (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately, I need to use AT&T for the iPhone's 3G.
huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:slashdot poll? (Score:1, Insightful)
If Epsilon Eridani was satisfied with Sprint and has returned to the same geographical area as in the past, why change now?
Re:slashdot poll? no. (Score:3, Insightful)
Polls are to get very general opinions, choices.
This is about discussing the options. And since the vast majority of cell phone service providers are considered evil somewhere around that of Lord Sidius with their locked phones, deplorable customer service, and preposterous early termination fees, I expect there to be a great deal of negative comments relative to a very few positive ones.
There is no "good" cell phone service provider - we're here to work out the "lesser of the evils" question.
It depends on where you are (Score:2, Insightful)
Your location may vary... (Score:3, Insightful)
It depends (Score:2, Insightful)
One thing none of the big boys want you to know is that almost all of them have a 30 day escape clause in their contracts. If you are not satisfied, you can cancel (you'd have to give back the shiny phone or whatever they subsidize) and you won't even have to give up your firstborn to do it.
Just read the contract and ask the salesman to get the details, but they all should have something like that, so try them all out and see what is best for YOU.
Re:The statistics repeatedly say (Score:3, Insightful)
I moved to a more rural area where other networks have much better support. I'm reasonably close to a tower and calls are dropped all the time, and to even make calls requires luck and skill moving around. People, as well as ATT tech support, tell me that my phone is going bad but I didn't have that problem weeks earlier when I lived in a big city. Could be a coincidence, but others have similar complaints.
One more thing - Once I called ATT customer service and the lady(domestic, not a foreign call center) answered, "Verizon customer service, how may I help you?" I asked her if it was ATT and she giggled and said, "Oh, that happens all the time." It could have been an innocent mistake, but it's possible that the two and possibly others all use the same damn call center.
Sorry, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been back and forth for the last decade, and it is always a disappointment coming back into the US and trying to get decent cellphone service. The US is a backwater of customer abuse and services gone wanting.
When living/working in Japan, South Korea and China, I learned not to discuss one countries offerings versus the US unless I was looking for laughs...
I worked for Samsung in SK and for a major domestic telecom in China, so I had ample opportunity to see things from both the corporate and consumer sides.
These days in the US I carry a cellphone only for emergencies. I don't text, don't use mobile banking, internet, etc. I make maybe one call every month or two, and those are usually from my car where the phone is coupled via Bluetooth to the head unit and everything is hands free. I can't bring myself to accept a locked in contract and the high fees are best spent elsewhere... For me, the whole cell phone experience in the US is a bust.
Cell phones I brought back from Asia are going on 2 years old now and still have features that were ubiquitous there that aren't yet common here.
Re:slashdot poll? (Score:0, Insightful)
ahahahahahahahaha if only. there's a reason why sprint is shedding customers faster than the US economy is shedding jobs.
Actually no I'm not a part of Sprint's marketing dept. I'm apparently a loser like you that's reading Slashdot on a Sunday with nothing better to do...though I edge you out since I'm not as paranoid/troubled.
In any event, I could care less that Sprint was/is shedding customers for quite a while (though from what I've read, they're no longer losing customers). This fact doesn't change the fact they're still the best carrier, imo of course.
Depends on where you are going to be... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm up in Alaska and no national carrier works outside the three major cities. Up here AT&T is the only national carrier that works at all. The question asker needs to look at where they are going to be and research locally what is right for them.
I had T-Mobile in Portland and it worked great, in Seattle/Everett it had meh coverage and sucked down by Tacoma/SeaTac.
Re:T-Mobile, UMA, and $0.10 per minute (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a blackberry flip that does UMA. I've found the call quality to be bad over my time warner cable connection, which is generally good.
why use UMA over 802.11 for .10 a minute when you can use GSM for .10 a minute?
The UMA calls should be free or really cheap since you are not using their network or are likely in a place where they don't even have coverage!
It is funny that they charge you 10 cents a minute when you are effectively providing your own network. You could just as easily be using skype at that point.
Re:If people don't mind... (Score:1, Insightful)
> Are there genuinely any great phones out there worth investing in?
The N900.
It's probably the most open platform right now. It's a phone, but also a little Linux computer. There are no issues with the vendor restricting what you can run/can't run - you have root access to your own device without needing any "jailbreaking" or other such things.
Re:Verizon has best coverage... but it's verizon. (Score:5, Insightful)
Among the high quality comments you will find on these websites are things like this gem: "[carrier] had reeeeeally been bothering me lately! They think they're so cool, but if I could, I would DESTROY [carrier]!!" So now you know everything you know.
Seriously though, the 'best' carrier depends on your needs and your area. In this story you will have posts from people who say "X carrier has horrible coverage" and others who say the same carrier has awesome coverage. It really depends on where you live.
Re:Choices man. Choices. (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe it also depends on EXACTLY where you want to use the phone, particularly where you regularly want to use it.
You can look at the carriers web site and it can clearly show you are right in the middle of their coverage area, but get no signal, or only an intermittent signal, or only 2G instead of 3G.
I would suggest going and signing up for service by a major carrier and trying it out in the area's where you primarily will use it, and if it doesn't work well, return the equipment and cancel the service quickly [I believe most of them let you return everything for little or no penalty with a 1/2 month or a month].
Sprint or Verizon (Score:2, Insightful)
Well if you Slashdot daily you will have heard GSM encryption has been hacked and the code is in the wild. The fact that the major GSM providers continue to downplay this is a good reason to steer clear. That leaves you with Sprint, Verizon or a local carrier.
Both Sprint and Verizon have good deals on plans and they have decent phones. I am an unrepentant crackberry addict and will tell you why. It lasts more than 5 hours on push and I can change the battery my damn self if needed, (haven't had too except while camping).
Sprint's everything plan is good and Verizon has followed suit with something similar. My preference for Sprint is that they discount their already low price by 25%. I have been with them for over 10 years which also means I get full upgrades on all my phones every year not two years. I pay $150/mo. for three phones with 1500 shared minutes, weekends and evenings starting at 7PM (not 9PM), any network roaming in US & Canada (quad band phone required), and everything data (including BlackBerry service). Minutes to me wasn't as big an issue as the data. I send and receive over 100 texts and emails a day.
Verizon has a better pick of phones in my opinion, something I don't hesitate to tell Sprint as often as possible, especially when I want them to knock another $100 off a new phone. Verizon has wider coverage where Sprint seems to have stronger signal in Cities. I can often get in the elevator and keep my conversation going while friends drop off. As I said my Sprint signal fades faster though when I get away from the city. Having a quad-band phone is handy I can jump over to another network and I'm up and running.
If your're dead set on the iPhone and you don't care about its limitations I say go for it. If you need a serious work phone that is rugged and long lasting I recommend a Blackberry. Keep in mind there are two families of BB, consumer (Pearl & Curve), and industrial (Tour & Bold), not sure where the touch screen one fits in since it seems to have features of both families. Android phones are getting better reviews every time I look at them. At the moment they seem to lack the finer polish of the iPhone but they perform just as well and they are an open platform.
I am not sure where to come down on the Palm Pre and Pixi, they seem to suffer from the same lack of polish that Android phones have but they are also a closed platform meaning they will likely evolve out of that phase slower. Palm was great back in the day and if the Pre came out 3 years ago I would have said it was a game changer now it's like a relief pitcher brought in too late to win the game and is only there to keep the run lead down and salvage as much of the team's reputation as possible.
My final opinion avoid the iPhone and AT&T or any other GSM carrier. Pick an Android phone if you want fun and a BlackBerry if you need a serious workhorse.
N900 or Moto Droid or Nexus One (Score:5, Insightful)
The question is clear and other people's answers appear to have the same problem I do -- namely that it's unclear WHAT kind of service you want (good voice quality, good data quality, good SMS, pricing, etc.) and no criteria for "Best."
At this point I could stop having criticized the question, but instead let me offer you some answers, and you can pick and choose.
I have a Nokia N900 on a T-Mobile "all you can eat" plan. The plan is great. The phone is great. In my area T-Mobile can't hold a call.
I have a Motorola Droid on a Verizon "don't eat very much but enjoy your meal" plan. The plan is so so. The phone is almost great. Verizon coverage for voice and data is awesome here.
I have a Treo 700wx running Windows Mobile 5. I believe it's three years old. It was my Verizon phone prior to the Droid, and while it was annoying in requiring reboots and factory defaults, it was reliable. I did not love it very much tho, as I'm not a big fan of Windows Mobile. Here it works on SPRINT or Verizon, which are good.
If you go 1 hour north, there are totally different carrier coverages. However, on their respective maps they all appear to have equally good coverage here or there.
SO: When asking what is the best US Cell company, realize that
1. There are different companies throughout different parts, regions, and even cities in the same country.
2. Some companies (e.g. Cricket) resell limited services of some other companies (e.g. SPRINT or Qwest or Verizon within a limited geo. area where I am)
3. Some companies (e.g. Verizon) are an amalgamation of other companies, and their services vary greatly. (Verizon *in this area* formerly Cellular One formerly Bell Atlantic)
4. Data services and voice services are a function of many different things including how they provision service to the cell sites. Literally moving two miles away may get you 700Kbps on 3G data and good phone service, but the other way no data and decent phone service.
5. SMS is something I consider critical. Others do not.
So, in sum, to wind up this post, Voice Coverage, Data Coverage, SMS Coverage, and availability of phones are what can be used to judge the best US Cell company -- in my little neighborhood. Your conclusions 5 miles away will vary.
Good luck with your quest.
E
Re:N900 or Moto Droid or Nexus One (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Agreed (Score:3, Insightful)
Uhm...UMTS, WCDMA is very firmly in GSM family, being in 3GPP which builds upon GSM. You simply display a confusion stemming from the thing that one standard was often called not by its name (IS-95), but by the tech it used (CDMA); which stuck to such a degree that next version was simply called CDMA2000 (which is in 3GPP2 family)
GSM is very fine, it wouldn't be behind of 80+ % of global subscribers otherwise. Often in places with much lower population density than the US, where funds for infrastructure are theoretically much more scarce; the tech isn't responsible why most networks in the US have failed in this regard.
Re:Agreed (Score:3, Insightful)
Overall, I was expecting an experience just like I had gotten used to with Alltel, Cingular, AT&T (old), Cingular (round two - slightly better coverage), AT&T (after taking over Cingular), and like friends have had with Verizon (horrible). I also strongly considered Sprint, but when I went to buy a Palm Pre, the sales folks were too busy and disorganized to help me, so I left. T-Mobile has been fine for the first six months. Careful where you buy though - one local, indie company insisted that their price for a G1 ($200, I think) was what everyone had to charge and insulted me for questioning them, even though it was $129 online, there was a brief promo around that time for less, and WalMart (ick) had it for $99.