cingular vs verizon - Page 3 - Montana Owners Club

dsprik · 03-16-2006, 03:46 PM

Thanks, Al! I'll check it out.

dsprik · 03-16-2006, 03:49 PM

Thanks, xea! I appreciate the input. Is Sprint's coverage acceptable for your travels?

xea · 03-16-2006, 04:04 PM

Not sure if I made it clear in the last post, I have at&t/cingular for my phone and havn't had any problems. I have sprint aircard for the internet. I havn't checked it out to much as I have only had it 3 montsh but from portland to the coast (even in non highspeed areas) I have been happy with the internet speed and coverage.

dsprik · 03-16-2006, 04:28 PM

OK, I think I understand. You're using a Sprint aircard for your high speed data and Cingular for regular gsm phone service?

ols1932 · 03-16-2006, 05:24 PM

We had Cingular back in 2000 when they were first getting started. We had them for one year and their nationwide service at that time was terrible. Plus, they wouldn't give me any support. They were renting towers (tower A or tower B) in the same town. For example, when we were in Des Moines, IA in 2001 and tried to call out, we couldn't because they didn't have a contract with the tower we were accessing. They may have improved since then, however we changed to Verizon in 2001 and have been completely satisfied. We have never been shut out except for one time in Del Rio, TX in 2002. That has been fixed now.

Orv

Mac · 03-17-2006, 11:47 AM

Verizon is about the only thing that's "bullet proof" in Colorado. Of course I'm sure that varys wildly from state to state.

mac

Gene Chaltry · 03-17-2006, 03:58 PM

I have Verizon for the past year. Only had a few places where I could not use it. Do you know that as you travel you have to reprogram your phone? Dial *228 and follow the recording. You have to be near a Verizon tower to do this. You can reprogram it for roaming also. Very easy.

dsprik · 03-17-2006, 06:26 PM

Gene, Alltel has the same number and procedure. Must be a universal tower upgrade system...

xea · 03-17-2006, 07:16 PM

Yes dsprik, You have it correct. I would have gone with the aircard form Cingular since that is who I was using for my cell service but their card didn't work well in my area. I tried Sprint out of desperation to get some sort of highspeed access and found they were 20$ cheeper a month anyway. I honestly feel the carriers have improved their areas so much you could go with any of the big ones and be ok.

Dustytuu · 03-18-2006, 08:20 PM

I agree also that you get a good phone. We always had trouble with the free phones, regardless of who we had service with.
We have had Sprint for long time now. We had Verizon before that and we live in a rural area. Our Verizon worked fine for 3 years and all of a sudden wasn't working, no signal. After replacing our phones and trouble shooting nothing was going to work. I found out that Verizon was using someone's tower and didn't renew their contract on it. Because when we would be able to call from home (very rare),it would show up on caller id's as a COM number with several numbers after. If we called from the city, our phone numbers showed up as usual. I don't know if this is true or not but I heard that Verizon doesn't own their own towers and they use other's towers with contracts on them. Like I said this could be wrong.

ols1932 · 03-19-2006, 03:12 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by Dustytuu

I agree also that you get a good phone. We always had trouble with the free phones, regardless of who we had service with.
We have had Sprint for long time now. We had Verizon before that and we live in a rural area. Our Verizon worked fine for 3 years and all of a sudden wasn't working, no signal. After replacing our phones and trouble shooting nothing was going to work. I found out that Verizon was using someone's tower and didn't renew their contract on it. Because when we would be able to call from home (very rare),it would show up on caller id's as a COM number with several numbers after. If we called from the city, our phone numbers showed up as usual. I don't know if this is true or not but I heard that Verizon doesn't own their own towers and they use other's towers with contracts on them. Like I said this could be wrong.

Occasionally, especially in a new area, Verizon contracts for towers. If traffic is sufficient, they put up their own towers. When we had Cingular, back in 2000-2002, they had no towers of their own. They contracted for all of them. I don't know what they do now. But I think that, as a general rule, the big Cellular companies are getting their own towers more and more.

Orv

Montana_4397 · 03-19-2006, 03:16 AM

I don't know that any of the cell providers own all their own towers. There are companies that specialize in towers. They select locations, get permits, build and lease their structures to as many providers as possible. As I drive along, I occasionally notice a tower with no antenna on it.

Over the years, I have had cell service in East Tennessee with most of the providers.

Cellular One was first and the service was just developing. It was latter bought by Verizon.

BellSouth, the forerunner of Cingular - Kept it for a week and returned it because of bad coverage.

Sprint - Returned almost immediately because I could not get a signal to activate the account.

U.S. Cullular - An excellent regional carrier in this area.

AT&T - Switched from U.S. Cellular for AT&T's Nationwide service.

Verizon - Switched to Verizon for better all around coverage and have been there several years now without much dissapointment.

In our travels around the nation and to Alaska, we find Verizon has very good service. I expect it to improve over time. I also expect Cingular to improve, not so much with their aquisition of AT&T, but with their builout of their system. They really will not gain much, if any, in the wireless world with the upcomming AT&T deal. They had just aquired the AT&T wireless network a couple of years back. Your nationwide coverage is very dependent on your carrier's roaming contracts, along with their type signal (CDMA/TDMA/GSM and Analog). As analog is discontinued, those of us holding onto tri-mode phones will see less coverage in the rural areas. The analog signal has at least twice the range of the digital signal, but requires much more power, along with more baddwidth, and as you loose range it has static, where the digital just drops off.

Every area, along with your travel destinations and routes, are somewhat different in just who is your best provider.

Best Regards, Ted

PowellsMonty · 03-20-2006, 05:30 AM

With Verizon we have had service in Vancouver, Key West, Montana, DC,San Diego and everything in between. Use their Mobile office when I have to, not bad for emailing. I wouldn't think about changing. Have had others in the past, had bag phones too!

sreigle · 03-26-2006, 06:53 AM

I have not read all 6 pages in this thread. Nor have I read any of the articles mentioned.

All I can do is say in our 36 months of fulltiming we have been extremely pleased with Cingular throughout the country. Our service, both in terms of coverage and in customer service, has been exemplary. We have been very few places where we have not had a usable signal.

I am convinced the phone itself plays a role in how good a signal you get. When in Hungry Horse, MT, we were in an RV Park where we had an excellent signal. We twice had friends there who had poor signals and no signals. In both cases, each couple had two phones, his and hers. All four were flip phones. Two of those folks had Cingular. Two had Verizon. None had a decent signal. In both cases, we stood side by side. We had an excellent signal on our cheapo Nokia phone and they had poor or no signal on their flip phones. I don't know why it matters but it apparently does.

As I said above, we have been very pleased with Cingular. Not long ago we renewed our service. And we'll continue to do so as long as the service continues to be excellent. For those of you with other services, if you're happy with it, that's all that counts.

Charlie · 03-26-2006, 11:14 AM

Steve-
I agree with you about the style of phone. Jerrie has a Motorola flip phone, I have the cheapo Nokia and many times she is asking me for my phone as it will have service and hers will not, we use a Verizon share.

trukdoc · 03-26-2006, 11:43 AM

I have never used Verizon. Here in Dallas area it was Southwestern Bell before it was Verizon. And SW Bell was terrible.
I am useing Cingular and so far so good. The company I contract to uses Sprint and I can talk when they have no signal or Roaming.

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