Poll, sorta, where are you, how's your connection

[Mrs. CountryGuy]

Been a while since we discussed this, and we all know how service and such can change almost over night, soooooo

Could we have a report on:

1.) What service you are using, Verizon, Cingular, Sprint, etc.?

2.) Where are you now?

3.) How's your bars, (can you hear me now??)

4.) How's the bars been (not serving Corona Ozz, just bars on the phones! ) when you are running?

5.) Where do you seem to get the most dropped calls? East/west/north/south

So, if you have Verizon, and you are in Arizona and you have so so service, and had really good service out east, and it went down hill as you traveled west. That sort of thing would interest us. Not particularly interested in prices at this point, just service and can you hear me now???

Sure we can look at the coverage maps provided by all the cell phone companies, we want true real world feedback.

[richfaa]

Our Primary carrier has been Cingular for over 6 years.We have been all over the county with it with good coverage.There are of course places where there is little or no cell coverage no matter what carrier you have. My company phone is Verizon and the coverage has been every bit as good as Cingular..We get the most dropped calls right here in our house. We found that anywhere near interstates, Turnpike, major state highways and population centers just about any carrier will work ok..that is where the people are and that is where the money is. We found a lot of blank spots in Az, Texas, Oklahoma with both Cingular and Verizon. We just got the Verizon aircard and can only comment on it's effectiveness here in the Cleveland, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pa Markets again along turnpikes and large population centers.. Excellent broad band access..we will be doing 2100 miles South west and the aircard will get a good workout..

[ols1932]

quote:Originally posted by Mrs. CountryGuy

Been a while since we discussed this, and we all know how service and such can change almost over night, soooooo

Could we have a report on:

1.) What service you are using, Verizon, Cingular, Sprint, etc.?
Verizon

2.) Where are you now?
North of Wickenburg, AZ

3.) How's your bars, (can you hear me now??)
Three bars

4.) How's the bars been (not serving Corona Ozz, just bars on the phones! ) when you are running?
We've been in places where we only had one bar (Lakewood, NM) so we connected our Wilson cellular antenna and voila!! five bars

5.) Where do you seem to get the most dropped calls? East/west/north/south
Have not experienced any great amount of dropped calls. It's about the same all over--a dropped call here and one there.

So, if you have Verizon, and you are in Arizona and you have so so service, and had really good service out east, and it went down hill as you traveled west. That sort of thing would interest us. Not particularly interested in prices at this point, just service and can you hear me now???
We have not experienced in decrease in service as we travel from coast to coast. Winters spent in CA,NM,AZ

Sure we can look at the coverage maps provided by all the cell phone companies, we want true real world feedback.

Hope I've helped some.

[Parrothead]

Carol,
I'm in the West almost as far as you can go West. We switched to Verizon several years ago because there were so many areas ATT didn't give us any bars. We have had no trouble with Verizon. Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Arizona, Neveda all gave us service except a few miles in the wilds of Montana and Utah. I have the Mobil Office connection for Verizon and have been able to use it whereever we were. I do not have a card yet as my new laptop doesn't accept the normal card, I need an Express card. I don't need it right now so haven't pursued the topic much. We will when the full timing starts.
Happy trails...........................

[jrgwdenner]

As we travel from Montgomery, AL to Fort Worth, TX we have a good signal on I-20 except for eastern Mississippi and the most rural areas of state hwy 80. We find that the signals are improving on a fairly regular basis. We haven't experienced many dropped calls with Verizon. We also didn't have a signal in the far western part of the upper peninsula of Michigan. It's fairly remote.

[Glenn and Lorraine]

quote:Originally posted by Mrs. CountryGuy

Been a while since we discussed this, and we all know how service and such can change almost over night, soooooo

Could we have a report on:

1.) What service you are using, Verizon, Cingular, Sprint, etc.?
Verizon
2.) Where are you now?
Clearwater Florida
3.) How's your bars, (can you hear me now??)
All 5
4.) How's the bars been (not serving Corona Ozz, just bars on the phones! ) when you are running?
Varies depending on where we are at but on average 2 to 3 bars. Keep in mind that just ONE bar is all you need for a connection. We have even connected where no bars showing. In this case we were probably on the very edge of a signal
5.) Where do you seem to get the most dropped calls? East/west/north/south
Black Lake in northern NY near Ogdensburg. On the lake shore a Verizon is totally nonexistant. Other than that it is rare to not have a Verison signal and even rarer to have a dropped call.

So, if you have Verizon, and you are in Arizona and you have so so service, and had really good service out east, and it went down hill as you traveled west. That sort of thing would interest us. Not particularly interested in prices at this point, just service and can you hear me now???

Sure we can look at the coverage maps provided by all the cell phone companies, we want true real world feedback.

Carol, as you know we have had the Verison AirCard for well over 3 years and with few exceptions it has given us excellant service. I highly recommend it to all my friends and family.
I would also suggest investing in an AirCard router. We love ours as both of us can be online at the same time as well as any nearby neighbors.
Email/PM me if you want any further details.

[adelmoll]

I have exactly the same set up as Judy and Glenn do. Verizon phone, Verizon air card and KR1 Router. Bill has Cingular for his phone and he usually gets a little better signal on his phone but we have found out that it is just because of the kinds of phones that we have. I am due for a new phone and will get a better one this time. We both recommend Verizon over any of the others as far as coverage. The Cingular air card is awful. That is why we bought the router. Now Bill can get on my Verizon.
Helen

[Mrs. CountryGuy]

OK, any Sprint users out there?????

Good stuff, keep er coming.

One reason I asked is because things do change, more towers, etc.

Thanks, and Sprint???

[Sunshine]

We have U.S. Cellular. Have not experienced many dropped calls. Like everyone else, there are spots where there is no service, but they have been few, we've even had service in places I didn't think we would, like the middle of Nevada. Haven't yet investigated using the phone for internet service, so don't know if U.S. Cell has that capability yet or not.

[faeb and genb]

This will be our fourth year to go to RGV. from Ky. firsst yr we had Cingular. Had a terrible time. No bars. switched to Verizon Seldom without signal.
Gene

[bob n pam]

1.) What service you are using, Verizon, Cingular, Sprint, etc.? - Cingular

2.) Where are you now? - Madisonville, LA

3.) How's your bars, (can you hear me now??) - Full bars

4.) How's the bars been (not serving Corona Ozz, just bars on the phones! ) when you are running? Generally pretty good

5.) Where do you seem to get the most dropped calls? East/west/north/south - RGV, Oklahoma Panhandle

[texdeano]

Using T-Mobile
At wellton,Az
Full bars

[DonandBonnie]

Carol,
When we first looked at getting cell phones about four years ago, Sprint was our first choice because the package they offered seemed better than the rest. We could not use them because they had no coverage in our area, the hills south of Canton, Ohio. We opted for Verizon. Since then Verizon has added new towers and our service has improved significantly. I last checked with Sprint last summer, still no coverage in our area and still no known plan to extend coverage into our area. I guess we will stay with Verizon. The work cell is with Alltel. The experience with them is similar to Verizon, new towers and improved coverage, although I have more dropped calls with Alltel than with Verizon. We have no land line in our stick house. All of our communication is with the cell phones.
Don

[richfaa]

We have been using the Verizon air card on this trip to Az, Ohio, Ind, Ill, Mo and now Oklahoma. Good service everywhere..mostly broadband access and a few placed national access but never below 100kbps.. Our Cingular cell phone has worked equally well

[Mrs. CountryGuy]

Again, thanks for the feedback. Guess no one is using Sprint??

We have always had great service with Verizon, and we are not giving them up, cept that Verizon does not work here in the Irish Hills. We were told (ya, I know, for what that is worth) that V and Sprint had some agreement to disagree or not share towers or some such silly junk. And, we were told (more of that I know stuff) that they finally came to some kind of agreement. And, we were told (MORE, AGAIN! ) that in the next year or so V was gonna come busting into our area, that they have been wanting to, cause they know there are a lot of potential customers. They must have tagged at least one tower, cause until about 4 months ago, we could not make ONE call out of here with that V phone, and lately we MIGHT get out.

Anyway, Sprint does work here, and we want to do away with the land line, so, guess who got the deal.

Now, we are wondering how it will do out and about, and not one response from a Sprint user. I told Al today, this does not bode well! Well, we still have the V phone, and it works most places.

We are drooling over the possible V coming into the area, cause we might be able to do what Judy and Glen Denner did (get the aircard and router), and ditch the internet provider, which in our case is dear (????) ole direcway.

Living in the hills has its good points and bad. Bad being that there is no cable, no DSL, and until just lately, stinky cell phone coverage as well. Good, oh, dang, it is purdy out here!

Well, with two companies, if one phone does not work, you would hope the other does.

SOOO, if you have Sprint, can you hear me now??

[richfaa]

Our Verizon 650 EVDO card gave good results from Ohio to Az execpt for a few places were there was no service, no people, no nothing. Here in Havasu City there is no service as Verizon just came into this area and they are not online yet but will be very soon.We are on no extra charge C.G wifi.Just a few miles either side of Havasu and there is good service.

[jrgwdenner]

That is good to hear, Rich. Thanks for the report.

[sreigle]

We've found that different phones have a different number of maximum bars (7 on our prior phone, 5 on this one) so number of bars means nothing to me. "x out of y" bars would mean something.

Cingular.
Independence, MO (KC suburb)
5 of 5 bars

We've been all over the country and are very pleased with Cingular. We've been places ours has a workable signals and others have not. We've been places another carrier had a signal and we did not. Etc. We've used Cingular for years and years and see no reason not to continue with them. But I cannot say they are better or worse than any other carrier.

In Utah this last Spring we hiked three miles up the slickrock to Delicate Arch, in the middle of Arches National Park. While sitting there admiring the view, our Cingular phone rang!

[OntMont]

Carol, since we have "none of the above", I can't answer your specific questions, but if you are looking at internet via cell phone, keep in mind that there is more to it than just signal strength. The digital technology used by the different providers is not the same. My understanding is that for high speed data, the CDMA technology is superior, this what both Verizon and Sprint use, and I think they are neck and neck in the race for digital coverage. Cingular (I think) uses a different technology, and that is why people do not get the same level of performance as the Verizon or Sprint customers. Remember, this is with respect to high speed data, voice is another issue.

[Mrs. CountryGuy]

Thanks again for feedback

We are looking at a two fold problem, but of course, regular cell service and then possible aircard/internet service.

Well, we are gonna find out, cause we now have a Sprint phone and we have the ole Verizon phone. We each have reasons for going the way we have with our service provider. One good reason to have Verizon (in the past) for us was that it had better total coverage in the USA, talking PHONE here. That said, I could not get a signal in my house for the life of love or money! Recently we discovered that Sprint is covering the house. So, we have a Sprint number now, so that we can get calls here in the house.

Anyway, we will see, life is full of interesting little things to keep us amused.

Cheers,

Carol