Help me find a cell phone carrier
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I have cell one right now (have for 6 years) and have been satisfied with their service/price. I, like jason, do not need all the bells and whistles, just an affordable plan with a decent phone. The thing I'm not too sure about with Cellular One is that they have been purchased by Alltel and I'm not sure what type of plans Alltel will be offering to their customers. I do know that they are a national carrier however, so they probably won't have as affordable of local/regional plans as cell one currently has, but they will probably be more in line with Verizon on pricing. Currently I have about 1200 anytime minutes, unlimited nights/weekends and free mobile to mobile (amongst cell one customers). I've never even come close to going over my minutes as most of my calls are in the evening/weekends anyway.
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tjamz wrote:
I have cell one right now (have for 6 years) and have been satisfied with their service/price. I, like jason, do not need all the bells and whistles, just an affordable plan with a decent phone. The thing I'm not too sure about with Cellular One is that they have been purchased by Alltel and I'm not sure what type of plans Alltel will be offering to their customers. I do know that they are a national carrier however, so they probably won't have as affordable of local/regional plans as cell one currently has, but they will probably be more in line with Verizon on pricing. Currently I have about 1200 anytime minutes, unlimited nights/weekends and free mobile to mobile (amongst cell one customers). I've never even come close to going over my minutes as most of my calls are in the evening/weekends anyway.
Thanks, Chuck! One thing I should have mentioned is that Cell One is not an option. I had a very bad experience with them years ago and can't consider them as an option.Sounds like a good plan though!
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HandoEX wrote:
Thanks, Chuck! One thing I should have mentioned is that Cell One is not an option. I had a very bad experience with them years ago and can't consider them as an option.Sounds like a good plan though!
I would have to agree with you on that man!! Before i decided to go to SPRINT i looked at all my options and all my friends told me to stay away from CELL ONE. I dunno its your choice on what you want to do,i prefer SPRINT and torbs prefers VERIZON all i have to say is "shop around before you jump in to things. GOOD LUCK with your cell phone hunt.Glad i could put my 2 cents in
"tell the misses that thats how you got the man and thats how you KEEP the man
words to live by from the wise one"
-weshole -
Ok back from class... lets dispense of the opinion bullshit and get down to the facts.
We have several major carriers in our area, namely Verizon, Sprint / Nextel, Unicell, Cell One, T-Mobile and Cingular provide service here but do not provide plans for local numbers.
Verizon uses CDMA
Sprint uses PCS
Nextel uses iDen
Unicel has both CDMA and GSM plans
Cell One --- This one I do not know
Tmobile / Cingular - GSMGenerally speaking in our area, or for the entire midwest, CDMA is going to provide you with the most reliable, best coverage.
I know your looking for a good deal, so I will tell you of my experiences with all of them, and why I ended up with Verizon.
Probably the best website you'll find for doing research on cell phones is http://www.howardforums.com, so don't just take my word for it, go read the opinions of lots of other users.
Now there have been several factors for me that are really important, 1) being data services 2) customer service and 3) reliable coverage
Verizon has been incredible for the entire time that I have had it with replacing phones, removing any charges whatever, their general policy is to make the customer happy, unlike many other cell phone providers. Their billing is straight up and easy to understand and your payments are reflected through an intuitive online interface (which also lets you check usage etc...).
Thier "america's choice" plan, starts out with 450 minutes, unlimited in-calling (verizon to verizon anytime of the day), and unlimited nights and weekends... plan is 39.99, expect around $10 in bogus taxes and shit, so around $50 a month...
Current promotions include either a free LG or Motorola Camera phone.
Coverage is reliable nearly everywhere, and the data services which you arent concerned about are much more advanced at this point in time then any of the other carriers.
Unicell. I had a very bad experience with unicell, my bill was seriously fucked up all the time, so i never understood what I had to pay, it was cool that you got unlimited text messages, but it was pretty terrible reception. You'll find that you have trouble getting a good GSM signal up here, and its even a little bit shady in the twin cities. Anyway, I ended up paying whatever it cost to get out of my contract with them because I was so unsatisfied with it, switched to verizon.
After all the bogus fee's and wierd things they put on, the rover plan ends up costing damn near the same as a 600 minute plan from Verizon... Plus you roam outside of the Fargo area which sucks if you ever travel... Online Services are all but non existant
I would not reccomend them. Oh by the way, Unicel's CDMA service uses Verizon's towers, and thier Rover plan uses T-Mobiles towers... And yes, this is true despite what people will tell you (howardforums.com, research it)
Sprint, generally speaking, is not highly regaruded as a national carrier. There is a good reason they are not one of the top carriers in the USA, and it was a strategic move for them to merge with nextel to increase thier customer base...
Some of you may love your Sprint phones, but theres no way in hell I'd ever buy one.
- The plans ARE more expensive for comparable plans.
- The customer service is notoriously bad. Read on the internet about it, unlike Verizon where they will go out of thier way to take care of you.
- PCS network is not reliable. Verizon and Spring and lots of local carriers share towers, but Spring operates on a different radio band, so without going in to detail, you'll get a better signal with the CDMA verizon service.
- Vision service is old school 3G wireless, you dont have any use for it, but at this point in time, there are more advanced networks being put in place for the next generation of phones... verizon again has more widespread deployment of these.
Nextel
You'll be hard pressed to find somebody that actually likes thier nextel service / phone. It's expensive as hell, the iDen uses the lowest radio band (shortest range to towers), thier calls are dropped, thier text messages take days to be recieved, the only thing that they hvae going for them is nationwide instanteous push to talk walkie talkie feature.
Unless your going to be utilizing the Push to talk features (which are offered by verizon as well), you shouldn't even get near Nextel...
I can't speak for cell one, but from other people who have had thier service, they wouldn't touch it again....
Don't get me wrong, I'm about getting the best deal / products / service for the money. In all honesty, I would have T-Mobile / Cingular if I lived in the Twin Cities, for the unlimited GPRS, cheap plans and better texting...
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I have T-mobile, decent... but I see signal being good to bad in a matter of seconds, but i rarely use it.. I used to have Unicel, Liked that plan way better. Unlimited TxT/Minutes
never had any problems w/ it.. never saw myself roaming much cuz i was rarely out of town. just a thought
And since you wouldn't need the bells & whistle, it'd pretty much be a house phone you can roam around town with...
T-mobiles okay I guess but with the internet and all that it's always going to really just end up costing you extra.
but the no roam is nice.. -
OK, so Brian and I went to Sprint and Verizon at lunch and checked some shit out. Here are a couple of observations:
- The woman at Sprint didn't give a fuck about helping us. She treated us as though we were a pain in her ass.
- Sprint offers a plan with only 200 daytime minutes and free nights starting at 6:00. I am at work all day and don't need any daytime minutes so this is a huge perk.
- The people at Verizon showed great customer service...friendly and seemed ready to help.
- Verizon's plans only have plans that have free nights at 9:00. Even with double the daytime minutes, this is not ideal for me as I will most likely be making the bulk of my calls from 6:00-10:00.
I still would like to check out Unicell, even though from other's posts it seems like a hit and miss deal.
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I think that your observations are representative of both of the services...
Springs CS is notoriously bad...
Verizon's is great...
I guess, the thing about Verizon is honesly you prob overestimate how many minutes you use (its how they make so much $$$).
My billing cycle turns over on the 22nd of every month, and since the 22nd I've used 75 Peak Minutes, 354 Night, 111 Weekend, and 69 Peak IN Calls and 80 Off Peak In Calls
I would say I talk on my phone more then average person, and as you can see I'd be more then ok with the 450 Peak Minute Plan...
Before you make up your mind, there are usually some Tri-State (MN, SD, ND) deals that verizon runs, I'll lookin to those for you, instead of nationwide service you just get it in these three states without roaming but you get considerably more minutes....
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Yeah, ok found it. It's not available on thier website, you have to call or go in to the store.
It's called Local Digital Choice, and there are various plans with it, but basically you don't roam in any of the three states, plus areas of WI.
You get more Anytime minutes and stuff... Call em up
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I heard we dont have a CINGULAR repesentation around the fargo/moorhead area? But i could and prolly am rong...But like i said I had a BIG battle with UNICEL with over charges and roaming charges and i was on the rover plan so i would turn my phone off when i didnt have any signal and i still got CHARGED!! So i left UNICEL and went to SPRINT and i havent had a problem since i have been with them. Im sorry they were asses at the SPRINT STORE i always go to the original gentalmen that helped me when i first got my plan and he has been the most helpful person non-stop!! The ladies there arent very nice at all,i will agree with that! So if my "go to" guy isnt there i just talk to the "MAN GUY" and he is always a great help. Once again im sorry for them being such ASSHOLES and also sorry for refering you there and being a waste of time for you man.It's people like that ,that give us SPRINT carriers bad names and they dont realize that! WHAT A BUNCH OF DICKS!!!! :mad:
"tell the misses that thats how you got the man and thats how you KEEP the man
words to live by from the wise one"
-weshole -
itrfan wrote:
I heard we dont have a CINGULAR repesentation around the fargo/moorhead area? But i could and prolly am rong...But like i said I had a BIG battle with UNICEL with over charges and roaming charges and i was on the rover plan so i would turn my phone off when i didnt have any signal and i still got CHARGED!! So i left UNICEL and went to SPRINT and i havent had a problem since i have been with them. Im sorry they were asses at the SPRINT STORE i always go to the original gentalmen that helped me when i first got my plan and he has been the most helpful person non-stop!! The ladies there arent very nice at all,i will agree with that! So if my "go to" guy isnt there i just talk to the "MAN GUY" and he is always a great help. Once again im sorry for them being such ASSHOLES and also sorry for refering you there and being a waste of time for you man. WHAT A BUNCH OF DICKS!!!!
Don't be sorry. At this point, Sprint looks to be the front runner for me.Unicel seems to leave some uncertainty with their plans and Verizon's plans just don't seem to offer the minutes at the times I need (although I'm not done talking to them to see if they can offer anything else).
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I had the same problem with Unicel...
My phone would roam at my house, and all around town. Then I would get billed for Roaming, one month I had 400 and some dollars in roaming charges. This meant that I had to go in to the store and bitch and get them to remove the charges every month.
Then one month they said that they weren't going to remove the charges anymore... so goodbye unicel. I don't see how its the customers fault that thier shitty ass service can't select the right network to be on...
Haven't looked back since...
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I also had that problem when i was INTOWN!! and i also had troubles with receiving calls and textmessages,what is UNICELS' deal anyway?My bill wasnt that extremly high but it got close so i also did the same and said GOOD-BYE! and left the bill as it was and sure enough the "corp" called me and i took it up with them and they basically "ignored" the bill and took my 150 deposit and said we were even so i was coo with that
"tell the misses that thats how you got the man and thats how you KEEP the man
words to live by from the wise one"
-weshole -
Jim wrote:
Yeah, ok found it. It's not available on thier website, you have to call or go in to the store.It's called Local Digital Choice, and there are various plans with it, but basically you don't roam in any of the three states, plus areas of WI.
You get more Anytime minutes and stuff... Call em up
They said they had nothing of the sort anymore. Just the basic plans from the brochure.
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