Cell Phones
 

Ok... I know that this has been discussed but my cell plan is up in November, I was wondering if anyone has any sugguestions on good providers. Currently I have ATT but i will NOT use sprint, I have used them before and I HATE THEM ( sorry I just had a HORRID experience) Anyways the things that I am looking for are:
Free Roaming
Free Long Distance
Free Nites and Weekends
I NEED to be able to check my peak minutes because I am ALWAYS going over them ( I work a TON and have a full course load so I am normally only home to sleep )
Text Messaging

i also want some what of a flash phone too...

If anyone has any sugguestions that would be great!!

Thanks

I use ATT and I love it, but since you are looking at alternatives, I also cuggest Verizon. I have friends who own a cell phone store that carries Suncom (ATT) and they use Verizon for their personal phones!! They have great service and all of the things you've mentioned I know of for sure (except checking on the minutes, I don't know about that). Everyone in my family but me has Verizon and they love them! I hate SPRINT too... uhm. NO!

I have a nextel phone. They have free incoming minute plans w/ free long distance, and no roaming ,and for an extra $10 a month unlimited nights and weekends. You can always call the customer service line to check to see where you are with your minutes. They also have the two way radio feature on their phones. It is good to have if someone else has a nextel phone too.
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Hormone problems forums

T-Mobile... it seems like some people complain about them here on this board, but my friends and find it better than most in our area (find out what is good in your area though, because something that's good in one region can suck in another).

But, anyway, T-Mobile's basic $39.99 plan is:

600 whenever minutes
50 text messages
Unlimited weekend minutes
Free long-distance and roaming

For $2.99, you can add 500 text messages
For about $6.99, or maybe it is $8.99, you can add free unlimited nights.

Also, you can call customer care and hear how many minutes you have used (updated everyday). The reps. are very nice and have fixed any complaints I have ever had... usually they give me lots of free minutes!

Edited to add: They used to be called VoiceStream.

I pay $5 a month for unlimited nights :D I love Voicestream/t-mobile - my plan rocks and I never run out of minutes anymore!

What happened with Sprint? Just wondering because I've used them for three years and I haven't had a problem yet. (Yet being the key word :rolleyes: )

Thank you all so much, I am checking out T-Mobile ( I saw them when I was in Cali this summer) they seem to have a decent plan, IowaHawkeye and Sororitygirl2 ( sorry about that) have you had any problems with coverage or anything? Can you check your minute usage ?

ZTAAngel~ as for Sprint I had them for a year went thru 2 MASSVIELY expensive cell phone that didn't work and I never had coverage I was CONSTANTLY dropping calls ( like not on some dirt road i live in a very metro area and it NEVER worked) also the customer support SUCKED !!!! I advise all my friends NEVER TO GET THEM!! also a lot of my workmates have had HUGE problems as well I don't know if maybe it is just my area or I just had bad luck ....

I'm not IowaHawkEye, but... yes, with T-Mobile you CAN check your minute usage (it is updated everyday). And I have been in lots of places and never had any problem with coverage. (except in TOTALLY desolate areas, like camping and on road trips, etc...)

I've never had any problem with coverage - I get perfect reception in my chicago suburb, when I'm traveling around the city the coverage is a little less, but i've never had a missed or dropped call - and i get perfect reception from chicago down I-80 to Iowa.

if you check out www.t-mobile.com they have their coverage map you can check out. all of their phones are reasonably priced (compared to sprint - used to have them too :mad: ) and it's super easy to check your minute usage - i think you dial # and something - or customer service which is programmed in your phone already.

and one thing i love about t-mobile is: you program all of your contacts (phone #s) on a microchip - and if you get a new phone, you just put the microchip in the new phone and you DON'T have to re-do your phone list! very nice!

I am not sure what has happened.... I just got a print the other day no money down and a free phone. For the basics it seems to be a good service.

I know that not everyone had issues with sprint it just seems that my friends and family did, I suppose for basic they are good but I do agree some of their phones are over priced...

Also and FYI my very good friend from New Zealand who lives in the States now, has told me the the GSM network that T-Mobile uses has been used in NZ for about 10 years and is AWESOME I remember when he first moved here all he did was bitch about how crappy cell phone service was.... he explained it to me that our cell phone networks sit on top of an analog base network and sometimes when the phone goes out of reception it switches to analog and that is why it isn't always so good, but with GSM it doesn't do that it is an all digital network.

thank you to all who have given your advice

Now on to the next question what type of phone do you have and have you had problems with it.

I have used
Erickson ( 1st cell phone ages ago)
Sprint Samsung
Sprint Sanyo - i hated and loathe both of these phones
Nokia 3360 i like it but it is ok

i am leaning towards the
motorola V 60 if i go with T mobile
or the Samsung a310 ( i have friends who have it and love it I THINK IT IS SMASHING CUTE)

I know Cingular has all those things and you can check your minutes on the internet also...

we haven't gotten cingular where I live yet :(

I have cingular and its awesome.

ATT
 

I have AT&T and I love it. I get service everywhere and for a few extra bucks a month I get international service (I travel a lot). I have the digital one rate plan. Roaming, Long Distance, text messaging and all the good stuff is included. Plus everytime I renew (I've been a customer for almost 5 years now) they give me some type of bonus. You can check your minutes online too.

As far as phones go I have a Motorolla V60I that is tiny and user friendly.

One piece of advice: Do NOT get Sprint. I have two friends that had their service and one of them couldn't even get reception in her house (WTF). Plus they both had problems with voicemail AND reception while on the road.

ZA

just an FYI - I have been with t-mobile (voicestream) for over 2 years, and i called them a few months ago to try and sign up for unlimited nights and it was no longer availabe :( also..since i've moved, i've had pretty bad reception with them..its pretty sporadic..i'll be driving and have a full signal, 2 seconds later i won't have any signal i'll drive for another minute and i'll have 1/2 a signal etc..its VERY finicky..however, i never had this problem in new mexico or arizona..

I love Sprint but it seems like I'm the only one! I have a $39.99/month plan and it suits me pretty well. Sprint also includes Long Distance (for the travelers out there).

I do understand everyone's complaints about calls being dropped but I havent had to deal w/ that too much.

(I live in a big city).





soulfulremix

I have this problem too, I have GREAT service in Tampa, always have a signal. But when I was home in DC this summer I had NO Signal. I had to stand on the end of my driveway with like my elbow up in the air to get one bar...pain in the ass.
Then when I'm at the beach it will work in one store, and not at the one next door.
So i was asking my friends who is the best provider, and they said for DC that Verizon's the best but Verizon sucks down here. Hopefully, my phone will have a signal when I move home, I don't want to have to buy ANOTHER cell phone (I have two others collecting dust in my closet)

No, get this $hit. At one end of my desk at work, one or no bars. At the other end 3 bars. WTF is that. Or when I am pulling out of my parkign lot at home, I'll go from 1 to no bars, drop the call, and then when I have moved 3 feet out into the street I have all 4 bars?!?!? I have tyhe worlds most finicky cell phone.

I've had Verizon for like two years, and it's worked great for me. I have a share-talk plan with my mom. It's not nationwide, but I live right on the border of Iowa and Illinois, so Chicago is included in my plan, as well as Iowa City, so when I went up to Chicago this summer, my friend couldn't even use her SunCom, and I was able to, and it wasn't roaming. We've never had any problems with Verizon, except this summer my mom couldn't dial out or recieve calls, and we went to the store and they had to enter the authorization over, because they had been working on the network, but they addressed her concerns and fixed her problem in like five minutes, so the customer service reps were great.

My friends all have SunCom, and the network is rather small, and also my friend was "hotlined" by them like three times, and they shut her phone off, claiming that her bill was past due... and it never had been.

The only thing I don't like is my phone is like 3 years old (It's an LG 330W) and they don't sell it in the store anymore, so I can't get a new battery unless I order it online, and the phone thinks it's roaming when it's not, so the caller ID doesn't work when the phone thinks it's roaming (when I'm in Iowa City), because it thinks it's out of area. Weird, but it's not Verizon because it worked when I went to Chicago...

I really want a new phone, but it has to be a flip phone because I don't like talking on flat ones, also I will not purchase a Nokia phone. All of my friends have had problems with them, and the service wasn't great, and I'm just not impressed with what features they have--come on games--I think that's silly to drain your battery on games on a cellular phone, but that is just me. :rolleyes:

Anyway, enough of my blathering... good luck on finding a phone.

I use Alltel for my service which is ok. I'd rather switch, but it's easier not to at this point. For around $45/month (after taxes and everything...I think the plan's $39 or something), I get:

200 Anytime minutes
3200 Night/Weekend minutes
Voice mail
Caller ID
Call Forwarding
Call Waiting
No roaming/long distance anywhere in the continental US

I think text messaging would be another few bucks a month, but I doubt I'd use it.

As for my phone, I have a Motorola V60. I got it right after it came out, so I have a pretty old version. I love it, but it can't do a lot of the cool stuff like ringtones or games. They have a new version coming out (if it's not out already) that can do all that though, and they come in different colors. Cool thing about the v60 is it has two accessories you can get - one's an FM tuner, so you can listen to the radio (the phone mutes it if you get a call), the other's an mp3 player. My older version doesn't have the software to run the mp3 player, but a newer version would. I just think it's kind of cool to watch movies and TV shows and go, "Oh, I've had THAT phone for MONTHS." ;)

Another plug for the V60 - apparently if you get a Mercedes, they have a special version that's integrated with the car's computer, so it displays the caller ID on the dash, mutes the stereo when a call comes in, etc. But you have to get the car too, so that's a little more expensive. :cool:

I have Verizon and Im happy. I have the Motorola V60, and its cool because u can buy a hands free headset that plays the radio through ur phone. great, but it can run the battery down faster than normal, so keep a charger handy.

I've had Verizon for quite a while and I've never had any problems with it.

Well dang, y'all, lol. I have Sprint and have had NO troubles with them. They have the coolest phones (reason why I signed up) and FREE nationwide long distance, which is a plus. I have the Sanyo 5000 phone which is a newer model and I love it to death. I get text messaging for only a dollar extra a month and also I like the way their service integrates with the web. Just had to give Sprint some positive pub, lol.

I sell 'em
 

I've found that it depends a lot on your coverage. My advice, find out about the return policy... There's usually some small financial penalty for cancelling a contract early on (like $36 plus whatever minutes you use or whatever).. But it's better than a year or 2 pissed off at your carrier.

Take your new phone and try it where you use it. EVERY carrier has different coverage. If you think that cell phones should just work everywhere then you may not understand how they work.

RF signals are like voodoo... few understand why or why they are not in a ceratain area. The smallest things can effect them.. Like that neon sign at Krispy Kreme could be the reason you dropped your call.. not sprint!

If you're not within a tower's reach -- or sometimes between towers you'll have problems. Actually Sprint is less likely to drop calls when between towers because the technology that they use is the only thing to date that uses a 'soft handoff' meaning the load of the call is gradually transferred from tower to tower than all at once (which if there's an interruption during the handoff you drop the call).

You can also try to find someone that has done some market research in your area. I know in Oklahoma City an independant group tested Cingular to have the best coverage here.

Remember... a great plan ain't worth a damned thing if the phone doesn't work. You can either do your research or just jump into the deep end... Really there is no inbetween.