Cell Phone Providers

[fishgirl]

I know this has been discussed on here previously, but just humor me one more time....

My husband and I am counting down the days until our contract with T-Mobile expires. We are trying to decide between Verizon and Cingular. We go fishing on the coast a lot and hunting in eastern and central Oregon. What are your opinions?

Right now we are leaning towards Verizon, but I like the phone choices with Cingular better and the coverage maps from their websites show better coverage with Cingular.

[JustCallMeDave]

Cingular tends to have the best nationwide coverage, and best plans.

[24 on/ 48 off]

Verizon customer service rocks.

--spud--

[Phager]

My only bad experience with verizon is that they ask for an insane deposit if you credit isn't pretty. But I've found that their coverage is pretty good overall.

Pat

[MacFish]

I voted for Verizon, but I've never had anything else to compare with. All I can say is their plans seem to be competitive, their service areas have never let me down and they have resolved any issues I've ever had with them. they have also been very helpful with things like setting my daughter up with a plan when she studied in Mexico for a term.

[Tagster]

Cingular's coverage thoughout the Portland Metro area sucks.

I can say that from having cell plans with all 4 of the providers. I am a sales rep and usually use around 5000 minutes/month from Troutdale to Forest Grove and Salem to Salmon Creek.

I would go in this order:

Verizon
Sprint
Cingular
Voicestream/T-Mobile

I have tried three different phones with Cingular and would still drop around 5-10 calls per day.

I was forced to use them as my company was paying the phone bill and we had a national account with Cingular. I was finally able to get our national Cingular account manager to admit that the technology that Cingular (and t-Mobile) use is inferior in the Portland area to Verizon and Sprint.

Anyways, long and short of it is use Sprint or Verizon and you should be fine. YVMV

[Small Fry]

Here is my take on all this
The cellular service and coverage provided by each is about the same. For me it all comes down to customer service. If I have a problem I want to be treated like a customer not like I'm a burden.

Verizon in my book has the worst customer service I have ever experienced. Both land based and cell.

Cingular treats us like they care.

My name is Steve Loy and I approve this message.

[reeldick]

I have had both Cingular and Verizon. Cingular definately has the best statewide coverage bar none. There are bad spots for either vendor where service is bad or non-existant but fewer of those with cingular.

[Threemuch]

I have cingular, and it is OK, I got it because I think the offshore coverage is about the best. Previous carrier was sprint, and that was much worse. I have found that reception and signal have alot to do with your equipment. I have had a couple of the same phone due to breakage and loss, and had pretty varying results.

I hear VERY good things about the Razor, and will be getting one for myself very soon. It just looks so freaking fragile!

[OceanBlue]

I used to have Verizon, now I have Cingular. Don't let them fool you - they do NOT neccessarily have the best coverage. Not on the west coast anyway. Connection quality seems poor as well. Text messaging costs whether in network or out. Verizon's customer service was way mo' betta, too!

I was much happier with Verizon. But I made the switch because the rest of the family is on Cingular. Oh well, at least I'm paying 40% less now!

[Phager]

I have to say that I really wouldn't recommend Sprint (and by extension Nextel). My wife and I we're through them for a little while and I have to say that the coverage sucks, we live about a mile north of Corvallis and range between 0 and 1 bar of reception (on a 5 bar scale). There customer service is plain horrible.

We also had some serious billing problems, such as at one point after we remove so extraneous features from our plan, the next month they said that we had exceeded our allocated miniutes by over 1000 minutes (on a 750 minute plan). This struck us as odd since we had never exceeded our minutes in the year we had the phones, including the month that we had purchased our home, and I had to work out meetings with home inspectors, the owners of the house, and the owners of the park that the house was in, all of which took place during peak time. When we requested an itemized listing of all calls placed and recieved, they refused. Needless to say we canceled our plan.

We've since switched over to Qwest wireless, and while the network is sprints, the customer service is qwests. and we've had no problems with the exception of the poor coverage inherent in spirts network.

Anyway, just my experience. Your mileage may vary.

Pat Hager.

EDIT: added full name.

[Pete]

Nothing worse than those Nextel "walkie talkie" things ... obnoxious chirping and loudspeakers ... can't they be used like a regular phone? I'm tired of hearing other people's conversations!

I had Qwest for a while ... but in Down Town Portland, I got no signal at all. Lots of excuses, like "update your software" call service. When I first signed up with them, they had a local service center. Now it's in Colorado, which is inconvenient when you need to transfer your addressbook to a new phone.

I've had Verizon for several years now and love their "get it on the first ring" service and "solve it on the first call" mission. Fortunately, I haven't needed service more than once, and that was because there were programming problems when Oregon introduced the 541 area code. But Verizon issued me a new phone number over the phone and I was solved in just a couple minutes.

Since there are complaints above ... My name is Pete Morris.

[8-guage]

T-Mobile is, in my iopinion, the best by a LONG, LONG shot.
The absolute BEST customer service for over 5 years.
3000 anytime minutes for $49.00/month

[baltz526]

i have us cellular, good coverage in central oregon and everywhere else i have been, where it is a digital tower. i also have unicell for all the old analog towers. two phones pretty much covers the east side, if you can find a mountain top to call from

[STGRule]

All I know is when we are in the Gorge and the work phone (Cingular)doesn't work, I have to use my personal phone (Verizon) and it does.

[walkersteelhead]

I have tried about every cell company there is around here and have had the best luck with Sprint.

[sng]

Verizon, keeps us happy

[hetchy]

I used to have Nextel/Sprint for our company phones and we switched to Cingular. I can't say the customer service is good for either. Seems like there is alway some sort of hassle. To the person above who wants a Razor, depending on your use it might be ok but it has a very small ear piece that has to be just in the right spot on your ear or its hard to hear. Sometimes I have to pull over my diesal pickup to have a decent conversation over the engine noise, same problem at construction sites. The plain old basic flip phones we have work much better. Since I've tried the other two big providers and don't like them when the contracts are we are going to Verizon so they get my vote.

[R Jackson]

Go Verizon and get a phone that can switch from to digital and anolouge mode.

[wthr4d]

As you can tell by the variety of responces, a service is only as good as where you use. I will explain. when I ge to select a plan/carrier I look at where I GO.where will I be using the phone the most, then where will I be that I will need it the most, and check for covereage eith each carrier for that area. I can tell you two things, I have had cellular one, At&t, and verizon. I have been out with friends that have had voicestream, sprint, and somilar carriers. coverage will vary greatly with the type of equipment you use. if you will be on the coast and out in central oregon I would say that your two best options are cingular or verizon.
Verizon will give you good coverage along the coast, but cingular will give you similar coverage in different areas. For central oregon you will have good results with both, BUT if you have a triMode phone or one with analog option cingular will give you incredible covearge(they tookover at&t who took over cellularone) with the network that cellularone out together in the '90's

Paul