Cell phone questions

[Mr. Irrelevant]

Use Verizon, used to use Cingular. Have a plan that gets me 800 anytime minutes, free after 9pm to 7am and free on the weekends. Also 1000 minutes free when talking to another Verizon user(In-Network). Coverage is great! HOWEVER, don't be fooled by their glossy marketing showing the areas where they have no roaming. Just pure BS. If you fly into some remote fields in rural areas as I do sometimes, you'll get roaming and pay roaming! Even though their marketing says you won't roam in that area. Service is so-so. Nothing bad but I'm not impressed to not look elsewhere when my contract comes up this summer.

Cingular was horrible. Dropped calls constantly and I live in a very urban area. You would think they would have coverage everywhere in a big city but I couldn't even use the cell at home. Service, well, read the fine print of your contract. Lots of b.s. that attempts to lock you into paying certain fees if you don't follow specific steps when cancelling your plan. When I first signed up, it was my first cell phone but they filed it as an upgrade which is an automatic two year contract renewal. Thankfully I kept the original contract showing a one year commitment. It's one thing if your company is covering the plan, it's another if it comes out of your pocket.

I'm not crazy about either but Verizon hasn't given me coverage issues, just roaming costs! Good luck.

Mr. I.

 

[MSNFlier]

Verizon experiences...

I switched to Verizon last May and have been generally satisfied. As noted by others, the coverage is very good in the US, but it appears I may experience more dropped calls than others report. This may be due to the fact that I often drive longer distances for my work, usually away from major metropolitan areas, so when I go from Verizon's network to roaming (or vice-versa) my call will sometimes drop. It happens on about 1/2 of the switch-overs.

Also, if you go with Verizon do not get a phone which has analog capability. I have found that it's far more trouble than it's worth because even a 1-bar digital signal is not going to scratchy at all, but a 4-bar analog signal will be terrible on a hand-held .6 watt cell phone. Also, my Verizon phone (Motorola V710) will not go back to digital signal within a call once it has switched to analog. You cannot select digital-only on the phone, but you can select analog-only (why Motorola gave one option and not the other doesn't make sense to me). Since these phones all have counterparts on the other systems (my V710 has a Cingular counterpart, for instance), I suspect you'll run into the same problem there, too.

One thing I miss from using Nextel (before Verizon) was that I might have had six dropped calls in over 4 years. Unfortunately, their coverage was limited to pretty much urban and suburban areas in the upper-midwest and major highways (i.e., 4-lane roads). Nextel had no roaming charges (anywhere you got a signal it was Nextel - no roaming charges ever was the reason I initially went with them, no other company did that in 1999), but my plan with Verizon is a "no roaming/no long distance" deal so I don't worry about that now, either.

I recently went to the UK and France for a week. Since you cannot use your phone there, Verizon has a deal where you can set up a temporary phone that will either be delivered to you before you leave or you can pick up when you arrive in Europe. It's through Vodafone (who I think owns a portion of Verizon and is huge in Europe), and I found that it worked well - at $1.85/min, plus $3.00 per day fee. I think you would do the same thing for the Caribbean, too. All you have to do is follow the instructions that come with your temporary phone to set up call forwarding from your Verizon phone to the Vodafone and people will be able to reach you at your regular Verizon number.

Any other questions, PM me. Good luck.

 

[Diesel]

If you really want true coverage you can go with a cingular blue (att) or cingular GAIT phone.

A GAIT phone runs GSM, TDMA and Digital phone like the nokia 6340i.

I keep a GAIT phone in my bag just in case I'm in a place that doesn't have GSM service and I visit about 5 podunk airports a day. The 850mhz buildout has really improved the service to the next level.

Suprisingly the only place that doesn't have GSM is our cabin up in Maine.

Especially now that the GSM coverage with Cingular has merged with ATT the coverage has been excellent. International discounted roaming is excellent too. Also North America (canada included) is in your normal calling area.

If you end up with a nokia GSM phone I have an unlock calculator that can unlock any GSM phone with just the ESN number.

 

[Gulfstream 200]

if anyone has the unlock software for Motorola V60/66 series please PM me also!!

 

[Diesel]

Gulfstream check your Pm's

Remember an unlock code is not just one code. It's esn specific.