[Nancy Jocoy]

I am so fed up with Verizon and my contract is up soon.

Does anyone have any better experiences and good phones and plans in this area? Customer Service with them is a joke. I do have to go into the rural areas a good bit and Verizon has the best service maps but I know darned well that the maps are, well, not quite accurate.

I know that the mountans of Western NC are a crap shoot but I have to go outside of my house in the metro Charlotte area to talk on the darned cell phone.

I know all cell phones are not equal - right now my dying phone is a Nokia 3589i that outperforms a lot of more expensive digital phones) but it still stinks ......

also do you know if you can do anything to improve your reception at your house. I think the fact is we are in CINGULAR country (they own the local phone and cable) and the local cell towers - but once you get off the interstate they are no good

Thanks - I am in vent mode right now.

 

[Kristen Cabe]

We use Cingular. Have for several years now and have had no problems so far, on OR off the interstate. We don't have a land line phone; we just use our cell phones.

I've been happy with my little phone, which is a Sony Eriksson. Before it, I had a Nokia that got good reception. We just ask at the store which phones have the best reception. You can try them out for 30 days and switch them out if you don't like them - just don't send in your rebates if you have them, until you've decided which phone you want to keep.

 

[Alicia Mertz]

I use Cingular, too, and live in Raleigh. We do have some problems with picking up a signal even though the "rural" areas around here aren't THAT rural, but I'm not sure if it's the phones themselves or an actual problem with Cingular coverage. I'm going to guess the former.

If you're looking to switch, check out Amazon.com for a phone and plan. You can pick up a phone on there a lot cheaper than you can directly through Cingular - in fact, sometimes the rebates are so large that you actually MAKE money getting a phone :lol: - and they set everything up with Cingular for you. In three or four days, you have your phone, plan, and are ready to go.

 

[Stacia Porter]

I'm in Hickory and our Verizon phones barely ever have service. My uncle from Cincinnati never has a problem here with his Cingular -- and he gets better rates than I do, too! We've been considering cancelling our Verizon contract early b/c the service is so unreliable.

 

[Nancy Jocoy]

Wow 3 for 3 so far.

Most of the folks on my SAR team are on Verizon so you can see this is a MAJOR change for me. But when I complain to Verizon about not being able to use the phone at my house it is like there is ZERO help and this has been going on for years. (I have had Verizon since 1997 and it has gotten worse not better)

 

[David Frost]

I have Nextel. Any where near a big city or an I road and they are handy as a pocket on a shirt. YOu get in the boonies and you may as well send smoke signals. My wife has verizon (seems we never do anything together) and she seems to get pretty good service.

DFrost

 

[Jerry Lyda]

I use Cingular and I love it. All will have problems but Cingular is the one for me. If I talk to anyone that is on Cingular too there is no charge. With that said, I think all dog people should go to Cingular. ( No charge) I have the older Nokia phone and it's great. If I want to take a picture I'll just use my camera.

 

[Connie Sutherland]

I use Cingular and I love it. All will have problems but Cingular is the one for me. If I talk to anyone that is on Cingular too there is no charge. With that said, I think all dog people should go to Cingular. ( No charge) I have the older Nokia phone and it's great. If I want to take a picture I'll just use my camera.

I do the bill-paying, banking, etc., for a client, a long-distance hauler who is on the road for weeks at a time and relies 100% on his cell phone dozens of times a day.

His take is: Verizon has more clear-signal areas, but Cingular has much better customer service. (This is after months with each.)

Now he's using Verizon because he has to have a signal everywhere, but he says that if he lived a normal life, he'd switch to Cingular in a heartbeat.

 

[Connie Sutherland]

I used this when I was finding plans for him: http://www.wirelessguide.org/

Also, for the best phone itself, I googled CELL PHONE COMPARISONS. Wish I could remember which one it was, but I can't.

 

[Nancy Jocoy]

It really is a zoo ----

It is like buying a computer, actually worse than.

I don't care about taking pictures,playing music, playing games, or surifing the internet. I know how to read maps and carry a GPS anyway.

But getting a good signal in the boonies and not dropping calls is important to me.

For those of you with Cingular are you often out in the middle of nowhere? In the woods. More than a few miles from an interstate?

 

[Kristen Cabe]

Nancy, yes. I take my phone hiking up on the Blue Ridge Parkway and everything, and though I do lose signal on some of the trails, I have signal longer than most. Granted, I don't always have 5 bars, but there is signal! :wink:

There are actually 3 places that I know of ON the interstates that go through Asheville where signal gets jumbled, but they are short and if I just stay on the call, It'll pick back up once I get out of those areas. Also, going through the gorge on I-40 there is no signal for anyone.


If/When Nextel gets coverage up here, we'd LOVE to get it, but it's just not here yet.

 

[Bob Scott]

Our SAR team had Nextel. It sucked!! JMHO!

 

[Nancy Jocoy]

LOL Nextel is not EVEN in the running.

The Cingular thing is still a strong consideration ..... so it is between Cingular and Verizon. I am waiting to here back from Verizon as to what they will do to correct my reception problem in the house. It is very good everywhere else I go.

 

[Patrick Cheatham]

Nancy I have no problems with my verzion but I can tell you this. Michelin is switching a multi million dollar contract to cingular from verizon because of the reception. So to keep my discount I just may be changing as well.

 

[Woody Taylor]

It really is a zoo ----

It is like buying a computer, actually worse than.

I don't care about taking pictures,playing music, playing games, or surifing the internet. I know how to read maps and carry a GPS anyway.

But getting a good signal in the boonies and not dropping calls is important to me.

For those of you with Cingular are you often out in the middle of nowhere? In the woods. More than a few miles from an interstate?

You break my heart. Picture a nice, prolonged search...nothing to do but sit and wait...with a nice Blackberry 8700, you can post here!

I actually think a Blackberry would be quite handy for SAR. You can access a ton of information, and the new high-speed networks make that about as painful as a 56k modem. Emails, SMS, etc. may all be of interest to you. And you can download a Google Maps app to your phone, which is cool and freaky (Bob's club was impressed (? :lol when I was able to show them satellite pictures of their training field as well as look up their dogs on pedigreedatabase.com.

Here's where Bob's team practices, btw :lol::
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=...795,-90.630099&spn=0.001837,0.003374&t=k&om=1

Some Cingular dealer franchises have no-fault trial periods...based on your needs, I'd go with that and figure out what you need before you buy something from Amazon unless there's a return policy there as well...

 

[Maren Bell Jones]

Nancy, I feel your pain!! My first cell phone was a Verizon. Then I switched to AT&T. Then AT&T became Cingular. Then I switched to Sprint. Now I just started service with T-Mobile a week ago! YIKES! Anyways, what I highly recommend is checking out the models of phone on http://www.cnet.com/ and they often give a little mini video about the pluses and minuses of the phone as well as consumer commentary. This site is also really helpful http://www.letstalk.com/reviews/reviewhome.htm for checking out people's experiences. This one might be helpful too: http://www.cellreception.com/

 

[Nancy Jocoy]

Maren -- the site with the towers and comments is good - funny I had been on mobeledia and did not find the internal link.

So what I find is they ALL stink

Woody -- I would be happy just to be able to TALK on a phone. I enjoy getting away from all the electronic stuff (my favorite thing while waiting in the woods is reading or poking at things with my tracking stick) -- Not sure I am ready for a Blackberry yet. -- Now on a prolonged search there is a lot to do that requires all your senses......... the nothing to do is when you are hiding for someone during training.

Patrick-I can get an employee discount (significant) myself at Cingular AND the phone I want. I am leaning that way myself...though I may give Verizon a 15 day go with new phones first.

They all have free trial periods; I think they are required to by law.

For anyone else looking ZDNET.com and Mobeledia also have reviews.

 

[Mike Schoonbrood]

I'm on T-Mobile, I like GSM networks. I hate Nextel, I know that if I call anyone with a Nextel that I have to dial their number 3 times because I keep getting the "Locating subscriber" crap. I drowned my Razr on the jet ski a week ago so I just switched to a Samsung T809, I prefer it over the Razr, I didn't think I would. I do notice that when I go into the middle of nowhere FL like the Northwest area heading toward Tallahassee that my signal is in and out, its decent in the towns, but disappears on the roads you'd most need a cell if you broke down :lol: But I have clear signal all the way from Orlando to Miami.... My Yukon came with OnStar so at least I always have a phone wherever I need it n not be dependant on cell signal.

 

[Kristen Cabe]

Actually even with OnStar you have to be careful because it's dependent upon satellite signal. Up here in the mountains I know that it can sometimes be difficult (or impossible) to use OnStar because the signal can't get out.

 

[Woody Taylor]

Actually even with OnStar you have to be careful because it's dependent upon satellite signal. Up here in the mountains I know that it can sometimes be difficult (or impossible) to use OnStar because the signal can't get out.

The more I think about this, I'd contact some park rangers up in the Blue Ridge and stuff and ask them what they use. Dept of Parks and Recreation and Fishing Licenses or whatever.

And if you're in places where satellite is questionable, you may be SOL...?