which cell phone has service in the most places in us?

F

Fishcake

New member
ive had nextel for years and ive noticed that in alot of parts of the country i dont have a signal. if you guys had to choose one cell phone company that got service at the most places in the us, which one would you say is the best. this thread has nothing to do with the cost of the plan. is it on record that a certain company has the most cell phone towers? im sick of my phone cutting out in certain areas. what do you guys think?
 
Cingular for GSM and Verizon for CDMA. No question. But they all have holes. I have a friend who lives in Maine and Sprint is the only carrier that will work for him at his house.

You need to take a hard look at where you will use the phone - where you live, work, play, travel, etc. Talk to family, friends, co-workers, etc. Check out the coverage maps and then take a test drive.

I would have to say that Nextel, in my opinion, is probably the worst as far as US coverage is concerned.
 
Do a search. Google is your friend.

GSM is the technology used by Cingular and T-Mobile, and most of the rest of the world for that matter. CDMA is used by Verizon and Sprint. Phones using one or the other technology are not interchangable, meaning a GSM phone can't be used on a CDMA network and vice versa.
 
DubDub, does that mean Cingular and T-Mobile get the same exact same signal in every place? and vice versa for verizon and sprint.
 
As far as Cingular and T-Mobile go, I don't think that they get the same exact signal everywhere. They operate on different bands, with Cingular often using the 850mhz band, while T-Mobile is solely on the 1900 band I believe. Cingular also uses the 1900 band, but in certain areas they pretty much use nothing but 850.

IMHO, I think that DubDub is correct as far as overall continental coverage with Cingular and Verizon. There are ups and downs to every company, for instance, Verizon cripples their phones. Cingular has probably the most expensive plans and internet. There are a lot of factors to throw in there when deciding. You will need to look at your best interest, where you live, your needs, etc. before choosing a network.

If I had to choose, I would go with Cingular/AT&T, then T-Mobile, then possibly a CDMA provider. I like using a SIM card and being able to switch phones out at my leisure. I like that I can purcahse a phone not available by my provider and use it when I want. I would probably choose Verizon last, even if they have the best CDMA network out there. I cannot stand that they cripple their phones the way they do. That just does not sit right with me.
 
Cingular and T-Mobile do not get the same coverage. The GSM carriers are very pro-active in certain areas of the country about not letting their own customers use the roaming signal of another provider. In other instances, the company that owns the tower will restrict access to their own customers such as the case in many places in the Carolinas where T-Mobile uses the inferior SunCom network instead of Cingular or some places in Georgia where T-Mobile uses nobody instead of Cingular. Those are just a couple of examples but there are plenty of others where T-Mobile has the upper hand.

CDMA carriers are much more inclusive on the roaming agreements. Verizon is actually probably the worst in the CDMA realm because of the number of SIDs they have marked as NEG so they won't have to pay the high roaming cost of allowing their customers to roam on those networks. For the most nationwide coverage, including roaming partners, Sprint is the most liberal carrier that allows their customers access to basically any signal their phone can use. Alltel even has less SIDs NEG'ed out than Verizon if you live in an area where they're available.

So the first thing I would do is decide between GSM and CDMA. Nationally, they have very different footprints and CDMA has the upper hand overall, but some areas in the US are GSM dominated -- South Florida, some of Texas, while others are CDMA dominated--the Carolinas, some of Iowa, some of Minnesota, etc. So the maps can be a good guide. Once you decide which technology provides a better signal to your area and places you travel, then roaming agreements will make the other areas very similar, but not quite the same.
 
Excellent Post. I live in So Fla, have both T-Mobile and Sprint and find that the GSM coverage is much larger and spaced than the CDMA
 
Heavy Fluid, what do you mean about verizons phones being crippled? are you just saying that verizon doesn't have sim cards?

is there a certain website that explains how good the coverage is in different areas of the country for different companies?
 
I agree with most of what you said, however, I do not agree that deciding between GSM and CDMA should be the first step. The first one IMHO, is to actually decide which carrier to use. Look at where you will use the phone - where you live, work, travel, play, etc. Talk to family, friends, coworkers and see what they use and how they like their carrier. Deciding the carrier will determine the technology for you, and is in essence doing what you said, but in a more reasonable way.
 
I wouldn't disagree with that and that's actually the way I meant it. With the GSM and CDMA mini-debate with roaming and coverage areas I was trying to simplify along those lines. But basically yeah, just forget the GSM vs. CDMA and find out which carrier works best in the areas you mentioned.
 
Verizon and all of the other CDMA providers in the U.S. do not have SIM cards. That doesn't have much to do with what I am talking about. When I say crippled, I mean that they cripple the Bluetooth capabilities of the phone. You get to use a headset, that is about it. I can transfer ringtones, pictures, wallpapers, full songs, sync with my computer for calendars and phone numbers and I can send stuff to other phones. Oh yeah, I get to use a headset also.

Verizon also puts their user interface on all of their phones. The infamous red bars. Ugh, and as of now, there really isn't a way to change them, although I have heard rumors that there will be a way very soon, if not now.

Sprint also cripples their phones, although I do not think that it is to the same extent as Verizon.
 
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