Ask Slashdot: Best Cell Phone Carrier In the US? 375
martypantsROK writes "After nearly seven years of living abroad, I'm planning to return to the U.S. in early 2013. Last time I lived there, smart phones weren't out yet. Dropped calls were common, and poor reception (can you hear me now?) was an ad campaign. I'm used to South Korea's wicked speeds, both for internet and wireless networks, and I'm wondering what the Slashdot community believes to be best carrier in the U.S. Which is fastest? Which offers the best deal for lots of data? Nationwide roaming and coverage? Prices? Service?"
Is there one? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's like asking what the best fast food restaurant is.
Re:Is there one? (Score:5, Funny)
SmokeMobile - uses smoke signals instead of cell towers.
Re:Is there one? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's like asking what the best fast food restaurant is.
It used to be Wendy's, but they've done something to the bacon, and hiked up the prices. They've gone downhill quite a bit since Dave Thomas died.
Re:Is there one? (Score:5, Funny)
That's like asking what the best fast food restaurant is.
It used to be Wendy's, but they've done something to the bacon, and hiked up the prices. They've gone downhill quite a bit since Dave Thomas died.
Dave Thomas dies. Their bacon changes taste. Oh, God, no!
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Yeah, stay away from the Wendy's Soylent Burgers... Their new add campaign focuses on "The familiar taste of Wendy's, just like someone you've always known???"
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Dave Thomas dies. Their bacon changes taste. Oh, God, no!
Remember the hog shortage? I mean, with the price of meat what it is, when you get it, if you get it... [youtube.com]
Also bear in mind that the flavor varies from person to person.
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It used to be Wendy's, but they've done something to the bacon, and hiked up the prices.
In the last year or so, they have also done something to the hamburger they use.
I used to like Wendy's - now I can't even stomach one of their burgers. They're easily the worst of any major chain.
Re:Is there one? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you go to Wendy's for anything but a spicy chicken sandwich you're doing it all wrong.
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That's like asking what the best fast food restaurant is.
Wherever you are, it's always something local with only one outlet. Fourth and Sea or Fresh Freeze or Mom's Burger Bar or some such.
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Good point, although ironically none of them charge anywhere near fast food prices.
Well, I will say this about US cell phone carriers I was happy to see how much the price of data plans have gone down in price last time I renewed. I think Verizon charges like $30/month for 2GB, which may seem insane, but compared with what they charged back when the whole ".002 cents fiasco [blogspot.com]" happened 6 years ago (About $209.71 per GB), $15/GB isn't as bad. Of course, its still quite far from what you might pay for overage at a web hosting company ($1/GB) or what you pay per GB with a OC-192 connection (m
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Yes, that is correct, their 2 GB plan is $30/month, but their unlimited plan, which they no longer offer is only $20/month.
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Re:Is there one? (Score:5, Informative)
Been a really long time since I commented here on /.
I'm an indirect agent for Verizon. I'll try not to be bias, but I'm putting that out there.
Our old unlimited plans were also $30/month extra on your phone, I am not sure where the $20/month you mention comes from. The plan since the change away from unlimited was $30/mo for 2gb per phone. Those plans are no longer available for new service contracts.
Recent share plans start as low as 300mb ($40/mo overall plan price + $40 smartphone), and once you hit the 2gb tier($60/mo plan price +$40 smartphone), its $10/month for every 2gb.
So 10gb/month($100/mo) is $40/month higher than 2gb/month($60/mo).
My personal experience and opinion, I DO prefer verizon. I've always had good coverage and network speeds, and I travel to visit family regularly.
Tmobile is good in some markets, and very competitive with price, but has very limited genuine 4G coverage. (For example my dad is moving, and his new home will have no coverage for his long time carrier since he switched away from Sprint.)
ATT is usually the slowest network with decent coverage, and I believe their pricing is similar to verizon.
Sprint is OK, but again, limited market coverage. I like their pricing, but the way they do tiered unlimited is deceiving at times.
AT&T (Score:5, Informative)
Let me simplify this.
Go with t-mobile.
T-mobile coverage sucks where you live? Well, then you're stuck with Verizon (or whoever else is around).
What about AT&T you ask? Let me tell you. If you're a person who never had to deal with AT&T, you're one lucky lifeform. I'm not so lucky. I pay twice the AT&T advertised rate to the monopoly cable ISP for my home just so that I won't have to deal with AT&T.
Sprint, I don't know about.
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I have had many providers.
Each had dead areas.
Currently on sprint which has unlimited data and texts.
I liked AT&T's rollover minutes.
Best is to get friends with cell phones of the desired provider to go to areas you are going to call from a lot (like your work and house) and tell you how many bars they get there.
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Re:Is there one? (Score:4, Informative)
T-Mobile Monthly. 60$, 2GB 4G, unlimited slow after that. Unlimited text and voice. Spotty coverage for data, but sometimes blazing fast (SF bay area, LA, etc).
Most importantly, no hassles! Pay. Works. Don't pay, doesn't work. No contract. No activation fees. No fee fees. OMFG awesome.
You have to provide your own phone. Google Galaxy Nexus was my choice, but then I like the Google infrastructure.
andy
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You are right. I don't know of any fast food restaurants that offer all you can eat, 24 hours a day, for $80 per month.
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This probably explains a lot in regards to my recent frustrating dealings with Samsung Korea as a CyanogenMod maintainer.
The US guys seem to want to do the right thing and are very intelligent - but the Koreans keep crippling them with illogical irrationality.
For example, even though all of their international devices have unlocked bootloaders, the very first stage of their boot sequence is locked down. The end result is that while the CPU is capable of booting directly from USB even if the bootloader chai
Here's one place to look and one I was considering (Score:5, Informative)
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The US is a big place, and even within relatively small geographical areas there can be a lot of variation. Look at where you are goi
Re:Here's one place to look and one I was consider (Score:5, Informative)
I'd add www.coveragemapper.com [coveragemapper.com] and www.cellmapper.net [cellmapper.net] to the list although I'm not sure how complete their coverage maps are for USA; pretty good for Canada.
I checked out opensignal.com (formerly opensignalmaps.com) and was disappointed in the countries & cities they had maps for.
They all suck (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They all suck (Score:4, Insightful)
Just accept that and find the plan that best suits your needs.
To put it in other way: if "wicked internet/mobile speeds" are essential for your life style, consider postponing your return to US...
T-Mobile for service. (Score:5, Informative)
The best customer service you'll get is T-Mobile. Not the best coverage if you are outside of a metro area but they have fantastic UMA (WiFi calling) support. Their plans are as good or better than others.
Just getting reasonable people on the phone for support is what has kept me happy for 7 years.
Re:T-Mobile for service. (Score:5, Informative)
IME you can't beat the customer service from T-Mobile. Verizon's has been less than great and their prices are through the roof.
Re:T-Mobile (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't really care about customer service, but I've been a pretty happy T-Mobile customer since the Voicestream days.
They probably have the cheapest plans, and will probably be the most familiar service for international folks... what with using SIM cards and allowing you to use unlocked phones and such. If you already have a quad-band "international" phone, this may be your best bet with finding a phone you can use elsewhere in the world (but do your research... there seem to be some caveats when it comes to max data speed).
Also, don't shy away with buying an unlocked smartphone from Craigslist. You can get lots of equipment like that for pretty cheap, and T-mobile has cheaper monthly rates without a 1-2yr contract that you would have to sign up for when subsidizing a phone purchase through them... though you might have to dig a bit to get to those cheaper plans.
Another side benefit is if you pay for the Android data plan, you could probably get away with tethering Android tablets at no extra charge. They recently started detecting PC browsers and redirecting you to a tethering upsell if you try to tether a laptop, though.
Coverage is great in metropolitan areas and along most interstate corridors. If you want better coverage, then pay out the nose for a Verizon phone... I've had these for work... so I didn't really care about having a locked-down phone as long as I wasn't paying for it.
Re:T-Mobile (Score:5, Informative)
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Very true.
Want to turn over your wallet for high monthly charges? Chose AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.
T-Mobile is the only real choice.
Re:T-Mobile for service. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, no kIdding. If you're going to buy all three it's going to get pricey.
Re:T-Mobile for service. (Score:4, Insightful)
Or MetroPCS. I've been MetroPCS customers for years since I got tired of Verizon's (over)pricing games. Coverage is actually pretty good (in Nevada/California) the price is excellent, unlimited EVERYTHING for $50.
No, I have no affiliation other than being a happy customer. Customer service is almost non-existent, but we've never felt the need for it because it just works and the bill is (ahem) flat rate.
Also, contracts are month to month and if you are too late, your phone just stops working. When you pay the bill your phone starts working within an hour or so. There is no collections department.
IMHO, this is cellular done right.
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Agreed, i have 5GB/pm,100 minutes (overage at 10c/min), and unlimited text for $30/pm. it's an internet only deal, but its there.
I just signed up for this same plan. It's a great deal - 100 minutes of talk a month is 5x what I normally use anyway. AND the 5GB cap just means you get dropped to EDGE speeds for the rest of the month if you use more than 5GB of data.
Really, the main drawback with T-Mobile is coverage. On the west coast they do pretty well; but from what I've heard they are seriously behind the further east you go.
The other problem with T-Mobile is their 3G service is on an unusual frequency - but they're reallocating spe
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The current Galaxy Nexus and several other phones handle both AT&T and T-Mobile's 3G frequencies. You are right, however, in that a lot of phones won't.
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WTF are you talking about? I never paid and 'initial deposit.'
I've even had them drop a phone from my plan eight months early with no charge just because I have been a customer for so long. Every time I've need to change my plan due to life/work changes, they have been most helpful in finding the cheapest way to do it. You won't get better customer service from any other provider.
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I've got to second this. When they dropped their no-contract plans (which were $10-$20 cheaper a month than the same contract plan) and I needed to switch, they gave me a $100 credit because I was annoyed at having to renew a contract despite never getting a subsidized phone from them. They'll also unlock any phone they sell after 90 days, free of charge.
Re:T-Mobile for service. (Score:4, Insightful)
Deposit? I've been a TMO customer for 7 years, never a deposit. They've unlocked phones for me no hassle, actually listened to me rant about dropped calls in specific locations, and are now working their way through finding the rogue tower in North Phoenix that is EDGE, just EDGE, no matter how hard I try to get HSDPA+ out of it. They do try.
My unlimited voice/txt/2GB data plan is $85/mo taxes and all. Last month I got to 1.87GB in a month by resetting my phone twice and reloading apps etc over 3G. UMTS or HSDPA+ run from 4-12MB down and 1-8MB up, depending on time of day and location. Coverage is less than most other carriers, so check carefully, and if possible have a subscriber over to your crib for dinner and drinks. And ask around your work how TMO users are doing.
My wife's AT&T iPhone plan is 700 mins/unl text/3GB data for about $109 taxes and all. Just enough difference that it;s annoying. She gets emails when data gets to 75% or so telling her to spend more money. The Apple tax is noticeable.
There isn't one. (Score:2)
What do you mean by "best"? (Score:4, Insightful)
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They all suck.... (Score:2)
...the harder part is finding out which one sucks just a little less at any particular point.
NOT AT&T (Score:2)
I'm that one guy who manages to get pretty good reception through AT&T where I live. I regularly make 2+ hour phone calls that do not get dropped. I don't have missed calls or SMS's that never arrive. On that note, I'm actually fairly happy with them. But in terms of service... UGH.
Twice this year I've had issues that required that I have a chat with them. Both were issues that could easily have been resolved via e-mail, and both ended up with a lengthy email exchange AND time on the phone. I don'
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I had two numbers on AT&T - one phone and one data. For data I had a cell modem card that was 3G capable.
One day, my data card screws up on me and won't connect anymore. I get weird light patterns on it. Oh well, time for a new data card, I think. So, I stop at an AT&T store to look into upgrades.
Turns out, I still had the "unlimited" plan, and had racked up 20GB of data. I knew there was no way I used that much data - for one, my laptop is usually hibernating in the sleeper of my truck. I fig
impossible question. No ideal carrier exists here. (Score:5, Informative)
Verizon has ubiquitous buildouts of outdated wireless infrastructure. They can service a text message or a voice call almost anywhere in the US. They also charge 70+ a month for basic service, and have technological limitations on surfing while talking. I hear their customer service is legendary in the "eldritch horror" category.
ATT has the best GSM tech buildout in the US, but is SERIOUSLY oversold. They engage in abusive market tactics, pathologically insist the problem isn't from overselling, and have customer service horrible enough that even verizon could appear desirable. Theoretically can surf and talk simultaneously, but charge extra for the priviledge of tethering, drop calls horribly, and have spotty data coverage.
Sprint-Nextel has a fairly stable network of comparatively subpar network technologies servicing cheaper prepaid type devices and feature phones. Cheap and ubiquitous, but data is a farce, IIRC.
T-Mo has very limited buildout, is not loved by the parent company (deutch telecom), and struggles in the telecom marketplace. Despite this, has fairly nice customer service, offers incentives for patronage of their users, and are trying to improve coverage maps and network tech. Currently involved in a fairly ambitious LTE 4G buildout. Reasonably inexpensive; no contract unlimited talk, text, and 2gb 4G data for 60/mo. (Not the fastest though. 5300kbps down, 1200kbps up last I measured in my area.) Spotty coverage. Claim to fame is wifi calling and free teathering.
To me, the ideal carrier could only be born from strongly enforced neutrality laws allowing cheap sublicense of spectrum and infrastructure, with a dual technology, quad-band handset, able to leverage verizon's CDMA network as a fallback, and full GSM operation on both ATT and T-Mo spectrum. Such a company could never exist in the USA under prevailing conditions, which do not foster true innovative service offerings, but rather collusion based pricing hegemonies.
That's about the schtick of it as far as I know.
I actually like T-Mo, despite the weak coverage areas. I recently got a nice promotional offer from them recently for being a long term customer. (They offered the next tier service at my current tier price for 12 months, which greatly increased my dl cap at 4G speed.)
As far as I know, ATT and verizon bend over backwards to make you lose old plans they think aren't profitable, and force you to spend money. (I can revert to my previous level of service very painlessly with T-Mo after the promotion ends.)
If you are spoiled by south korean telecom, you be mortified by the horrible state of american telecom.
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As far as I know, ATT and verizon bend over backwards to make you lose old plans they think aren't profitable, and force you to spend money.
As far as I know about Verizon trying to make you spend money is only recent - I've been with them for ~10 years. If you are an old fart with Verizon like me, you have to give up your unlimited data UNLESS you buy your new phone outright at full price. Now I normally don't use a ton of data, but if they want to play games I can start tethering and guzzling bandwidth when I get my new phone.....
Depends on where you live (Score:2)
Verizon has the best service (in terms of quality) in cities. But in the west at least, AT&T seems like they have better coverage outside cities than Verizon... I just switched to Verizon, and I have better luck making calls at my house but venturing up into the mountains of Colorado I lose signal in places where AT&T was somewhat there (mountains are pretty rough on cell phone signal though).
Out east I think Verizon is supposed to be better everywhere.
One thing that Verizon actually does seem to d
competition (Score:2)
If you don't know, the United States does cell phone service differently than many other places. Here, you generally have your phone subsidized by buying a contract and that phone is then locked to the carrier, whereas (if I understand it correctly) in Europe you go buy a phone at full price then c
Check the maps (Score:4, Informative)
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Coverage map for many carriers (Score:2)
Sensorly.com [sensorly.com] provides coverage maps from user-generated data. I don't know how good the quality of the data is, but it allows you to compare many different carriers and avoids relying on the carriers themselves.
TMobile is only good in a city (Score:2)
The situation has been this way for 7+ years now. Now as an added bonus sometimes when I am at home, if the call isn
My Favorite So Far Is T-Mobile (Score:2)
Sprint actually has an OK signal here, but I could never get their fucking self-service web page to let me log in. There are a couple of places in town where you get no signal
verizon vs t-mobile (Score:2, Informative)
They are exact opposites among 4 major carriers, each is best on its own accord:
Verizon - best coverage, fastest internet, but uses CDMA so cannot use phone abroad, they charge arm and leg for everything, including $30/mo for SMS (tmobile offers it for free), they will happily cripple your phone for no reason, and generally many people try to stay away from it.
T-Mobile - best prices on contract, GSM network, allows to bring your own phone and gives a monthly discount if you do. Was the first carrier to offe
Where you live is what you get. (Score:2)
I can't speak for the entire U.S. It seems that carriers focus on different regions of the country. I traveled quite a bit over the past 7 years and here is my experience.
I have the best coverage with Verizon. Speeds were consistent and good. In the New England area, I get 4 or 5 bars where ever I go.
In New England, AT&T just sucks. It sucks on speed and coverage. Drive two miles of the freeway in New Hampshire or Vermont, and signals are spotty. In the metro Boston area, I can't drive 5 miles on the fr
T-mobile (Score:5, Informative)
Buy an unlocked GSM phone, and activate it on T-mobile. Or, keep the one you have, if it can handle US frequencies.
Of the four national US carries (small regional carriers typically piggy-back on the big nationals), only AT&T and T-mobile are GSM. Verizon and Sprint use CDMA.
Over ten years ago I dropped AT&T after their network became too saturated, and became pretty much unusable. From what I hear, things haven't changed.
Verizon and AT&T have the largest network and best, fastest coverages; but if you're moving to a large, populated, city, T-mobile's coverage will probably be as best as the bigger guys. Out in less-populated areas, far away from the civilization, Verizon's going to be only game in town; sometimes it's AT&T.
Sprint falls somewhere in the middle between Verizon/AT&T, and T-mobile, who is the smallest, but I think they're the most friendly to people who prefer to use their own, unlocked phone, and have very low tolerance for US cell carrier B.S. They even used to have discounted plans for people who bring their own unlocked phones, but I don't think they do that anymore. They do have "pre-paid" plans, which seem to be a bit cheaper.
There's no such thing as an unlocked CDMA phone, so with Verizon or Sprint you have to buy one from them, when you buy service. Verizon is notorious for feature-castrating their phones. It's been my experience that "Bluetooth" on Verizon's castrated phones only means a wireless headphone. That's it. No bluetooth file transfer/browsing, no other Bluetooth profiles. If you want to load your own MP3 ringtone, you can only get them on the phone by buying them from Verizon. Sometimes, I heard a rumor that some Verizon phones let you configure an MP3 ringtone that you've transferred over USB, but, it's been my experience that the UI on Verizon's phones do not let you select an uploaded/copied ringtone.
I've been happy on T-mobile for the last ~10 years. They don't care what phone I use, I just pop in a SIM, and off I go. I finally decided to get a data plan as a back-up for my wired broadband, since I telecommute. Set it up, then twiddled a bit with my phone, and had it set up tethering without any issues. From what I heard, if you want to tether with the bigger carriers, you're likely end up getting charged extra, on top of paying for the data. Utter bullshit. From what I've heard, they've been getting bitch-slapped recently, on that account, because, supposedly they're not allowed to do that anymore, as a condition for buying some recently-auctioned wireless spectrum. Whatever, I don't care.
As far as prices go, the differences between the carriers are pretty much negligible. The only other thing is: T-mobile, themselves, does not sell Iphones; but if you get an unlocked GSM one, shouldn't be too difficult to activate it. Verizon and AT&T are the primary carriers of Iphone in the US. I think Sprint might be selling them too, though.
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It's been my experience that "Bluetooth" on Verizon's castrated phones only means a wireless headphone. That's it. No bluetooth file transfer/browsing, no other Bluetooth profiles.
It may have changed, but this is exactly why I left Verizon ~10 years ago and vowed I'd never return. I took great satisfaction in writing them a letter telling them exactly that, although I doubt anyone of importance ever read it.
I've since been with T-Mobile, then AT&T prepaid, now T-Mobile prepaid.
Of the three, T-Mobile has the best customer service... but I still wouldn't call it great service; just not-as-bad-as-the-other-guys service. Their support people genuinely try to be helpful, which wasn't
Verizon... AT&T... T-Mobile -- it depends! (Score:3)
Each of the three major carriers are good is some ways and terrible in others. It all depends on what your priorities are.
Verizon has the best overall coverage US-wide. I've been to many areas that didn't have AT&T or T-Mobile coverage but have never found a place that didn't have Verizon coverage. That's about it.
AT&T has the fastest data speeds in most of the areas that it does cover (3G or LTE). Also, you can use data and voice at the same time on all of their smartphones right now. They are also less expensive than Verizon in most cases. Coverage is worse, though.
T-Mobile has ultra-low prices and the best customer service. Worst coverage and slow data speeds, though.
Oh, and there's Sprint. No idea if they will even be around this time next year.
I've been with all four. I'm with AT&T right now since I don't need Verizon's roaming coverage and would rather pay less and have faster speeds now.
Verizon, Hands Down (Score:5, Informative)
I Gave Up (Score:2)
I've gone to a smartphone run as a wifi-only SIP VOIP phone, it works where there is wifi (many places) and costs nothing. Cellular service in the U.S. is hopeless.
Flamebait (Score:2)
Why can't I mod this article/story flamebait?
Pigeons? (Score:2)
Pigeons will soon be the more secure method of communication.
Leave Your Cellphone at Home [nplusonemag.com]
The NSA Is Building the Countryâ(TM)s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say) [wired.com]
Verizon... (Score:2)
Switched the iPhone 5 about a week ago and went to Verizon and its insanely better. LTE feels about as fast as WiFi at home, and actually faster than some hotel WiFis.
What? (Score:2)
OP, what are you hoping to get from this Ask Slashdot that you couldn't get from doing your own research? What next, "how do I fix my computer?".
Verizon (Score:3)
If you define best as in most reliable coverage, the answer tends to be Verizon regardless of the city in question. This is doubly true as soon as you get into more rural areas, but it's worthwhile in the city as well. (ie, Slightly less likelihood of losing signal in elevators, inside buildings, etc.. than AT&T or T-mobile. Call quality also tends to be better, with less distortions and other weirdness in my experience.)
For what it's worth, I've also found Verizon's support to be quite good. I'm not sure why all the vitriolic posts about them; every time I've needed them (maybe 4-5 times over the past half decade?), their support has been prompt and helpful, even for weird things like playing musical chairs with phones in an account while simultaneously preserving all upgrade/contract dates. It is also all US-based, and has great hours well into the evening. What more do you want, especially in this day and age of overseas, outsourced support from India that you can barely understand?
Verizon knows they are the best though, and thus rapes your wallet in every conceivable way as a result. If money is your bottom line, don't even look at them. Go with T-mobile or even AT&T. If however you want the best coverage and quality of service, Verizon is the way to go in most places.
Virgin Mobile is looking interesting in the USA (Score:5, Interesting)
Service (Score:2)
Bring your phone from korea. It will work on ATT. Get a pre-paid straight talk SIM but do NOT use over 2GB of data/mo. They have a very lame hard limit grrr.
If you have a penta-band (Galaxy Nexus is the only I know off hand) then the T-Mo options for a data lopsided plan is fine if you don't take voice calls (100 min/mo is designed to be too little, of course). But the 5GB of data is sweet, esp since it just gets throttled to edge if you pass it.
If you feel the need to overpay for your phone on a lame contr
I can tell you which the worst one is... (Score:3)
I've been using AT&T for years. (Score:2)
Mainly because it was Cingular when I started there, and they haven't yet pissed me off enough to bother going through the effort of switching. I am unable to tell you about the nuts and bolts of my plan because it really just doesn't interest me and I'm too lazy to open another tab and track down the details. This is what I know of it, though:
- I can't comment about dropped calls, simply because I hardly ever use the thing as an actual phone. On the rare occasion that I do use it as a phone, I push a f
Shop coverage locally (Score:2)
But as my subject says, coverage is a local issue. Some are great on one part of town, and horrible on another. So asking the world about what to get when you move to the US is like asking which gas stati
Sprint (Score:3)
Because it frees you from having to use a phone at all. You can stick your head out the window and shout at more people than mere 'phones' on Sprint can reach.
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Seems like Ting is only a better deal than Virgin Mobile (which also runs on Sprint) if you select a fairly limited plan. Still, that could be good for light users.
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I have the same experience. Switched from AT&T to Verizon, and I get a lot more dropped calls with Verizon. The myth that Verizon is better is just that.
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That's the point though. Coverage varies greatly depending on location. Verizon and AT&T seem to work most anywhere but from my experience I've never been anywhere Verizon worked and AT&T didn't although I have seen places AT&T worked and Verizon didn't. Not very many though but my house is one of them.
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Re:Verizon is #1 in dropped calls (Score:5, Interesting)
This has more to do with GSM vs CDMA. There was an article on Slashdot recently about how CDMA has "won" the protocol war because it can handle more simultaneous connections. What wasn't mentioned is that the main difference is that GSM tries to keep all current connections regardless of signal strength, while CDMA drops the poor signal calls if the tower is near capacity and a handset with a strong signal call is attempting place a call. As a consumer, I went for GSM. In the U.S., this means AT&T or T-Mobile, or a MVNO like Trak Phone or SIMple Mobile. I also like the GSM device selection better.
LTE may be changing this, though.
It is interesting to see which countries went with CDMA over GSM. As far as I know, only the U.S., China and Mexico use CDMA.
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Re:Verizon is #1 in dropped calls (Score:5, Informative)
No, he's talking out his arse. For one, his talk about CDMA use is nonsense - Korea, Japan and Vietnam all use US-style CDMA, and Australia did for a while before dropping it. The most widespread 3G system is W-CDMA (called UMTS when it's run at 2.1GHz), so all the world is using a form of CDMA.
On the technical front, he's talking crap, too. The way CDMA works is that everyone on a channel transmits on the same frequency at the same time, but everyone's signal is scrambled using a different permutation of the "convolution code". This means that to each user, every other user's signal appears as noise. The scrambling needs to be precisely synchronised for this to work properly, hence the need for high-accuracy, (typically GPS-derived) time in base stations. It also means that adding more users to a channel just degrades the signal for everyone and gradually reduces the effective coverage area of the base. This is sold as an advantage, as you don't need as many bases to get coverage of the same size area if users are sparse.
The complication comes in when you have a nearby mobile and a more remote mobile: assuming they have the same transmission power capability, if both transmit as full power, the nearby mobile's signal, appearing as noise when the base is trying to decode the remote mobile's signal, will totally swamp it. The base has to actively manage the transmit power of all mobile stations so that each one is transmitting at the lowest power at which it can receive a reliable signal. This is a complicated optimisation problem that uses lots of CPU power in the base station. It sends literally hundreds of transmit power management messages each second to each mobile. W-CDMA, with wide 5MHz channels, also gives the base station freedom to assign different size parts of the code tree to different mobiles, allowing bandwidth and reliability to be traded off on yet another level.
The reason you can get dropouts is that a bad decision by the base, or a badly behaved mobile that's closer to the base than you can cause the base to lose your signal. Also, excessive users on the channel (i.e. network operator not building enough base stations for number of users) will tend to cause the people with marginal signal to lose their connection.
By comparison, in a TDMA system (like GSM, iDEN or TETRA) each active mobile is assigned a timeslot, and they only transmit/receive in their allocated timeslot. Once you have a timeslot (making a call or establishing a CSD connection), it's yours until you give it up as long as you'e in the cell. If there are too many active users in the cell, you can't get a timeslot and therefore can't make a call. GPRS/EDGE packet data uses dynamically allocated timeslots that are assigned for brief periods - just long enough to send/receive a few packets at a time. There's also the issue of control channel capacity - control channels are used for call establishment sequences, SMS, cell broadcast packet timeslot negotiation, and authentication/keep-alive traffic. Control channels are a limited resource that can be over-utilised by having too many users, too many data connections, or too much SMS traffic.
Sounds simpler, right? Well, it isn't quite so easy. Remember the speed of radio wave propagation isn't infinite? If everyone was the same distance from the base, getting the timeslots to line up would be easy, but as they aren't the more distant a mobile is from the base, the earlier they have to transmit, so that the signal arrives at the right moment as seen by the base ("timing advance"). If this isn't managed correctly, received signals will overlap and corrupt each other, particularly if the signal from one (presumably closer) mobile is far stronger than the signal from another (presumably more distant) mobile. There's also a limit to how much timing advance a base can manage, meaning that under ideal signal propagation conditions there will be a distance lockout point where you will be cut off abruptly (IIRC it's typically configured for 15km, 35km or 50km for GSM, depending on user density and cell layout - it loses some capacity when configured for longer lockout distances).
Anyway, it's not that either system is designed to drop your call, they just have different trade-offs.
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Not only the simultaneous connections (due to orthogonal signaling) but also due to its longer range and higher capacity in general. GSM being TDMA has a strict limit of 20 per tower and bandwidth usage is far less efficient.
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"GSM being TDMA has a strict limit of 20 per tower"
Citation please, or stuff it in your memory slot. I see T-Mobile towers around Phoenix that are being hit by way more than 20 user simultanously.
Re:Verizon (Score:5, Informative)
From what I can tell, in terms of speed and signal reliability this guy is correct. However, in terms of reasonable pricing, I would try one of the pre-paid plans (Boost, Tmobile, StraightTalk). I'm on Tmobile's $30 / month plan that only has 100 minutes but has unlimited text and data (2 or 5 gigs at HSPA+ then down to edge. HSPA+ is short of 4g LTE speed but still quite fast). I circumvent the minutes limit by routing calls through Google Voice, and while to set that up was a hassle, I'm very much enjoying my $30/month bill for all the data capabilities I've been allotted.
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(Assuming you are going to be spending the majority of your time in an urban area)
Get an unlocked Galaxy Nexus (or whatever the next Nexus is) and use it on the Straight Talk T Mobile service.
Here's a pretty comprehensive guide: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1646755 [xda-developers.com] Plus, here's another vote for T-Mobile's customer service.
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Verizon doesn't work at my house but AT&T does and Boost mobile did, at least until they upgraded their tower when that stopped working too. Now I'm stuck with AT&T but the service, particularly the 4G is great. Not at all what I expected.
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Depends on your location.
This.
Verizon has been the strongest as far as signal and speed form my experience.
It's the exact opposite in southern (don't know about northern) Louisiana.
Re:Verizon (Score:5, Informative)
It depends on where you live. Verizon has more than a few completely dead spots where I live, and virtually no signal at my workplace, so they're completely out of the running.
The wife is on Sprint, which is worse than useless here as well -- she'll be switching to a different provider in January.
I'm on AT&T now. I haven't found a spot that it doesn't work locally, and I haven't noticed any issues while traveling.
Of course, YMMV.
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I never understand this. Because whenever I compare plans between Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint. They're usually within $10.
Right now I'm looking at $160 for Verizon, or $150 for AT&T/Sprint.
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Seriously, you spend $150+ a month for a cell phone or is that for your entire family?
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$168/month with Verizon. Two smartphones, grandfathered into the $30/month unlimited data (for a little bit longer at least). Dumb phone for my elderly mother. So between data and family share, that's $80/month. Add in the unlimited text and other crap, that's $100/moneth. So $68/month for the base plan plus taxes and bullshit fees and junk. Yeah it sucks, but who's better? Is it worth $5/month or so for the hassle?
Re:True (Score:5, Insightful)
But Sprint has unlimited data.
It's a seriously stupid Ask Slashdot. Unless you state where you will be living, how often you will travel and where, how you use your service, and what your priorities are, no one can answer. Different carriers would be better for two different families living in the same city depending on a whole bunch of factors.
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The killer feature for me, though.. is talk and data simultaneous on an iphone.. only at&t can do that so far.
Not sure about tmobile, but no lte makes that kinda stinky.
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But who talks on their phone any more? Really? You do?
I still do but not nearly enough to get in the way of whatever else I want to do with my Sprint phone. It's a bullet point issue ("our product is better, neener neener!") that's virtually a non-issue in actual use.
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The killer feature for me, though.. is talk and data simultaneous on an iphone.. only at&t can do that so far.
Every carrier should be able to do this with the iPhone 5, since it is 4G.
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No more rhymes! I MEAN it!
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Happy ting user, they have announced byod so most print phones will be able to be moved over soon. They also charge about cost for the phones and have some good deals like a 70 buck decent smartphone. It's sprints network and there is no data roaming for the downside.
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After nearly seven years of living anal free
Seven years without an anus ... you must be seriously backed up.