I'm getting real frustrated with dropped calls with my cell phone. I know there are dead areas for service, but is there one that works a little better? I use it for business mostly. I was getting them with AT&T. So I switched to ALL-TEL and they are probably worse. I heard Verizon is the best for not getting as many dropped calls. Although they are more expensive, but thats ok if its better. Any opinions on the best provider?

I personally have and use All-Tel which seems to work well for me. They now offer a walkie/talkie type phone (which I have). I guest that they are trying to complete with Nex-tel. Now there are alot of contractors in my area that use nex-tel and seem to be happy with them.

Have had both Nextel and AT&T. Nextel is great as a two way but in my area the coverage is limited to the metro area only which meant I needed another cell phone for out of town business or travel. Had AT&T... up until a year or so ago and do not have much good to say about them. For the past year I have had Sprint. I burn around a thousand minutes a month from all over town and can think of only a couple dropped calls. I have adjusted my plan several times with Sprint with no problems. I can not say that about AT&T. I will say that if/when you close your account with them get a confirmation number on your account closure... In the last year they have tried to bill me three separate times for service past my closure date and even threatened with the credit bureau....GGrrr.

I personnaly work for one of the phone companies you mentioned. Anyway it depends on who has the most cell sites in any given area. I can promise you there is no provider that can provide 100% coverage and no dropped calls.

Do some research and findout who has the most cell sites in your area. I will give you a hint, not to mention any names but the initials are AllTel.

I think we are in the same area aldav and Alltel works very good for me. Your in Phoneix right? Have you asked them to update the programming in your phone to code for the newest cell towers and update the firmware? Phones have alot to do with dropped calls as well. Ask them to exchange a phone or work you a deal for a new one.

If you are on Sprint and getting dropped calls, you can get money back for them...this may work on other networks as well. Here's an article that tells more:
http://www.moox.ws/misc/sprint.htm

I have Verizon and have had good luck untill recently when I got a new phone. I loose almost every call now. Hopefully I'll get around to replcacing the peice of junk I have now soon. As for nextel I HATE them. The reason for the HATE I have for them are the constant (I mean literaly every day) marketing calls I get from them. Not only are the calls annoying, the callers sound like they have a fifth grade education at best.

We use Nextel. We could get better service and cheaper, but we kind of have to use them. All of our contractors use Nextel and we depend on the Direct Connect (Walkie Talkie feature) to talk to them. It also is very handy to keep in touch with our crews, but the service stinks.

In the Chandler and Tempe area, I probably have about half my calls either cut in and out or drop completely. In Phoenix its ok. Maybe its my phone. I will call ALLTEL

I work in the MIlwaukee area and use Nextel. Have had it for years and it has been very dependable. Almost no dropped calls. My only annoyance is a dead cell area right over my cottage up north. If I walk 150 feet away from my land it works. The walky talkie is so handy when pulling wire etc.
ElectricmanScott, if I ever receive marketing calls on my Nextel system you can be sure that I will be sitting down with someone from Nextell for a little chat not to mention a letter stating that I will be billing them for lost production time. Can't believe the phone industry is talking about letting this happen all across the country.
Ron

Verizon is supposidly the best, i have a cousin who works for cingular and even he says it.
But cingular and At&t are doing their final merge this month, and could very well put cingular on the top of the list.

BTW, i'm in the NJ, NY area.

Verizon phone choices suck, they are almost all fragile flip phones. And verizon is at least $20 more on any plan a month.

Cingular's customer service sucks, they tend to blame everything on the customer as if they were trained that way.
But phone choices are far better.

Stay away from motorola unless you have nextel. Nextel has better quality phones meant for working guys. Problem with nextel is that the two way works great but for actual phone calls the reception is bad.
But the motorolas for verizon and cingular are a joke, they'll spend more time broken or being fixed than used. Nokia is the way to go, battery life is twice the motorola, and volume goes twice as high, so you can hear the freaken thing.

I use cingular, best phones, best prices, just make sure to read your bill every month, you never know what they will add or remove.

[This message has been edited by 2000xp8 (edited 11-10-2004).]

Verizon is the winner for me. I've taken a few trips to the west coast from Denver with a couple of brands of service in the car. My son had T-Mobile and it got to be a joke in town. When we were together, he would go to make a call and then ask to use my phone. Verizon is almost always available out in the open and the others were almst never available outside medium to large cities.
As far as phones, I won't own anything but a flip. I've had way too many bad experiences with buttons being pushed accidently and screwing something up. I'd rather my phone didn't trun off if I lean against a door knob.
I'm still waiting for someone to make a titanium cased, waterproof phone with absolutely no buttons or switches on the outside. I'm amazed it hasn't happened because every trademan I've ever talked to would willing pay a good price for a phone that had a truely useful lifespan.

I personally can’t stand our Nextel phones. Might be that they have too many calls here in So Cal, but you have to try like 10 times for the direct connect to go through (even during a direct connect conversation). And if you are driving and having a conversation on direct connect, it will switch you to a closer cell tower once. Then you will continue to use that cell tower until you loose all signal, power off the phone, or cancel out of your conversation for like 30 seconds.

T-mobile is my personal cell phone and I don't have any issues with it. It’s cheap, never have coverage issues around here, and their support is excellent especially considering it’s the cheapest phone service on the market.

I have Nextel now. I dislike then as a company and will be changing soon to Sprint. A couple of years ago I switched because Sprint had better prices and I needed 2 new phones. Nextel wouldn't do anything for me. After I switched I got a call from their "Customer Retention Dept." Now they were willing to work with me. It's a shame I have to go through all that hassle to get someone who is willing to doing something for me.

So I opt back to Nextel because I want to keep the 2-way. Not a life or death, but handy feature. But...... I had to call them every month for a year and a have (and I'm not exaggerating) I got a bill because it was wrong. The deal that they gave me kept showing up wrong. I believe alot of it was intentional. I find it hard to believe a company can be that incompetent.

Then I threatened them once with "you know you aren't the only one's with 2-way now" they said "oh, are you talking about push to talk (Sprint), it's not the same ." I didn't know. Well now my bro has Sprint and coverage is better, price is better, and the push to talk, they were right, it's not the same, it is better. Nextel told him the same thing when he canceled. And of course he got a customer retention call too.

From what I can tell, Sprint's 2-way establishes a link (like a phone call) and keeps it, so as you go back and forth there is no waiting for network traffic to let you back on (like nextel). Then if you sit idol it will close and reestablish once you push again. Believe me the reestablish wait time is as long as a normal Nextel que, and then it's open mic.

But for on the job, I still consider keeping a set of walkie talkies in the truck. It's frustrating trying to find a breaker by flipping (don't try this at the US Treasury) and not having it go through until 3 flips later. Then it turns into an Abbot & Costello routine.

So does anyoneone really like Nextel?

If one on the other companies came up with a push to talk that could connect with Nextel they could take over the market. Nextel should hope no one ever does or they will have a mass exit of their customer base. Most of us just feel we don't have a choice.

I've never had any issues with depressing buttons on a non flip once i got in the habit of locking the keys, before that i would call people all the time from my pocket.

You can get another company (by me, not sprint or T mobile) such as verizon or cingular, and then get a prepaid boost mobile phone, seems to be getting popular around here. It is just a two way, works off of and with nextel, except you only get charged when you use it. Downside is that you have to buy the phone, but you are under no contract and you get to two-way nextal users. I may try it out soon.

I know people with nextel all over the country and getting a hold of them with the actual phone part (not two way) is next to impossible. Searches, searches,searches, and goes to voice mail, sometimes i'm on the damn phone 3 minutes and still not to their voicemail yet.

[This message has been edited by 2000xp8 (edited 11-13-2004).]

We have been with Nextel for like a Billion Years now
Seriously, it's been so long, I cannot remember a time without having a Nextel Cellular Phone (or using the Direct Connect Radio feature either).

Nextel's Customer Service is best decribed as "Extremely High Negative Air Pressure"
(Sucks Big-Time).

Equal feelings towards the Billing Department as well.

Have the same issues with the 2-way Radio as others here described:
Endless "User Not Available" messages + error tones when trying to reply, loss of signal strength - resulting in a sound which resembles Mickey Mouse after drinking 5 Venti Cappuccinos with extra quad shots, then inhaling Helium...

"Cell-Site Hogging" (goes to a certain site and stays there until you get Mickey Mouse effect really bad),
and other non-cool issues.

On that subject, it's kind of funny when new users to the Radio feature begin Transmitting their conversations.
The Mic is about 0.0025 microns from their lips, and the PTT button is randomly held closed during the speak - resulting in:

"Brrssssaakk.....GHaaaakk........Akkgsssieeettt.......(beep), .....(beep-beep)......Aggeeellssnnnvveet..... (beep).... Did Youuugggggghhhaaaa Thattsssssssmm!@!^%@$#...."

OK enough of the Negative aspect!

On the good side, the radio feature is very handy on jobs - and use with other trades personnel makes it an even better tool.
If you are not driving, the radio works OK - provided there is not 10,000,000 other users talking at the same time (results in good old "User Not Available" - CO05)

My Wife and I recently upgraded from our Legacy i1000+ flip phones, to something less of the Jurassic Period

She has the i730 flip phone (with the color screen, midi songs, etc.), and I got the i58sr (with yellow face).
I like the i58sr! It's durable (built to mil.specs I believe).
So far it has fallen 6 times from 8 foot ladders, and still works fine.

The sudden need for the device to observe the floor level was due to a very crappy holster I mistakenly (kicking myself at all times) purchased.
Suggest to anyone with the i58sr - do not get the small plastic "swinging" holster!
It SUCKS!!!

We had trouble with dropped calls in our area for about a month - more on my wife's phone than mine.
After performing software upgrade / patch / buggy-wuggy killer utility, things are rather solid!

I am kind of at a disadvantage per cellular devices and providers, as I have dealt with Nextel's service and devices almost universally.

Last year, when I was working as a P.M. / Estimator / Injunear / Broom Pusher for a local EC, they set me up with a Qualcomm phone, with Sprint as the provider.
That service and device brought a whole new meaning to the term "Sucks"!

So much for my 2¢ on the cellphone discussion.
Should make you want to run right out and grab a Nextel Service Plan! (then run directly to the nearest Psychotherapist).


Scott35