Service in Madison and Milwaukee, WI

[Jimmy821]

Hi,

I'm going to be in Milwaukee and Madison and I was wondering about the quality of Sprint and Verizon service in those areas? Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

James

[sillybilly]

Sprint has good coverage on the East side of Madison.

[vitalfew]

I live two hours from both Milwaukee and Madison and go to both fairly often. I have had no problems with service in either city with Verizon. Additionally, I don't roam on any of the roads that I've been on in between (and some are smaller country roads) but service does occassionally go into the Extended Service area which is free. I don't know about Sprint in Madison, but in the Fox Cities and Milwaukee area many of my friends have a lot of dropped calls on Sprint. They may have improved their service recently without me knowing because most of my friends changed to providers other than Sprint over the last year. If you'll be going to the northern part of Wisconsin often, you should know that Verizon has very little coverage up there. Don't know about Sprint in that area. Hope that helps. Good luck! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

[Cubs619]

Jimmy,

I live in Madison and recently signed up with Sprint under their new F&C America plan. So far, I have had no problems with coverage except around Dane County Airport... I was only pulling down about 1-2 bars max around there. I also had one instance around the lake and Bascom Hill where I lost signal... but on the whole, Sprint coverage seems to be solid in the area. Keep in mind that outside of the Madison area and off the major highways, you may go into roaming... so if this applies to you, I'd hurry up and get the F&C America plan - it allows you to analog/digital roam for free and it's a limited time promo that will not be offered past the end of June.

One comment about Sprint... as I'm sure you've read, their building penetration isn't the greatest. My phone has a little bit of a difficult time picking up signal in my office and in my lab because of the shielding on my building - but since I there are land phones in both places, this isn't a major issue to me. I have good signal in my apartment in the UW-campus area and great signal in my girlfriend's apartment on the west side of town. I've had a couple of dropped calls but those have only occurred when I either moved into an area or placed a call in an area with low signal - no problems yet with calls straight to voicemail. I'm using the Sanyo 8100 and my girlfriend has the Sanyo 4900... both excellent phones. I'd stay away from anything other than Sanyo for Sprint phones if you want decent coverage.

I haven't used Verizon so I can't directly comment on their service... but I think you'd probably have a little better coverage with them compared with Sprint because of their roaming agreements. However, I don't like the fact that there's no easy way to control the phone's ability to roam and the fact that their phones are expensive to both buy and replace compared with Sprint (and aren't anywhere near as cool). If you do get Verizon, I would highly recommend detailed billing as I've heard several people have had problems with Verizon overcharging or double-billing.

If you go with Sprint and you know someone else who looking for a new cell phone provider, I would highly recommend the F&C America 2000 plan. 2000 anytime minutes, unlimited N&W, Unlimited PCS to PCS (with 2-year contract), and free Vision... all for $105-110 depending on your area with no additional cost for the second line.

[Lears]

Jimmy,

I have had Verizon in the Madison area for over two years. I have had pretty good luck with them. In Madison I have not had any trouble or in Milwaukee. However, traveling in the rural areas around Madison I have experienced several dropped calls. If you look at the current VZW maps and at the enhanced services map (native VZW coverage) it will give you a good idea of where your phone will be reliable. I have noticed the Verizon is pretty conservative with the map, I get coverage where they claim there is none. When you are out of the VZW coverage you will have a digital signal from U.S. Cellular in this area. Their coverage is good in Wisconsin, especially the rural areas. The major drawback is that the calls from Verizon to USCC are not handed off and they will drop going into extended coverage, but going back into Verizon coverage the phone will stay locked onto the USCC signal until you finish your call. Overall in Madison and Miwaukee have good coverage.

[GregMal]

Well......last Saturday (6/14/03) I was standing in the parking lot of the Wurst House
around 83rd and Appleton (Hampton) in Milwaukee and attempting to use my new
Samsung A310 (Verizon). Looking at the display it went from digital service to analog
service and back while I was standing still. If I moved 2 feet right, digital....2 feet left,
analog. But my calls all went thru..............Greg

[AnthroMatt]

GregMal...I think your experience has more to do with that Samsung phone than Verizon's network.

[Jimmy821]

To all,

Thanks for the info! I think I won't have a problem connecting when I got out there.

Thanks again,

Jimmy