HELP!!! Northern Michigan Coverage

[JMS]

I need info on which Cell phone {provider} will work north of Baldwin.....we have a cottage between Baldwin & Irons and my Nextel will not work there.

Since I already have a contract with Nextel, I am looking for a prepaid cell, If I can find one, just to use there on the weekends.

My cottage is on 3 mile road just East of Club 37 restaurant....{If this helps with the location}

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Your best bet is to find a plan that charges no roaming. I have verizon wireless's old regional 250 plan where I get 250 anytime minutes and 3,000 night and weekend minutes. My home area includes 10 states and I never pay roaming charges, even if my phone indicates that it is roaming. Verizon Wireless no longer offers these plans. I would never take America's Choice because it is much like Sprint, it only works in large cities and only along the main highways in-between cities. Find a carrier that offers no roaming and you will be fine. You will probably not find digital coverage anywhere past Grand Rapids on M-37, once you enter Newaygo County it is all analog. Good luck

Looks to me like if you can buy a Cingular Nation contract, you're covered. See their large pdf map (they have a small one directly on their page and somewhere on their site I got a hyperlink to their large one, which is big enough to actually see some county-by-county detail). I assume there must be someone with TDMA coverage in that area that Cingular can roam on -- maybe Cell One??. TMobile/NPI Wireless has you surrounded at a 15 mile distance but misses you out. Sprint goes all the way up 31 and 131 but not up 37.

[Gonz]

As far as I know, Cellone has digital coverage only in parts of the up. I haven't seen any digital by them, or anyone for that matter. Come to think of it, Centurytel was just bought by alltel. Rumor has it that they will be upgrading. Personally, I wouldn't go with alltel unless they say that they're actually improving coverage. My family has a cabin in grayling. My phone roams on Cellone, and I get coverage, whereas the neighbors roam on alltel, and their phone locks on, but they can't get enough signal to actually make a call. Funny huh.

I can confirm first hand that Alltel is converting the michigan market to CDMA. At this time there coverage is lacking a bit because of the switch, but there will be a dramatic increase in the next 6 months

[CDMA]

CellularOne of N.E. Michigan/UP has CDMA digital all the way up I-75 in the lower penninsula. CellularOne of N.W. Michigan uses TDMA. CenturyTel has improved on I-75 through Grayling because you can get a good signal there now, in the past there was nothing.