Need to select a new wireless provider in Western Wisconsin

[Kristie]

The boss wants to change everyone over to smartphones now that our contract has expired.

Our current provider does not have smartphones so we are looking at both Verizon and Cingular.

Currently we are using phones which also support analog as people who work here frequently travel to rural areas some of which may not have digital available. We may have to keep some older phones because of this.

It is a very small office ...but there is frequent travel to such areas as LaCrosse, Eau Claire, Wis Dells, Beloit, Richland Center, Madison...

The coverage maps list large areas as coverage provided by a another company "when available". So they are not much help.

Could anyone please provide information on service availability and quality in any of these areas? I would really appreciate it.

[Gonz]

Who is your current provider?
Where is your office?
What types of data applications are you looking to use?

[Kristie]

We currently have contracts with Alltel for around Eau Claire and U.S. Cellular for central and SW Wisconsin.

The application we NEED to run was written at corporate and requires a smartphone w/Windows Mobile OS.
- U.S. Cellular only supports blackberries.

We have small offices in Madison, and Eau Claire - but most people travel more than they are in the office. The may be north of Eau Claire, in LaCrosse, Wis Dells, Janesville, Beloit, Richland Center,... Much of this travel is to rural areas away from the main highways and the Interstates.

Alltel seems to be OK for up in Eau Claire and the surrounding area. Alltel does have phones that will run the software - but we are not currently using smartphones with Alltel. Alltel also it isn't really available to our Madison office.

We may keep our Alltel in NW Wisconsin, but have to change our other provider for central and SW Wisconsin.

Hope that is enough info.

[Cailiff04]

Have you looked into Sprint? They have a very good data coverage you may want to check them out!

[strunke]

Originally Posted by Kristie

We currently have contracts with Alltel for around Eau Claire and U.S. Cellular for central and SW Wisconsin.

The application we NEED to run was written at corporate and requires a smartphone w/Windows Mobile OS.
- U.S. Cellular only supports blackberries.

We have small offices in Madison, and Eau Claire - but most people travel more than they are in the office. The may be north of Eau Claire, in LaCrosse, Wis Dells, Janesville, Beloit, Richland Center,... Much of this travel is to rural areas away from the main highways and the Interstates.

Alltel seems to be OK for up in Eau Claire and the surrounding area. Alltel does have phones that will run the software - but we are not currently using smartphones with Alltel. Alltel also it isn't really available to our Madison office.

We may keep our Alltel in NW Wisconsin, but have to change our other provider for central and SW Wisconsin.

Hope that is enough info.

Your Alltel phones would roam for free on Sprint, Verizon, and USCC in that order while in Madison. Since most of the travel will be in rural areas you really should look at Alltel before the PCS providers for Wisconsin. The Q, PPC6700, Treo 700 are all good smartphones. But if you need to go with another provider for Madison....both Sprint and Verizon have pretty good EVDO coverage there.