NORTHEAST U.S. -- Comparison's of AT&T, Verizon, SprintNextel

[Fire14]

Well I have gone & done it and have all 4 carriers now (yeah I have an appointment to get my head examined)
All last week I was in Atlantic City for a seminar & got to test the 3 mentioned in the title.

At Bally's, Ceasar's & wild west all 3 were perfect (obviously due to the repeaters thruout the buildings) LOL

Out on the shopping pier off of Ceasar's coverage for all 3 is iffy when you get more into the mall the worst it gets on all of them, you need to stay by the windows to get decent coverage & prevent dropped calls.

In Tropicana, the little Havana section in the Red Square vodka bar there is no coverage for any of them, including the Direct Connect, if you go out of there & by the fountain only AT&T worked for a signal & SMS, I had to go outside to send & recieve texts on Verizon & Sprint, inside Carmine's though I did have coverage on all 3, so it must be a borderline thing & the big window's in Carmine's that helped.

Also I was unlucky to get into the Verizon Wireless & AT&T wireless conventions/seminars they had while I was down there, lot's of toys out & I couldn't get in to talk or play

On Sunday I went up to the Pocono's for the day & once I got near Mt. Pocono I had no coverage with my Sprint phone at all, had good coverage with AT&T & Verizon, till I got to Mt. Airy Casino (yeah I know another casino) Coverage was poor with AT&T in the area & inside the casino I only had Verizon coverage which was strong, I couldn't tell if they had repeaters in the building.
In most of the PA area from Easton to Pocono's I had good coverage with AT&T & Verizon even in GreatWolfe Lodge which was a neat place for the kids.

I wanted to add something, I do notice sending & recieving MMS on Verizon is so much slower then AT&T, even with EVDO I don't know if when the area is all EVDO it will make a difference over 1X or not, so I guess I need to just keep that in mind from now on.

[larry]

Originally Posted by Fire14

On Sunday I went up to the Pocono's for the day & once I got near Mt. Pocono I had no coverage with my Sprint phone at all, had good coverage with AT&T & Verizon

You mean you couldn't even use the Sprint digital roaming partner there? If Verizon worked then you should have been good. What phone is it?

[Eric47]

cool so was this a trip? what state/citys are we talking again?

[Bill Clinton]

Originally Posted by larry

You mean you couldn't even use the Sprint digital roaming partner there? If Verizon worked then you should have been good. What phone is it?

If he was using the ic502 he wouldn't get roaming unless it was 1900MHz. Verizon was probably on 800MHz so normal Sprint devices would be able to roam but not the PowerSource phones.

[larry]

Originally Posted by Bill Clinton

If he was using the ic502 he wouldn't get roaming unless it was 1900MHz. Verizon was probably on 800MHz so normal Sprint devices would be able to roam but not the PowerSource phones.

Ok that makes sense. In cases like that it's probably better to note that the phone was incapable of receiving a roaming signal rather than just to say Sprint didn't work at all because most people don't know that about the hybrids. IMO I kind of knew that fire14 had a hybrid but thought maybe he had obtained a Sprint only phone.

[Fire14]

Originally Posted by larry

You mean you couldn't even use the Sprint digital roaming partner there? If Verizon worked then you should have been good. What phone is it?

My bad Larry I thought I put down I had the buzz in my original post (guess I was thinking of my profile), yes I am sure with just a plain Sprint phone I would have been able to roam on Verizon in the Pocono's.

Originally Posted by EricN4707

cool so was this a trip? what state/citys are we talking again?

I am talking about Atlantic City NJ and the Pocono's in PA. The AC deal was a seminar on fire investigations the topic was fatal fires, the Pocono was just a day off to get away.

[bobolito]

I'm reading all this and all I think about is Fire14 walking around everywhere he goes like the Verizon guy checking signal and making test calls. LOL!

[CommJunkie]

Why would you spend the money like that to have 4 cell carriers?

[larry]

Originally Posted by CommJunkie

Why would you spend the money like that to have 4 cell carriers?

I assume he gets one or more of them free from his employment. But I agree with you that having that many phones and carriers is a lot of money to fork out and I would never have more than one carrier and phone myself. I'm on the frugal side and would rather put that money aside for better things.

[RJB]

Originally Posted by CommJunkie

Why would you spend the money like that to have 4 cell carriers?

Well maybe it is something they enjoy doing may seem strange to us but I am sure we would do things that is strange to them.

[CommJunkie]

Originally Posted by RJB

Well maybe it is something they enjoy doing may seem strange to us but I am sure we would do things that is strange to them.

To each his own, but how many phone calls do you expect to get ??

[RJB]

Originally Posted by CommJunkie

To each his own, but how many phone calls do you expect to get ??

I think he is doing it so he can compare all over for a fair review.

[DaveInPhilly]

Originally Posted by larry

Ok that makes sense. In cases like that it's probably better to note that the phone was incapable of receiving a roaming signal rather than just to say Sprint didn't work at all because most people don't know that about the hybrids. IMO I kind of knew that fire14 had a hybrid but thought maybe he had obtained a Sprint only phone.

Can someone confirm whether or not the Samsung ACE would be able to Roam on Verizon's network?

[Charlyee]

Originally Posted by DaveInPhilly

Can someone confirm whether or not the Samsung ACE would be able to Roam on Verizon's network?

By Samsung ACE I presume you mean the SPH i325, right?

Yes, it will be, any phone that has both 850 and 1900 will work if Sprint allows roaming in that area. To the best of my knowledge it is only the Sprint hybrid phones like the one OP has that cannot roam because they have 1900 only.

Btw, Welcome to WA.

[jimwayda]

I am trying to understand that test that you performed. If you had no coverage on your Sprint phone but had good coverage on your Verizon phone, then you must have had the Sprint phone set to "SPRINT NETWORK ONLY", otherwise the Sprint phone would have roamed onto Verizon. It won't just sit there with no signal.

Regards,

-jim

Originally Posted by Fire14

Well I have gone & done it and have all 4 carriers now (yeah I have an appointment to get my head examined)
All last week I was in Atlantic City for a seminar & got to test the 3 mentioned in the title.

At Bally's, Ceasar's & wild west all 3 were perfect (obviously due to the repeaters thruout the buildings) LOL

Out on the shopping pier off of Ceasar's coverage for all 3 is iffy when you get more into the mall the worst it gets on all of them, you need to stay by the windows to get decent coverage & prevent dropped calls.

In Tropicana, the little Havana section in the Red Square vodka bar there is no coverage for any of them, including the Direct Connect, if you go out of there & by the fountain only AT&T worked for a signal & SMS, I had to go outside to send & recieve texts on Verizon & Sprint, inside Carmine's though I did have coverage on all 3, so it must be a borderline thing & the big window's in Carmine's that helped.

Also I was unlucky to get into the Verizon Wireless & AT&T wireless conventions/seminars they had while I was down there, lot's of toys out & I couldn't get in to talk or play

On Sunday I went up to the Pocono's for the day & once I got near Mt. Pocono I had no coverage with my Sprint phone at all, had good coverage with AT&T & Verizon, till I got to Mt. Airy Casino (yeah I know another casino) Coverage was poor with AT&T in the area & inside the casino I only had Verizon coverage which was strong, I couldn't tell if they had repeaters in the building.
In most of the PA area from Easton to Pocono's I had good coverage with AT&T & Verizon even in GreatWolfe Lodge which was a neat place for the kids.

I wanted to add something, I do notice sending & recieving MMS on Verizon is so much slower then AT&T, even with EVDO I don't know if when the area is all EVDO it will make a difference over 1X or not, so I guess I need to just keep that in mind from now on.

[larry]

Originally Posted by jimwayda

I am trying to understand that test that you performed. If you had no coverage on your Sprint phone but had good coverage on your Verizon phone, then you must have had the Sprint phone set to "SPRINT NETWORK ONLY", otherwise the Sprint phone would have roamed onto Verizon. It won't just sit there with no signal.

Regards,

-jim

Jim,

His phone is not capable of roaming on Verizon. It is a hybrid phone that can only work on 1900 Mhz (which is pretty much Sprint native only). See the other posts above.

[AnthroMatt]

Originally Posted by RJB

Well maybe it is something they enjoy doing may seem strange to us but I am sure we would do things that is strange to them.

Right. If I saved the money I spent on beer each month, I could afford to sign up for another cell phone.

But beer wins.

[jackyma]

Why spend the money to have 4 cell carriers?