Cingular or Verizon for Long Island?

[IndyPetey]

Hey all. I've been browsing these boards for a while now and finally decided to register. I live on Long Island (basically in the middle but more East then West I suppose and I occassionally will travel into New York City) and I've had a Cingular phone (V600) for a little bit over a year now and I've generally been fairly happy. I seem to get service in a lot of places and strong service at that. My problem though is that when I do go to make a call or receive a call, the signal bars seem to drop and often the longer I'm on the phone, the service gets worse and often we get disconnected. I do use my phone sometimes to hold a regular conversation on it if my house phone is tied up but it seems like after 15-20 minutes, my phone always disconnects me. I'm not under contract anymore so I've been looking at Verizon because I always hear great things about them.

My question(s) are basically this, is my phone just not a good one and the cause of my calls not having the ability to last a long time, is Cingular just not all that good of a provider, or are phones programmed to not go that long and everything (including my signal going down when making or receiving a call) just normal or should I look to check out Verizon and if so, which phones are the best, price really isn't an issue for me at this point. I really don't want to switch because I love Cingulars rollover minutes and they're very beneficial to me but I'm just not too sure on the service at this point. Any help will be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

~Petey

[Fire14]

You could have 1 of the V600's that had some software issues with it & this is part of your problem, you could get an unlocked phone on Ebay such as a Nokia or a Moto V551 and see if that helps any, also part of the issues could be from the integration work.
You can try this & see if it helps any: with the phone on, remove the battery & SIM and let them stay out for at least 3 mins, then put everything back & see if there is any improvment, Cingular say's this helps as well as they recommend once a day power cycling your phone for 30+ seconds.
But again it could be the phone or the network.

[Yankees368]

If you do end up switching carriers, you can't really go wrong with Verizon on Long Island.

[budney]

As Fire mentioned your V600 could have the bug which caused problems on the 800MHz band. So I would try out another phone, and you may want to check to see which network your phone is using. A different phone and making sure you are on the "blue" network should solve most of your problems.

[IndyPetey]

Yeah, I got the phone when it was still fairly new, back in like June of 2004 so it might be bugged. How do I found out if I'm on the blue network or not and just for the heck of it, which do y'all think is better for Long Island, Cingular or Verizon?

[Jay2TheRescue]

Last time I was on Long Island I had visited the Centerreach & Port Jefferson areas and I had excellent coverage with Cingular.

[Rasputin]

Verizon has excellent coverage in Long Island, I though Cingular's Coverage is also pretty good there also.

[jones]

Did you call Cingular CS about that problematic Phone?
If you you do they will reset that phone to manufacturer setting
and Power restart it.
And the last thing Cingular will do is sell you a New Phone
since that is originally an ATTWS phone.
I have that phone and it has been reset like 5 times
by Cingular CS.
It had all sorts of Bug like the caller ID won't show even
when not blocked.

[IndyPetey]

Did resetting the phone work for you and fix the bug problems and what should I do with my phonebook and pictures and such?

[jones]

YES after like a few months, another problem.
PhoneBook in GSM is stored in the SIM card
so it will not be lost.
The pictures will be Lost.

[Fire14]

Originally Posted by IndyPetey Yeah, I got the phone when it was still fairly new, back in like June of 2004 so it might be bugged. How do I found out if I'm on the blue network or not and just for the heck of it, which do y'all think is better for Long Island, Cingular or Verizon?

In LI you should be only on the Blue network, here in the NY/NJ/LI area Cingular didn't have there own network prior to the merger, they had a shared network with T-Mobile, and since us Blue customers can't use the T-Mobile network to roam on, you should only be locked onto the Blue network.
I would seriously try another phone, if you have a friend with either an old AWE phone or an unlocked phone, pop your SIM into there phone & see if there is a difference.
As for doing a master reset, you can go into settings and select Master reset to see if it helps, but it may or may not help.
Another choice is get a data cable & download the newest software version & flash the phone to it, it all depends on if you want to do that or get a newer phone.

[IndyPetey]

Yeah I'm going to try another phone because I did some research and found that the V600 was discontinued and was full of bugs and such which I wasn't aware of. Are there any suggestions as to what phones to check out? I don't really care about the design, I'm in it for performance, mainly signal strength/reception quality and all that. My only thing is that I like the flip phones. Thanks to everyone who has been kind enough to help me out!

[Fire14]

Originally Posted by IndyPetey Yeah I'm going to try another phone because I did some research and found that the V600 was discontinued and was full of bugs and such which I wasn't aware of. Are there any suggestions as to what phones to check out? I don't really care about the design, I'm in it for performance, mainly signal strength/reception quality and all that. My only thing is that I like the flip phones. Thanks to everyone who has been kind enough to help me out!

If a flip is the phone you want, then the Moto V551 is a good one, I haven't had any problems with mine so far, also the V505 which isn't sold in the stores anymore is another good choice. My 1 daughter has the V220 which is a basic clamshell phone & it's got good Rf and call quality, just smaller then the V500/600 series phones.
As for the best phones for Rf, the Nokia's win that hands down, so if your willing to settle for a candybar phone, then go with just about any Nokia, I had the 6010, 3595 & 6800 and still have them (actually my daughters had/have them) and they have been good to us & alot of other people, I know people also say the 6230 is an excellent phone, but just heard on here today that Cingular has been having software issues with it, this is the 1st I have heard of that though, but the source is reliable.

[IndyPetey]

Alright cool. I've had my eye on the RAZR but with the new 3x coming out eventually I'd probably be better off to wait. Also, is the RAZR just about the appearance or is the Rf and call quality just as good or better than the V551? I've heard great things about the V635 but that's not out through Cingular and I've never done any hacking or unlocking or whatever you have to do with it so I'm a bit leary with getting into that although I'd rather it be a regular Cingular phone.

[Jay2TheRescue]

Originally Posted by IndyPetey Alright cool. I've had my eye on the RAZR but with the new 3x coming out eventually I'd probably be better off to wait. Also, is the RAZR just about the appearance or is the Rf and call quality just as good or better than the V551? I've heard great things about the V635 but that's not out through Cingular and I've never done any hacking or unlocking or whatever you have to do with it so I'm a bit leary with getting into that although I'd rather it be a regular Cingular phone.

My understanding is that the call quality is equivalent to the V551, the V3 is just wrapped up in a prettier package. I had strongly considered a V3 when I had purchased my V551, but in the end I did not feel the coolness factor was worth a couple hundred extra bucks.