Virgin Mobile

[bcb163]

I currently have T-Mobile. They're really bad. The coverage is very inconsistent. My contract is up in June, and I was looking towards another service. Virgin Mobile seems to have a really good deal, but I'm not sure that their coverage will be better than T-Mobile's. The maps look promising, but I want everyone's expert opinion on here. I live in the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh. My zip code is 16046, if that helps. I'm positive that I want prepaid this time. I think that my options are: Virgin Mobile, Freeup, and maybe AT&T go phone (I live on the border of two counties, and if I put my zip code in, it says I have no coverage, but if I put a zip code across the county line in, it says I have coverage). Please let me know what would be the best option. I don't need coverage everywhere, but I need better than T-Mobile. I care more about consistency than all-out coverage; I don't really care if the company has coverage in like, Idaho, so long as it works well here in Pittsburgh. I guess I'm looking for a happy medium between price and coverage. Thanks for your help!

[njsvrzncdma]

AT&T tdma and Verizon should help you in that search for better coverage. im not really familiar with Virgin Mobile.

[RichXKU]

Originally posted by: njsvrzncdma
AT&T tdma and Verizon should help you in that search for better coverage.

What he said.

Virgin mobile = Sprint PCS plain and simple.

[budney]

bcb163 - The first thing I would do, would be to ask friends and other people you know who they use. And ask them if they are satisfied with who they have. Virgin Mobile is Sprint, like RichXKU mentioned. And AT&T Go Phone is using there GSM network. As far as reliable networks go Verizon IMO is the best, then Sprint (VM), then a distant 3rd would be AT&T GSM. From your your experiance with T-Mobile it would be easy for me to eliminate AT&T Go Phone. There network is simular or worse than T-Mobile's in a lot of areas. AT&T GSM is still a work in progress & have roaming agreements with T-mobile & Cingular. So between Virgin Mobile & Verizon FreeUp, I would choose Verizon. Verizon is $0.05 more a minute, but have better coverage over VM (Sprint). And the phone selection & quality with Verizon is much better compared to VM. I havn't heard too many good thing about the quality of the VM phones. While with Verizon you can use just about all there new phones with FreeUp, and there older phones too (eBay). I hope this will help, good luck!

[mpallo]

Wow...that's very surprising to hear about your bad T-Mobile coverage in Pittsburgh. I was there last week and stayed down at Station Square for 4 days. I've actually been bragging to my friends at how awesome the coverage was. I even had coverage in one of the tunnels I went thru. Amazing. Full bars all the way thru. I was pretty impressed. Even on some of the hilly, windy roads I was on I had full strength.

I believe Pittsburgh was originally an Aerial Communications GSM region before they turned into T-Mobile. I think the coverage is built out pretty well there.

Could your phone be the problem?

[NYCDru]

Originally posted by: mpallo
Could your phone be the problem?

Not if its a Motorola P280.

He/She probably uses the phone in places you do not.

[bcb163]

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, I was kind of trying to stay away from Verizon because with their prepaid, whenever someone calls and gets your voicemail, your units are used. It's not a big deal, but Virgin doesn't do that. It looks like I might have to go with Verizon. I guess I was basically wondering how Sprint's coverage is around Pittsburgh, seeing as Virgin is Sprint.

And yeah, T-Mobile is great in the city. I think like every company works in Station Square, lol. I have no problems until I get into the suburbs. IT's then that I have a bunch of random spots with no coverage.

[budney]

bcb163 - Go to either www.Sprintpcs.com or www.virginmobileusa.com , type your zip in and both sites should give you an idea on coverage in your area.

[bcb163]

All right....thanks for the input. If I were to go with Freeup from Verizon, would my only choices be the phones on the Freeup website? They're expensive and they're pretty bad. I refuse to pay $79.99 for a V120c. I need something a little more sleek and suave. I would be happy with a Moto 720, but NOT for $199.99...

[NYCDru]

Originally posted by: bcb163
All right....thanks for the input. If I were to go with Freeup from Verizon, would my only choices be the phones on the Freeup website? They're expensive and they're pretty bad. I refuse to pay $79.99 for a V120c. I need something a little more sleek and suave. I would be happy with a Moto 720, but NOT for $199.99...

I don't know if that would be your only choice for the phone but know this, since you would not be on a contract, they won't subsidize the phone for you. The t720 is realy a $400 phone. If you were on a contract they would subsidize half or morre but you are trying to be a pre-pay customer wich means they have no guarantee to recoup those subsidized dollars.

[budney]

bcb163 - You do not need to pruchase a FreeUP phone. Go to a Verizon Store and look at there phone displays. Most of there phones will have a FreeUp price along with the retail, 1 & 2 year contract price. The FreeUp price is usually between the 1 yr and retail price of the phone. And like I said in my original post, you can always look on eBay for a phone too. And you can even use older Verizon phones too. They just program it for use with a FreeUp Account.

[Airb330]

Originally posted by: bcb163
All right....thanks for the input. If I were to go with Freeup from Verizon, would my only choices be the phones on the Freeup website? They're expensive and they're pretty bad. I refuse to pay $79.99 for a V120c. I need something a little more sleek and suave. I would be happy with a Moto 720, but NOT for $199.99...

There is a Kyocera 2345 out now for FREEUP, much better than the 120c. Also, like Budney said, you can go ask for another phone though it would probably be expensive, it depends. I would go with that Kyocera. I had FREEUP, and I liked it alot except for the dumb messages left thing. At least on Verizon you get free weekend minutes (depending on the card bought) and cheaper night minutes over Virgin. Virgin is good though, just depends on your calling habits.

[njsvrzncdma]

airb's the bomb..[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif[/img]