Which has the best Plan in Atlanta / Morrow, GA??

i located in Morrow GA, had service with Worldcom before, now they're going out of Wireless business, so i'm looking for a new Service Provider that has the best plan, can you help me out? thanks:

my husband has Cingular service and he's working far away, and i'm wondering if there is any plan that can help us talk with unlimited minutes as If we were change our plan to be one?

plus, i heard of Cloning, and is it work? can I clone my phone to work with his / unlimited calls?? i have the 8260, and he had the 8860??

thanks again

[RBOCMAN]

I live in Atlanta, North around Jonesbro/Morrow and my T-Mobile service works great. I just upgraded to the T68i and the GPRS is absolutely unbelivable. I definately recommed T-Mobile for the whole South namely AL,GA,FL,TN,MS,LA,SC and Germany(thats where i roamed and used it). I get unlimited mobile to mobile mins on that family share thing.

Cloning singals is only possible of PCS providers, like Sprint and MetroPCS where the signal can be emulated and used. Of course this monitored by cell sites which automatically drop the 2nd line calls and alerts the switch.

Cingular also is good choice, but the uncertainity of the TDMA/GSM transfer, and BellSouth's general ambivalence of its wireless asset management should be taken into account. All in all look at both these providers and let rest your gut feeling.

what is the T-Mobile service? i haven't heard anything from them, or may be just me, plus will both of our phones work in that service?? do you have the website I can check out, and how abotu their plans?? are they good?? because my husband and I, we both planned to use the 29.99 from Cingular and AT&T. I'm uncertaint about transfer my account to AT&T, so can y'all help us out, i really need help quick.

[RBOCMAN]

www.T-Mobile.com or also www.voicestream.com

The plans on site do not reflect the July promotion special where they give 125 bonus minutes.

Cingular of course can be found at www.cingular.com

[roamer1]

How far away is he? If in the Atlanta area, you have lots of choices (including Nextel w/ Direct Connect); if not, VoiceStream/T-Mobile's and Verizon's "family" plans are probably your best options. Coverage in the Southside tends to be better with Verizon and Cingular than with the others; Metro PCS, the "unlimited local calls for $35/mo" carrier, is the pits on the Southside (doesn't reach very far past the Perimeter.)

Aside from being illegal, it is no longer technically possible (in most cases) to "clone" phones as used to be the case in the past.

-SC

[MTS2000]

Originally posted by: RBOCMAN
I live in Atlanta, North around Jonesbro/Morrow and my T-Mobile service works great. I just upgraded to the T68i and the GPRS is absolutely unbelivable. I definately recommed T-Mobile for the whole South namely AL,GA,FL,TN,MS,LA,SC and Germany(thats where i roamed and used it). I get unlimited mobile to mobile mins on that family share thing.

Cloning singals is only possible of PCS providers, like Sprint and MetroPCS where the signal can be emulated and used. Of course this monitored by cell sites which automatically drop the 2nd line calls and alerts the switch.

Cingular also is good choice, but the uncertainity of the TDMA/GSM transfer, and BellSouth's general ambivalence of its wireless asset management should be taken into account. All in all look at both these providers and let rest your gut feeling.

Complete garbage about cloning PCS providers- all CDMA systems utilize encryption on control and voice channels, as well as authentication. It is possible to be cloned when using a PCS phone in ANALOG cellular mode, but very unlikely around here- as a Verizon customer I have been NOWHERE in Atlanta metro, even rural places in Gordon/White/Walker/Dade counties where digital 800 service was not available.

In general, PCS 1900 SUCKS in rural parts of atlanta metro, the two celco's who operate on 800 (Verizon and Cingular) or Nextel would be a good choice. Just be sure to try your phone within your TRIAL PERIOD- make sure it works where you need/want it too (your home, office, etc) and do not believe any sales associate's word that a particular part of town is 100 percent covered.

And remember with GSM, when you leave the coverage area, you have NO ANALOG capability (also true with Nextel) so if you plan on traveling in rural areas, you want a provider who offers you analog capability (Sprint, Verizon, Cingular, and AT&T all can use analog when their digital service is not present), and keep in mind with the terrain of North GA, PCS 1900 from anyone may have dead spots in some areas. Even though with some carriers like Sprint analog can be roaming, it is well worth it if you are stranded or really need to make/recv a call. Sprint's analog roaming works well and all features worked (caller ID/Voicemail alert) when I used them in White county late last year. Verizon has incredible coverage in building and all throughout North Ga and most of the state EXCEPT Macon/Warner Robins which as Roamer1 pointed out it is awful there.

Depending on where your husband goes a Voicestream/T-Mobile plan might be best because family to family minutes and unlimited if not roaming . However the Voicestream coverage may not fit the n look and Verion AC or Nextel with direct connect.

[RBOCMAN]

My mistake. CDMA does have basic level authentication, but that does not discount the fact that it still relies signal based authentication. It also needs to register with the switch before pulling the subscriber info. Thats two focal points where an experianced signal hacker could clone. Signal hackers can force an Analog signal as well. But of course its virtually impossible because of the runtimes that are present to drop the call. GSM has no focal points where a signal can be cloned.

CDMA is a respectable architecture, but gimme a break if you wanna discount GSM's superiority and scalability vis a vis CDMA. Analog roaming is a Dinosaur feature that US markets should feel ashamed to support.zx The fact is after all the consolidation is complete you will have 2 of the top three wireless providers being GSM based.

[aiwapro]

Sounds to me like from the posts of others, that Voicestream (T-Mobile) should be a good choice for you.

To clear this up for the anonymous poster: T-Mobile is the name that Voicestream Wireless is changing its name too, it's just that some people are already calling it T-Mobile. Some people who have recently activated their service with Voicestream, will never see anything about Voicestream. Everything will say T-Mobile, including the name on their phone, it will say T-Mobile aswell. The whole U.S. should be converted from Voicestream to T-Mobile by September.

Originally posted by: RBOCMAN
My mistake. CDMA does have basic level authentication, but that does not discount the fact that it still relies signal based authentication. It also needs to register with the switch before pulling the subscriber info. Thats two focal points where an experianced signal hacker could clone. Signal hackers can force an Analog signal as well. But of course its virtually impossible because of the runtimes that are present to drop the call. GSM has no focal points where a signal can be cloned.

CDMA is a respectable architecture, but gimme a break if you wanna discount GSM's superiority and scalability vis a vis CDMA. Analog roaming is a Dinosaur feature that US markets should feel ashamed to support.zx The fact is after all the consolidation is complete you will have 2 of the top three wireless providers being GSM based.

analog may be "dinasour" technology, but I would take an analog phone anyday I was stuck somewhere there was no GSM (which there are MANY PLACES that is the case) if I needed to make a call.

I don't think the poster was slamming GSM, just merely pointing out it's limitations (i.e., lack of coverage in rural areas, no analog capbility, etc) and trying to help the orig. poster find a service that will work for them. All formats have their technological strong and weak points, if you want to be technical about it, GSM is a "dinasour" technology, based on TDMA and dates back to the early part of the 1990's. But who cares, if it works for you than that is great.

Let's try to lay off the sales pitches and try to give good neutral advice. Now if the poster were in say, downtown atl or the northern suburbs, a GSM carrier may be a good choice, if they only go to heavilty populated areas- but if they travel rural and outer suburban roads then a GSM provider may not offer the best coverage.

[Why]

Originally posted by: RBOCMAN

The plans on site do not reflect the July promotion special where they give 125 bonus minutes.

Could you please say some more about this? There is NO information out there about this concept, as far as I can tell. I have been in three T-Mobile retail stores (including their "flagship") recently and visited several dealers. I even talked with their indirect sales manager at a Best Buy store, and she made sure that they had all updated promotional information while she was there. From everything I've seen, they still have absolutely zilch in the way of new promotions. That's why I always refer to their plans as "Get Bored" because they continue to display no innovation or creativity by running the exact same deals for nearly a year.

After I saw your message, I called Customer Care again to see how I'd missed out on this promotion (which wouldn't be hard since it's not referenced in print anywhere). As suspected, they confirmed that there are no such promotional minutes available on any plan, new or existing, pre or postpaid. The plans and promotions available are just as stated in print and on their site, just as they've been for eons.

SO...could you please clue us in on how to access this promotion? I know there are many others that could benefit! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

[RBOCMAN]

I understand why you wouldnt be able to find it. I myself didnt know I had that deal, until I looked at my bill. My bill shows 600 minutes instead of 500 and in USOC's 25 bonus minutes. Thats 125 minutes I didnt know I had, now it could be that this is some sorta automated loyalty reward(ive been with them for 10months now) but my freind who just signed on also has these many minutes.

In the MyTMobile site it says im on the preferred UNL plan.

Good Luck

[Why]

RBOCMAN, you mentioned earlier that you're on the Family Time plan, so I'm confused about how you'd also be getting 625 minutes on another plan. Do you have two phones? The Preferred UNL plan is something that you go onto automatically after ten months, and it offers you 100 bonus minutes each month. According to multiple people that I've spoken to there, under no circumstances would this be 125 minutes, and it is absolutely not available until you have been a customer for ten months. If your friend had joined in July, they would not have received their bill yet, and that bill would be prorated for the partial month anyway, so they are obviously very confused. I was hoping I'd missed something here, but it's clear that the "Get Bored" plans are still the only ones out there for new subscribers. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

[RBOCMAN]

Ive got 3 line of wireless service, personal(T-Mobile), Business(Cingular-BLS) and another line I share with my family(T-Mobile). Hope that clears things up. I also attached my USOC list for the sceptic out there......25 bonus minutes is clearly metioned. I think your problem is that you might have mention "Get Bored" a tad too many times when dealing with the CSR so what can you expect.
My friend signed on sometime in May and he clearly believes he's got 600 minutes.



Price Plan/SOC Description Effective Date Expiration Date

BONUS25 25 Bonus Minutes
PREFUNLM2 Preferred UNL
USAECA USA Extend Calling Area
USAEHA ^USA EHA
USALCA USA Local Calling Area