Central NC-CDMA help verizon, alltel or sprint? 9155 or 2135

[ericds]

I'm in Southern Pines (1 hr south of Raleigh) and shopping for new plans. My TDMA Suncom nokia never worked in my house because I am at the bottom of a big hill in a very woodsy area. At the top of the hill things are fine. I'll also be using en route to Ft. Bragg and in Fayetteville.

A friends SprintPCS samsung and Alltel Motorola work fine so I'm switching.

I have heard horror stories a plenty about sprint so any concrete reason to choose verizon over alltel.

Alltel has a local store, vzw doesn't.
National 550 is $55 with the night/weekend vzw 550 is $55 plus $5 for mobile to mobile and weekends

They are the same 1900 cdma network correct? So a decent trimode phone and the eastern seabord is pretty well covered.

I'm also looking at the CDM9155, more features and decent reviews. The Kyocera QCP2135 looks limited.

VW does have the 2235 and 3035 and the LG. And is a bigger company and I'm a small stockholder.

Any factors I missed?

[ComicalMoodyDan]

ALLTEL and Verizon Wireless mostly uses CDMA 800 and analog. From what I have heard ALLTEL has some good rural coverage in NC you might want to choose them.

[scottb]

I have had some difficulty with Verizon in the Southern Pines area as there are definitely some "dead" zones. Usually Verizon has good coverage, but not so much in the Pinehurst area. I don't know about Alltel's coverage in that area.

Scott

[ericds]

Is there a way to tell what mode a phone is working in? I have a friend who has a mot270c. with alltel, can I tell if it is 1900 or 800? Same question for the samsung sprint pcs.

[ericds]

Well,a audiovox 9155 works great where I work but reception is not as good as the mot 270c a buddy has. His phone answers 3-4 times it is called here in the house while the audiovox is 1-4 at best with turning on and off.

[ALLTELGuy]

first, there is not a way to determine which frequency the phone is picking up. at least not w/o knowing the tower numbers and who operates in that area. if it is ALLTEL, then it will be the 800. if it is sprint, it will be the 1800-1900.

from what i have seen from customers, the 270c and 9155 are both great phones. i am a fan of motorola, but i have began to really be pleased with the newer Audiovox phones.

the 270c is no longer carried by ALLTEL (unless the store has not run out), but the 9155 just came out in the last few months. from what I can see, it is a great phone for half the price. not to go against motorola, but I would recommend the 9155

[CDANMA]

You might want to look into US Cellular I know that they just upgraded that area just in the past few months, Not a 100% sure what the coverage is like in that area but just an idea.

[AndrewKT]

I'll start by noting that the original posting date of this message is a little while back...

I use my Verizon phone daily from a building in the Village of Pinehurst. I have usable coverage in the places I've tested the past 2 months. My determinations have been: I roam(Moore County doesn't have local towers, but this is friendly area) on Alltell, and US Cellular. I looked at the PRL and sprint is also in the list, but I haven't figured out how to make my phone (kyocera 2235) roll to sprint. Digital messaging works in this area, and can send messages to and receive from Cingular users without issue.

Alltell is a major player in NC, but service quality (ie, dropped calls, bypass ringing-straight to voicemail) is questionable from some of their customers.

You can't create an account here, so to sign up you'll need to have an address in another county you can use.

[DemoMan]

I recommend Alltel completely....I have not traveled in your area, but I know that they have local customer service....that is something that many carriers (Cingular especially) are moving away from. Personally, I like being able to go talk to a person rather than calling and getting voicemail or a computer. Alltel will allow you to try the service for a month and if you are not happy, simply pay the bill for the month and return the phone.