Service between Oklahoma and Texas

[MountainDog]

Howdy. I will be doing a lot of traveling between OK and TX by car over the next year. I am looking for advice on which carrier(s) to use to provide quality signals and voice clarity when I am at the endpoints of my trips, as well as decent coverage to provide service when I am en route. If anyone has any experience in these states, I would like your opinions.

I have tried to keep Sprint as my primary provider, but I live in an area that has only partial coverage and dropped calls make it impossible to use them for business calls. I am considering using either Verizon alone or AT&T's GSM service for use in the places I travel to/from in combination with their basic One Rate or regional plan to provide service in-between.

Concerns about using Verizon inlcude the fact that they do no own any of the networks in Oklahoma and I might be stuck roaming on the same Sprint network that has dropped so many of my calls across both states. Concerns about GSM are not only coverage but I have read in some of these forums that AT&T has simply added GSM to their existing 800MHz towers and that service can be spotty even where it exists. Concerns about TDMA are mainly related to sound quality, which is important since I will often be stuck using the mobile for business calls.

I am leaning towards Verizon to achieve decent coverage with good sound and to avoid multiple phones. Anybody had good or bad experiences with carriers that care to pass along?

BTW, I tried the Sanyo 4900 as a replacement for about a week, but even phones with the best RF cannot pick up a signal where none exists.

[jayc]

Although I don't have any traveling experience between those two areas with verizon I will say vzw seems to be focused on the TX network. Not sure about OK. They do seem to do a pretty good job with the coverage maps unlike other providers.

[BillRadio]

Dog,
Most, if not all, of your calls with Verizon will be completed through Sprint PCS in OK. So, if Sprint is bad there, it will be bad there w/Verizon. I would recommend AT&T's TDMA network. GSM isn't built up enough there, yet.

-Bill

[MountainDog]

Thanks. I was worried about the roaming in Oklahoma. Verizon's 1900MHz tower spacing must be better than the Sprint PCS spacing because I rarely hear of people in Texas compain about dropped calls even though both companies operate at the same frequency. My own experiences with Sprint have actually been quite good until recently.

I must say that their retention folks were more than helpful. We tried several phones to see if they could hold a signal. When none could, they gave me the unlock code for my Motorola P8767 and suggested I see if the Verizon folks would be willing to reprogram it and try to add it to their network. Good service like that almost was enough to make me tolerate the dropped calls. Almost. So, maybe I'll reactivate my Nokia 6160i after all.

[WxGuy1]

I have Verizon service with the SingleRate plan. I have had, contrary to others' comments, very good service through OK and TX. My primary calls are made in rural areas, so I don't know exactly who VZ uses for analog / non-interstate roaming. Whatever the case, I've had a pretty good experience w/ them. I am switching to ATT however because of equipement issues. Again, I plan on doing a ATT OneRate contract...

Jeff