MetroPCS coverage San Francisco

[erikburns]

Hey all:

I was wondering if any of you out there have experience with MetroPCS coverage quality in San Francisco/Bay Area?

The feeling I get from this list is that most people have used it in Sacto, and have been adequately content. I'm not looking for stellar (since the price itself is stellar), but I also don't want to buy something that won't work half the time.

What do you all think?

Erik

[stevegman]

Used Metro Pcs for a month in the Walnut creek area and coverage is very spotty. Not quite there yet imho.

[roamer1]

Not me, but the author of www.sfbacell.com reports Metro's coverage in the Bay Area is very spotty. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

-SC

[ArtsOne]

Hi all,


I am suprised by the quality of coverage I experienced since singing up on a few days ago. I used the phone in San Ramon, Walnut Creek, Pleasanton, Berkeley, Emeryville, San Jose, Milpitas, Cupertino, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and Palo Alto without difficulty. However, I could not access roaming while in Petaluma which is outside of the coverage area, even when I switched to Analog mode (I got a signal but the phone number I was automatically forwarded to for billing was disconnected).

But I still can't believe this is is for real. I haven't received my first bill yet and am waiting to be surprised. I also noticed a couple of different irate customers (I mean really irate) in one of the stores. I have no idea what they were complaining about.

[XprtCop]

Well , for starters, their phones are outdated and really fisher price looking, 35 dollars a month gives you certain cities, but try calling from your home area to lets say Marin county, bewm, long distance charge, ohh yeah, paying for extra features that other carriers include? and definetely SPOTS everywhere!!!
who wants to call unlimited time when you cant even place a good quality call?

Customer service? Metro PCS has it?

[Sadhu]

I've had a MetroPCS phone through one of my employers since the beginning of 2003. MetroPCS simply isn't a full-service provider, and trying to look at them that way makes it impossible for them to measure up. It's true that they charge extra for services that are standard with other carriers. Not to mention long distance at 5 cents per minute. And their network is small. So if you plan to use your phone anywhere other than the major population centers and freeway corridors in the Bay Area, another carrier is probably a better option.

On the plus side, Metro's coverage seems to be where they say it will be. I've had service all the way out in Livermore, as well as all over San Jose and the Peninsula. One of our employees claims that she doesn't get any coverage at her house near the Mission district in SF, but I haven't verified that. Inside my apartment in San Mateo, I usually get 3 out of 4 bars. I've got a CDMA phone, a Kyocera model. I've had a couple of dropped calls in two+ months of usage, but that doesn't seem shocking.

Speaking of phones, yes they are low-budget models. But I have absolutely zero need for data, and I find browsing the web on a postage-stamp sized screen to be of absolutely no value, so it was easy enough to choose a base-model Kyocera instead of the Sony Ericsson option. Again, since I use this phone and this service mainly to stay in touch with specific employees in the IT dept while I'm away from the office, I can't complain.

Still... the monthly bill, with the $3 voicemail option and the taxes, comes to over $42. A $39.99 plan with another carrier would give me much better choice of phones, a much larger network, free long distance, better service, and so on. It's really not possible to argue MetroPCS is a great deal.

But if you hate counting minutes... or if you really just want a basic, no-frills cellphone for calling friends and family within northern California... then you may like Metro. Remember though, even though you can call for free over much of Northern Cal, you can only do so if you remain in your home calling area... and if I understand correctly, for Bay Area people, this includes Salinas but not the greater Sacramento area. So this company, at present, is definitely not a good option for everyone.

Oh -- and as I learned today when our company forgot to pay their bill on time, MetroPCS will have your service shut off within hours of your missing the payment deadline. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

[ArtsOne]

In doing the math, I've found that MetroPCS in addition to a Verizon is the cheapest option for me. I make about 2,000 minutes of peak calls a month, most of them local calls within the Bay Area. Even at 5cents a minute for long distance, I come out ahead. I plan to use the MetroPCS for work (during the day time) and Verizon for personal (weekends and evenings) -- I end up saving 50% of my costs.

Old plan (based on current rates)
------------------------------------------
Verizon 2000 minutes $155.00

New plan
------------
Verizon 400 minutes $40.00
MetroPCS Unlimited minutes $40.00 (add VM and extras)
Total $80.00

Or am I missing something?

Sadhu, which plans are comparable to MetroPCS? I'd like to check them out.

[Sadhu]

Hi ArtsOne,

sorry to be late in responding; I haven't checked this board all week.

But I think you hit the nail on the head... MetroPCS can make economic sense if you make a LOT of calls during peak hours.

I really don't know of any plan comparable to Metro. Everyone else gives you limited peak hours talk time, and they make peak hours include all or almost all of each weekday. Back in January, I did about an hour a day of talking each weekday on Metro... something like 1400 minutes. It would definitely have been more expensive for me with other plans. On the other hand, much of that was mobile-to-mobile, so it's possible that another plan MIGHT have helped me and kept costs low. Metro is admittedly a very narrowly-tailored service, with few extras and very limited calling area. But it can serve a useful purpose. ArtsOne, your idea of having two plans seems like a good way of making Metro work for you.

[TNDan21]

Actually Metro PCS just recently lowered there Long Distance Rates. The new rates are now roughly 1.67 cents per minute.

Metro PCS Long Distance Plan

[bukzin]

Not sure what you mean about calling Marin County. Metro's calling area is every area code
in Northern Calif to the Oregon border. I have called to 415, 530, 916, 707 etc and
spoke for hours and never seen any long distance, roaming or surcharges.

Of course you must be in one of their coverage areas (see map @ web site)
and the signal is sometimes weak when you are far from one of the towers
but we just added ext. antenna ($25) and could not be more pleased.

No I do not work for them or any other carrier; just own a business
using 5 phone numbers and calling tons for $42 a month.

Bukzin

[Jack]

Thats a great deal on long distance calling.

Great Alternative to having a home phone.

Jack

[bukzin]

Yeah Jack, it is.

But this is not long distance, this hugh area is all in my 'home calling area'
the long distance is billed a 1.7 cents per minute!

Nextel was getting about 4 times what we now pay MetroPCS.

[Rasputin]

A few of my friends went with Metro PCS in the Bay Area, they found SF to be spotty and have bad indoor coverage, freeway coverage was good, overall indoor coverage for them was weak, one friend canceled service my other friend has kept it because it is so cheap, and has a verizon with less minutes as his backup when he can not get service or goes to SF.

[TProphet]

If you take a closer look at the "1.7 cents per minute" it's not such a great deal.

You buy a package of minutes every month. 3 hours for $3, 5 hours for $5, or 10 hours for $10. Those are your options, so if you talk more than your package, I'm not sure what happens. And the long distance minutes don't roll over from month to month. Talk 5 long distance minutes on the $3 package over a month? Congratulations, you just paid 60 cents per minute! WHAT A GREAT DEAL COMPARED TO THE NICKEL!

This just goes to show... deals that sound too good to be true usually are. Always read the fine print! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

[ultramookie]

I had MetroPCS for a while, my mom still has it. It's a decent service if you don't need your phone outside of the SF Bay Area. Like the others said there are some spots all over the place in their coverage (for instance in Milpitas there is one spot where I can predict when I'm gonna loose signal, on the Tasman/Great Mall Parkway bridge right at the light where the 880N traffic gets off). When I had the service I had two major incidents with them where my phone would get service but would not work -- all incoming calls instantly got sent to VM, all outgoing calls just "hung" there with no connection to the cell. These two incidents caused about 10 days of outage for me. My mom has not had such problems though, so I'm not sure what happened. I jumped off of the MetroPCS bandwagon because I didn't use the phone enough to justify the $40/mo (I started to travel a lot).