rezuest advice for national plan

[Susie]

My husband and I need help finding a better cellular plan. We have been using the AT&T One Rate plan but have been advised by their representative to look for an alternate carrier.

They are evidently going to strictly DSM(satellite system) and are planning to sell their towers and will no longer have cooperative agreements with other carriers. We were advised we could keep our plan but know that the reception areas would become fewer and fewer.

We travel a lot mostly in the Western United States. Most of our time is spent in Montana and Texas.

We are looking for help in deciding where to turn. Does anyone have experience with the Cellular One Off Network Plan or with the national Verizon plan? Any other suggestions? Also do you have suggestions for phones with the best reception?

Thank you.

[ILUVSOCAL]

Whoever told you that is seriously misinformed, AT&T is not selling their systems, nor are they going to a satellite based network.

[TProphet]

There is some truth in what you've heard. AT&T is converting to a GSM system (not DSM). The technology is global, but is not satellite-based.

AT&T, to my knowledge, doesn't have roaming agreements with any other GSM providers in the US, and the GSM footprint does not comprise AT&T's entire network, either. While AT&T is slowly adding GSM capability to their national network, GSM coverage isn't available everywhere, and many users have found the coverage to be poor in the places it is available. Making matters worse, AT&T is strictly in maintenance mode with their existing TDMA/analog system. They're not directing any new resources toward improving it. Meanwhile, though, they haven't stopped adding users to the system, exacerbating capacity issues. But hey--they now charge for busy and unanswered calls over 30 seconds, to make up for the poor service (I don't quite follow the logic, either).

It's a rough time to be an AT&T customer. Two of my friends from Portland finally dumped them and consider T-Mobile service to be far superior (that's really saying something, since T-Mobile isn't known for great coverage).

[ILUVSOCAL]

"AT&T, to my knowledge, doesn't have roaming agreements with any other GSM providers in the US,"


They do with Edge Wireless [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

[CellPhoneJunkie2]

AT&T also has roaming agreements with T-Mobile (at least in markets where they don't overlap) and they've also started co-locating towers together. The GSM footprint is currently smaller, but I would assume AT&T would convert its entire TDMA network over to GSM, not necessarily jettison it off. This was a sales rep talking to you?