Sprint V. Verizon in California

[MattJo]

What are yall's opinions on Sprint Vs. Verizon in California? I'm talking about all around good service and phone selection.

I'm currently with Verizon and I am indeed in love with the coverage and reception but I am however, very turned off by the phone selection. I know service should come before phones but what about in California am I going to tell a difference with Sprint, if I change?

[ILUVSOCAL]

Where in California? Location matters, for example, my area in NW California (Mendocino County) has poor Verizon coverage, and no Sprint coverage, but just 35 miles to the south of me in Sonoma County, they both have good coverage.

[larry]

In the well built out areas such as Orange County they both have great coverage. You might not notice much difference. But overall Verizon covers more of the state with native coverage. But both carrier have roaming agreements and you can roam off network with Sprint for only $5/mo added to your plan.

[ILUVSOCAL]

I can roam off network with Cingular for free [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

[AnthroMatt]

Originally posted by: ILUVSOCAL
I can roam off network with Cingular for free [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

How's your analog roaming on Cingular?

[ILUVSOCAL]

Ninety-Five percent of the time, I don't need it, and for those RARE occasions where I do, I have plenty of backup phones, and my V120e will do both CDMA and AMPS, so I'm safe there. You'd be amazed at how good the GSM/GPRS coverage is up here compared to last year, really, I have it now in VERY ISOLATED and REMOTE areas like Weaverville in Trinity County, and Hoopa and Willow Creek in the Trinity Nat'l Forest in Humboldt County. I travel all over Nor Cal on a weekly basis, so I am always checking the coverage on GSM, TDMA, AMPS and CDMA. I would say USCC and Cal North still have the best coverage in NW California, but Edge and Cingular are catching up quick, it's amazing to watch.

[larry]

Originally posted by: ILUVSOCAL
I can roam off network with Cingular for free [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

Nothing's free. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] They simply add it on to the cost of the plan. Sprint could do the same thing (making it appear free) but choose to have it as an add on option instead.

[ILUVSOCAL]

True, but I still like it being included, less to worry about [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

[TProphet]

Sprint service is generally pretty good in California, at least in corporate markets. I didn't have too much trouble in their northern California affiliate markets either, to be honest, except in the area north of Sacramento where the market transitions to Ubiquitel (coverage is spotty at best between Arbuckle and Williams along I-5). In fact, the Sprint store in Eureka (an Ubiquitel market) was very courteous and helpful. If you frequently travel to more remote parts of the state, you might want to consider the Free and Clear America option. In Sprint corporate markets, this is a $5 add-on and allows you to roam for up to 50% of your actual usage each month.

I roamed quite a bit on Cal North Wireless and definitely wasn't impressed. It was mostly analog coverage with tower placement optimized for 3W bag phones in a lot of areas, including I-5 (in the Weed and Dunsmuir areas), where you'd reasonably expect better coverage. I think that US Cellular covers nothern and northwest California a lot better. I can confirm US Cellular is better than Verizon in Mendocino county; in fact, my Verizon handset was roaming on US Cellular there more often than not.

If you go with Sprint, the conventional wisdom is to get a Sanyo phone. The conventional wisdom is conventional for a reason--these phones perform very well on the Sprint network. However, you might want to avoid Sanyo if you plan to roam a lot. The Nokia 3588i does very well on the Sprint network, and also works well on 800MHz digital and analog roaming. My aunt and uncle have a cabin at Berry Creek, and just bought one of each handset. The Sanyo was dead in the water--it was trying to lock onto a distant (so distant as to be unusable) Sprint signal, and could only roam if they forced it to analog (which resulted in very poor coverage). Meanwhile, the Nokia flipped over to digital roam and worked flawlessly.

[ILUVSOCAL]

That's weird, I had a full digital signal on my Verizon V120e while on Cal North Wireless in Hoopa and Willow Creek.

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by: MattJo
What are yall's opinions on Sprint Vs. Verizon in California? I'm talking about all around good service and phone selection.

I'm currently with Verizon and I am indeed in love with the coverage and reception but I am however, very turned off by the phone selection. I know service should come before phones but what about in California am I going to tell a difference with Sprint, if I change?

Where in Cali do you live and what areas do you use the phone in mostly? Metro and suburb wise, Sprint has addedd a ton of sites, and has done a good job in making their coverage better. My brother lives in San Jose and has Sprint and has been very happy with it. I do notice a few places where I get coverage where he does not. I do have a little more signal in some places for interior coverage.

[TProphet]

I ran into a digital signal from Cal North Wireless just north of Eureka along 101, just before I entered Sprint coverage (operated by Ubiquitel). They do have some digital coverage, but I used their network all the way along 101 and I-5 and had almost no digital service.

Originally posted by: ILUVSOCAL
That's weird, I had a full digital signal on my Verizon V120e while on Cal North Wireless in Hoopa and Willow Creek.

[ILUVSOCAL]

Oh, Hoopa is on Hwy.96 east of Arcata, and Willow Creek and Weaverville are east of Arcata in the National Forest on Hwy.299, awesome trout, steelhead and salmon fishing area by the way!! Tons of creeks, and the Eel, Klamath, Smith and Trinity Rivers.

[stunna]

Both providers are pretty good now in California. Overall, in major cities I really don't see much difference between the two (I use to have Verizon and currently use Sprint). But once you get to the peripheral areas, Verizon seems to have better coverage. I was happy with Verizon and currently am happy with Sprint.

[larry]

The one area Verizon has coverage that Sprint doesn't is along Hwy 395 to Bishop and Mammoth. Cell One seems to cover the area better than Verizon though. Sprint keeps changing their roaming agreements back and forth between those two carriers in Inyo and Mono Counties. I wish they would keep Cell One for the better coverage.

[ILUVSOCAL]

"The one area Verizon has coverage that Sprint doesn't is along Hwy 395 to Bishop and Mammoth"

Actually, I think there's more areas than that Larry [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] Lake and Mendocino Counties for one, also Modoc and Lassen Counties.