Service Plan for Treo 270

[drsarahc]

I am in SF Bay Area (Berkeley, in fact) and am hoping to buy a Treo 270 in the next few weeks.

Currently it seems the 270 only works with Cingular or T-Mobile.
1. What are your experiences with coverage in Berkeley, Oakland, and/or San Francisco?

Although I have read here that T-Mobile uses Cingular's network, the coverage maps are *VERY* different. For example, Cingular appears to provide excellent over-water coverage -- important to me because I am a boater.
2. Why are the coverage maps so different?

T-Mobile's Get More plan offers a lot more minutes than Cingular... for less money.
3. Is this a "ya get what ya pay for situation", i.e. is T-Mobile's equipment or coverage or customer service inferior to Cingular's?

I have seen Verizon and AT&T praised here.
4. Anybody know if either of these networks will start supporting the Treo 270? I think the salient issue is that the network has to be able to handle GSM phones. (I may be using the terminology incorrectly; please feel free to correct me.)

Thanks for any advice -
Cheers,
Sarah

[ZaphodB]

Originally posted by: drsarahc
I am in SF Bay Area (Berkeley, in fact) and am hoping to buy a Treo 270 in the next few weeks.

Currently it seems the 270 only works with Cingular or T-Mobile.
1. What are your experiences with coverage in Berkeley, Oakland, and/or San Francisco?

Although I have read here that T-Mobile uses Cingular's network, the coverage maps are *VERY* different. For example, Cingular appears to provide excellent over-water coverage -- important to me because I am a boater.
2. Why are the coverage maps so different?

T-Mobile's Get More plan offers a lot more minutes than Cingular... for less money.
3. Is this a "ya get what ya pay for situation", i.e. is T-Mobile's equipment or coverage or customer service inferior to Cingular's?

I have seen Verizon and AT&T praised here.
4. Anybody know if either of these networks will start supporting the Treo 270? I think the salient issue is that the network has to be able to handle GSM phones. (I may be using the terminology incorrectly; please feel free to correct me.)

Thanks for any advice -
Cheers,
Sarah

The Treo 270 is GSM only. Your choices are Cingular or T-Mobile - AT&T will not activate a Treo 270 on their GSM network yet.

Berkeley - Coverage in the flats is pretty good. The second you get into the hills or away from the more built up parts of town, you're screwed. Marin Circle? HA! Coverage at Cal is a bit spotty only because they won't let towers be built on campus, so coverage is better on the west side of campus. Coverage downtown (Shattuck, University, Ashby, etc.) is great.

Oakland - Pretty good really. I'm near 13 and Park and I have decent coverage even standing in a canyon. Downtown is of course totally covered, and the airport is too now.

SF - There are some dead spots but overall not so bad. I use my T-Mobile phone successfully in the Financial District and SOMA. There's a wonky spot near Van Ness and Polk though, otherwise I haven't had any problems.

The coverage maps were doubtless drawn by different people. My advice is to buy the Treo from a T-Mobile corporate store and try it out for the 14-day trial period, see if it works where you are.