Any plans for Verizon coverage in Alaska?

[Bluegill]

My wife and I will will be at Elmendorf for 2 weeks in June/July and was wondering if out Verizon phones will work up there.

[ILUVSOCAL]

There is CDMA digital coverage in Anchorage on the 1900 PCS band via Alaska Digitel, www.alaskadigitel.com, though I don't know if they cover Elmendorf. If not, there is also analog coverage via ACS Wireless, www.acsalaska.com, and AT&T Wireless, www.attws.com, in Anchorage. Your V120e does digital on the 800 and 1900 bands, and analog on the 800, so that should give you a fighting chance at coverage. Make sure and dial *228, then select option 2 before you go, and that will make sure you have the latest PRL, which should also help your coverage. If you get up there, and find you don't have service, try switching the band select between Auto A and Auto B, and see if that helps, sometimes there is service in areas, but you have to manually switch bands to pick up on it. Let me know if I can help you any more [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

[roamer1]

VZW has no licenses in AK. That said...

1) IIRC, VZW pulled roaming with Alaska Digitel [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]
2) ACS is converting to CDMA

If you're on an America's Choice plan, YOU WILL PAY ROAMING in AK. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

-SC

[larry]

Sprint also has coverage there but are still in the building process.

[roamer1]

Yep, you're right -- forgot about SPCS. (Even though VZW includes roaming on many SPCS systems in its AC plans, and IIRC VZW can even roam on SPCS AK AFAIK they do NOT include SPCS AK in AC rates for some reason; "posted PRLs" seem to indicate such anyway.)

-SC

[PCW]

AT&T coverage is impressive in the populated areas of Alaska (IS-136 TDMA), although AT&T and Dobson Cellular recently announced a market swap, with Dobson acquiring AT&T's Alaska infrastructure and market, in exchange for Dobson's market in Northern California (see the press release on AT&T's website). In my recent travels this year and last year to south-central Alaska, including Anchorage/Eagle River, Palmer/Wasilla, Seward, etc., I had great coverage with AT&T.

I've also read on here and elsewhere (HowardForums) that Sprint is implementing infrastructure in the Anchorage area, but I've seen nothing 'official' posted anywhere. Some SprintPCS users report being able to use their phones in Anchorage (not roaming, either).

[TProphet]

Using a wireless phone in Alaska is indeed an adventure! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

As of September, when I was last there, SPCS in Anchorage doesn't show a roam indicator on the phone. However, you're actually roaming on Alaska DigiTel on the 1900MHz band (which you find out if you try to dial any customer service codes). This lack of a roaming indicator only applies to *parts* of Anchorage, not the entire city. The second you're outside of central Anchorage (such as it is), even within the city limits, you're roaming. I'm not sure exactly how SPCS accomplishes this. As I understand it, in Fairbanks, Sprint actually has their own coverage (or at least has their own System ID), although I have not personally used it (there was no digital coverage the last time I was in Fairbanks, which was in Summer, 2000).

I was billed for roaming on the Alaska DigiTel system, but I made some legitimate roaming calls so I wasn't able to discern whether they billed me for roaming in the area where it was claimed I wasn't roaming. I expected to use my phone more, so I took a picture of my phone in Anchorage. Although the display is blurry (the camera auto-focus went wide), you can still make out that the phone is not roaming. Click here for photographic evidence

Overall, I was amazed at how poor the quality of Alaska DigiTel coverage was. I've been in some truly awful Sprint coverage areas, but Alaska DigiTel is worse even than Sprint in the Pacific Northwest circa 1998! A call I made dropped 3 times on Dimond Blvd, one of the busiest shopping areas in Anchorage. In smaller cities where they offer coverage (such as Girdwood and the Kenai Peninsula), Alaska DigiTel has only a single tower which is invariably overloaded and requires multiple attempts to get calls through. To understand how poor Alaska DigiTel coverage is, note that they don't even cover all of Anchorage International Airport. I mean, c'mon, guys. Airports are fundamental! Their customer service is unhelpful and won't transfer you to Sprint, either--and you get that far only if you can reach them. This is difficult, because they run their customer service out of the back of a retail store and only answer the phone on weekdays during store hours! According to a Fred Meyer employee I asked, Alaska DigiTel's first market was prepaid customers. They now offer monthly calling plans, which are very expensive by Lower 48 terms but cheaper than the price-gouging rates of other Alaska carriers. Some of these plans include "lower 48+Hawaii" Sprint PCS coverage. If someone were living in Alaska and either frequently visited other states with Sprint PCS coverage or required a prepaid plan, I'd recommend considering Alaska Digitel. I would do so under no other circumstances, based on my (admittedly limited) experience with their coverage.

As an aside, SPCS' lack of a roaming agreement with ACS Wireless is a severe handicap. ACS offers the widest coverage area in Alaska, and is the *only* cellular coverage available in many areas (including places such as Whittier, which is the jumping-off point for the Valdez ferry). You can roam on either Alaska DigiTel (which is higher priority in the PRL) or ATTWS. Unfortuantely, ATTWS like Alaska DigiTel often only has a single tower in smaller cities, with no rural or highway coverage (this is almost exclusively the domain of ACS Wireless). Of course, since they provide 800MHz analog coverage, they still have a wider coverage area with a single tower than Alaska DigiTel can offer, and they provide coverage in many more cities than Alaska DigiTel does.

I've also read on here and elsewhere (HowardForums) that Sprint is implementing infrastructure in the Anchorage area, but I've seen nothing 'official' posted anywhere. Some SprintPCS users report being able to use their phones in Anchorage (not roaming, either).

[ZaphodB]

ACS Wireless also tend to have one (analog) tower per town... they have towers so that there's juuuuuuuuuust barely coverage along the highways - and there are some real dead spots. Slana (southwest of Tok) has no coverage due to their funky topography, and the whole area around Delta Jct. is not covered. Denali is kind of half and half.

I'll believe they're converting to CDMA when I see it. There is a non-negligible number of houses in Tok that don't have city electric yet, let alone digital cell coverage.

[emie554]

You need to be on the Single Rate Nation to have no roaming charges in Alaska. For that price plan you need to have a tri-mode phone.

[BikerBandit]

single rate national is the only choice to roam in alaska and not pay for it

[larry]

Not really. Sprint's roaming option would give you the same thing. There's also rumors that Sprint actually covers some of the big cities in Alaska now.

[jayc]

On America's Choice you will be roaming off of Alaska Digitel or AT&T Wireless in Elmendorf at the rate of .69c per min.

Have a safe trip. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

[mreg]

Originally posted by: larry
Not really. Sprint's roaming option would give you the same thing. There's also rumors that Sprint actually covers some of the big cities in Alaska now.

You seem to be quite the Sprint booster. The fact is that the new Sprint "roaming option" seems to be a secret that they're trying to keep from their customers, and according to what I read in this very forum Sprint coverage in Alaska is virtually non-existent. If you're getting other information that's real I'd apperciate knowing the source.

[larry]

And you seem to be quite the Sprint hater. I believe Sprint does have coverage in Alaska. Where are your sources that say they don't? I have seen some posts right on this very thread and on other forums that point to Sprint having non-roaming coverage in Alaska. Even roamer1 (who is a pretty reliable source) says they have coverage. Do a search on google groups and you will see several people reporting Sprint coverage in Alaska during the past 6 months.

[Joe0378]

My suggestion:

With Verizon, you can switch your plans as many times as you want.

If you're on the AC plan, switch it to the NSR plan before you leave so you wont incur any roaming charges there. When you get back, switch it back to the AC plan. The only bad thing about this is that you would have to renew your contract every time you switch.

-OR-

Just purchase a calling card and use a payphone. They (calling cards) are so cheap now since cell phones went on national plans.

[Gman]

You have to renew your contract when you switch plans?

[Joe0378]

If you switch from the AC plan to the NSR, I don't think you have to since you are not taking on any promotions since there are not any for the NSR plan, but I can be wrong about this.

However, I do know for sure that if you change from the NSR to the AC plan, yes you would have to renew your contract since it has promos which the NSR plan did not have. In order to take advantage of a promo, Verizon always requires you to resign into another contract.

[BikerBandit]

this is somewaht incorrect. you only have to renew your contract if you get a new promotion