Best cell phone providers in Columbia, SC

Hello Partsman and welcome to Wireless Advisor.

I'm not a frequent traveler to the Columbia area, but being as populated of an area as it is, I would be highly surprised if you had reception troubles with any provider. Luckily, all providers give either 15 or 30 day trial periods where you can return your phone and get a refund if you do have trouble. I would encourage you to take advantage of this trial period if you do have any problems.

If you go with Alltel, there are two main plans I would bring up. The first is the National Freedom 900. It's $69.99 for 2 lines and 900 anytime National minutes. It includes My Circle (unlimited calling to and from any 10 numbers), free mobile-to-mobile (to other Alltel customers), and Nights and Weekends. With My Circle, you will probably find that you don't actually need the extra anytime minutes you're considering. If you use many text messages or want nights at 7, then I would go with the Family Choice Plan. It has all the same features (my circle, m2m, n&w), except for you get 100 additional anytime minutes and each line gets a choice of 1000 monthly text/pic messages or early nights starting at 7pm for $79.99. Also, if you have any questions about phones, feel free to ask, but I would first decide on a provider.

The advantage to switching to Alltel, is that Alltel will give you more free calling than a similarly priced plan at Cingular. And at least where I mainly travel in Virginia and North Carolina, I've found that Alltel often builds very strong networks for coverage while being better priced than other options. But once again, that's why they give trial periods, so you will know how coverage will be in the areas you travel. But my experience with Alltel has been good so I would recommend them.

 

I have heard mostly negative reports about Suncom; I'd probably stay away from them

Feel free to try out the others during the trial period; if none impresses you, you can just ride off into the sunset with cingular contract free

 

Alltel is great in Columbia. I live in Charlotte and work in Charlotte and Columbia. My coworker lives in Lake Carolina near Blythewood off Hardscrabble Road. We have a contract with Richland County School District one and travel all over Richland County and the service is excellent. For the price, you can't go wrong. Alltel's service is just as good if not better than Verizon and Cingular. Their service is better than Sprint/Nextel. Suncom is horrible. If your wife is in real estate avoid Suncom. They typically have horrible if not no service in outlying areas. Your wife does not need to miss any phone calls. Calls=money! Alltel works everywhere! We have the 79.99 plan and me and my wife use about 5,000 minutes a month with no overage charges! God Bless My Circle!!!

 

Ditto what djjim said... Alltel is great in Columbia. I've been there several times in the past year and not had a single problem with them.

 

Whoever you try, most have a 30day trial period. So the best advice is to try out several and see which works best for you.

 

Sprint and Cingular have 30 days, Alltel, Verizon and Suncom have 15 days.