Cingular or Verizon?

The answer to this question really depends on your area. In my experience CDMA has quite a bit more coverage in less populated areas than GSM. Over the past few years though this has changed drastically and GSM is now moving away from main highways and cities out into the country. A few things to consider would be Sprint has the ability to free roam on many different carriers such as Verizon, Alltel, US Cellular, etc. Pretty much any company running CDMA. Same goes from Alltel, VZW, and USCC. The GSM carriers are t-mobile, and cingular. There are some smaller companies such as dobson/cell one that are used for roaming.

I'd ask around and see who has the best coverage in your area and go with them. Possibly even try out the service to see for yourself. Each carrier usually offers a 15-30 day trial. Also what company are you currently with and are you happy with their rate plans and coverage? If so there may not be a reason to switch.

 

Don't discredit the others too quickly! You should at least check into them and see what they have to offer. But really there is never ONE best carrier, it all depends on what you need and where you live. Verizon will cover some areas Cingular won't and vice versa, and remember most cdma carriers will free roam off of each other and the same with gsm.

 

I live in Michigan and have traveled almost the whole state except the thumb (sorry ) but I did drive from West Branch down 75 all the way Detroit with excellent coverage just about 2 months ago. CDMA is a ton better then GSM in Michigan overall. If you went with Verizon you would have very good coverage. And with the roaming agreements with Alltel and Thumb Cellular you will have good coverage. Although I know you mentioned a problem that your friend has at your house with the signal how it only holds onto the weak vzw signal over the thumb signal. I highly reccommend Alltel in Michigan, they cover the state better then any other provider. But you would have to go to Saginaw or Bay City to get it. I'm surpised you've heard bad things about them, but keep in mind they have made many improvements over the past 2 years. In the cell phone world that is a very long time for any provider. They also just added Thumb Cellular as a free roam partner so now anywhere in the lower peninsula of Michigan you cannot be charged roaming, if you ever are they will credit it back. They free roam on Verizon, Sprint, and others around the country. But between Verizon and Cingular I personally believe Verizon is better, customer service-wise, coverage-wise, technology-wise and network quality-wise. Price is the only thing that is different with them, they aren't the cheapest game in town.

The technologies in my opinion....CDMA is the superior technology and is also newer then GSM. The only thing that GSM is better at is audio fidelity and the difference is negligable(sp?). CDMA uses the spectrum more efficiently and is much more widespread then GSM in North America. However, GSM is more popular worldwide, so their pricing is often better then CDMA carriers for phones and network equipment (towers, etc.). It also cost the carriers more to run CDMA as opposed to GSM in most areas. That is one reason why there are so many cheap phones on eBay that use GSM. Also CDMA can do soft handoffs to other towers while GSM cannot (I don't know much about that part of it though). T-Mobile has gotten slightly better, as they now roam off Dobson and Cenetennial in Michigan, but I wouldn't reccommend them. Their own native network is servely lacking in Michigan. I would stay away from Nextel just because it is an old technology and coverage can be spotty.

 

Just curious... what "bad things" have you heard about Alltel?

I've been with them for over two years now. and I have been very satisfied. Their coverage in Saginaw, Bay City, and Midland is very solid. The ability to roam on Verizon with no charges in Michigan is a huge plus too.

Verizon has very solid coverage in the Tri-Cities as well, and it's definitely the most popular cell provider in the area. If you are going to SVSU though, Verizon's signal is weak in some areas of the campus where Alltel works better. The opposite is true at Delta... Verizon works much better inside.

I wouldn't recommend Sprint. Geographically, most of Michigan is part of the Sprint affilliate iPCS. This includes Saginaw, over to Grand Rapids, and up through Traverse City. Sprint works great in the corporate markets (Detroit, Flint, Lansing), but coverage is severely lacking in the iPCS areas. I can force my phone onto Sprint, and the signal is awful compared to that of Alltel and Verizon. iPCS charges upwards of $1.25 a minute for roaming as well.

Strunke is right that T-Mobile's coverage is severly lacking in Michigan. Don't expect to use a T-Mobile phone at either SVSU or Delta. I also have heard that T-Mobile is very strict about roaming in their native service areas. I know roaming on Cingular or Centennial in the Grand Rapids area is not allowed.

 

Thumb Cellular was just added as free roam earlier this year.

 

How long ago was this? It was only a few months ago when Thumb Cellular became free roam.

Whatever plan your friend was on should not matter, since Thumb Cellular free roaming was added to both Greater Freedom and National Freedom.

 

Things change quickly with cell coverage because of roaming agreements. I wouldn't rule out Alltel so quickly because your friend was charged roaming in an area that roaming charges no longer apply as of a few months ago.

Their phone selection is a little behind, but they do have some nice options and I think more should be released soon. And generally, most people prefer having service that works everywhere as opposed to a cool phone that won't work in several places that you will be. It just sounds like Alltel has the best coverage and prices overall. Also as mentioned before, Verizon's prices don't sound very supportive of the poor college student as far as prices go and in that situation, you might find yourself calling home a lot where it would eat up minutes with Verizon but would be covered under MyCircle with Alltel. I've been there.

 

Here is Alltel's native coverage, and you roam free on Verizon (like in Detroit), Sprint, USCC, and in your area Thumb Cellular. Sorry for the size

And here is the actual coverage with free roaming....

 

Yep about entire area of the LP where it is blue, it is covered in native towers, the UP has some bad spots though which you can see on the actual coverage map. They bought CenturyTel in 2002, and upgraded the whole network and built out more. They also have a lot money which they will be using to build out more EVDO and buy out other carriers, possibly even Thumb cellular...however I don't know how likely that is. Right now they are looking at some local kentucky/west virginia and florida carriers.

Here is a really old greater freedom map which doesn't include Thumb Cellular and any new towers they built. Which they still are building.....


It includes VZW so if you compare the maps you see where the native ends and begins.

 

Yes it does include vzw, i mentioned that near the bottom of the map . But yeah that is another reason I like Alltel, they have better pricing then the big guys, but all the coverage and features. The one thing they don't have is the selection of phones, although they do have the latest and greatest fairly soon after the big carriers have it. The midrange phones are somewhat outdated.

But I will add, they have been adding new ones a lot recently....

 

What you or anyone experiences if unique to you. Everyone has different factors that determines how well something works for them.

 

from personal experiences (2years) my cingular coverage was terrible, i would drop calls all the time (southern cali) talk about false advertising. between cingular and VZ i would chose VZ. my family has just moved to SPRINT and everything is good so far, no roaming charges, nights start at 7

 

Although I will say that GSM in Michigan is terrible outside of the main roads and highways. If you live in a bigger city and do not travel in rural areas then GSM is usually good. But in Michigan, it's not that good.

 

The Thumb may be an exception, expecially since Dobson is bigger and has more money and able to build their network much better then Thumb. But the rest of the state GSM is not as good as CDMA. Although they are improving.

 

get the one that works best best for you, dont worry what everone else thinks,:loony:

 

I had VZ as of a few days ago. I live in southern WI and travel to MI often for family(inlaws). VZ dafinately has better coverage than cingular, but I switched back to cingular. Some think I'm crazy since most of my family has VZ but here's my reasoning... VZ has locked all the features of the phones that I wanted (new RAZR V3m) so that they would be able to make tons of money by having everyone buy their software to connect to a computer. No custom ringtones(they have to be purchased and downloaded) no file transfer (what good is a 1.3MP camera that can't be downloaded to a computer for free) and no ability to sync address book and calender with outlook. I went back to the older cingular V3 and everything works great. I didn't have to hack into the phone and void my warrantee just to use the features that were advertised. Yes the VZ phones are capeable of doing what they say, but everything beyond making phone calls is going to cost you extra.

 

I travel up and down the east coast from Charlotte, NC to New England and have never paid roaming. You may hit roaming on Alltel in 1% of the country if you are lucky. The chances are slim to none. Alltel has been great for me, give them a try. Way cheaper than Verizon, Cingular and Sprint too. With My Circle and free n&w starting at 7:00, my wife and I racked up 5,000 minutes last month and didn't pay one cent in overages! And we only have 1000 anytime minutes! I also have heard nothing but good things about MI coverage after hanging out on these boards for a few years now. I think you really need to give it a try.