In Cali, switch from Verizon to ??? [want T68i]

I think most people here are going to tell you T-Mobile is the way to go right now if you want GSM in California. ATT's GSM network is young, unproven, and apparently they are having some trouble with it in LA, at least according to other posters. Cingular has major, major problems with system busies, especially up here in San Francisco. Although T-Mobile and Cingular share their network, Cingular system busies should not affect T-Mobile users because TM has their own switches.

T-Mobile should be releasing the T68i for their network this month sometime. After the 1000 minute promotion is up (today? They might have pushed it back again), I think you will be able to get 600 anytime, unlimited weekend for $40/mo. The only mobile minutes they seem to be offering is on the "Family Time" plan, which has 800 anytime minutes, unlimited weekend and unlimited T-Mobile minutes for $70/mo.

Anyway, I signed up on the off chance that Catherine Zeta Jones might hand deliver my bill to me each month. (Still waiting on phone however... where IS SHE??)

 

Don't beleive what others say about Cingular's system busies. They were horrible. I got about 5 or 6 system busies a day and I didn't make that many calls to start with. After they upgraded their network I've had maybe 3 or 4 busies in a couple months. Cingular is great now. I'm not saying to go with them. I'm just saying they've vastly improved. Plus, on a side note, rumor has it that Cingular is going to buy T-Mobile. You may get Cingular even if you don't want it.

 

Joe,
You will NOT get "better service for a better price" by leaving Verizon! Verizon's coverage across CA and the US is second to none. What you CAN get is more minutes for the money, or a T68i, but you will do so at the risk of having less coverage!

Most carriers serve West L.A. pretty well, but you could very well switch to a carrier that has a dead spot right where you live, or a carrier that gets overloaded when the off-peak hours begin. T-Mobile and Cingular are improving, but they are still not as good as Verizon. AT&T/GSM is even earlier in their growth cycle with much left to improve!

If you want to switch to another carrier to get a certain phone or a bigger included-minute plan, make sure you do so knowing that you will be making some kind of sacrifice to get it. Usually the difference is coverage, and most likely it will be when you are roaming away from home.

-Bill

 

Are you located in on the SF peninsula? Not even an hour ago, I got cut off mid-sentence with a fast busy signal while talking to a friend calling me from Cingular.

 

No. I'm in the L.A. area. I know there are still problems in S.F.

 

Cingular busies will be T-Mobile busies, the problem lies not in the switches themselves it is the capacity of the cells, when you get cut off either you are in a hole or you are trying to handoff to a cell site that does not have room for you. Cingular really has too few customers to have the busies they have.

 

BillRadio,

Congratulations, you win the FUD contest for this thread (that's Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt). Realise that every provider that sells service in California has at least a 14-day (and sometimes a 30-day) buyer's remorse period. So you buy the phone, you take it home, and if you find it doesn't work, you return it. You pay for the minutes you've used. In most cases they even reimburse the setup fee (not sure which do and which don't do this at the moment, though).

Also, most of us have friends and cow-orkers with varying cell service providers who can let us know if they have big giant coverage holes floating about our homes and businesses. Then you can avoid them.

Yes, Verizon have the best coverage, and yes, there is analog backup, but it may just be that our Anonymous user doesn't need to use his phone in Mammoth or out in East Piddlebung way out in the desert. I find the GSM coverage quite acceptable in 95% of the places I travel. I know that I will be dropped in the northern reaches of Coldwater Canon in Beverly Hills. I don't consider analog coverage acceptable due to its poor sound quality.

In short, let him try it. I'm sure our Anonymous poster isn't going to be foolish enough to shut off his Verizon service before he assures that the service to which he switches is acceptable and meets his needs.

 

I can tell you that you wont find a better service provider out there than with Verizon. You may be able to get a better price, more minutes, better phone, etc. I am currently deciding between AT&T and Verizon (You can read my thread "I took the plunge!!"). I am trying out the Sony Ericsson T68i with AT&T and the Motorola V60i with Verizon. So far it is no contest, Verizon has better coverage.

I just cancelled my service with Cingular and with T-Mobile you are gonna get the same thing. AT&T just came out with their GSM service, so think about what they are going to go through. I'm sure they will end up with the same problems as Cingular when they switched from TDMA to GSM and I really don't want to go through that again. I think it will be at least a year before AT&T's GSM system matures and they convert all of their towers.

With Verizon I got the America's Choice Plan ($39.99), 300 anytime minutes, unlimited nights & weekends, 1,000 national mobile to mobile. With AT&T I got the National GSM/GPRS Plan ($34.99), 500 anytime minutes, unlimited nights & weekends, 500 local mobile to mobile. When you first look at it, it seems like AT&T has given me the better deal. You have to realize that nights for AT&T are from 9pm to 5:59am and for Verizon is 8:01pm to 5:59am. That being said you get an extra hour of unlimited calls with Verizon which can easily add an extra 200 minutes to your anytime plan. You also get 500 more mobile to mobile minutes extra and with Verizon you can use them nationally.

I agree that the Sony Ericsson is just the coolest little phone and it will be hard for me to give up, but then again I'm probably not gonna even use most of the stuff that it offers and I definitely don't want a repeat of my Cingular experience.

My advice to you is just decide what you want. 1) A cool phone with what appears to be more minutes at a cheaper price 2) An already proven wireless provider who has the best overall coverage and comparable plans. I choose #2, what will you choose?

 

And that's why Cingular installed over 2000 high capacity base station equipment prior to the T-Mobile agreement going into effect in July. The new hardware can handle either two or three times as many calls, Im not sure which it was....

 

A previous poster mentioned that he thought analog had poor sound quality... Perhaps he should qualify that statement further by saying that a poor analog signal has poor sound quality, because frankly, a 5 bar analog signal sounds as good or better than any digital signal out there, in my opinion. I remember while roaming analog on Cingular's TDMA system (I have a CDMA US Cellular phone and there was only TDMA digital where I was), I had a solid 4-5 bars of signal for quite a bit of time and my calls sounded excellent.. I even made the comment that I might sound like crap because I was in analog mode and the person actually said that I sounded every bit as good as I normally do when on my home towers with an equivalent signal. Most audiophiles prefer analog sound over digital (vinyl vs CD, for example) given an equivalent quality (unscratched vinyl, unscratched CD). However, as anyone will agree, it's all a matter of preference. And has anyone noticed that GSM seems to sound a bit more like analog than CDMA?

 

being in colorado i am leaning towards verizon..as my wife travels to chicago-cali and boston for work...and the family plan seems pretty good...unlimited nights is great as thats when we will likely talk if she is traveling......but verizon need to get more variety of phones...i went to the service center and they still are selling those heavy old nokia phones...for a while now...they need to get more flavors like nec and sony...my friend has the v120c and while battrey life is good the display is small and not sharp and the phone is way too quiet-even at full volume..