My buddy is with Cingular, and needs to upgrade his phone. He has an old TDMA Nokia 3161, and lives in an area with poor reception. How is the newer GSM service? I thought that when GSM first came out, national coverage was spotty at best. How is the national service now? He complains now that he can't tell when he is in roam/extended area, and ends up paying big $$$$ for roaming. Isn't GSM all over with no roaming? How does their national coverage compare with Verizon? He travels all over, and in some very rural areas. He must have a phone without a camera, due to his employment. Any suggestions on a new, non-camera, basic phone with decent reception? Thanks in advance. Mark
Some of this has to do with where he lives, and more people can answer better on the coverage end. But for the most part, yes GSM coverage has been better then TDMA when they started getting strong with the rollout, and now that TDMA is slowly going down to get to the goal of shutting it down by 2/08 the latest, it's only going to get worst. Cingular's National plans have no roaming or long distance, and for his traveling, sometimes in rural area's it may be an issue with coverage, again where he would go can help get answers better from people that have been there or live there. As for a phone without a camera, Cingular does have a few & Nokia's or Motorola's are the better units for Rf.
There are no roaming charges with a Cingular GSM plan because Cingular phones will not show that they are roaming. If your buddy roams more than 40% of his his minutes off Cingular's network, he may get ousted after a few months. Depending on what rural areas your buddy travels to, a CDMA/AMPS phone may provide him with more coverage. The GSM network is more reliable and more expanded than their TDMA service, because just like Fire mentioned, TDMA is going down and will be shut off in the near future.
Wirelessly posted (Q's Mobile Device: Opera/8.01 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/3.0.6306/1528; en; U; ssr)) As far as phones go, the Nokia 6061 or 6030 are basic along with the Motorola L2. With those 3, you shouldn't have reception issues. For coverage, I'd use the online maps to get a general idea about the existence of a signal over the quality... Sometimes the stated quality is overstated on the maps.
coverage is gonna be generally better with gsm... you can look for yourself... http://www.cingular.com/coverageviewer/ a good basic no-frills phone... moto c-139...
