no reason to use VZW any more?

You know...i kinda sit in the middle of this feud. Both Verizon and Cingular have their strong points and their weaknesses. Verizon has excellent coverage great package deals and numerous phones to choose from, however, the are greedy not allowing OBEX on Bluetooth enabled phones, and the NE2 deal is VERY deceptive.

Cingular on the other hand has great phone selection (with OBEX enabled mind you), great coverage, and good family packages, however, their phones tend to be expensive and the single user packages aren't as strong as VZW.

 

Actually i did. And it is nowhere near Verizon's. Circuits busy, calls dropping or going directly to VM even though the phone is on and showing "full bars". Only cingular fanboys can claim that is good. Because acording to cingular CS, 3 dropped calls out of 10 is normal. I guess for cingular it is.

 

The CS agent probably did say that.You hit on one of Cingular's largest problem, their customer service sux.

Their upper level techs are okay but hold your breath if you think you are ever going to speak to one of them.

Either Cingular has the largest amount of OTJT agents or they are just clueless.

A book can be written about the incompetency of their CS just from the notes logged in on my account alone.

 

Yes he did. But personally, i did not have that big of a ratio. It's the "circuits busy" and calls not connecting that made me p****d off and drop cingular after 10 days trial.

 

The only security hole in bluetooth, is verizons revenue, Second someone called t mobile pretending to be paris hilton. It was all social engineering.

 

OK, since you brought up Hurricanes, be ready for the truth. I live in Miami, and have been blasted for the last 2 years. Katrina and Wilma were killers in every way. I have to tell you that CINGULAR was the ONLY network up and running after the storm cleared BOTH TIMES. Not only do I know this from personal use, but I run an answering service for Doctors, and only Cingular was able to get through to hospitals, as well as sending text messages to surgeons. I am a little out of my league posting in a VZW forum, but you asked for a Floridian to chime in, so here I am!

 

I do not understand why Jones would get attacked here when he is quoting factual and statistical information. I have made more points with "Cut and Paste" then anything that could ever come out of my head, or in some people's case, out of their a-- Jones happens to have more knowledge then most people on most forums-IMO.

 

So of my post is off-topic (only bits of it so bear with me).

Well since Steve gave his opinion, my opinion as a Floridian is that in my area on the west coast, Verizon was the best provider.

I was up throughout the entire event (the worst part of it) when I was watching the eye come closer to land and the power kept going off and coming back on (10 times) before it finally went off. I had my trusty 1000 channel dual trunking scanner with the police band on (I heard no activity on this since the emergency teams cannot go out once the winds were sustained from 45 and above) so I tuned in to NOAA. The channel that I usually listen to went out a couple of hours later, so I scanned the available NOAA channels and found one so I could listen to all of the severe weather reports. At 5:30 am, the power went out for good, and I flipped on my scanner and we were under a tornado warning. Anyway, I feel asleep after it sound like something was being ripped off (I mean this was LOUD). I later found it that it was our neighbor's lanai cage above their pool. Our house only had minor damage (a tile was ripped off our roof and thrown/flew about 15 feet away from the break off point and some aluminum siding around the top part of our cage was literally bent inwards from the strong winds. Our house can withstand 139 mph (3m film on all of our windows and glass in our house (even the tiny windows on our garage door). We also have a double tressed roof (basically tied down twice with steel reinforcement ties) and a cement and stucco house with reinforced columns in certain parts of the house going down into the ground.

Anyway, after I was up for the day, I turned on my parents Verizon phone and my Cingular phone. Both of them had a useable signal so I turned them off to conserve battery life. I turned them on later that evening, and our Verizon phone had a weak signal, so I forced it to Alltel, and presto full signal. My Cingular phone was basically a paper weight at this point. I sent a few text messages out of Buickman and Tony E on this forum to tell them my status, and after that I couldn't use my phone until the day the power came back on (fours days later around 12:15 pm). When we went to one of the only grocery stores in my area that was open with power to get a few things, Verizon again was the only one working (this time it was native and not extended on Alltel).

By the way, the winds were recorded at 129 mph about a mile or two from my neighborhood.

The below pictures are shown just to give some idea of what I was trying to convey to everyone.

Here is a picture of the tower down the street from my house (notice how one of the poles (I am assuming it is needed for my walkie talkies) is hanging there and the other pole is where it should be (it is immediately to the left of the downed pole, which is to the right side of the tower)):



Here is another view of the tower at the base with tree damage:



Here is a picture of the winds steady at 60 mph when we went outside to assess the damage and when we took a quick drive so my sister and I could get pictures (my family's house is to the right and our neighbor's is to the left):



Note: When I took the above picture the winds were steady at 60 mph (by this point the hurricane was either on the east coast, or exiting into the Atlantic and it was still this windy.

 

I will have to agree with ruddy64 on his comment. I can't vouch for blackouts (unless you count a hurricane as one), but as for hurricanes, I have been through two major hurricanes (which directly affected my area (Charley which was a Cat. 4 when it made landfall on August 13, 2004 around 3:45 pm approx. 60 miles north of us (we still had winds of 100 mph reported 1-2 miles from my neighborhood)) and most recently Wilma (which was a Cat. 3 hurricane which made landfall on October 24, 2005 at 6:30 am EDT just north of Everglades City, Florida, near Cape Romano))). I have also been through other hurricanes (which have or have not (scraped) affected my area, and several tropical storms, one of which happened 4-5 months after we moved into our house (in June or July of 1995, we had 18 inches of rain in a 24 hour period)).

Currently, we are in the third year of a 20 year cycle for the United States. And every year, we are supposed to have more major hurricanes.

 

My mother in law lives in Florida. And her Verizon phone was the only one working as soon as the Hurricane was over. She called us to say that she is scared but OK. Her sister's cingular showed "NO SIGNAL" Also, her neighbors were using her phone to call their families.

 

Because he is a cingular fanboy, his "facts" don't hold water, and his "statistical information" is twisted truth. When he was posting Telephilia "tests" on how cingular has better network than the rest, cingular had a major outage in the Northeast. And you want to believe his blanket statements to be facts? You want facts, read JD Power or Consumer Reports and see how they rate Jones's cingular "facts" and "statistic"
http://consumercenter.jdpower.com/c...gs/wireless/service/results/index.asp?v1=West

 

diablo - For the last 5 years I was a Nextel subscriber and was very happy with their service but not with their phone selection. On 2/27 I became a Cingular subscriber and bought a SLVR for me and a Razr for my wife. We live in Northern Westchester County (about 40 mile north of NYC). As soon as I activated the service I had no connectivity in my home. (I did with Nextel) Anyway during a 3 week period my wife and had MANY dropped and missed calls. I called Cingular to find that my area (10598 is Zip) is considered a low/medium to medium coverage area. The rep told me whenever I am in a building (mall, my kids school, home, etc.) I would not have connectivity. Based on this I switched to Verizon and for the last week connectivity has been fine. Cingular has great phones and their customers service was great! I called a few times during the three week period and was VERY satisified with their representatives. My only complaint was when i called to order the service back in Feb the sales rep told me my area was well covered. I am sure you will have a different experiene in NYC w/Cingular - just my 2 cents....The SLVR was a great phone!

 

It was the opposite in Westchester
VZW was a weak spot in my Friends House.

Per JD Power Survey
Verizon fanboys are the Most Loyal
with Passion.

 

Thanks for that very important piece of information. What is your friend's address so I can go there to make calls?

 

That's what i Meant VZW Fan Boys have More Passion.

What's your Address so i'll Go there and Make Phone Calls.

 

I've been with Verizon a few years and I'm switching because A. Verizon phones suck, B. I go over sometimes and rollover sounds good, C. People have trouble hearing me sometimes (I'm on upper westside), D. A lot of people are switching and I'll save minutes when talking to Cingular people.

 

Sorry passionate Cingular fanboys are BANNED from that address.

 

So now you'll post in the Cingular section? Let us know how you make out.

 

What does one expect to find in the Verizon section of this forum? While I do use Verizon and would switch to any carrier that I felt suited my needs better I really don't consider myself a fanboy. As Sy Symms says "an educated consumer is our best customer" (no matter what propoganda you read)

 

I got an idea. Let's not label a bunch of people for no reason.

 

not to trash cingular or anything, however the biggest complaint that people have about cingular was not dropped calls, it was the calls didnt sound clear, people often complain of static, one way audio, and other connection issues.

not to say that will be the case but you may want to test some calls before you make any switches

 

During the '03 blackout, I had VZW and it worked very well, actually. I used it in midtown, on the Upper West Side, and in Riverdale. (Yup, I drove someone home to Riverdale in the middle of the blackout. Fun times. Actually, it IS a cool memory now that I think about it!) My girlfriend's Sprint phone did not work at the time - I remember a few people in other cars on Riverside Drive asking me if they could use my phone.

That said, I now use Cingular. I love rollover, and their coverage is equivalent to VZW in the five boroughs and most of NJ in my opinion. I would have definitely stuck with Verizon if they were more competitively priced. I was satisfied with everything with VZW, in general, except for the fact that Cingular offered a much better deal in my eyes. Rollover isn't a "scam" in my opinion. It's good to save minutes for a time when you're going to use alot of extra airtime, such as when you are on vacation and would have normally gone over your usual calling plan.

And, for the LOVE OF GOD, I hope they never enable cell phone service in subway tunnels! It's the one oasis away from listening to other peoples' conversations!

 

Well, I've been using Cingular for a few months now and have not experienced any of that. I've also never dropped a call. And no, I'm not a "fanboy." I've used VZW, Nextel, and now Cingular. VZW and Cingular are on par as far as the network is concerned in my experience. Nextel, on the other hand.... no comment!

The only company I qualify as a "fanboy" of is XM over Sirius. Oops, wrong message board!

 

Just to say to VZW fanboys,
this Audio Problem
(i experienced it once, just once
like 30 seconds)
is no Longer there.
Even w/ VZW there are audio breakups.

To quote T-Mobile Motto
Regarding Coverage where it Counts
and i agree:

YOU DON'T NEED COVERAGE
in PLACES YOU WILL NEVER VISIT.

 

Just a note to jones



YOU DON'T NEED TO LABEL ANOTHER GROUP OF PEOPLE

 

And we're done here. LOCKED