Northern CA - Cingular or Verizon?

As far as I know, Edge Wireless should have coverage up there and they're a Cingular affiliate so they would be the network you'd be using. But considering that Shasta County is heavily wooded, going with Verizon sounds like a better deal especially with the possibility of AMPS fallback. Have you considered a Verizon coverage trial?

 

Verizon's coverage in Santa Rose itself should be fine, EVDO is in testing or up already.

In some areas up North, outside the Verizon footprint, you will be roaming on US Cellular's digital and AMPS network. Hope this helps.

 

What a neat spin on Santa Rosa's name , according to the WA ZIP code check, US Cellular doesn't have a license for Shasta Co. Which northern counties would have US Cellular coverage, Andy?

Cricket has service there.

 

VZW users also roam on CalNorth Cellular.

 

Lake, Mendocino counties and others...See:
http://people.ku.edu/~cinema/wireless/uscc_cel.gif

It shows USCC's licensed coverage areas in Northern California as well. And as TProphet said, CalNorth Cellular is included as well as GoldenState.

 

Sounds like a Mike (ILUVSOCAL) question. Too bad he is no longer here.

 

You want to start a petition to bring him back?

 

Hey! you never know...

 

I'd sign it Gotta miss him sometimes...lol...Plus how are we ever going to know if Verizon is still horrible up there without him lol

Brad

 

He's still over on HoFo as ilvla2.

 

I too live in Sonoma County. I had Cingular for a few years (up until about 2003). Then, I switched to ATT-Wireless (Digital Network) - their 'older' technology about 3 years ago. At that time, it had better coverage than Cingular's coverage.

Since then, Cingular purchased ATT-Wireless.

I now want to add my daughter to our family plan. Since ATT-Wireless is now owned by Cingular, I can NOT add another phone to our plan. (my current ATT Wireless plan, with 3 phones, still works, and is grandfathered, but they will not let me add another phone). I will have to change to a Cingular Plan to add another phone.

I KNOW that i need to change to a new plan. The question/issue is: What plan to change to. I am considering Cingular or Verizon.

Another factor, my son will be going away to college in SoCal (USC, or UCLA) within the next 6 months, so we want to be sure that whichever carrier we choose (most likely Cingular or Verizon) has complete coverage at the campus. (My ATT-Wireless, digital network, could not detect a signal on most of the USC campus, when we went for a tour. One more reason to change to a new carrier).

Lastly, a co-worker has suggested Verizon "tri-mode" plan/phone. He says that in a weak coverage area, that the phone will switch to "analog". He says that with his "tri-phone" he has coverage in almost all remote areas in Northern Calif, except out in the middle of some lack way up North. He said the analog service is weaker and has some static, but at least you have coverage.

What say you all?

 

Verizon's native coverage in some parts

Verizon's native network in some parts of Northern California has not been so good (areas where carriers like Sprint don't have native coverage at all though), but they are improving slowly but surely. Verizon also roams on quite a few carriers, depending on where you are, including US Cellular, Golden State Cellular, Cal North Wireless. Cal North Wireless has recently been purchased by Verizon, so soon you will have native coverage in Cal North's service area.

If you AT&T phone did not pick up service at your son's university, then chances are a new Cingular phone won't either. An AT&T phone should use Cingular's cellsites in Southern California, the same that a Cingualr phone would do too.

If you do get Verizon, be sure to get a tri-mode phone, like a Motorola or Nokia, they are said to get the best reception in weak areas.

A lot of people who have an old AT&t plan and are grandfathered don't want to move to a Cingular plan just because their old AT&T plan was much better and a lot cheaper, and that's fine unless you want a new phone or want to make changes like add a line to your account.

Cingular roams on Edge Wireless in parts of Northern California and their Southern California leaves quite a bit to be desired at this time in some areas. It's a hard choice, my advice would be to go pick a new carrier and go on a trip through areas you travel to a lot as well as visit your son's college to make sure coverag for him will be good.

~Andy

 

Verizon's native network is 100% digital now and nearly all of their roaming partners are too. So you don't need a phone on Verizon that has analog really. A CDMA digital only phone on Verizon should work just fine for you. As far as carrier's go I have to agree with Andy and say chances are that if your AT&T phone did so poor on the USC campus that a new Cingular phone wouldn't help much if any at all. I think you should look into Verizon and Sprint. I know you haven't thought about Sprint but they have some good family plans and while they lack some rural coverage in CA generally where they have coverage in CA they seem to be very good.

 

I agree with you about Verizon's network being 100% digital as well as their roaming partners being digital as well. The only thing is that in extreme situations, having AMPS backup may make the difference between completing a call(even if it's staticy) or not being able to make that call at all in some isolated areas. AMPS usually reaches a little further and may still successfully make a call at the edge of a coverage footprint.

And as Dan said, Sprint also has cheap calling plans. Their coverage, however, does not cover a lot of rural Northern Cali I think, so if you are going to be outside of Sprint's coverage area a lot remember that things like unlimited M2M minutes don't apply while roaming, and things like Mobile Web and Text messaging may not work either depending on who you roam on.

 

I've found analog to be completely useless. In my area of the country even in the middle of nowhere you typically now have Digital CDMA coverage. I have a Digital phone and I get signal pretty much everywhere. My grandmother has a Alltel phone that has analog on it. Her phone very rarely hits analog but when it does the signal is so weak that the phone is useless. Most carriers have let their analog networks go and only maintain them at a minimum level to meet FCC requirements, which in many cases has made the old analog network useless. My digital only phone on Verizon does better than her Tri-Mode phone on Alltel.

 

I'm not surprised to hear your experience with analog the way it is. Analog is useless in many parts of the country, and especially in many/most parts of California. In any part of Cali that's a little urban you'll have problems if your phone is forced to analog. You'll get busy signal and the quality will be garbled and bad.
I have also rarely found analog to come in handy. One time it did was when I was on top of a mountain and my CDMA only phone had full service but wouldn't connect the call, forced it to analog, and it went right through.

 

Verizon AMPS here in my part of So. Cal is pretty much useless. All I get is a fast busy signal when I force my phone to analog and try to make a call.

 

There are still some spots here where there is only an analog signal, and it works ok, but they are becoming rarer and rarer.

 

I've had mixed results with it in SoCal when just trying to play around with it. I was able to make/receive calls successfully in some areas during the day and the worst rush hour traffic, but at 1 in the morning all I got was busy signals lol. But why would anyone need AMPS in urban Southern California??? Nobody cares if Verizon analog network in the areas is useless because nobody should be needing to use it anyways, and as soon as you leave the metro area it works much better. And the area the OP is asking about is Northern California where most parts are not very urban and AMPS will work just fine.

 

Well it sucks for Sprint users and maybe other carrier's users who still have dual band 1900 Mhz CDMA and 800 AMPS only phones. So if they need to roam they won't have useable service.

 

If they need to roam in urban Southern California then they probably shoudln't use Sprint.

 

Agreed. There's really not many times someone would need to roam around here. I can't even remember the last time I roamed.

 

Came across this thread, as I'm going to be back and forth to San Diego a few times this year, and was surprised to see that Cingular didn't have good coverage even at USC. I'd figure anything in the vicinity of downtown LA would have great coverage, especially since USC is in such close proximity to the 110, too. That's extremely surprising, seeing as how Cingular basically shares the #1 spot with VZW in NYC where I'm from.

Anyone know how Cingular's coverage is in the SD area? I sure hope it's better than LA!

 

Wirelessly posted (MOT-8720_/00.62 UP.Browser/6.2.3.4.c.1.104 (GUI) MMP/2.0)

Cingular probably isnt the best choice in so cal currently as they sold their network to tmobile and are using the former att network.the network needs a lot of work and it is my experience that they arent that hot either in the san diego area either although ymmv.

 

That doesn't seem fair to everyone who bought Cingular phones in SoCal and then suddenly had their service taken away. I hope they work on this reception problem and expand their network in the SD area.