Sprint or Verizon in Orlando?

Sprint and Verizon both have strong PCS networks in Florida. Verizon has a good Cellular network in Winston Salem, Sprint should be just as good also. Every provider always has a weak spot in every market so, I would take them on a 15 day trial to see if one is a little better for you.
Another thing to look at is mobile to mobile. What wireless provider do you receive calls or dial to a mobile phone? You might want to pick the same provider that you get use out of mobile to mobile for calls.

 

verizon is very strong here in winston, along with alltel. cingular isn't bad either. I haven't used Sprint, however.

 

Our survey of Florida wireless users at Wireless-Florida gives Verizon the highest grades in both Customer Service and Coverage. While this survey has a small number of responses, I believe those responses come from pretty savy users.

I personally have used both Verizon and Sprint around the state, and have found both to have good coverage.

 

I have to agree with everyone about FL. Both, Sprint and Verizon are quite strong, even though I have found VZW to have an edge coverage wise in Flordia. I have had no problems visiting the Orlando area.
I have no experience about the Winston-Salem Area.

 

As a Winston-Salem resident (part-time - the other half of the year is spent in Davidson, NC, near Charlotte), I'm amazed to see so many posts on Winston!

Verizon Wireless is far superior to Sprint PCS in Winston-Salem. Since you mention the small town by name, I'm going to assume some knowledge of geography of the area. Most of Lasater Rd. north of Peace Haven Rd. is completely dead for Sprint PCS while VZW provides reliable service all over the area. Lewisville is completely dead for Sprint PCS, while VZW has just a dead spot on the west side of Shallowford Rd. about a mile north of the Styers Ferry Rd. intersection. Sprint PCS indoor coverage leaves something to be desired, which is especially noticable in the Hanes Mall area. Sprint PCS also shows signs of an oversold network. I usually have to call my friends on SPCS 3 or 4 times for their phone to ring at all. The best networks in Winston-Salem are:
1. Verizon Wireless
2. Alltel
3. Cingular
4. Sprint PCS
5 (tie). AT&T Wireless/SunCom Wireless
5 (tie). Cricket

Alltel works fine and roams on Verizon outside Alltel coverage, but Verizon's sound quality is better in the Triad.

Sprint PCS, shockingly, is dead along US-421 from Wilkes County on, even in Boone. I cannot recommend them to any traveler in the area. I can recommend Cingular to travelers who stay on major roads, and Alltel and VZW to anyone in the area.

I had no trouble with VZW in Orlando, but I wasn't there for very long. My experience was that VZW was better than SPCS, but VZW will roam on SPCS in all of Florida should VZW not be available.

 

Hey I live in Daytona Beach area and my dad commutes to Orlando EVERYday for work and to see family.

He had Verizon and had to dump them cuase of constant Analog Roam or No Service. And more than expected (from all the POSITIVE CHEERLEADING OF VERIZON) dropped calls. Analog was usually the best service He ever got from Verizon (and the Analog was from AT&T Wireless)

He is now with Sprint and always have home service and barley any roam. Also very few dropped calls and no static.

I would definatly go with Sprint PCS

 

Haven't had any problems with either in Orlando. I personally would rather have Verizon due to a more generous upgrade program with a 1 year contract. Verizon kinda stunk in Miami, but so did ATT...so whatever.

 

Cingular user with the kind of problems you had it is likely that it was your phone. VZW's Flordia network is in general said to be one of the best built out networks. Also, they generally performed best during the hurricanes from what reports say.

 

That is correct.

Unfortunately, the coverage for Verizon in my local two county area (both home and college campus) isn't the best built out network. But I read in our local paper that Verizon is going to build a serious upgrade for coverage and capacity in my five county area by the end of 2005.

 

Does anyone think that Verizon will have the same or more coverage than Sprint in Florida someday??

 

I don't know.

Someday they might....in my city, some areas Sprint has better coverage than Verizon...and others areas the opposite is true.

 

But doesn't VZW allow Free Roaming on Sprint in all of FL and Alltel as well?

 

That's good to hear; you will have to keep us updated

 

Why are you leaving AT&T? With the merger you could switch to Cingular and get both the old AT&T network and the Cingular Network. I know Cingular is fine in Orlando, and I thought they pretty well had North Carolina taken care of coverage wise. You will get roll over with Cingular which may help your budget.

I gave up on Sprint here in Tampa as I could not use the phone in my house while most of the other carriers had strong signals there.

As mentioned earlier, do you call friends, family on their cell phones often? If so, go with what they have and be sure you have the free mobile to mobile option set up, as that will save on your anytime minutes. My daughter and her husband are on Cingular in Orlando and we talk all the time using the M2M feature, and during all the hurricanes, we never lost contact or connections.

 

1) AT&T Wireless's network and customers in North Carolina are being given to SunCom Wireless.
2) Cingular Wireless's network in the Triad (the metro area where Winston-Salem is located) is astoundingly awful. I know of one person that still has Cingular, and he had it locked in from an old contract in New Jersey before he moved here. They're not so bad if you're just driving through, but if you live here, there are tons of holes, dead spots and other major problems. (They're quite good elsewhere in the Carolinas though, just not the Triad. They've completely forgotten about us here in the Triad since they changed their name BellSouth Mobility DCS. And North Mecklenburg County is much worse than here, and that's just 20 miles from the largest city in the Carolinas.)

 

Perhaps that's why she has so many rollover minutes. I had over 2000 rollover minutes when I left Cingular. And I was on a Home 150 plan.

 

I travel to winston salem and boone NC yearly. I had cingular about 5 months ago and had NO signal the entire time i was there. The only place i had a signal at was in boone, and it was a very weak signal. I also had Tmobile at the time and they had no signal anywhere. I now have sprint and havent been to NC since switching to them, but you should be covered. As long as you get the roaming option your signal should be very good all around NC. Take a look at the Sprint map for NC. You will have coverage in the dark green, light green, and tan areas as long as you have the $5 roaming option.

 

Here is a NC coverage map from verizon so you can compare the two. You will have coverage in the dark and light blue places on this map.

 

That map is actually inaccurate.
The area of NW NC that's marked as analog is digital now. Carolina West Wireless finished their conversion in April.

Cingular actually does have coverage in Winston-Salem and Boone. T-Mobile roams on Cingular and AT&T Wireless/SunCom Wireless. (In most areas, it's SunCom preferred over Cingular.) It sounds like your phones weren't set up correctly. Sprint PCS does NOT have coverage in Boone. It is roaming coverage there, I think on Carolina West preferred. No features will work. Don't expect much from Sprint roaming coverage except the ability to make calls.

Boone wasn't in the question, though. Sprint PCS's coverage area in the Carolinas is very pathetic, but they do cover Winston-Salem, which was asked. They've just got some problems, especially in the western areas of the city and metro area.

 

Those Maps are great in NC
How about coverage map in Orlando, FL

 

I will Andy. I'll post another message once I hear about the completion of the upgrade.

 

It's very rare to get an all circuits busy on Sprint. In over 7 years as a customer I have only had that happen two or three times total.

 

Larry,
can you make a generalization like that? Circuit busies are definitely area dependant. For example, I had lots of Circuit busies on T-Mobile here in SLC, but never had that happen in Cali.

 

I wasn't aware your number was from North Carolina. We have a cabin in Western NC (Waynesville address, behind the mountain from Maggie Valley) and I know coverage there is not like flat Florida. We have to drive down the mountain about 1 mile before we get to a clearing to see I-40 and get a signal.

I don't know how they give as good a coverage there as they do with all the mountain peaks. It does not matter which carrier, they all have the same problem and the NIMBY is strong there as they don't want to clutter the view of the mountains with cell phone towers. When there is a signal both Cingular and Verizon work great, usually about the same time as one of the things they have done there is require the cellular companies to share towers instead of each putting up their own. If I did live up there full time I would consider one of those external antenna / repeaters in the cabin to see if that would help.

Good luck in your search and keeping your number.