Upstate NY

GSM coverage is decent in that area. When you stray too far from civilization you will be might of luck though.

 

If your going to be living in Upstate NY, you will want/need CDMA. Go with Verizon or Sprint. Probably Verizon

 

i had a friend that wento U of Rochester, he had ATT, i remember him telling me how the coverage was good. in fact there is 3G up in some of those areas.

 

ATT is good if you stay in the major cities. 3G is a ghost just a few miles outside of any city though

 

AT&T coverage is excellent in Utica, and very good in Herkimer. Have not been to Oneonta in years but the map shows coverage is good. The problem is in between. Not good. I never understood why that entire section had had a lack of coverage. Verizon is a better choice in that area, but you will still have coverage holes along the route.

 

Coverage at U of R is great for all carriers. Now that ATT bought Dobson, they have 850 in all of NY except for north of albany. Even then, you will have roaming coverage with Unicel. I'd say youll be covered anywhere you go in this state.

Like Yankees said, dont expect 3G outside of city limits, they just turned it on in Rochester near the end of Decemeber so its no where near as widespread as Sprint/Verizon EvDO.

Coverage in Utica is great, in Oneota, VZW is the better choice (more sites in the area.) Good Luck with your choice.

 

I have both providers and travel and live upstate. Go with Verizon in that area. Att has too many dead spots. Also, they are too slow in capital expenditures. ATT 3G in upstate is far behind Verizon.

 

You don't know what upstate New York is....

I live in Plattsburgh. THAT'S upstate new york.

lol

 

Plattsburgh? That might as well be Canada, lol. Im surprised to see that you are a GSM fan up in that area. Isn't CDMA top dog up there?

 

actually, i get good gsm reception almost everywhere, edge, multimedia, mobile web too. reception isn't so great up in the adirondacks but neither is cdma. i've tried both and i must say i'm not a fan of verizon's crippled phones

 

Yeah, well I don't think anyone is a fan of that. Last I heard though, Verizon was the only carrier to start setting up service along the Northway. Thats pretty big if you ask me.

 

well, thats true. i don't get very good service from about exits 30-20, and that's a pretty big gap. at&t's supposed to be boosting gsm service along the northway soon though, and maybe bringing 3g? i hope!

 

had both Verizon and Now ATT... I travel thru them areas a lot on the trains... I find ATT works alot better then Verizon... The only thing is ATT 3g is not as big as Verizons EVDO. I find 3G only in the citys.. But if you are looking for phone coverage i would say ATT is much better... Just what i find in my opinion.

 

Interesting. I was at Darien Lake yesterday, and ATT was nowhere to be found, while Verizon was at full service. Sprint was somewhere in the middle. It all depends on where you are.

 

i understand what you guys are saying about 3G for att not being as widespread. but ive found that in real life usage it is much much faster than EV-DO...so from a data perspective it may be more useful in that aspect.

as for reception i cannot really say, i do not live in NY all i know is from what ive been told/heard

 

AT&T looks to have excellent coverage at Darien Lake, so maybe it was the phone malfunctioning.

 

Why hello, dmarkson. Well, it was on several lines and phones, so I am going to assume that the ATT Coverage Viewer is full of it

 

GSM is practically non-existant at Darien Lake. Last time I was there CellONE didn't reach that far north and T-Mobile barely gets a bar or two in the park. I had a friend with Verizon, and she was set. AT&T didn't fair well either. Maybe theyll add a tower or two in the area since they now own CellONE.

 

OK I stand corrected. I am surprised how bad the maps are.

 

A cell carriers map lie? Thats impossible! Sprint was OK there, as usual.

 

I live in Ogdensburg, NY 13669 and looks like the best coverage is from Verizpn. I have a Tracfone, Motorola W370, that has a C4 SIM card in it, which allows acess to the At&tt/Cingular Network. Service was great, when the phone was first activated, always had 4 to 5 bars anywhere I went, from Feb, 20th through June 10th, 08.. Now I have no service from Ogdensburg, NY 13669, up Route 12 to almost Alexandria Bay, NY 13607. There is one very small area in Morristown NY, 13664 that I get 2 to 3 bars. I don't understand it. Had great service along there when I first got the phone, but the area was along the US/Canadian border. I've contacted Tracfone and they say that roaming is activated on my phone. I''m wondering if I was bouncing off Canadian towers and maybe have been blocked somehow from acessing them? Anyone here have any thoughts or ideas about this? I don't pretend to be a cell phone experts, a long way from it. I can make mosst any call I choose to and from the 13669 zip code, even calling from out of state. I heard that At&t was upgrading towers, upping the signal strength, but the tower coverage radius was reduced. Any comments on that? Got the same phone for my mom and she has NO coverage, most of the time and when the phone works she will have 4 to 5 bars singnal on her phone. Most incoming calls go to an unactivated voice mail account recording. Just can't figure out why there is NO coverage in this area, where my phone worked perfectly before. . Everyone take care.

 

GSM TracFones did used to roam in Canada (for free), although TracFone did not want you to do it. Now, I have read that the Canadian GSM roaming has been disabled. I believe CDMA TracFones can still roam in Canada (although they might shut off your service, when they find out).

 

GSM TracFones did used to roam in Canada (for free), although TracFone did not want you to do it. Now, I have read that the Canadian GSM roaming has been disabled. I believe CDMA TracFones can still roam in Canada (although they might shut off your service, when they find out).

Thanks mframe for your comments. Here is a reply I got from Tracfone to the roaming question I sent an email about..........

Thank you for your interest in TracFone Wireless. We are responding to
your recent inquiry.

We would like to take this opportunity to apologize for any
inconvenience you may have experienced with this issue.

Roaming feature is automatically activated on your phone upon
activation. Please be informed that roaming indicator will not display
on the main screen of your phone if your are in your local calling area
where you activated your phone. Our records indicate that you will be
deducted for a single rate when your phone is in roaming mode.

Should you have any further questions or concerns, please contact one of
our customer care representatives at 1-800-867-7183 . For your
convenience, our representatives are available Monday-Saturday from 8:00
AM to 9:45 PM EST, and on Sunday from 8:00 AM to 6:45 PM EST.

Thank you for being a TracFone Wireless customer. We appreciate your
business.

Sincerely,

TracFone Wireless

I'm going to have to take a drive around and see just what towers appear to give me service and where roaming takes place. I was in PA, King of Prussia area near Valley Forge last week and made a call hone. I noticed I had 5 bars of signal, then 4 and back up to 5 when I flipped open the phone. There was No roaming icon before or while I was making the call or during the call. I was well outside my local 315 calling area. So was wondering about the roaming feature being deactivatied.
It seems that I do remember the roaming icon coming on while making calls in certain areas around my 315 calling area, but lately I haven't seen it at all. Is there a way for the canadian towers to detect roaming from the US and identify say your phone and deny access? I've talked to some people with At&t plans, Go-phones, etc from the 13664 area code and they had service at first. then they also have lost or have very minimal service now.

I was on an At&t webside checking out phone plans and a "Talk to a representative box" appeared, so I chatted with a rep and asked about coverage in the 13664 zip code area. She checked and said the coverage was very good. Should have NO reception problems, etc. Told her what I was going through and that the local At&t store had received complaints of No service and she could offer no explanations as to why people weren't getting service, that the coverage map shows excellent service in that area. I asked her about At&t towers in this area and she couldn't verify that At&t owned towers in that area or had access to other towers. I did a tower search and it shows 2 Cingular towers registered with an FCC site. But who knows how updated that site is. Just too many questions and not enough ansures, so guess I'll do a bit of driving and sse if I can figure out what gives. You take care.

 

Can anyone here post a link to find Cell Tower/Antenna locations in a given area? I've found a couple sites, but doupt that they have been updated in awhile. Is there a Link for just At&t, also Verizon that would show what towers these companies have access to. Just curious. Thanks for any help and comments.

 

GSM TracFones did used to roam in Canada (for free), although TracFone did not want you to do it. Now, I have read that the Canadian GSM roaming has been disabled. I believe CDMA TracFones can still roam in Canada (although they might shut off your service, when they find out).

Hello mframe. Thanks for the reply. Can you tell me approximately when you read this information?

Yes, I have a One Rate Tracfone, but they sell them for this area and from what I can understand my roaming is still activated. I had a Cellular Bag Phone and to prevent roaming in this area, I had to set it to Home Roam. I see No way to set the roaming features on this phone to prevent roaming in Canada if that's what this phone was doing. As said, I had full service till around the 10th of June, 08. Then the problems started for coverage along the St. Lawrence River. I try to force the phone to find a network and it states, "No Network Found". Just frustrating . Either At&t needs more towers for better coverage or better agreements with canadian carriers. The Local At&t Cell store has also had complaints of No service from Morristown, NY customers. It would seem that they would correct the problem. OK, talk later. You take care..

 

I do not precisely remember the dates about Canadian roaming, but I think it was several months ago. The comments I read were posted by dmarkson, I believe. He also has a website cellguru.net: Cellular Service Providers in New England (NH VT ME CT MA RI NY cell phones wireless carriers plans) with useful information about New England cell phone service providers. You could send him a PM, and ask.

GSM phones can't be manipulated to force roaming on non-allowed networks, as some CDMA phones can. GSM networks can be quite precise as to which other network towers a phone can connect to, with just a technician's computer entry, since GSM roaming is network-controlled, rather than CDMA (SID/PRL) phone-controlled.

I think your W370 is most likely only going to be able to use AT&T and Unicel (if they cover there), along the St Lawrence. Elsewhere in the US, you should have roaming as good as any AT&T postpaid customer. Use the AT&T coverage maps, as a guide. Happy phoning!