Verizon v. ATT in Northwest CT

Definately ATT if your choosing between the 2. I live in NW CT and i have sprint. Personally I think that they are good. They have a decent amount of native coverage up here and they also fall back onto alltel for roaming(which is free) and alltel has a very good network up here thanks to their 800mhz signal. I have found that Verizon is just recently adding/activating towers up here and in my town(litchfield) atleast, their coverage is weaker than Sprint's, and everyone elses it seems. ATT also drops a lot of random calls in places where my Sprint phone will hold onto the signal. In the far northwest in sharon and millerton though, i dont think theres any sprint, you end up roaming on alltel a lot. ATT has native coverage there though. I'd say either go Alltel, ATT, or Sprint(b/c you can fall back on alltel). You should really test it out yourself though and see how it goes. Beware of ATT's coverage maps, they lie!

 

That "Emergency Call Only" would have been from AT&T, so I suggest you try them (perhaps with the $10 GoPhone from the website).

 

Wow, I never knew Alltel had native coverage in CT. Does Verizon roam on Alltell in NW CT?

 

Verizon is strange up here. In my town, sprint used to be the only provider (cingular and verizon eventually added themselves), my friend with a verizon phone was here before verizon came and the phone displayed very weak extended network service even though there was full sprint coverage. So i concluded that verizon did not roam onto sprint around here (although sprint roams onto verizon) There is, however, a weak to moderate alltel signal in the town, so I'm guessing that verizon chooses to roam onto alltel rather than sprint.

 

Yes, alltel's SID 1101 for NW Connecticut is the preferred roaming SID for Verizon in the area, ahead of Sprint, when Verizon fades out. They're also the preferred roaming partner of Sprint ahead of Verizon when Sprint fades out. PRL Interpretations shows the Prefferred Roaming Lists for Providers.

prusso, if T-Mobile gives you emergency only in your area, and the AT&T coverage map shows a 'swath of empty space' around your house. I would alter the providers to consider from AT&T or Verizon to a consideration of Alltel or Sprint in your area, perhaps deciding on which one would give you the best plan for your situation. And since you mentioned others, alltel's family plans may work out very well for you because My Circle allows many minutes to be racked up without having to pay for a high anytime minute plan. From what ace, whose from your area says, Sprint sounds very strong as does Alltel, who is also an 850 provider and should be better than others when you get out into the more rural areas that don't have a large number of cell towers. But with those providers, you'll also be able to roam on the other in the absence of a native signal.

 

Keep in mind I only consider sprint to be very strong because of alltel. In my area of nw ct sprint does have a lot of native signal (im not quite as close to ny as he is), way up there alltel is probably better than sprint especially because of the 850 band. For example, the town i live in has two (soon to be three) sprint towers, and therefore very good signal in most places. There are no alltel towers in the town, but because alltel is 850, a usable (outside anyway) signal does come through from surrounding towns. this just shows how much stronger the 850 band is.

 

I live in Litchfield County as well. I have Alltel and for the most part I have very good coverage and when I do not I free roam to Sprint then Verizon. Plus there are ways to force your phone to free roam on Sprint and Verizon over Alltel too.
On the other hand Verizon just got licensed in Litchfield County a few years ago and have been building new towers and adding to existing ones like crazy.

I would stay away from AT&T. I use my phone for voice and data and CDMA's EVDO network blows AT&T's EDGE network out of the water. Also, when I had AT&T's GSM network I frequently dropped calls during some tower handoffs. With Alltel's CDMA network I notice clean tower handoffs and improved voice quality. (I know this topic is debated)

When it doubt almost all companies offer a trial period. Try out their networks and see which one works for you.

Here is the link to the Connecticut Sitting Council's website. This will provide a lot of tower locations in the state and who is on them.
http://www.ct.gov/csc/cwp/view.asp?a=895&Q=248312&cscNav=|