vermont

I need to find the provider with the best quality in Western MA an VT, wherre I travel regularly on business. Any advice?

 

I live in Western MA. Your best choice for these more rural and hilly areas would be the carriers that operate at 800 Mhz, where you could have digital service, but fall back to analog when necessary. If you are signing up from MA, that would mean Cingular or Verizon. Most of Vermont's coverage is smaller regional carriers that you would be roaming on. Cingular's current National plans have the most generous amount of minutes (anytime and night/weekend) for the price, with no extra charges for roaming or long-distance. Verizon's America's Choice plan would charge extra for roaming in many parts of Vermont. I use Cingular, and am very pleased with their coverage (and the free roaming). In fairness to Verizon, one of the carriers in Vermont that now roams digitally with Cingular (US Cellular), I have heard, is converting from TDMA to CDMA technology. If and when this happens, Cingular would still roam with them, but it would be an analog signal. Hope this helps.

 

Thanks. That does help. It seems like Cingular is my best bet, but what about Sprint?

 

If you do go with Cingular, I would recommend you get a phone with an external (stub) antenna. These can give a bit better reception than internal ones. I use the Ericsson r278d, and while it may not be a stylish model (I think it has classic good looks), it gets great reception in rural areas. Also, the promotional 3500 night and weekend minutes on the Cingular Nation plan might end at the end of the month, so I suggest you check into it soon. Cingular now has a 15 day return policy if you are not satisfied with the service, provided you sign up at a company owned store. Ask the sales person about current terms.

 

<< I need to find the provider with the best quality in Western MA an VT, wherre I travel regularly on business. Any advice? >>

How about ATT wireless?

 

For anonymous for 5/28

You specifically do NOT want ATT in Vermont. If they have service there at all it is 1900.

I own a weekend home in VT and travel to the Rutland area from near Boston frequently. The only provider that works consistently is Verizon, and even it has problems in some of the more rural areas.

 

"Most of Vermont's coverage is smaller regional carriers that you would be roaming on."

-Actually Vermont is covered by 3 cellular providors, Verizon, Cellular One (RCC Wireless), and US Cellular

"Verizon's America's Choice plan would charge extra for roaming in many parts of Vermont."

-Roaming is included in all of Vermont with America's Choice. You are able to roam onto Cellular One(Which covers the entire state) with no additional charges. Also, I believe roaming onto US Cellular is also included, though I have never done so myself.

 

I had heard that Verizon's America's Choice would roam with no charge on some Alltel and Sprint PCS systems, but I had not heard of U.S. Cellular or Cell One being included (unless Verizon bought them out). Sure you could roam, but probably at extra charge.

 

Cellular one has good coverage in Vermont, especially the Rural areas and covers the southern portion of Vermont. I live in the Burlington area and Verizon seems to be the best choice here. Most of their plans will roam analog on Cell one or US Cellular. I think that they just added the US Cellular areas in Southern VT to their AC plan as a free roam, but it doesn't show it on the map yet. They advised AC plan people to do a *228 to update their roaming list, because they said that it covers all of Vermont and most of Maine now.

 

I might also add that that there are many spots that it just don't matter if you have a cell phone because you won't get a signal anyway. This is due to terrain and people making it hard to put up towers in the state. You may want to show up with what you have now and see if it gets any kind of signal, even a phone that is not active may give you an indication if the A side (rcc atlantic) or B side ( US Cell and Verizon) would be the best choice at your locations.

 

Hi, I live in Manchester Vermont. (southwestern vermont) and I use US Cellular and am so far pretty pleased. I think their regional 450 plan will get you the service areas you need for business travel. Check out uscc.com and type in 05255 for the zip. Cheers.

 

Hi I live in Hampshire county--not far from UMASS, I have used both verizon and cingular and I would vote verizon better......with cingular I had the T60d, now whether or not it was a bad phone---I didn't get as good of reception and it would go to analog to digital with every move of the phone......but one problem with verizon is, if you look at the map--at Franklin county--you'll see there isn't much coverage--Sprint isn't actually pretty good around this area my nephew uses it and he travels from Ware, MA to Middlefield, CT

 

&gt;&gt;"If you need a Wireless phone There are only 4 providers that will give you a Vermont Phone Number:


&gt;&gt;Cellular One (RCC) Upstate NY, All of VT Parts of NH, Western Mass, and a small part of Maine. (Home Area)

&gt;&gt;Verizon - From Rutland County to NH and Up to the Canada Border is Verizon's Market in Vermont.

&gt;&gt;Sprint PCS - Route 7, Route 4, and Most of I89 & I91.
&gt;&gt;Nextel - As of now. Chittenden County to Rutland Rutland. Will have more to report soon."


Actually, Nextel isn't currently selling their service in Vermont, so you are unable to get a Vermont number at this time. Also, you can get a Vermont phone number with US Cellular.