VoiceStream Service in Sussex County NJ

First of all Sussex County is in the NorthWEST of NJ not the Northeast and it is in my opinion a forgotten area when it comes to technology. I worked with several schools in the area as a technology consultant and some of our clients had trouble getting Internet in the schools because the only thing that was available was dialup service and even that was hard to get. They couldn't even get ISDN or T1 lines. Back to the subject, there were small portions along route 15 near Sparta where there wasn't even analog celullar service!. That only means that PCS is even more scarce if it exists at all. Ironically, getting closer to the Pennsylvania border I had digital service. For the most part you are better off with cellular 800Mhz services if you are thinking to move to areas like these as they have more (if not the only) coverage in these areas. Not only the 800Mhz band is better for mountainous regions like Sussex county but I doubt very much Voicestream has any service up there and if they don't Cingular won't either because they share the system in North Jersey. AT&T has analog-only service and in some areas digital and I bet Sprint would be roaming on Verizon's analog network up there too.

 

How in the world I confused northeast for northwest I will never know! I guess I need more coffee.

 

In Sussex County AT&T no longer has a roaming aggreement with Sussex Cellular and I can no longer use my phone. Starting back in November I noticed I could no longer make or recieve calls when in Sussex County visiting my parents even though I had a full signal on my phone. I would call AT&T and they couldn't tell me what the problem was, it took over 6 months of me calling for them to tell me that they cancelled the roaming aggreement. After I renewed my contract for another year of course. Other than Verizon does any other cellular company have service in Sussex County? AT&T keeps telling me they are going to be turning on service but I have heard that for 3 years, I am ready to switch to another carrier if I found a good deal.

 

ATT actually does have "some" service in Sussex county. They have something like one or two sites in Newton (or maybe Sparta) which are utilizing their E Block PCS license there. I agree that ATT is pretty dumb even allow your phone to register on the Sussex Cellular Network. (Theoretically, they could just make Sussex Cellular a "forbidden" network, and not allow your phone to register.) This would at least give you the illusion that there was no coverage.

I have used VS within Sussex county, but not a lot. I would imagine that as ATT continues to build out their gsm network in the nyc metro, they will continue to add sites in Sussex - but don't hold your breath.

jason

 

Ryan you might just be better off staying with Verizon Wireless if they have coverage there and from the posts I gather that is a hard area to cover and seems spotty with about everybody.

 

Ryan, sussex county has coverage in these areas, all of rt. 15 all of rt. 94 and rt 206 and most of rt.23. this is digital gsm coverage via voicestream and covers most of the town therin from these routes.

 

Your (more or less) only choice is Verizon.

I wonder how Sussex (Sux) Cellular has managed to avoid going under, especially given the feuding with AT&T which has gone on for YEARS...

-SC

 

I took a drive around Sussex county with my Cingular phone since I work nearby. In my case, since I am on the TDMA network, I use AT&T towers all the time. My phone did switch from the "a" cellular block to the "E" PCS block just as Jason said. In my opinion, you would not want to use your phone indoors as there are many blank spots where signal fades completely and there are long stretches of roads where signal is weak but useable. I did not have problems along Rt 15, but Rt 94 has some dead spots. Rt 23 could have better coverage. On the Rt.23 and Rt.94 corner (which is not an isolated area) signal is close to zero.