My VZW contract ends January 11th 2006. I am seriously looking to take my business elsewhere. One question i have is if i can take my VZW phone to Sprint. If I recall both are cdma networks, correct? I live in western WA so coverage here should be good. I do have questions about coverage in eastern WA and eastern OR. Does Sprint have agreements with other carriers for coverage in those areas? I was told that VZW can use Sprint towers but Sprint cannot use VZW. That seemed like an unusual agreement. If any of you are former VZW users, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Oppie
TProphet, among others in your region could probably address this the best, but he's not here all that much, IIRC...
Even though Sprint is also a CDMA carrier, they will not activate a non-Sprint branded phone on their network.
1. As others have pointed out, Sprint will only activate equipment they have issued. You would probably not want to use your VZW handset on Sprint even if you could, though. This is because Verizon handsets are not compatible with Sprint data services. 2. Both Verizon and Sprint are CDMA carriers. In western Washington, they offer similar coverage and voice quality. 3. Sprint has roaming agreements with US Cellular, Unicel, and Cingular in eastern Washington. In western Washington, they have roaming agreements with Verizon, US Cellular, and Cingular. The only weak spot for roaming is in the Palouse, where roaming is not available on Inland Cellular (although you can roam on Cingular). Just be sure to get a handset that supports analog roaming in order to take advantage of all the rural coverage. 4. As regards VZW/Sprint roaming, the reverse of what you were told is true in many areas (but not Washington state). Verizon tries very hard to lock their users out from roaming on Sprint in any cities where they have coverage of their own. Note that while Sprint has a nationwide roaming agreement with Verizon, for cost reasons they generally prefer to roam on other CDMA carriers if there is an alternative. This means you may find yourself roaming on Alltel in Phoenix or Cellular South in Biloxi. These are smaller but very capable providers with excellent networks in their respective service areas.
I wasn't aware that Cingular operated any CDMA networks for sprint users to roam on, or is the Cingular roaming analog only? -Jay
Also note that Spint now prefers to roam on Cellular One in Bishop, CA (inyo/mono counties) over Verizon. This is good because Cell One (Alltel?)has the better network of the two in that area.
