What provider should I go with?

I am quite happy with my VoiceStream service. I live in the DC area, but regularly travel to the Philadelphia and NYC markets. I don't go to Boston though. Coverage is the most important issue with VS as they do not have analog backup service (except in some parts of the West...but not in your area). However, digital coverage along the northeast corridor of DC-Boston is pretty robust IMO. In my part of DC/Va, I rarely get a dropped call, and only get about 1 "system busy" per month, and it's always at rush hour as I leave the office.

 

If you are interested in tracking your current minute usage most voicestream phones now have call timers but you have to be the one who is on top of that and reset it every month, day or whatever most Nokia and Motorola phones have them for VS.
some of these phones include Nokia's 3390/8290/5190/6190 and Motorola's T193/P2782/P280/T2282/V2297 or if you don't like this you can ask VS customer service to send you text messages to your phone about your minute usage. Or just call 611 from your handset and ask the rep to pull up your account.

CellguyNy

 

Cellguy,

A couple of questions...

1) Can VS really pull up your current usage in the middle of a billing cycle?

2) VS cust service will actually page a customer with their usage? That seems like alot of time coddling customers instead of answering the phones.

A last point, most if not all phones will track minutes so it's not necessarily tied to VS as you implied. Furthermore, the accuracy of the call timers are questionable compared to billable minutes because the phone doesn't round the minutes like most carriers do. And I even think some carriers will charge for the ring time once the call goes through and that's something they don't talk about much. So if you are going to use your call timers to track usage be careful not to depend on them 100%.

Tom

 

Dear Tom did it ever occur to you that in this day in computers these things can be sent automatically i have a customer that asked VS for this particular feature they did it for him and he is sent a text message every two weeks about his bill being due and minute usage the computers do all the work so the sales reps can answer the phones

CellguyNY

 

Cellguy,

It has occurred to me that company's have computers I was a little surprised that VS would provide this service and that VS had the ability to pull billing data in the middle of the billing cycle. To my knowledge most carriers can't pull specific information in the middle of the billing cycle. Usually the only thing the customer service rep can tell you is what's on your last bill.

Tom

 

Further confirming what Tom posted, it is also a safeguard for the carrier not to indicate usage in the middle of billing cycle because, even with the use of computers, billing data related to inter-carrier roaming charges is not available to the carrier until they have been billed back from the other carriers.

 

VS has a new automated option when you call 611 that allows you to check your minutes used. (option 1, 1, then 2) puts you in the CS queue....I didn't hang around to test it since I don't really need to know personally right now.

Also, the online billing (when it works - I hear they are upgrading their servers) on myvoicestream.com is usually updated to within 12 hours or so of your calls - sometimes even near real time.

So, you can get billing information mid-cycle. However, Kevin's comment is also true - roaming calls can take a while to get posted. The caveat is that roaming minutes charged against the month in which they are billed, not when you call. So if you roam at the end of the month, it might not show up until the following months' bill, and get charged during that later month.

 

Attention: All of those dissatisfied with the incompetence of AT&T -

I will not stand for this treatment anymore and neither should you. Lets hit them where it hurts. Your dollars are your votes...who are you voting for?

 

Although my children have cell phones for local usage (free nights and weekends), I've been considering signing up for a service as well. I've overheard conversations about voice stream (spoken by NY people) service that for $29.99 offers loads of free long distance calling. I'm concerned about hidden charges... do you have any idea if they (or other carriers) charge for additional invisible service such as air time? I'm just northwest of Boston. What are your suggestions for the cheapest service which includes some long distance options (even if it is just nights and weekends)?

 

Hi P,

I 've been a user for a couple of years now and so far so good. I've never really been let down and the fact that I can be reached on the same phone when I'm traveling in Europe is a big plus - GSM, tri-band phone. The latest plans with free unlimitted weekends is the best plan that I could find.

 

IF YOU EVER TRAVEL TO RURAL AREAS, YOU'RE PHONE WILL NOT WORK. I MOVED FROM NH TO NC LAST YEAR. IN NC I GOT A VOICESTREAM PHONE. WHEN I RETURN TO NH THE PHONE DOES NOT WORK OUTSIDE OF CONCORD OR MANCHESTER. IT DOES NOT WORK AT THE BEACHES OF NH, ME OR LAKE WINIPESAUKEE/WHITE MOUNTAINS! NO ROAM EITHER! SAME PROBLEM WITH CINGULAR!

 

stay with sprint pcs

 

TO THE ORIGINAL POSTER: I have sprint pcs in the NYC area and it is great. I am curious.......What kind/brand/make of phone do u have with sprint?

I had a slight problem with dropped calls but it turns out it was my Samsung phone; not sprint. Now with a Sanyo I can talk on the phone without a drop; and I hold a signal and audio quality in areas that my samsung tended to get a little weak in the knees.

I also hear from other SPrint users that Kyocera phones are also top notch with holding sprint's digital signal.

 

You many want to read this about boston: Boston

 

I saw that one before and I don't think it really proves anything. If they did the tests over again today they would probably have some different results. Each carrier can vary from day to day and are adding new capacity to their system every day.

 

That is Very True.................but since not that many people have Sprint......I cannot see why they got a busy signal hehe J/K

 

Well Sprint & affiliates now have about 17 million customers but I have never heard of anyone getting a busy signal with Sprint, at least not here in California.

 

Ya......i havent heard of busy signals not unless there is a major thing going on either.
EXP: Flood, earthquake, etc..............

 

That's right it usually takes some kind of disater such as 9/11 to cause busy signals with Sprint.

 

LOL............except for Houston TX when we had that flood about 2 yrs ago!!!!!!! Sprints phones quit working because thier Equip was placed in basements!! They were using up our towers lol. Since then they have moved them above ground like we do. I do not blame them though.......................that was an area that was not supposed to flood. Just bad luck on that. Like when we launched our 1x back in March for testing.........lol..........everyone that owned a Nokia phone...........thier phones would not work. After a couple of days they got the bugs worked out of the system and all was fine. Man there was some complaints.

 

that happened in NJ when a rare hurricane hit a few years ago and dumped a lot of rain around here.

so many people's landlines (dunno about wireless) went out because Verizon here is our local phone providor and all their equipment got flooded it was in basements and ground level. it was a major switching station and service was out for significant number of people for over a week. also happened to at&t wireless i read about it cause all my friends and i had at&t and our cell phones stopped workin.

it was a lot of rain, nj was declared a federal disaster are i think after the floods.

 

Kevin,
While I don't disagree with your comments about delayed billing data, it doesn't -- and shouldn't -- need to happen.

I did some computer work at least 10 years ago for one of the (then! major) telephone companies (still a cellular power) that allows almost instantaneous exchange of billing data between carriers. They used it then! I can't imagine that they have forgotten how to do this. And I can't begin to imagine that they don't do it internally.

They may not choose to make that information available to their customers for some nefarious (or perhaps legitimate) reason, but to say that they don't know or have that information in an almost instantaneous manner is disingenuous at best..... After all, they exchange cellular profiles among themselves all the time in order to properly allow calls to be placed or received. If the switches couldn't /didn't talk to each other, roaming would never work....

 

Don't overlook Nextel, they have excellent coverage throughout most of Mass. and surrounding area.

 

Anonymous poster (regarding billing data exchange),

It is interesting to meet someone with your insight and perspective. Whatever it is you designed doesn't appear to be used at present. Most subscribers I speak to from various carriers all tell the same story--the data is not available to the carrier immediately. They are getting this information from their carriers. I am sure the carriers would love to be able to do this immediately and I cannot conceive a reason they would have for holding it back. The worst of these is WorldCom, who always cites the other carriers as being the reason its own billing is delayed.

I do not doubt your post for a moment, I am only saying that the carriers' own claims do not seem to support it at present.

 

i have used and tested my carriers usage feature numerous times and have found it to be quite accurate to within calls made 15 minutes prior to checking. not to say there are not bugs,, some sprint users with the WW say that sometimes their minutes can be a little off...it is not a perfect system.

but in 1 year of sprint service i have been amazed at the accuracy and speed of which i get my minute usage.

 

Instead, they just get "no" signal.

(Okay, I was ONLY teasing. Ever since Sprint started actively going after roaming agreements with Verizon, this is getting to be less an issue. I'm glad they finally stopped depending on their "only pure digital network built from the ground up" to provide all the service their customers need.)

(opps, the above was a post in response to Larry's 4/10 post about "no busy signals.")

 

Anonymous, (delayed billing issue)

You may also see this referred to as "late billed usage" FYI-These serving carriers report this airtime to a 3rd party clearinghouse or billing vendor, only as often as they clear their switches, which may be as infrequent as once a month. These carriers only obligation is to report the call usuage within 60 days from the time of the call.

JOSH