What's the Best Family Plan in rural IA?

Well with US Cellular you can get a nationwide plan - pay extra from Night and Weekends, then when you leave the USCC area the nights and weekends as well as m2m do not work -- so I don't think USCC would be a good choice for your needs. USCC is a CDMA carrier.

Cingular shows native coverage (via their detailed service map) with roaming outside of their native coverage. Cingular has reliable service, good selection of phones, and the ability to swtich phones whenever you want (via a SIM card) - they also offer 1 and 2 year contracts. Night/Weekends are available @ 9, and you can get them at 7 if you pay an extra $7. Cingular also offers Push-To-Talk if that is a neccessity. Cingular is a GSM carrier.

Verizon is good in your area as well. They have ok priced plans, and offer nights and weekends. The only drawback from Verizon is that you MUST sign a 2 year contract, and you CAN NOT upgrade your phone (even if it is unlocked) - you must wait until your contract is up to upgrade your phone with Verizon. VZW offers 9pm night/weekends. Verizon is a CDMA carrier.

You actually might want to check out Sprint, they have great Fair and Flex plans, and they offer 5(?) PM nights and weekends. They offer great service in your area, and have the best roaming nationwide of any wireless carrier (the most in sq miles - IMO). They have great customer service, and features - including Push-To-Talk. Sprint is a CDMA carrier.

 

I am not sure about your questions with USCC - but I do know that if you travel outside of a USCC market/area you WILL NOT be able to use your night/weekends. (no matter what plan you choose).

One thing you might want to do is get Alltel - even if they arn't in your area you can still roam on VZW or USCC - and you get all those great features including My Circle, and N/Ws, m2m, PTT, and all the starndards as well. Alltel is a CDMA carrier. If you do choose Alltel you will have to provide them with a address in a serivce area which they service, then you can put your home address as the billing address. Alltel is has great plans, features, and phones - and you don't even have to go under a contract to get one of their plans (if you get a phone off E-Bay or another Alltel phone from a friend)

 

Hi! We have sprint out in Colorado. We chose them because they had the cheapest add on for early nights and weekends. We are paying an extra 10 bucks a month for that and it was good on both of our phones for one fee. If you're a good negotiater you may be able to get it for free if you email during your trial period. Cingluar would be $7 per phone for earlier nights at 7.

My wife is from Olin, IA (not too far from Stanwood). When in Olin, we are on a precarious digital/analog roam cycle because they are down in the gully, but found in most of the surrounding areas you either picked up good digital roam, or the native sprint from Cedar Rapids. Not exaclty sure how good it was in the standwood area....

Sprint just started a 30 day trial period. Check them out and you have 30 days to put the phone through their paces and can cancel without ETF and only pay for a portion of the service if you cancel.

I'd think about doing a trial with both Cingular and Sprint and see which one has better reception. Though it's getting better, roaming on Cingular in most midwest states outside of high populated cities is touch and go. Cingular has new street level maps you can search to be sure you have good single where you need it. Sprint doesn't have such a tool.

That is weird about nextel, their differences in technology (iDen versus CDMA) may be the reason you see one and not the other when you enter your zip code. I'm surprised Standwood doesn't show up. I wonder if it's just on the fringe of coverage area.... I know anamosa get's sprint coverage.

Good luck!

Stu

 

Actually Cingular charges $14 for the family plans to extend their nights and weekends to 7 (not 7$ per phone - the 7$ is for single line plans with one phone) - sorry it was my mistake on my earlier post...

 

I stand corrected. Just checked the website. I either misread it when I did my research in February, or they have changed it...

Cingular service doesn't seem to like the standwood zip, either, but if you plug it into their coverage map page, it doesn't not like it. I wonder if it's a "roaming" area for cingular as well...

US cellular may be the best "local" provider, and if you don't travel much has some decent deals, but you do have to pay for nights and weekends, but they seem to all come with "call me" minutes where in coming calls in your local area are always free, which may be as good as nights and weekends, except they have to call you, but check the fine print.

 

Sounds like you are on the right track. My wife's family has US cellular and are very happy with them, but they signed up back when 7pm nights and weekends were free and included!

For sprint, roaming is usually a non-issue, because all of their plans include free roaming, though the fine print says that you can't have over 50% of your monthly usage be roaming. Wish I was out there on vacation to test it out for you!

Look into Alltell, they have some excellent plans and coverage, including a new situation where you can indicate 10 different numbers (mycircle) as free outgoing calls for every phone on your plan. Each phone could have 10 different numbers. Of course if you call someone else on a different provider during peak hours they will be charged, but at least you won't!

Good luck on your hunt! And remember to take full advantage of any and all "trial peroids" you may have. If it doesn't work for you, don't keep them!

Again, good luck!
Stu

 

If ALLTEL is available I would consider them. They usually have a very good network in the areas they serve, and their plans are very customer friendly.

 

I 2nd that. Alltel has some great plans and real good service in there areas.

 

Hey if you are looking for two lines this is probably the best deal....

http://www.alltel.com/specials/2FOR75.html

75 a month, 1000 anytime minutes, free nights starting at 7pm and weekends, and mobile to mobile. Also it qualifies for the free My Circle program which allows you to make and recieve calls from any 10 numbers for free......probably the best plan you will find for two lines.

 

I gotta say that i wireless will probably give you the best coverage at home. With the kid at ISU, you can get MEGAtalk that includes DSM area for a few $$ more.

No overages with MEGAtalk, unless you can find a way to squeeze more that 43,500 minutes into a month.



You can get more information at the dealer in Tipton, or drive to CR's Lindale Mall store. If you go East, check out DeWitt or Clinton dealers.

http://www.iwireless.com/plans_coverage.asp

http://www.iwireless.com/plans_detail.asp?plan=25

:wink:

 

Want the most minutes Iowa Wireless is the best choice
US Cellular is the next best Choice if you want a network that is a little stronger across Iowa. These are good options if you are just going to be around Ames and eastern Iowa. If going into IL then US Cellular and Verizon would be best choices.

Iowa Wireless Map


US Cellular coverage file below

 

Looks like gsm, probably performs the same as T-Mobile.

Ok, just checked, it is T-Mobile, but everything else is different. It is run by Iowa Network Services. But the Network it runs on is T-Mobile's. Similar plans also, assuming T-mobile still does the 39.99 for 1000 minutes.

 

Strunke, iws is it's own company, with its own marketing programs. T-Mob has a minority ownership, but that is becoming a majority position. Who knows when they will decide to pull the plug and become T-Mobile Iowa? 16 months, perhaps. But that's another post. :browani:

Bottom line for customers, is that they offer a completely unique all-you-can-eat plan that is ideal for younger people who spend the majority of their time talking locally (meaning mostly eastern iowa). They also offer other billed plans that are generally quite generous if you're not a big talker.

 

I don't have a family plan, as DH has his work phone & our daughter isn't old enough to need one.

I recently switched from Verizon to Cingular & have been happy.

 

Oh yeah, sorry nothing against iWireless, i was mostly addressing the reception issues reported with sprint and T-mobile in that area. And iWireless runs primarily on T-Mobiles towers, so it would be the same. That's all, they look like good plans though. Plus it's locally owned so the CS is typically much better.

Now that I look at it, it may run on Cingular as well, if that is the case then I talk to our3rotts about reception.

 

The fine print? I use my free M2M and N&W and My circle everywhere I go regardless of whether I am on Verizon's network aor Alltel's. As long as you are on a National Freedom plan, these benefits work nationwide in free roam areas as far as I know.

 

Diamondflowers,

Sorry for the delay in getting into this. I work for USCC. Remember that we, too, have a 30-day trial period. That trial period, no matter which carrier you choose, is VITAL to determining if the service is for you.

As for N&W and CALL ME service areas, you're covered for all but about 4 counties in the northwest corner of the state, the upper 2/3 of Illinois, and the southern half of Wisconsin, over to Omaha and Lincoln (more as we integrate areas recently purchased from Alltel), almost the entire eastern half of Missouri. N&W minutes applies in all of that. CALL ME minutes (incoming) only while actually on the USCC network.

Give us a try. Based on what I see, I think it's going to be a good fit, especially since you mention you don't travel much or far.

 

I would take T-Mobile to Peru you have better chances of using the phone to roam than US Cellular. I sure US Cellular has some international packages, but I don't hear much about them. The company you would roam on is Movistar Peru if US Cellular can offer an internation package for that.

 

Those 4 counties will soon be USCC territory.

 

*****
Hmmm.. so for the call me to work we have to be using a USCC tower? I take it as long as one is in the local call area that we would be using a USCC tower? Also, you didn't include Oklahoma, which is on their local map (we have family in northern Oklahoma). About call me, does that mean mobile to mobile or does it also include land line to our mobile phone too?

We just signed up with USC, after having Cingular (they dropped us because of the 50% deal, we seemed to be using US Cellular towers most of the time) and then went to Verizon a month ago, and had no reception where we are. So switched to USCC (3 days ago) and have great service as of yet. They are even adding a tower anyday 1 mile from town. We have 2 bars and crystal clear calls.

We really don't care about night and weekends, since our 800 minutes is plenty. When we were with Cingular we used about 150-200 min a month.

About easyedge, I'm trying to access it so I can download wallpaper and ringtones but it keeps saying "unable to retrieve catalog, Please try back later". I've been trying for days...???

 

Call me minutes are good for any incoming call no matter who is calling you.

US Cellular has a license for almost All of Oklahoma except for the panhandle

 

iWireless does not run off of T-Mobile towers. T-Mobile service ends near Ankeny, IA going up I-35, and that's where I Wireless service begins. I Wireless is a totally seperate company, the only thing T-Mobile has to do with it is they are an affiliate. Just thought I would get the record straight.

Do you know approximently how long that will be, and how long untill we start seeing more U.S. Cellular service in Nebraska? I also heard something a while back about MN coverage being expanded as well as Kansas.

 

Hmm... there's usually a number in parentheses after that message. Do you happen to have that number? If it's "534", that's a failed authentication. Either our authentication server didn't properly create an account for you, or the phone itself didn't properly program its login info in. We should be able to fix that if you call us from a different phone.

 

The number is 554. ??

 

Also, anyone know if US Cellular is going to come out with a usb modem?