Wireless Coverage in Verona, WI

Have you thought about Alltel? All three Verizon, USCC, and Alltel are CDMA. I'd much rather go with an 800 carrier than PCS. Alltel seems to provide similar national coverage to Verizon, but I've never had any experience with them in this area. I'm not sure how big of a TDMA/GSM network is in WI, but that might be something to think about if you look into AT&T(Cingular). You'll have to figure that most of it is probably PCS, minus the Dobson coverage up North and Cingular in Milwaukee.

Dan

 

Welcome to WI!! If you plan on traveling to far west of Madison, your only bet for service is USCC. Cingular and Sprint cover Madison and most of southeast WI really good.

 

sillybilly.....we are going to the Dells again, the weekend of the 16-18th. How is TMobile service on 39 north of Madison, to the Dells/Lake Delton? The Dells is on the border for my personal Cingular phone, so I roam on AT&T GSM off and on. My work phone is TMobile, and I don't know what it will do there...

 

Not sure when I will get to the Dells again. I don't have any info about T-Mobile service because they are not available in Madison, WI. I do believe they roam with Cingular or Einstien PCS. FYI, the Dells is the "border" for almost all Cell service except for USCC in southern WI!!

 

Hometown USA, huh? That's were I grew up and went to high school. Anyway, I found some interesting info out about ATT on the website. My sister has an older local TDMA plan and it works in Verona, but as soon as you travel a few miles west towards mt horeb she goes into extended network (likely the old US Cellular TDMA network), which is included in her plan anyway. I don't think that text messaging works, but her voice mail icon does. ATT now has GSM plans (what T-Mobile is) with the cool new generation of phones, but the towers in Verona (according to ATTWS website) are not yet GSM ready. (On the website, try entering zip code 53593 (Verona), vs. 53719 (a west side Madison zip)) The thing is, they are still offering TDMA plans (check the website), but you have to get TDMA OneRate to get a nation plan, which is very expensive ($59.99 for 450 mins, ouch!). Since ATT doesn't off GAIT plans (dual mode phone with both TDMA and GSM), I don't think that ATT is really much of an option for you. I would go to a retail store and ask their advice. Verizon gets mixed opinions in the Madison area from friends of mine, but I'm not aware of any major problems in Verona. Sprint with Free and Clear America might be a good option for you. Although their towers end shortly west of Verona, too, you would likely roam on USCC or Alltel w/o charges. Alltel, as mentioned in a previous reply, doesn't have any Madison retail locations. You would have to travel to Monroe or Platteville or sign up on the phone or internet. I don't know a single person in Dane county that has them, but maybe checking them out would be a possiblity. The only service that I've never heard or experienced any coverage complaints about is US Cellular, but if you travel a lot, I know what you mean about the nationwide coverage thing. During spring break, they did allow me to change to a spanamerica plan for one month while I was in southern california to avoid the roaming charges, and then change back to my local plan. Hope this helps.

 

Won't Verizon's America's Choice and Local DigitalChoice plans roam at no extra charge on USCC in Wisconsin?

 

I know about a year or so ago it was big news when Verizon and USCC allowed roaming on each others networks. I thought I remember hearing recently that Verizon doesn't allow as much crossover as it had when the deal was first initiated, but I'm not sure how accurate that info was. One thing I have noticed is that on the VZW AC map, there are plenty of holes in west central and southwest wisconsin where USCC should have plenty of coverage, leading me to believe they don't allow complete crossover.

 

Check the VZW Coverage Locator at http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/CoverageLocatorController?requesttype=NEWREQUEST

I don't see very many holes at all, except for one entire county. (If you're going there, sorry, you're screwed.)

 

Yeah, I'm living in that one county for the summer. It sucks. What I don't get though, is that area is shown in Light Blue on their local digital choice coverage map. I still don't get coverage with a trimode phone though...

 

What type of phone do you have? We can help you program it so that if you select "Home Only" it will connect to the USCC network.

 

I see what you mean about no holes on the map link that you listed, SQFreak, but why does the AC map that pops up while you are looking at plans have so many holes in the red coloring in SW and WC Wisconsin?

 

That map is older, I guess.

 

I'm a Madison resident and VZW subscriber, on a Moto V60. I've noted that mine commonly falls to Extended Network in the Madison area. I've seen it in my house (Midvale/Nakoma/Monroe intersection), Home Depot on Verona Rd and in the lower level of my workplace on Wisconsin Ave downtown. The thing is, it's "Extended Network", which means that it's not costing me any more. I'm beginning to believe that in the Madison area, USCC CDMA is the strongest network, since VZW in Madison obviously has a few holes to plug up.

So SQFreak- what's this about "home only" USCC programming? Or is that for USCC customers, not VZW?

 

Program the phone's Home SID to be USCC's SID in that area, then set the phone to Home Only, forcing it to connect to the USCC SID. Setting it to Automatic A/B will put it back to searching the PRL for the VZW system (usually - sometimes you have to reprogram it, and that's extremely easy with the LGs, but with other phones, I don't know).

 

USCC does have the strongest CDMA network in all of southern WI. With Sprint's last 2 PRL updates which allows for digital roaming, they have to be a close 2nd!! Sprint now digital roams off of USCC network. I have no problem around Madison and other southern WI cities/towns getting a usable signal with either Sprint or USCC. Looks like it is time to drop my USCC line!!

 

Sorry to bring up this old thread but I just noticed this. Is there a way I can do this on my Samsung A670? On my 6K & 7K all I did was force to Cell Only and it got me Extended Roaming on USCC.

Thanks much for any help.

 

The free roam agreement with USCC in the Midwest back in 2003 so Verizon only roams on Alltel and Cellcom in WI for Cellular, and Midwest Wireless and Verizon's affilates in Iowa.