cell phone service providers. who sucks?

[shermanslave]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 4:55pm

I have had T-Mobile for years and now that my contract is up, I am thinking about looking for a new provider. In NYC, anyone have a preference? People seem to like Verizon a lot. All I have evr had is T-Mobile, so I don't have anything to compare it to. Your thoughts?

can I say "sucks" in a subject? sorry if I offend.

[DayDreamer]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 5:07pm

I live in WA state, and have Verizon Wireless and I am very happy with them. I travel to the east coast a couple of times a year, and don't worry about roaming charges (with my plan) and never had any problems with connection while there. And I actually like their customer service.

[shermanslave]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 5:08pm

good to know, dreamer.

[iHeartMyGeek]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 5:15pm

Verizon sucks for me. We had Cingular, and that worked fine for me, and then we switched to Verizon. Ever since, I barely get service anywhere and one out of three of my calls is dropped. It's very frustrating.

[AbbaRabbit]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 5:17pm

i've never had a problem with verizon, but i don't use my cell phone very much.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 5:18pm

I switched from TMobile to Verizon this summer and definitely prefer it. The service is much more consistent with Verizon. With TMobile, wherever I happened to be (NYC, CNY, DC) I'd find that I could go from 4 bars to no service just by crossing a room.

[bella cantato]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 5:18pm

sprint sucks. we switched to verizon and i think it is much better.

Updated On: 2/21/07 at 05:18 PM

[Anakela]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 5:18pm

I'm in NYC, have had Verizon since back in (2002?) when I lived in L.A., same phone number, I'm only on my second phone (and that's only due to trading in on the 'new every two,' not due to phone breakage), and I have been *very* happy with Verizon, in both states- no unexpected fees ever, I actually get a live person when I call with questions, the very rare dropped call, etc.

Although, I am considering giving this all up come July 2007 when Cingular becomes the only place one can get an iPhone. :)


My cousin is the only person I have ever known who was unhappy with Verizon- she used to live in San Diego, and for some reason her Verizon phone worked off of a tower in Mexico or something, and so she would always get a Spanish speaking rep when she called when she had problems, and her phone would default to Spanish for the instructions, etc.- Verizon could never seem to fix that for her, and so she left for Cingular where she's been happy ever since.

[Kringas]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 5:20pm

I have US Cellular and I've had few problems with them.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 6:59pm

go to your library get the consumer reports issue that came out in the last few months which compares the services.

I have Cingular, as my phone can be used all over the world.

When I had Verizon, they wanted $250 for a phone that could be used in Europe...ridiculous.

[DG]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 7:03pm

Elph - I love it when you say, "Go to the library . . ."

And here, our Verizon service is sketchy at best.

[TheHumanTorch]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 7:04pm

Sprint was terrible for me... but just be warned that with Verizon, the phone choices that they have are awful, the service is fine but Verizon never gets good phones until months after the other providers have them

[MotorTink]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 7:04pm

I had Verizon then Nextel and now T-Mobile. I hate them all. Verizon was probably the best out of them all though.

[DayDreamer]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 7:05pm

I was going to say that the issue with Verizon is that their network is not the most advanced, so the phone choices are more limited and you don't get all the cool gadgets.

I'm happy with making/receiving calls and having a signal... don't need all the fancy stuff. Verizon is more than adequate.

[pab]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 7:09pm

I'm with Anakela. It's going to be all about the iPhone come June so the choice is easy:

Cingular

[justagirl2]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 7:13pm

I've been extremely happy with Cingular...I get service in the middle-of-nowhere. My roommate, with Verizon, often drops calls.

[iHeartMyGeek]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 7:15pm

Same here, justagirl. When I had Cingular, I could go on camping trips with my family and get service when my family members with Verizon couldn't.

[DayDreamer]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 7:28pm

I guess it really depends where you are... I have the same thing happen here - I always seem to have service when no one else does.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 7:47pm

Cingular doesn't work where I live, or where my beach house is. For years during the initial cell phone boom, my dad stuck by them, assuming they'd build more towers or something, but it never happened.

[folkyboy]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 8:03pm

i've had Cingular and T-Mobile and prefer T-Mobile only because i can actually get service in the damn subways now. also, with Cingular, if they screw up something on your bill they don't do anything about it. T-Mobile will actually credit you for ish they know they messed up on.

+ the people at T-Mobile are a lot nicer to me. a lot of times i felt like i was being handled by India when i had to talk to Cingular on the phone. i left Cingular due to mostly their plans sucking and the fact that they flip flopped back & forth from AT&T so often (as I initially was with AT&T from the get go)

[soapguy17]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 8:11pm

I'm going to have to third the whole spint suckage thingy.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 8:33pm

Cell Phone companies have NO incentive to provide any service. Cell phone companies have lucked into a system where they are allowed to force customers to sign contracts and require you to "re-up" anytime that your service changes, there is no benefit for them to treat you well. The money is made by getting you to "upgrade" to the new phone, the new service, the new platform and extanding your contract.

Can you imagine what service would be like if all industries were like that?

[suzycat]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 9:43pm

For me, Cingular is waaaay better than Verizon. I get much better service all over the country with Cingular than I did with Verizon.

Among many other things, I hated Verizon because the monthly bill was about 6 full sized pages front and back. Cingular's bills are much more readable and shorter. Save the trees!

In my mind Verizon is conservative and Cinglar is liberal :)

[DAME]

Posted: 2/21/07 at 9:45pm

We switched to Verizon and we are very happy with the service. Cingular was so frustrating.

[Anakela]

Posted: 2/22/07 at 12:11am

Among many other things, I hated Verizon because the monthly bill was about 6 full sized pages front and back. Cingular's bills are much more readable and shorter. Save the trees!

You still get paper bills? I am all about online billing and just saving pdf copies on a disc in case I need them later. :)