I had AT&PEE and they were the worst. My wife and I would lose calls in the middle of town and right down the street. We switched to Alltel and have been happy since. It all matters with whom have the repeaters in your location.

On text messaging thing. I am a teacher and I hate it as kids are constantly texting each other. I take the phones and have to turn them off as they can be having multiple conversations at one time. What really burns me is that these are often the same kids that come up to be and ask how to raise their grade. Um, listen and do your work and not text messaging. On the side note I know two of my students had a $1,100 and $900 bill due to text messaging. I do not even know how that can happen when both my wife’s and mine are $72.00 per month.

 

Cellular One has to be one of the worst, at least in this area (Nebraska) My parent-in-laws have them and they are always dropping calls, even within their City limits. Once they get out in the country, forget about it. This is why I like Alltel. They seem to get the best coverage between towns and out in the boonies. When we make our anual ske trip to Colorado, my frinds with Sprint, Cingular, and previously AT$T would not have service for about half the trip, where I'd only be without for a short time in eastern Colorado.
As far as text messaging, it does have it's place, but to me it's very limited. With my plan I get 50 free incoming TM's a month, and it's only $.10 to send one. I think I have sent two since it became available. I hate it when someone TM's me when they could have just called. It drives me nuts. In the half the time it takes to type up a TM, they could have called and actually have had a real conversation. I know some poeple that will sit and TM each other back and forth when neither of them is doing anything of any imprtance. Then when you say, "Why don't you just call them, it'd be a lot easier." they look at me like I'm stupid and respond with something like "because I'm paying $X.xx a monthe for it so I'm going to use it" WTH. Ok, my rant is over.

 

I like TracFone as well, had it for about a year. My only complaint is the limited choice of phones in my area. I have the Motorola V120 and am not real happy with it, it's just not holding up well. The volume is so low I can't hear my caller if there's any background noise, and I can't hear it ring if I'm running any equipment. I set it to vibrate, and I can't feel it unless I'm sitting still. How do you like the v60i? I've heard that the flip phones are kind of fragile. -TD

 

I don't know about fragile...my Audiovox CMD 8900 is a tough sob...It's been thrown from a vehicle, run over, thrown...and all that while trying to have a conversation with cell one.

It has serious flaws though...It only comes with really lame sounds that will make you cram your head in the oven every time you turn the phone on. When you set an alarm, a little girl plays patty-cake with herself until you stop it. When the phone turns on, little hot air balloons roll across the screen. All the screen colors are pink, purple, and light blue. This phone lacks some serious masculinity.

 

I have alltell had a v60i for a couple of years, then dropped it down the sewer while changing out a toilet (pause while you laugh at me)..... ....Now I have an LG3200 seems to be fine. No dropped calls good range, and easy to use. We dropped our land line, and got second cell saving us $40 a month.

 

I called Cell One today, first thing in the morning, as I hoped I would still be calm enough to maintain my composure.

All I got was "Well, I don't know how you have had phone service from us, since you no longer live in Montana. There's a $200 fee, and we will go ahead and cancel your service."

My response was "What? You disconnect my service, costing me money, now you tell me your spontaneously cancelling my phone, and forcing me too pay you?"

He replies, "Yes sir, since you moved out of our major coverage area, though we have service there, we don't have an office there. There are a couple other ways to transfer your service withing Cell One."

My reply will not be posted here, as the moderator would never allow it. Needless to say, the gentleman ended with informing me that Cell One no longer welcomes my patronage.

So now I'm preaching the good word: STAY AWAY FROM CELL ONE!

 

I have had Cingular for several years and have not had any problems with them. I think it depends on the part of the country you are in which proveder does the best job.

 

I have Verizon and have no problems with it. My phone is a piece of crap, but I'm changing that soon.

My friend has a very popular, very industry-oriented website concerning cell phones and service providers. I know he goes to all of the trade shows and is kind of an "insider" to what's coming down the pipeline. He was even featured in The Wall Street Journal...front page, above the fold, with a picture. Pretty cool since he's a really close friend. Anyway...Google "phonescoop" and you'll find it.

 

I just had to read this thread becuase I don't understand the mentallity of people and their cell phones. It's like some of them just can't stand being alone for a single minute of the day.

But on topic, the guy who lives upstairs is a truck driver who truly does need a cell phone. He doesn't have a land line and buys the big packages. He's been through almost all of the companies for one reason or another. I get to hear him complain about how they can turn his phone of at 10PM but can't turn it back on at 10PM.

He got in a billing dispute with one company because they wouldn't send him a bill.
The company and the collection agency got my phone number and his name assocaited, probably because of the address and proceeded to drive me nuts for about 2 months.
they call 8 times in 4 hrs.

Now for a mini hijack. Like AZtrainer observes with kids, I just went through a deal with an 18 yr old. He calls me up, his taurus AT won't move. Says he doesn't even have 40 bucks to get it looked at. So he calls a place that has *free towing*, total bill $1800. So I find him a place that will do it for $1100 becuase that's all the bank will loan him.

Now get this, On the way home from getting his car to the repair shop we stop to pay his cell phone bill. I walk in the store and see him standing in front of a machine feeding it a stack of 20 dollar bills. I look at the screen and see amount due $237.00.

He has the the $39.00 package.

Oh the irony!

 

Wow I guess no one uses Sprint??

Been with Sprint since 1999 (first cell phone), and I just renewed my contract for another two years. In the past, I've only had one billing error, and that was resolved within a day.

Sprint offers the company I work for a 10% discount off each months bill for employees. Only caveats are your billing cycle matches the companies billing cycle, and that you have to go through Sprint Business Services for all matters concerning the account. I was promised a $300 rebate via check mailed to my house from Sprint Business Services for upgrading my phones, and renewing my contract. For some reason they can't send me out a check directly, but they did send me the rebate forms for me to fill out and send back for the $300. For my troubles, they bumped the discount up to 17% because they could not deliver on what they first promised.

Now thats what I call damn good customer service!!