Cell phones

I am the last attorney in America not to have a cellphone. I've enjoyed the freedom of being inaccessible from the office, but the pressure to get one is mounting. However, now that I'm thinking about getting one, I'm paralyzed by an excess of choices. Best Buy, Circuit City, Radio Shack and every grocery store and mom and pop shop across the city offers a cell phone plan from AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, Cingular and numerous other companies. At the mall tonight, there was a Radio Shack and 2 kiosks dedicated exclusively to cell phones. I know just as soon as I sign a contract, I'm going to realize I got screwed and there was a better deal somewhere else.

I assume most of you have cell phones by now, even my mom has one. So, how did you go about deciding which plan to go with? Are there any websites or resources that I can look to for an informed decision? I know the main criteria are zone of coverage vs. roaming, minutes offered per month, possibility of carrying over unused minutes, and most important for me, price per month. Any companies I should stay away from at all costs? What's the best deal out there now, or are they all the same? How are all these places staying in business? All imput is appreciated.

 

Good question. I do not have a mobile and I've had occasion to need one in my work. I did a job in Florida recently and the Cisco technical sales guy I collaborated with was SHOCKED that I had no mobile phone.

Regards,
Geoff

 

I've got Verizon and it's very reliable.This is something you take for granted but my wife had Sprint for a while and a lot of calls got dropped.They may have fixed the problem but still.

 

I don't have a cell phone either, but I can tell you that my wife's on Sprint and they charge $2 everytime you have to call customer service.

 

I have Cingular Wireless service. I have unlimited roaming and long distance. 300 Anytime & 5,000 weekend night minutes. I love their service as well. $ 30 a month.

 

I've been hard pressed to find anything comparable to Nextel. After two years, I shopped around but couldn't find any other company or plan I liked. So I stuck with 'em.

Costs a bit more, but the company I worked for switched from Nextel to Sprint, and half the sales force found the phones didn't reach their areas. Cingular I won't touch, only because they're owned by SBC, which whom I have four complaints filed against with the state's public service commission (for home phone service).

Of all the phones I've owned over the years, only the Motorolas have held up to the abuse I sometimes dish out. Nextel has only Motorola.

The in-laws have Verizon and like it.

Just watch the plans with any phone you go with, to see what's included. With Nextel, there is no such thing as roaming...they only do digital, and you can call from anywhere on the network w/o any surprise fees. (Roaming, IMHO, is the biggest scam in the business...when I was with Ameritech many years ago, they would charge you 60 cents just to turn your phone on in a roaming area!) My plan has free long distance. And newer plans have free incoming calls...great if you receive a lot of calls.

FWIW, I use my Nextel as my main phone # now. I don't make or receive many calls, but since I need a cell phone anyway, and long distance/toll calling is so overpriced here on the Ameritech line, I only have a barebones basic home phone line to use my fax, DirecTV and as a backup for my modem if the broadband goes down...and use the Nextel for everything else.

I was originally on a contract with Nextel, but now I just buy a new phone on eBay with no strings attached. One simple phone call is all it takes to switch to a new phone. (I have an i90c.) I dislike those "pick up and go" prepaid plans...they're a joke.

 

I think that there is no single answer for which company is best. You might want to do a search online for your area and the companies you are considering.

I have had a Sprint PCS phone for about 2 1/2 years and have never been entirely happy with it. While Sprint may have excellent coverage in some areas, it has "holes" in others, including where I live. To make matters worse, the phone itself can make a huge difference in terms of one's experience of the quality of service. I have a phone that cost 3 times as much as one of my colleagues and we both have Sprint. She gets better reception than I do. I recently had to use her phone to check my voice mail when we were on the road because the reception on my phone was so weak that the voice mail wasn't recognizing the password code I was entering. Imagine my horror when I discovered that in addition to better coverage, the call sounded MUCH clearer on her phone as well. She told me she got the cheapest phone they were offering at the time and that she never has dropped calls or reception problems. I got something that was near the top of their line at the time and have always had spotty service. Needless to say this made me an even less satisfied customer. (I have called customer service before, though, and have never been charged $2 for doing so. I wonder if that's something new.)

I'm hoping that a number portability law goes into effect before too long.

 

I don't think coverage with any cellular company is perfect. I'm in a questionable area at my house...even the guy at the local Nextel store mentioned our area before I told him where we lived. (Just too far between cell towers.) Still usable, but I drop a call every now and then. But one thing nice is that Nextel is still expanding their coverage area...so it always helps for anyone shopping to carefully look over the coverage map to see if their provider will carry them through any area they plan to travel.

I can buy a "repeater", but for $400+, that's overkill to improve my reception in the house. At least I could use it in the basement then.

 

I have AT&T Wireless...$34.99 which includes 500 free anytime minutes plus free nights and weekends and free long distance with no roaming charges.
People always remark I sound very clear on the cell phone. The phone is a Nokia.

 

Nextel.

With the opening of the two-way feature nationally, no one can touch them for extra services, including web access...

Just make sure they know you're shopping around and then bang them hard on a guaranteed call plan with free weekend and PM minutes for a year....oh, yeah - make them buy you the phone, too...

Good luck - Ben.

 

I have Verizon, used to be Ameritech. I have been with them for about 10 years. Nextel in this area, Chicagoland, leaves a lot to be desired. I think it is too conjested around here. Check with those in your area.
I'd say start with a small plan which the provider will allow you to upgrade in reverse should you start to use more and more minutes.
I like my plan because it covers the Great Lakes; MN, WI, IA, IL, IN, MI, OH and part of PA, where I do most my fishing in season.

 

All I can say is stay away from T-Mobile at all costs. Their coverage area is simply too small and the customer service is totally laughable.

 

Personally I like to read the reviews at Amazon on the phones.
I like Nokia myself and we have 3 in my family.

Amazon has great phone prices with all the rebates.
I suggest you ask your friends and coworkers what service they have in areas you want reception (your work, your house etc) roaming areas. Then get a service that has reception where you want it.
I do not get reception at my house.
I have Cingular and it is pretty good with Nationwide.
We have one with ATT.

Anyway get the price after rebate from Amazon then go to Circuit City and have them match the price (print out the Amazon page if needed).

Also suggest getting the free phone or max about $30 unless you need a Palm device included. 1 year contract is fine don't need to sign up for 2 years first time to save $30.

Watch your minutes so you never go over your plan. It costs more than per minute than getting the next better plan.

When you don't want calls, just turn it off.

 

I started with AT&T wireless and dropped them during their GPRS/Edge network upgrade as service became too spotty. They might be back now with a real GSM network, where your phone works in the States and in Europe as well.

I switched to Verizon and have been very happy. No roaming charges, good coverage, solid regional plan with a ton of evening and weekend minutes. The best thing is the phone which has the Palm OS, so synching with Outlook for all of my contacts and calendaring is a snap. For less than the price of a stand-alone PalmPilot, I got a quality phone in the bargain.

 

And I was the last lawyer in Australia to get one!

Bought my first mobile 3 weeks ago, mainly for phoning my wife and vice versa when one of us is in transit.

The best advice I can give is:

Just remember it's only a phone!

 

Depends on where you live. I've never had any problems with their customer care.

 

I think the best is to ask around where you live to find out what people like locally. I think the service of each company varies a great deal from one location to another.

The best advice I can offer is on the phone itself. I chose the best phone Radio Shack offered at the time and it looks great. Color screen. Everybody loves how it looks. But a color display uses a lot of juice and my battery is constantly running out. I rarely get more than a day out of a charge and often much less. People I know who have a monochrome display get tons of time out of each charge. This is the one thing I would do different. I would not get a color display.

By the way, I use Verizon and it is reliable enough where I live and has enough free minutes at off-peak hours that I canceled my regular phone service.

 

I just went mobile myself, and after some research I concluded Verizon was the way to go for me. Nextel was second: they seem to be the gold standard for business, but Verizon had a family plan (Nextel didn't) and their coverage is the best in the US. Just don't go for the hard-sell Verizon Wireless stores--the local one left a bad taste in my mouth. I went to the local Circuit City and got better service and a much better deal on the phones.

BTW, I have used Verizon Customer Service twice in the last two weeks, once when I wanted to activate my "send picture" feature (yes, I got a camera phone, I couldn't help myself ) and once when my phone mysteriously stopped working. In both cases I got prompt, fully-informed help and was on my way in minutes. So far, I'm impressed.

 

I was just recently forced to get one as well, and after trying Verizon (ho God!) and Sprint (oh God!) we went with Nextel. It is the best so far!

 

*Forced* to get one? I hear ya, Grant. Wife Maya's been bugging me to step into the 21st century and get one of them cell phones, too. She has one, of course, and complains that she's never able to get a hold of me when I'm out of the house.

Jim W.

 

I finally went with Cingular. I was somewhat frustrated to find that there were no true nationwide plans, i.e., plans that covered the entire state and most metropolitan areas outside of my state, so went with a plan that was primarily nationwide but had a large in-state coverage area as well. Hopefully, as these companies proliferate, the coverage areas will get more expansive.

 

Which model did you get?

I've had some minor problems with Nextel here, but to be honest, I've looked and I can't find anything else better for our area! Verizon, Cingular, Sprint and the others were just lacking. IMHO, Nextel's plans are a lot more clearly defined than the others. In fact, earlier this year I picked up some new Nextel phones on eBay. With the SIM cards, you only need to slip the card out of one phone and into the other to switch phones.

I also got a chance to try nationwide direct connect when my ex was in Florida--on a whim, I tried to reach her at the Orlando airport from here in Detroit...and it worked! I don't know if it's a fluke thing or not, and I haven't checked my bill to see if there was any charge involved (it's a $10/month add-on, from what I understand). I wonder if I can reach someone in Tucson...??

My problem here is that we are in a small area known for bad reception. In fact, I went to the Ann Arbor Nextel store and mentioned I had poor reception. "You live in Belleville, don't you?" Well no, I don't, but the south end of Canton I live in borders Van Buren Twp. and Belleville. I think it will get remedied soon, as they just opened a Nextel-owned store within walking distance of the house. When they find their status indicator is red and they have "No Service" on their demo phones, something will get done.

I like the fact that "roaming" doesn't even exist with Nextel...that's a shady practice IMHO, and one reason I didn't like the competition. When I had Ameritech's cellular (now Cingular), I'd get a 60 cent roaming fee whenver I just turned my phone on in a non-"home" area. I have nationwide coverage, period.

 

Just out of curiosity, how long do cell phones last these days? They all seem kind of.........disposable.

[T]

 

I still have my two original Nextel Motorola i1000plus phones, two years old, that still work fine. They're a generation older, not as flexible, but durability wise they still work. I've owned a few brands of phone and honestly, Motorolas have held up the best. My first Nokia was garbage, and the NEC phones...well, the less said, the better...just all-around poor performance after half a year had passed.

I'm now using a Motorola i90, and have an i30sx I keep on hand as a spare. My i90 has taken a couple of falls, but works as well as it did when I got it back in January.

If anything, battery life is the major problem. My original phones (even the last analog Motorola I owned) would have good battery life for maybe a couple of months, then you'd be at the point where one phone call would drain the battery. Had to replace the batteries in the i1000's after 18 months, and so far the battery in my i90 is holding up OK. (I also got a spare with this phone, and have the same battery in the i30sx.) The batteries in digital cell phones last so much longer, in terms of talk/standby time...and I've found the battery life to be better as well.

I've seen some of the "freebie" phones the other cellular companies offer...my friend has an AT&T made by Panasonic that just looks and feels like plastic junk. She's disgusted with it...it's probably worth less than the replacement battery it needs.

 

I had Sprint for 2 years and hated them. Coverage was terrible plus they never told you that there were software updates available for the phone to make it more "powerful" (whatever that meant)
Switched to the the Verizon Family Plan and we are a very happy family.
We both have Kyocera phones - which we also like.