Best Cell Phone Service

[SGTJOE]

With all the Cell phone Companies telling you they have the best coverage and offering you some "great" deals what do you all think is the best of the best. Not so much price, but coverage no matter where you are on the road or at your S&B?

[ktmrfs]

I suppose it somewhat depends on where you live and travel. For us in Oregon traveling in OR, CA, WA,ID, MT, AZ, utah etc. Verizon has better coverage than ATT. our truck has ATT, as do many friends. Our cell phones are Verizon. We find more places where ATT doesn't have service while verizon does than the other way around. Having both is nice for the occasional condition when Verizon has no service but ATT does. What is disapointing is that there are major streches of interstate highway we have traveled on where Verizon has service but ATT has no service for stretches of 50 miles or more.

We have quite a few remote campsites where cell service w/o a booster is non existent. With a booster again Verizon wins over ATT. Friends with ATT quite often don't get reception with our booster but we get a strong signal with Verizon.

Our daughter has sprint and it comes in a distant third. Even at our house sprint reception is very weak.

[2oldman]

jjrbus wrote:
When you break down in Hell's canyon SD and there is no cell phone service for any carrier. It does not matter who made your smart phone or who your carrier is! My vote is for the cheapest service.

In that narrow context, yes, you would be correct. For the rest of the time, you want it to work. I know I do.

[hornet28]

If you have Comcast check out Xfinity mobile. My wife and I switched to that last fall and to date the highest monthly bill for both phones was a few cents over $16. They use the Verizon network

[jjrbus]

When you break down in Hell's canyon SD and there is no cell phone service for any carrier. It does not matter who made your smart phone or who your carrier is! My vote is for the cheapest service.

[Charlie_D_]

Not to get off topic too far but does the cell phone play a role in reception? Type of phone, built in antenna, etc.?

[Bobbo]

Verizon has the best coverage. While we still had parents living, we had Verizon so we would never be out of touch. Now that WE are the parents living, it is not our problem anymore. We now have a lower cost cell service. However, there are a lot of places we have no cell service.

[RoyB]

I learned from the Government back in my working days. we was servicing the radio/radar sites along with SPAWAR Charleston folks... They made us use the VERIZON network back then. Others would not work well for the off road places...

Here at the house we are in a small dip here in the neghborhood and SPRINT does not work inside the house... One of my daughters has sprint and she has found a spot on the front porch to use... She calls that her GREEN ACRES Hot spot... I suspect ATT is going to be a good one to use... They have come a long way now...

For us in our off road trips its VERIZON for sure and since I havent upgraded my GIBBS cell phone I use the Verizon MIFI units to do the internet aroud my camp site... MIFI gives me an secured connection for around 75 feet around my POPUP trailer using the MIFI box...

We only use the internet to check in with the kids, check the mail, pay a few bills on-line and some surfing of the net... I don't have enough GB's for downstreaming much of anything... My mifi was a 3GB unit and I just replaced with a 5GB unit... I thinking downstreaming movies and HDTV etc is around 1GB per hour of use... Something like that...

Roy Ken

[gbopp]

We never had any problems with Verizon.
Check online for a Sprint Cell Phone Coverage Map. It will give you an idea of where it may or may not work.

[Dave_H_M]

:h that 100 bucks for what you get sounds lucrative.

Your decision but did you price out that same plan with Verizon?

My comment could be apples and oranges though. :R

[YC_1]

Ok I confess, I was a Sprint dealer for several years. Did major service and had three cell phone stores with repairs.

What service phone do you think I always traveled with in those years? I had been a Verizon service dealer prior but do to the FCC selling my spectrum I needed to switch to Sprint/Nextel to survive as a business.

But alas, Sprint decided to do their own thing in Kiosks etc and my Sprint portion faded away, fortunately.

And now I am once again out of the closet.

Verizon coverage in the rural areas I traveled to for business and pleasure was better in all but a very few locations.

I had some of the very first cell phone amps in my RV. I had antennas on poles where I frequently camped.

Verizon, hands down gave better coverage.

In todays world the gap has closed quite a bit and if you do not need those critical places then price may be your better deal.

So, history shows that Verizon was well ahead of the competition as they/ Sprint/Nextel acquired/stole spectrum and grew rapidly.

The competition has been a great thing and kept Verizon on its toes. They are a bit pricey but sometimes you want that Cadillac or Benz and not the other models.

[Clarryhill]

VZW here.

[Airdaile]

We had Sprint and went to Verizon Wireless. The straw that broke the camel's back was a week in OBX with a cell tower in line of sight from our campsite and no signal on the Sprint phones.

[Johno02]

OTR coast-to-coast drivers recommend Verizon. I changed from AT&T due to poor service and limited coverage. Have not had a problem since. That'a all I know.

[Cummins12V98]

Hands down overall VERIZON.

[Earl_E]

Verizon. I have AT&T and my wife has Verizon and she consistently gets a better signal off the beaten track. In towns both are fine.