Just wondering which cell company is best.   Which one gets best coverage for full time???  We are on Cingular and get great service here at home, but are starting full time (YEA!) in April. It seems that  Verizon offers the internet card etc. As you can see, we are very illiterate on the subject.  We want a company that we get good service, and can use lap top and internet. Any help would be appreciated.

We have one of each, Verizon and Cingular, since we kept finding problems just having Verizon using the old America's Choice plan.  We have a tri-mode Verizon phone, we hear they are about impossible to get now, and in many areas analog (what you don't get with a dual-mode phone) was all we had so I think the current Verizon coverage is not as good as we have.  I think with the current plans and phones it is close to even on where you get service with Verizon and not Cingular and vice versa.  

Verizon is known for much better customer service than Cingular. But the two times we called Cingular they were very helpful, so I don't know. 

On the laptop and internet area I can't say, we use satellite internet.

I would stay with Cingular for now and when you have problems ask those around you what service they have.  I do know that only Cingular and Verizon have decent coverage all over the country, no matter what the maps say.  People with T-mobile, Sprint and Alltel find the have less overall coverage.

We have cingular and traveled most of the south and west last year with no problems. There is becoming a large concern with Cingular in that if you use more than 50% of your minutes on a non cingular tower they will drop you. Seems to be picking up speed in which people are getting dropped. I don't know how you would know if you were on a cingular tower but they sure do.

Hi Sharon:

We use Cingular. We each have a phone and we use a card in the laptop. We have had good service with both. We have always had good coutomer service from Cingular. We started with AT&T before digital was available and AT&T's cell service was purchased by Cingular.

We have traveled from southern Florida to Porltand Oregon, from Traverse City Michigan to Harlingen Texas and had good service everywhere. Of course this is as long as you stay close to the interstate highway system. In the mountain west, if you get very far away from the interstate, the service is iffy at best. If you like to camp in the boonies as a lot of people do, your service may be questionable regardless of your carrier. Where Cingular has mutual agreements with other companies to use their towers and equipment you will get dropped occassionally but I have talked to people with other carriers and the situation is the same where that type of equipment agreements are employed.

I can't address Verizon. Maybe someone else will address them for you.

We are Canadian and the only cell coverage we could find that would work for us was Verizon's North American Plan. It's fairly expensive but we can use it even when we're at home in Ontario. We've also travelled across Canada and haven't had a problem with coverage. There are a few spots where we have no coverage but it's usually in the mountains and I don't think anyone has coverage there.

Sandra

We use Cingular and yes, they will drop you if you make more than 50% of your calls out of network - they dropped us.  We got a new contract with Cingular when we changed our residency to Texas.  Most of our family and friends use Cingular and with free mobile to mobile calls it made sense for us (and them - saves us both minutes) to stay with Cingular.  We've only had a few times when we were in real remote areas that we could not get any signal (we've not been out west yet - there are a lot more remote areas out there) and would have to say the for the most part we've been happy with them.  We did try the mobile broadband card with Cingular and it was acceptible, but it is $59.95 plus all of the fees per month.  Right now WIFI has served us well.

We use Verizon and have been very happy with them. I've been with Verizon for many years, previously had Cingular only because they bought AT&T. AT&T had the better technology but Cingular had more money invested in the old technology and switched all the customers to that. So I switched to Verizon then. Verizon had the newer technology and I've never looked back. Also their customer service is the best there is.

The only time we have a coverage problem is in very remote areas where everyone has trouble. We recently bought the Wilson antenna booster equipment and now have good coverage almost everywhere.

Fred and I have identical phones so all the accessories are interchangeable--home charger, car charger and antenna booster connection.

Thanks for all your help,  think we will stay with Cingular for now and see what happens.  Sure am looking into getting the Wilson booster though.  Happy Trails

There may be one more aspect to this question.  We started with Sprint, was fine for all our travels, etc. and we liked the old, big Qualcom phone. But the one cg we visited most did not have Sprint coverage. We had to drive about 10 miles to get a good signal, so we switched to Verizon. It worked good for us also but when both childern had Cingular and you can call free 24/7 to any other Cingular phone, we switched to Cingular.  Since becoming a Widower, the son or daughter call every day to check.

Cingular service has worked very well.  The thing I'm concerned with is the equipment. The new Razer phone I have is great, but I personally found the old qualcom phone I had with Sprint to be better suited for my needs.   The qualcom phone battery seemed to last longer between charges and seemed better suited to pick up weaker signals with it's wire wound external antenna.

This of course is my opinion/experience for my special/particular needs.