ok gang, i need your help. i’ve started checking out other cellular companies. i’m not necessarily unhappy with alltel, but as you read below i was screwed this month. i’ve had issues with them from time to time.
alltel cons: i’ve never, ever been able to get into their online billing stuff. they always turn off my service when i hit like 15 days overdue — verizon was much more liberal. sometimes they call or text a notification, sometimes they just turn it off. they seem to be behind the times technology wise. their phones are way behind (thanks to cdma) and always expensive, even with service agreements. no roll-over.
alltel pros: they never extend your contract when you change plans, even if the new plan is promotional. nights start at 7pm on one of the plans we’re looking at.
now, of the other providers out there, cingular seems to be one of the better choices. they offer rollover. if alltel had rollover, i wouldn’t have had a $320 bill this month, since i would have built up a large number of rollover minutes over the past few months. sprints “overage” minutes are much cheaper (10 cents versus 40), but i’ve heard their coverage around here is less than stellar.
nextel and verizon are not options.
so, friends & countrymen, tell me your tales of your providers past and present. any experience in the cleveland, akron, fairlawn, or port clinton areas would be great!
well, you know my answer, and it may just be that t-mobile works great in my situation but they’ve been great and offer the best minute/plan ratio for us as well as being pro-active on their billing….text, then phone call. As far as coverage, never a problem but it gets spotty between Oak Harbor and Port Clinton…Port Clinton east to Cleveland, never a problem…and along the turnpike, we’re always had service.
Plus they’re GSM so any unlocked phone, means drop in the SIM and go..
My only comment on Cingular is they may have improved but my cousin-in-law had a horrible experience and switched to sprint and was happy with them (!) So I dunno, it may have been him or them…
We were on Verizon (which has the best coverage here in the Cleveland area, just expensive). We switched to Cingular, as they offer phones that work throughout the world, and you know that we like to travel 🙂 The rollover minutes are awesome. And the pricing isn’t too bad either. Only thing is that we don’t get as great of coverage in the area compared to Verizon… but better than Sprint.
t goes with sprint, and i would absolutely not reccommend them. the contract he signed was for $70, and because of the way they tack things on your bill and refuse to let you out of them (you call, ask, they say yes, and never do it… no matter how many times you ask…), his bill has never been less than $90, most often around $100. their customer service has a very, very deaf ear, too. not just dumb, like i’ve experienced with verizon, but deaf as well.
Okay, I say this as an Alltel customer for 10+ years.
No one will have a better coverage area in the US than a CDMA provider, therefore in my mind there are two providers that I would consider: Verizon and Alltel.
Verizon’s customer service is less than satisfactory, Alltel’s is better but I often have to go the mat to get what I want. That being said I always get what I want. Also Alltel has more flexiblity in plans and does not try and get you back in contracts like the other providers, you only have a contract to pay for your phone. I buy my phones and they activate them with no problems and I haven’t been in a contract for about the past 5 years.
To recap your choices for a traveling fools like you and I is a CDMA provider. So pick your poison.
Rob and I have Cingular and love it. Customer service is very cooperative. Roll-over rocks! Rob went over about 300 minutes one month, but we had over 1000 roll-over minutes, so it didn’t matter. The only place we’ve had any trouble with coverage is Cuyahoga Falls. And all NASCAR tracks, but we blame Alltel for that.
i’ve never had problems with verizon’s support. of course i know the numbers to cheat around queue’s and what not because of work hehe