What's your celluylar plan?

[Colonel Panic]

Right now i'm using US Cellular as a provider, and under my "Wide Area" plan I get 1000 minutes for $50, plus free incoming calls ("Call-Me minutes" in the gay-ass parlance of the cellular business) and free nights & weekends after 7PM.

It's a pretty OK plan for my uses, but my current fone is a rather crappy old Kyocera KX series flip-fone. I really want a new phone (and possibly a new plan if it provides better features) and I know this sounds shitty, but but I'm too lazy to bother with poring over all the details of all the plans for every cellco.

So tell me, what do you all have for cellular service? Are you happy with your provider? What kinds of phone do you have? What companies and plans would you recommend?

Oh BTW RBCP, I made a new topic icon for cellular-related posts:

[rbcp]

Thanks for the new icon!  I just added it and changed it to that icon on your post.

I used Sprint PCS from about 1999 to 2004 and was very happy with them until I tried to change my plan and they refused to let me without charging me some insane amount of money.  I told them if they wouldn't let me change my plan I would have to leave them.  They didn't seem to care so I got T-Mobile and then canceled my service.  On the day that I called to cancel my service, Sprint PCS asked what they could possibly do to keep me as a customer.  I told them, they put me on hold, then came back and said they couldn't do that.  I forget exactly what it was that I wanted to do (I posted a big rant about it on Cal's somewhere.), I just remember it was really unreasonable of them to not let a 5 year customer do something so simple.

Anyway, I was happily with T-Mobile for a couple of years.  I started out with a Sidekick 2 which I did like.  But decided to trade it in for a Motorola A630 which had a full keyboard and bluetooth.  I needed the bluetooth so I could connect to the internet from my laptop which was only $20 per month for their extrememly slow connection.  But their bluetooth internet served me well for many vacations over the next year.

When I moved to Albany, Oregon I had to leave T-Mobile because their coverage is horrible here.  I'd be driving around, talking on the phone and the calls would just go dead.  I'd have to pull over and hold really still to finish conversations.  How lame is that, not being able to drive around all unsafe-like while talking on my cell!

So I moved to Verizon Wireless.  The guy at Radio Shack told me that this fancy new LG VX8100 phone would let me connect to my laptop via bluetooth so I could be on the internet, it would let me watch TV clips with their $15/month internet plan AND I could use any SD card in the phone so that I could transfer images between my Pocket PC, digital camera and phone.  All of that was a big fat lie.  Verizon Wireless cripples the bluetooth in their phones so that I can't take advantage of their internet on my laptop.  The TV clips service does not work in Albany at all.  It's just not available in this area.  If I drive to Salem (20 miles away) I can watch them.  But not here.  And the SD card slot is mini SD.  My other stuff uses standard SD cards.  They won't go in my phone, though I can use a little converter slot to use mini SD cards in my other devices.  But I'm not gonna buy all new mini SD cards for everything.

Anyway, despite all that I'm very happy with my Verizon Wireless service and my LG VX8100 phone.  It doesn't have a full keyboard, which I really miss, but I've gotten much better at keypad typing.  The phone comes with mobile versions of Yahoo Messenger, AIM and MSN.  I can also check my various email accounts through the phone which means I don't need to have access to the internet via my laptop so much while I'm away from home.  And I sure don't care about watching TV clips on my phone.

I kept my T-Mobile service and my Motorola A630 for about 6 months after signing up for Verizon Wireless service.  But it was $30/month and I didn't use it much so I finally canceled it recently and sold the phone on Ebay.  If I want laptop internet service through Verizon Wireless, it's something like $60 - $70 per month and I have to buy a card of my laptop.  Screw all that.

[murd0c]

All throughout middle school I had various Tracfones, every one the same Nokia analouge brick phone. My freshman year, I had another Tracfone which I kept all year, it was a less shity, non analouge Nokia 1000 series. Eventually one of my parents balked around Sophomore year and got me a Nokia 1160(?) with service from AT&T Wireless, and I kept that phone for about 2 years until I dropped out of high school and my Mom stopped paying the bill. I really liked AT&T's service. It always worked wherever I was, that is, except my bedroom. I always had piss-poor reception in my old room, but the rest of the house was fine. Very odd. I paid $39.99 a month for 300 minutes and unlimited nights/weekends.

Then when I moved out to NY last year I got signed up with Cingular, and just used my boyfriend's old phone, a Nokia 5000 series, the one with the stupid circular keypad and camera. I really liked that phone, there was a lot of shit you could modify and hax with it, plus it was completly unlocked and whatnot.

It started acting funny around April of this year, so I bought an unlocked RAZR V3 from a guy in a parking lot and put my SIM card into it and I've been using it ever since. I pay $45 or so, and I get 450 minutes and 5000 night and weekend minutes which I don't even put a dent in anymore because RBCP never calls anymore.

[rbcp]

It always worked wherever I was, that is, except my bedroom. I always had piss-poor reception in my old room, but the rest of the house was fine. Very odd.

It's because your bedroom was a giant vortex of gay.

[JohnKerry]

I have a nokia 6225.  It seems as though the Nokia's I buy keep getting better.  You can really get violent with this phone (in a seuxal way) and it hangs in there.  I've had the same local carrier but since I'm out of state now I've considered switching to Verizon.  However, because I'm a liberal nazi I don't want to give money to a company who sells my records to the NSA.  I'm on the national plan right now which is similar to the go fuck yourself plan.

[visual]

Goddamn, Murd0c, how old can you be if you used TracFone in middle school?!  I use T-Mobile, which charges, like, 20 bucks for unlimited text messages, and NO T.V. on my phone!  So, Sprint users, stop bitching, and all the rest of you... Your service is still better than T-Mobile!  I'm roaming in my apartment!

[Colonel Panic]

I always thought that phone-to-laptop internet service was kind of a ripoff, since I live in a major city where I can pretty much walk like 2 or 3 blocks and find an unsecured wireless network to leech from.

The only real use I can see for it would be for getting internet service while riding the train or the bus. Thing is, I have always hated it when I see some asshole with a laptop browsing the Web on the el, so I am resisting becoming that kind of asshole myself.

Maybe a Palm Treo or a Blackberry is the answer. I want to be able to get internet while commuting, but don't think I want some ridiculously nerdy phone that looks like putting a damn graphing calculator up to my face.

Meh, I guess web browsing on a phone is going to be an expensive feature anyway...

I was looking at this fone, but then again lots of people seem to have problems with Cingular...

I wouldn't mind dropping a couple hundred on the phone if it's a nice one, but the most I will spend on a monthly bill is like $60-75, including phone insurance.

Can you tell I'm having a hell of a time making up my mind?

[ryanfido]

my 2 cents.


My first phone was with verizon, and I hate them because I hate cd/tdma. I enjoy sim cards very much.

Ultimately, you should look at what you want, if you want to be tied down, and how much youre being raped for.

ultimately(again), I will always vote cingular, because rollover minutes are gods gift to us. no one can match that in any way.

the best part is that you are stuck with cingulars gay phones. i decided against their phones and started buying phones from europe, but they'd only work about 70% of the time. that's the name of this game, sacrifice.

you cant have your cake, and eat it. well, you can eat it, but its with your hands. the fork costs $70/mo extra and you will break the fork after a week.

and do not ever EVER buy cell phone insurance for ANY carrier.

[Saint]

I use cingular and haven't had any problems with it, except that they charge a lot if you go over on text messages or internet.  They have pretty decent phones, but they also have some shitty ones as well.

[CountyKid]

I've got Cingular. My phone is a Razr V3 Black.

  I've never had any problems and I almost always have coverage, which I like.

[jammie]

I have Verizon.  I like their in-network stuff.  It's so nice to send pointless texts and pictures to my friends all day.  I changed to them from Sprint which dropped my calls ALL the time.

[rbcp]

I have Verizon.  I like their in-network stuff.  It's so nice to send pointless texts and pictures to my friends all day.  I changed to them from Sprint which dropped my calls ALL the time.

Since you live out in the boonies you're going to get dropped calls on any carrier.

[linear]

I've got Cingular. My phone is a Razr V3 Black.

  I've never had any problems and I almost always have coverage, which I like.

Cingular has the worse service ever. It may be true that they don't "drop" calls as often, but their general reception, regardless of the phone, is terrible. So you can't hear shit at all... they don't drop the call when they should be dropping it. If they dropped the call every call at the point where it became impossible to communicate, they would be dropping vitually every call made on their network.

I have Verizon with a Razr.

[CountyKid]

I disagree.

  My reception is almost always very good. I have zero complaints about coverage and call quality. I have had problems with T-Mobile and Verizon, however.

  But I've heard a lot of shit talked about Cingular, which I simply cannot reason with.

[linear]

you're honestly the first person i've ever seen/heard say anything positive about that service that wasn't a paid actor in a Cingular commercial.