Shall we switch?

My dad and I are thinking about getting rid of our Verizon phones and exploring new carriers and we're not quite sure which one we should go to. Here are our needs:

Him:
>QWERTY device
>be able to check stocks and e-mail
>use abroad

Me:
>be able to text (I send about 200 messages [including AIM] a month.)
>camera phone
>also use abroad

My family travels a lot and we need some sort of phone. We talked to Sprint and Verizon about their international roaming plans and they are both atrocious when it comes to rates (about $1.50/min in the EU.) We have two Sprint global phones, and we just don't like the way they work. We borrowed my aunt's T-Mobile phones for our Asia trip and they were fine, but I wanted to know what Cingular was all about as we haven't really had experience with them. What are their international programs all about? Is their service good here? Any help is greatly appreciated.

First of all, international roaming from U.S. carriers is expensive. But, the one thing that Sprint and Verizon did not tell you is that international roaming is very poor with them. To use their roaming in most of the world you have to rent phones, because their phones just will not work.
Cingular and T-mobile use GSM technology which is the world wide standard. Only a few countries do not have it. So, with international roaming on your account with Cingular or T-moble you can call from most of the world.
Two side notes on this, you have to have phones that will operate on the frequencies in the countries you are going to, meaning quad band phones, and it is then cheaper to get the phones unlocked and use a prepaid sim while over seas.
As far as coverage in the U.S. goes, Cingular provides the best of the two, but it really depends upon where you are.

Yeah, I've been hearing about buying an unlocked phone and going prepaid abroad recently on these forums ---- but how does data go with that? My dad needs to check his stocks. And we do probably need to leave Verizon; even just for here. What should we do?

Two things come in mind is your dad should get a Blackberry 8700 and you should get a Sidekick 3 since you do lots of text messaging from T-mobile.

The rates from T-mobile is very cheap.

I don't know if this will suit you and your dad but it's worth checking out.

Yeah, I do like their plans better than Cingular or anyone else for that matter.

I see this WorldTraveller thing on Cingular that adds like $6 to your bill and lowers the price of rates internationally to where T-Mobile stands ($.99/min in the EU.)

It's just that, are there any advantages over some carriers over others?