Cingular, ATTWS or Verizon in washington, D.C??

I'm attracted to Cingular/ATTWS because of their Sony Ericcson phones;
however, does verizon have a much better service in the area? I do not like
their range of phones.

Given the merger, is it better to go with ATTWS or Cingular now, or does it
matter?

Thanks
Confused newbie

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› See More: Cingular, ATTWS or Verizon in washington, D.C??

"aquablue" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> I'm attracted to Cingular/ATTWS because of their Sony Ericcson phones;
> however, does verizon have a much better service in the area? I do not like
> their range of phones.
>
> Given the merger, is it better to go with ATTWS or Cingular now, or does it
> matter?
>
> Thanks
> Confused newbie

I have used Verizon Wireless in the Washington, DC area and I am very
pleased with the service. To my knowledge, Verizon is the only
carrier in the DC area that offers digital coverage in the Metro both
on the platforms as well as in the trains between stations. Service
above ground is also excellent. I recommend Verizon.

Ed

On 2/21/04 1:27 PM, "aquablue" <[email protected]> wrote:

> I'm attracted to Cingular/ATTWS because of their Sony Ericcson phones;
> however, does verizon have a much better service in the area? I do not like
> their range of phones.

>
> Given the merger, is it better to go with ATTWS or Cingular now, or does it
> matter?

I don't know about service in the DC area (I'm in central PA) but I recently
ported my AT&T GSM service over to Cingular because the AT&T Charter GSM
plan I had (500min for $39.99/mo plus 500 bonus min) had no free nights and
weekends, charged me .25 each for international SMS, and charged me .25/min
for roaming on Cingular or T-Mobile, even in AT&T areas where the AT&T
signal was too weak to use.

Cingular gives me 450 min per month for the same price, but with 5000 night
and weekend minutes and rollover of any unused minutes (of the 450) from
month to month. I'm pretty sure international SMS is at the same .10/min
price as local SMS. I just changed, so I'll confirm that with my first
Cingular bill.

They also roam seamlessly on either AT&T or T-Mobile or other smaller GSM
carriers where there's no GSM service. Minutes are deducted from the 450 min
bucket with no additional charge. AT&T surprised me a couple of times when I
was charged .25 a minute for roaming when I didn't even realize I was not on
AT&T's network anymore. One look at the screen would have told me that, but
until a few months ago, they didn't allow roaming, period. So I wasn't
accustomed to reading the screen to see whose signal I had.

Mark