Considering switching?

I am currently with Verizon in Chicago, but I'm thinking about changing
service since the current phone offerings suck. Does cingular/Sprint
offer something comparable to my current plan (about $40 plus taxes):

300 nationwide minutes
unlimited n/w
Web browsing
Use of standard minutes for high-speed (1xrtt) net access (basically
use my phone as a slightly faster than dial-up modem)

Actually, that's about all I get from this plan which is a few years
old. I am currently month to month so switching is no problem. What I
would like is a blue-tooth (camera) phone that can communicate directly
with my laptop, and act as a modem when I'm on the road (the RAZR v3
looks good). My brother has the Mot V710, and we both don't like it. I
want
to be able to use voice minutes for net access ideally.

No roaming/long distance charges in the US. Ideally, I would want to be
able to use the phone in Canada/Europe without being completely ripped
off, but this is not critical. I continue to hear bad things about
Sprint's service, but Cingular/T-mobile look more promising than in the
past. Verizon has a good network, but lousy phones. Also, a GSM phone
seems to be more useful if you travel abroad than CDMA. It's been a
while since I looked into these matters so please forgive any factual
mistakes. Thanks for any advice or comments.

Wiggling

---

› See More: Considering switching?

[[ This message was both posted and mailed: see
the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]]

$40 for 300 minutes? Things have changed a bit since you last checked.

I'm in Chicago and have t-mobile which has really good customer service.

$40 for 600 nationwide with n/w
http://www.t-mobile.com/plans/Nation...sp?PlanID=3222

$50 for 3000 regional minutes
http://www.t-mobile.com/locator.asp?....asp%3Ftab%3Dr
egional\

you can always use plan minutes for web access, but that's pretty slow.
$20 gets you unmetered tethering, $5 gets you wap and email on your
phone.

In article <[email protected]>,
<"[email protected]"> wrote:

> I am currently with Verizon in Chicago, but I'm thinking about changing
> service since the current phone offerings suck. Does cingular/Sprint
> offer something comparable to my current plan (about $40 plus taxes):
>
> 300 nationwide minutes
> unlimited n/w
> Web browsing
> Use of standard minutes for high-speed (1xrtt) net access (basically
> use my phone as a slightly faster than dial-up modem)
>
> Actually, that's about all I get from this plan which is a few years
> old. I am currently month to month so switching is no problem. What I
> would like is a blue-tooth (camera) phone that can communicate directly
> with my laptop, and act as a modem when I'm on the road (the RAZR v3
> looks good). My brother has the Mot V710, and we both don't like it. I
> want
> to be able to use voice minutes for net access ideally.
>
> No roaming/long distance charges in the US. Ideally, I would want to be
> able to use the phone in Canada/Europe without being completely ripped
> off, but this is not critical. I continue to hear bad things about
> Sprint's service, but Cingular/T-mobile look more promising than in the
> past. Verizon has a good network, but lousy phones. Also, a GSM phone
> seems to be more useful if you travel abroad than CDMA. It's been a
> while since I looked into these matters so please forgive any factual
> mistakes. Thanks for any advice or comments.
>
> Wiggling
>

What kind of net access does T-mobile offer? Something comparable to
1xrtt, or 3G? Also, have you tried international roaming? Thanks,
Wiggling

Why don't you go to their web site and find out?

In article <[email protected]>,
<"[email protected]"> wrote:

> What kind of net access does T-mobile offer? Something comparable to
> 1xrtt, or 3G? Also, have you tried international roaming? Thanks,
> Wiggling
>

T-Mobile basically offers GPRS which is about the speed if not
sometimes a bit quicker than 56K dialup modem speed.

T-Mobile is rolling out EGPRS which is about 3 times the speed of GPRS
in about 2 years. They are furthest behind in deployment of data
technologies.

Cingular is who I use. I get EGPRS in most markets I am in. I pay $20
monthly extra for the unlimited data package which includes 1500 txt
msg's and 150 i believe picture msg's.

If you want the most value for your money I believe T-Mobile is your
ideal provider. If you don't mind spending a bit more and getting
better service, I'd go with CNGLR.

Hope this has helped.

EAch carrier has its advantages, choose wisely.
On the other hand, SprintPCS has NO advantages.




On 11 Dec 2004 14:36:30 -0800, "[email protected]"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>What kind of net access does T-mobile offer? Something comparable to
>1xrtt, or 3G? Also, have you tried international roaming? Thanks,
>Wiggling

On 11 Dec 2004 14:36:30 -0800, "[email protected]"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>What kind of net access does T-mobile offer? Something comparable to
>1xrtt, or 3G? Also, have you tried international roaming? Thanks,
>Wiggling

T-Mobile at present only has GPRS which doesn't give nearly the speed
that 1xrtt does. They are supposed to have EDGE which will give
comparable speeds to 1xrtt and does not use minutes but rather a data
allowance (if you're on a metered plan.) International roaming works
extremely well with T-Mobile since GSM has over 1 billion subscribers
world-wide.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> What kind of net access does T-mobile offer? Something comparable to
> 1xrtt, or 3G? Also, have you tried international roaming? Thanks,
> Wiggling
>

Net Access: For $5 a month you can have unlimited GPRS, which DOES NOT
use up your minutes, and gives you ability to browse wap content on the
phone, or use IRDA, BlueTooth or cable to hook up your lap-top. I think
the $5 leaves only basic HTML and e-mail ports open (no SSL, or other
wiered ports) and masqueraded IP. For $20/month you can have all ports
and a real IP. I think $10 a month is something in between, but don't
remember which. Speeds are comparable to dial-up, maybe a bit slower, I
never really used it too much to tell. There are talks of launching EDGE,
which is a high speed wireless internet, but no date, AFAIK. So could be
some time away...

International roaming: If you plan to roam internationally, I don't think
you can go wrong with T-mobile. Last time I checked they had the lowest
roaming rates (save for those who grandfathered their roaming rates from
Voicestream times, which are virtually free by todays standards). In most
of Western Europe roaming costs about $1-$1.50/minute, though there are
countries where you can run into $5/min, so check their web-site.
Besides, T-mobile is the only carrier, which will unlock your phone for
you at no charge (and at all). You need to be a customer in good standing
for 90 days in order for them to provide you unlock code, but I've known
pepole who managed to get the the codes from them much earlier. If you
are traveling internationally, this is an invaluable option, because you
can just buy a local pre-paid SIM card in your destination country and
pay pennies for your phone usage compared to the steep roaming rates
(albeit cheapest in the current market). I used my phone abroad 3 times.
Two of which I got a local pre-paid SIM and paid almost nothing for my
calls (remember, in most of Europe incoming calls to cellular are free
and unlimited with a local SIM).

LEM - a happy T-mobile customer for almost a year now. Thinking in horror
of his former carrier, especially its customer service... Not to point
fingers, but it's name starts with an "S" and ends with "PCS" ;-).

P.S. To reply in person, remove all digits from e-mail address.

That's extremely interesting. Thank you. Can you actually roam
internationally with any unlocked GSM phone or is T-mobile special?
Just purchase a local SIM card? How is your phone assigned a number? My
only experience is with CDMA unfortunately.

Wiggling

No one else currently includes data (especially high speed data) without
additional monthly charge. I've been using the included data with Verizon
for more than 4 years (circuit switched, and for the past 2 years 1XRTT).
Data uses my minutes but I don't pay additional for it monthly. For me,
this makes Verizon the best value. By the same token, I would *not* switch
to Verizon for the included data. They removed the web pages describing
this deal about a year ago, and don't guarantee it anywhere in written form.
[If they advertised it, and supported it as an officially supported feature,
I'd tell everyone who needs data to use Verizon] i.e. The good deal could
vanish at any time.

If all you care is voice, lots of carriers can do it (and maybe better), and
almost certainly for less money. You'll have to test the new carrier during
the 7-14 day try-out period to make sure they work well.

I realize Eugene Oregon is an esoteric example, but near the UO campus where
I work, only Verizon and T-Mobile have what I would call decent coverage,
and yes, I have tried all of the others. For me, having a phone that works
well where I spend most of my time is important, regardless of who the
carrier is. In my case, Verizon works really well. AT&T/Cingular not only
have poor signal in my area, but they are *way* oversold to the point where
all circuit's busy is the norm rather than the exception. Hard to believe
anyone could be oversold in a city as small as Eugene, but it does happen...

-Dan

PS: It didn't used to be this way. About one year ago Verizon was an "also
ran" kind of provider in my local area. They built two new towers- one on
the east campus and one on the west campus and currently have outstanding
coverage all over campus including in-building coverage virtually anywhere--
even in the basement level of many buildings. By the way, I do realize
this varies dramatically by location. I'm sure there are carriers that have
better coverage than Verizon in many places, just not the ones I spend most
of time in.

--
Eugene, Oregon -- Pacific Northwest
http://cell.uoregon.edu

On 11 Dec 2004 18:10:09 -0800, "[email protected]"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>That's extremely interesting. Thank you. Can you actually roam
>internationally with any unlocked GSM phone or is T-mobile special?
>Just purchase a local SIM card? How is your phone assigned a number? My
>only experience is with CDMA unfortunately.

You can roam anywhere your home operator has a roaming agreement which
for all carriers (including Verizon using a special SIM and compatible
phone) is usually multiple operators in many countries. The main
difference between CDMA and GSM operators is that with a GSM operator
you can most of the time with the proper phone use your equipment
anywhere. With CDMA operators you have to get a special SIM and also
get a compatible phone to use internationally as you cannot use CDMA
phones on GSM networks except for some special CDMA/GSM phones.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On 11 Dec 2004 18:10:09 -0800, "[email protected]"
<[email protected]> said in alt.cellular.cingular:

>That's extremely interesting. Thank you. Can you actually roam
>internationally with any unlocked GSM phone or is T-mobile special?

Any unlocked world (900/1800/US coverage) phone.

>Just purchase a local SIM card? How is your phone assigned a number?

The SIM card carries the number (once it's activated). Then you can
put it into whatever phone (that covers the frequencies involved) you
like.

"[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> That's extremely interesting. Thank you. Can you actually roam
> internationally with any unlocked GSM phone or is T-mobile special?
> Just purchase a local SIM card? How is your phone assigned a number? My
> only experience is with CDMA unfortunately.
>
> Wiggling
>

A small GSM SIM primer:
SIM card, is a little smart card you insert into your GSM phone. It
carries the identity of your account: phone number in particular. You can
even save your phone book on a SIM card, it has less features than if
saving to phone memory, but every time you put your SIM into a different
phone, your phone book becomes available there. So with one phone you can
switch different SIM cards, and with each switch your phone instantly
becomes active on the line for which particular SIM is activated. So a
GSM phone is basically a telephone set, sort of like a telephone set you
buy for your landline. When you plug it into any phone outlet, it will
ring when somebody dials the number assigned to that outlet, and when you
make a call, the owner of that outlet will be billed. Same with SIM, if I
take my SIM card and insert it into your GSM phone, it will become active
on my line. That's because SIM is carrying the identity of the line, not
the phone set (SIM stands for Subscriber Identity Module).

By the way it carries another huge advantage over CDMA, not related to
roaming. When you want to use a different handset, you just move your SIM
from one to another and back. No calls to provider, no activation
charges, they won't even know! And you can use ANY GSM phone with your
SIM, not limited to the selection your carrier provides. I know some
people who have multiple phones to use at different occasions. For
example a bulky PDA phone to go to work, and then they move the SIM to a
slim flip-phone that fits into the tiniest pocket to go out. Or, when you
upgrade your phone, instead of throwing out your older phone, you keep it
as a backup. In case the new phone breaks -- just pop your SIM into the
old one, and use it as usually until replacement arrives!

One exception from the landline analogy -- most subsidized GSM phones you
buy from a carrier (such as T-mobile) are locked to that carrier. That
means, it will refuse to work with other carriers SIM card. That lock
(called subsidy lock) can be removed by either using some sophisticated
hardware, or by entering a special "unlock" code, which is usually unique
for each locked phone. Some phones (notably Nokia) are easy to unlock,
you can get unlock codes generated for most them on the internet for
free. Others (like Motorola) are virtually impossible to unlock for free,
and the cost is pretty high, because Motorola, unlike Nokia does not
"generate" the codes based on serial number, it assigns random unlock
code for each phone, so to get it one must have access to a database
linking each phone serial number (IMEI) to it's unlock code, or have some
expensive hardware...

Now, T-mobile is the only carrier in the US which will provide you the
unlock codes for their phones, and will do it for free. Others -- forget
it - not even if you pay them...

Roaming: - as somebody mentioned, you don't need an unlocked phone to
roam with your carrier. For as long as your provider has a roaming
agreement with some local carrier, and your phone supports needed
frequency -- you're good to go. You do need to have international roaming
activated on your account in case of T-mobile. It doesn't cost anything,
unless you actually roam (no monthly charges, you only pay for your calls
when roaming), but requires a credit approval for a level higher than for
a regular account, as you can easily rack up a huge phone bill while
abroad. As I mentioned, in some countries roaming is $5/minute.

If you want to get a local SIM in another country, what you get is a
whole new phone line with a number local to that country - all programmed
on anoter SIM card, and when you take out your T-mobile SIM and put in
another SIM, you are basically unplugging your phone from the US outlet
and plugging it into a local one, with a local number (just think of how
much you would save on a virtual extension cord). And this is where you
need an unlocked phone, as a phone locked to T-mobile USA will not let
you use it with Orange, or Vodafone, or even T-mobile Germany SIM cards

In most countries it is releatively cheap to get a local pre-paid SIM.
Definetly cheaper than roaming charges if you spend even a week in that
country, and want to use your phone for things other than emergencies
(though depends on your talking preferences). Pre-paid means no
contracts, they won't even ask your name in many cases. You just re-
charge it by bying refill cards at newsstands as needed. You also don't
pay for incoming calls with local SIMs in many countries, though the
caller (even if calling you from US) is charged a slightly higher rate,
so basically the caller pays for you using the cell phone.

LEM
(remove digits from address to reply in person)

>I'm in Chicago and have t-mobile which has really good customer service.
>
>$40 for 600 nationwide with n/w
>http://www.t-mobile.com/plans/Nation...sp?PlanID=3222

In the Dallas market, I have 1000 minutes, free nights and weekends and free
Mobile to Mobile for $39.99 a month. Then for being a "Loyal" customer, I have
50 loyality minutes for a total of 1050 minutes a month.

This special was offered for a short time in many of the markets around the
nation but not all. It is no longer available.

--
John S.
e-mail responses to - john at kiana dot net

>T-Mobile basically offers GPRS which is about the speed if not
>sometimes a bit quicker than 56K dialup modem speed.

I use this service ($19.99 a month when you have a T-Mobile account compared to
$80 a month for all the others) and find that although it isn't extremely high
speed, it IS much faster than dial up in a motel.

I spend about 50 weeks a year in a hotel/motel setting.

--
John S.
e-mail responses to - john at kiana dot net

>Cingular is who I use. I get EGPRS in most markets I am in. I pay $20
>monthly extra for the unlimited data package which includes 1500 txt
>msg's and 150 i believe picture msg's.

Is this for tethered laptop service? Can it be used with an Air Card plugged
into a PC slot on your laptop?

--
John S.
e-mail responses to - john at kiana dot net