I've had it with this damn ATT cell phone
Okay, one thing that's become patently obvious from this trip is that my cell phone provider -- ATT Wireless -- or my cell phone -- or both -- suck a big ass. I constantly dropped calls, couldn't receive them, and couldn't understand them when I did.
Right now I'm using a Nokia 3360 that's about two years old. I'm wondering if that's the problem, because it occurs to me that ATT should have coverage all over this city like white on rice. Would switching phones help? Or should I dump ATT and get a new carrier?
One thing I'd really, really like is the ability to route calls to my land line when I'm in range without using minutes, because it's still going to be at least a year or two before coverage in my area is good enough that I can just get rid of the land line all together. Hopefully number portability will be good enough by then that I'll actually be able to keep my land line number and transfer it to a cell phone account. Yeah, and monkeys will fly out of my butt.
So, I'm soliciting your help, dear readers. Any suggestions?
Comments
If you're looking for forwarding, I believe the only service that'll do that is Cingular. They have this FastForward thingie, which consists of a $39.99 cradle and a $2.99 charge on your bill. Then whenever you drop the phone in the cradle, it forwards the call to your landline without coming out of your minutes, and when you press a conveniently-located cancel button, it cancels the call forwarding. I don't know if anybody else has it, but if you're looking for that, then you might want to take a look at them.
At any rate, I've been pretty happy with Sprint up here in the Rochester NY area. The main reason I have them is that a) they didn't sneeze at my complete lack of a credit history and b) their unlimited data kicks ass ($15/mo for all the data I can eat? Without coming out of my minutes? Hell. Yeah.) If you're looking for coverage, then Verizon's probably your best option, as they are generally considered to be the best network period. T-Mobile's not worth looking at unless you live in a major metro area where they have good coverage, otherwise they're pointless.
Hope this helps out a bit.
Posted by: Rufo Sanchez | January 10, 2004 03:02 PM
In terms of call forwarding, it depends on your service. I have a local provider here (Iowa Wireless) and a Nokia 8890 that offers a Forwarding opion in the phone's menu. It allows you to route your calls to a specific number based on a variety of options (you can specify to forward calls to the number only when on roam, or all the time, or when your phone is turned off, etc.) I'd ask ATT if they have any phones that support this feature (I know the 8890 is geared more towards business people, and has a lot more features).
Hope that helps a little.
Alex
Posted by: Alex | January 11, 2004 02:17 AM
Also, the phone is GSM, not CDMA. I know ATT has both GSM and CDMA networks, but I'm not sure if it's a network specific feature (I wouldn't think it'd be).
Alex
Posted by: Alex | January 11, 2004 02:19 AM
Hold on a sec while I answer my T-Mobile 40 miles North of Dallas, TX. Hello, honey? Yeah, clear as usual. If your friend is on T-Mobile too, yeah, it's unlimited. She is? Cool. OK, bye. Love ya.
Posted by: fccovett | January 13, 2004 05:44 PM
there must be cheaper ways to get brain cancer.
Posted by: james | January 14, 2004 12:53 PM
You might want to upgrade to a newer phone. AT&T has been (rather quietly) upgrading their network to include the 850mHz spectrum for their US GSM service. Most phones that are more than two years old (and quite a few that are being sold right now!) don't support 850mHz, since the old standards were 900, 1800, and 1900. 1900 is the most common used here in the US to date, but 900 and 1800 are used extensively througout the world. The best type to get is a 'quad-band' phone which supports all 4 freqs, though something like the SE T616 which supports 850, 1800, and 1900 is more than adequate unless you are travelling to the south of France or the Congo or something.
IIRC, 850mHz is better than 1900mHz for indoor applications since it penetrates better (longer wavelength). So you'll have a perceived increase in coverage even if they're really the same.
Hope that helps!
Matt
Posted by: Matt | June 26, 2004 02:20 AM