Getting close to the end of our contract…Have ATT now and am somewhat satisfied.  Never go over my minutes (family plan-700) thanks to the rollover but the plan seems expensive especially compared to what T-mobile is now offering.  Getting more dropped calls than before but not too bad.  Don’t have text or web but thinking of moving up for the right price. 

Just wanted to see what people have and how they like it (prices, phones, coverage, dropped calls.)

I worked for AT&T as they morphed to Cingular and back to “at&t”.

I got T-Mobile as soon as I left the company and haven’t gone back. I hope that helps

I have both Sprint and AT&T.

For cell service, Sprint uses the same technology as Verizon (CDMA) and coverage is pretty good, especially inside buildings.

AT&T and T-Mob use the same tech (GSM) and may have wider voice coverage, but less 3G data coverage.

AT&T/T-Mob phones are easily interchangeable because of the SIM chip and most are international ready, while VZW/Sprint need a specific phone (that supports dual GSM/CDMA) and the phones take more work to switch.

The selection of phones have increased greatly on all carriers and Android is the new hawtness. VZW has some exclusives on some nice phones (the ENV series), AT&T has the iPhone and the others have some type of unique phone to their brand. The exception is usually Blackberries as all carriers have a variance of the same model (Pearl, Curve, Tour, Bold etc etc).

The big thing for you would be price and how good the coverage is for the places you are most. I think Sprint has one of the most affordable data+voice unlimited plans but TMob is getting there with their new pricing.

If you are just looking at voice and don’t really travel, you may want to look at MetroPCS. They have unlimited voice plans starting at $35 although you did say your entire family doesn’t use more than 700 minutes per month (Rollover is pretty nice).

T-mobile is great for us.  My wife and I have the 5-fav thing going (each with 5 numbers with no minute penalty) and an extra 1000 minutes between us.  We are both working professionals and use our phones all the time, and have never come close to using our minutes.  We also both have the G1 with full unlimited internet, unlimited texts and multimedia messaging, etc.  I also have equipment protection.  For all of this, I am paying $125/month for both our lines.  Not bad.

PS: T-mobile offers 5-10% discounts for membership in various organizations.  I used LACBA, but my cousin called up and asked for a AAA (I think) discount and got the same 10% off total monthly bill.

Sprunt here…

We have unlimited everything… but our phones pretty much take care of everything.  I just wish i had access to the iPhone [Jealous ]

MojoJD - 03 November 2009 07:42 PM

T-mobile is great for us.  My wife and I have the 5-fav thing going (each with 5 numbers with no minute penalty) and an extra 1000 minutes between us.  We are both working professionals and use our phones all the time, and have never come close to using our minutes.  We also both have the G1 with full unlimited internet, unlimited texts and multimedia messaging, etc.  I also have equipment protection.  For all of this, I am paying $125/month for both our lines.  Not bad.

PS: T-mobile offers 5-10% discounts for membership in various organizations.  I used LACBA, but my cousin called up and asked for a AAA (I think) discount and got the same 10% off total monthly bill.

Thanks for the tip, Calbar has a good discount too (12 percent).  I am very interested in new Behold II on T-Mobile…the Samsung AMOLED display is supposed to be incredible….Just not sure I want to plunk down $200 for the phone though :D

MojoJD - 03 November 2009 07:42 PM

T-mobile is great for us.  My wife and I have the 5-fav thing going (each with 5 numbers with no minute penalty) and an extra 1000 minutes between us.  We are both working professionals and use our phones all the time, and have never come close to using our minutes.  We also both have the G1 with full unlimited internet, unlimited texts and multimedia messaging, etc.  I also have equipment protection.  For all of this, I am paying $125/month for both our lines.  Not bad.

PS: T-mobile offers 5-10% discounts for membership in various organizations.  I used LACBA, but my cousin called up and asked for a AAA (I think) discount and got the same 10% off total monthly bill.

Per the OC Register website, TMobile is having some major issues right now in OC. I hope you can hear me now (sorry I had to type that):

T-Mobile says phone service not working
November 3rd, 2009, 5:56 pm · 1 Comment · posted by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress

I’m a T-Mobile customer as well and have not had any problems until the past 10 minutes. I’ll report more here as I learn more.

I just heard its nationwide.  Sounds like some cyberattacking fun.

I have 3 bars at my house, so not nationwide as of now.

Try sending a text. - nevermind, started working for me again.

:(

A not-so-dirty secret: Text messages get through when voice calls get no signal or dropped because they take up very little space and can be queued to send in the first available spot. This is why they tell you to send SMS rather than trying to call during large scale emergencies or service disruptions. In other words, success with a test isn’t proof positive it fixed.

Right, but the text and voicemail services were down for certain parts of the state.  Other parts of the country had no voice.  Some had no data.  It was weird.  I had no text, but could use voice and net.

IrvineCommuter - 02 November 2009 09:26 PM

Getting close to the end of our contract…Have ATT now and am somewhat satisfied.  Never go over my minutes (family plan-700) thanks to the rollover but the plan seems expensive especially compared to what T-mobile is now offering.  Getting more dropped calls than before but not too bad.  Don’t have text or web but thinking of moving up for the right price. 

Just wanted to see what people have and how they like it (prices, phones, coverage, dropped calls.)

I recently switched to AT&T with an iPhone.  Prior to that, I had had Sprint for years and was last using a Palm Treo.  I decided to switch when hubs and I were in the car somewhat recently and I wanted to look up live traffic conditions on the ‘net.  My battery had died, so I used his (non-iPhone, but smart phone) phone and *zoom*, the internet connection was significantly faster on his phone than mine.  I had no idea what I was missing.  I am happy so far with the iPhone and AT&T.  It’s fast, does everything I need it to do, and some things I like even though I don’t need them.

Did you have 3G on your treo?  The treos, unless it was the very latest model, were not 3G capable for quite a while.

MojoJD - 04 November 2009 07:01 PM

Did you have 3G on your treo?  The treos, unless it was the very latest model, were not 3G capable for quite a while.

I have no idea, but probably not.  It was 3+ years old.

You have to wonder id Steve Jobs has any regrets about that “1984” commercial now that he runs Big Brother.

Nude - 16 November 2009 03:06 AM

You have to wonder id Steve Jobs has any regrets about that “1984” commercial now that he is Big Brother.

Fixed that.

ATT is freaking pissing me off.  I can not get reception in the living room on an Woodbridge condo that I live in….nuts.  Anyone here have the Droid?  I’m so ready to switch to Verizon.

USCTrojanCPA - 16 November 2009 04:03 AM

ATT is freaking pissing me off.  I can not get reception in the living room on an Woodbridge condo that I live in….nuts.  Anyone here have the Droid?  I’m so ready to switch to Verizon.

what happened to Quail Hill?

roundcorners - 16 November 2009 04:36 AM

USCTrojanCPA - 16 November 2009 04:03 AM

ATT is freaking pissing me off.  I can not get reception in the living room on an Woodbridge condo that I live in….nuts.  Anyone here have the Droid?  I’m so ready to switch to Verizon.

what happened to Quail Hill?

I moved over to Woodbridge at the end of last month when my lease at Quail Meadows expired.

USCTrojanCPA - 16 November 2009 04:03 AM

ATT is freaking pissing me off.  I can not get reception in the living room on an Woodbridge condo that I live in….nuts.  Anyone here have the Droid?  I’m so ready to switch to Verizon.

An artist never blames his tools.

Check your cell reception before moving to a new home, if it is important to you.
If you are stuck, you can call to report weak signal strength and get varied levels of response from the different service providers.

Service lines:
AT&T - http://www.att.com/wireless/contact-us/index.jsp or 1-800-331-0500
Verizon - http://www22.verizon.com/content/ContactUs/ or 1-800-837-4966

-IR2

I go back to LA Cellular which became Pac Bell, now Verizon. Rarely a spotty area. I’d say almost fail-proof. Substantial rumors of the Jesus Phone coming to Verizon in Q3 2010. BTW If you get a smart phone and Apple does deliver the goods, Verizon has a significant smart phone cancellation policy.

My .02c

Soylent Green Is People.

I dont know if you’ve seen the commercials but T-mobile finally rolled out that super cheap all inclusive plan that I mentioned in another/earlier post.  49.99 for everything… and I thought Sprint’s plan for 99.99 was very reasonable.  Something like 79.99 for a family unlimited.

Iphone will have ATT exclusivity through 2011.  Not sure if this means it will end in 2011 or after 2011.

My business uses both Sprint and ATT cell phones.

Seems like the Sprint with my 3G LG Phone is best. Texts always are instant and the reception is acceptable. Unlimited EVERYTHING. About $ 90.00 a month per phone.

Works well in buildings and is rarely down. Just a few dropped calls on occasion would be my
biggest bitch.

One of these days I will get an IPhone. Some of those apps are really pretty cool.

I think android OS is the way of the future.  I can already see the changes in the market with the new DROID users.  A lot of the “mainstream” apps are coming from the iphone, which is nice.  The android market initially won me over when you could tell that all these garage genius programmers were making apps.  The linux crowd, if you will.  My dad, who has an iphone, was always amazed at the innovation and creativity of some of the apps.  The “wow, it can DO that?!” response.  And its only getting better.

Apple, on the other hand, is quite stagnate.  I hope they will get on their game and improve the user experience soon.  Competition helps everyone.