I'd submit that most providers have people who are happy and unhappy with them.
Verizon is hands down the largest provider, but they use CDMA technology. CDMA is a solid voice standard and in some instances actually sounds better than GSM (which Cingular and T-Mobile use) but it is not as robust with its data features and the communication to the tower is controlled by the telephone rather than the more sophisticated electionics located at the tower.
What it means is that CDMA is more prone to dropped calls.
Cingular and T-Mobile are both solid wireless providers, but Cingular has just purchased AT&T wireless and are going through a huge network integration.
In fairness, coverage on GSM networks tends to be more threadbare since the technology was a johnny-come-lately to the United States, and thus you have somewhat fewer (temporarily) roaming options.
The upside to that is you can take your GSM (Cingular / T-Mobile) phone into most foreign countries and it will still work while your Verizon phone is just a paperweight.
It depends on what you're looking for in the end. Most wireless providers allow either greatly discounted or free unlimited minutes to in-network people. All are developing some really cool technologies in the coming months and years.
T-Mobile is launching a base-station that plugs into your cable / DSL router which gives you an in-home cell tower, for instance. T-Mobile also got all four J.D. Power wireless awards (customer service performance, overall customer satisfaction, satisfaction with retail service, and call quality performance SE/SW) for 2004.
Verizon added the most net customers and dominates the market. All the providers offer a solid profit at competitive prices due to the number of players in the market. If one provider doesn't satisfy you in a given area, you have the luxury, generally, of choosing another.
None of them "suck." Your personal experience may have.
Fruedian slip perhaps. I meant "solid product" not "solid profit," however both work. =D
You sound like you know a lot about this. When I decide to upgrade my service, where shall I go? I have a very good plan with Cingular, but I don't know if I can upgrade my phone and still keep my plan.
Also, my husband uses the phone a lot more than I do and sometimes has to pay for extra minutes -- can I upgrade his plan to more minutes with roll over and still keep my plan -- or will they switch us to more expensive plans (with less free minutes)?
Thirdly, I want new phones but I don't want cameras or text messaging. Is there anything simple out there for me?
Alright. My personal experience was not good. I am patient when I need customer support to help work out some issues, but my experience with T-Mobile was ripe with the disappointment of having to talk with agents who simply could not answer simple questions. I can tolerate a mistake or two that might cause an inconvenience but it happened more than it should have in my case.
Can you believe that a sales agent cannot call the company's own warehouse to check and see if a package has been shipped?
I understand all the benefits and advantages to GSM, but great strides need to be taken by companies using that technology to expand their coverage areas before I will consider any GSM carrier again.
All cell phones are prone to dropping calls, and I experienced many with my old GSM phone.
The very nature of technological gadgets and services for them is in constant evolution. We'll see what happens in the next few years. Right now I am quite pleased with Sprint (and I have heard negative comments about them too), but I won't rule anything out in the future.