I bought my Sprint Katana a couple of weeks ago and I totally love it. The phone is great and the customer service was nice, too. I really had no problems with the service either... Until I got to my home, about twenty minutes where I had purchased the service. My line started to break up and calling to other carriers made it even worse. I looked up my location on the Sprint website and a giant irony flew at me: I walk twenty minutes up and the service is perfect; twenty minutes down and the service is average.
I am sooooo upset with this. I called Sprint and they said I would get my money back because I had the phone and service for less than a month. Like I said, everything went great but I want my phone to get better reception. Now I have to switch carriers. I was thinking Cingular 'cause my boyfriend has it and we can call each other for free (<3!!!!), but I'm asking anybody out there for experiences with different carriers.
I can't believe I have to get rid of my super-cute pink Katana. :(
Do not get T-Mobile. I have it, so I can tell you it's awful. I don't get a good signal anywhere, especially at work. My signal also goes out completely for hours at a time, and my calls get dropped or break up all the time. If I go out to Clermont proper or Orlando, or just about anywhere other than my house, my signal is even worse.
Cingular is a good choice. My parents have used it for a couple of years. It's usually reliable, especially in places where I don't get a signal. I think it's also cheaper than Sprint and Nextel, but I'm not sure.
Dont ever get amp'd my phone broke and it took a month for them to send me a new one.
Cingular also has that rollovery-minutey business.
I guess I'd try Cingular/AT&T. I've got Sprint myself, but my sister just got a pretty nice LG Cingular music phone, and I love it. I like it a lot better than the Katana she had before she left Sprint (which was also "super-cute pink"). The color isn't why I disliked it, though. I didn't even notice the pink on it when I first seen it, honestly. I thought it was white. I didn't like the size of the direction arrows on the Katana, but other than that, it was a pretty good phone.
[url=http://www.cingular.com/cell-phone-service/cell-phone-details/?q_list=true&q_phoneName=LG+CU500&q_sku=sku1000019-0]Here's the phone she just got[/url], if you're curious. Comfortable size, great sound quality, and so on. About $100 if you get a two-year contract, and $50 if you send in a mail-in rebate.
!!!
I was actually aiming fot the iPhone when it gets to a better version. That BlackJack phone looks pretty cool, too. I don't know what to choose! I'll check out these phones later.
But the service is what I'm aiming for.
Cingular all the way.
I was actually thinking of getting that Blackjack phone myself. The features it has are pretty nifty. But I think I'll probably end up with the Motorola ROKR E6.
iPhone's pretty expensive though, but if you can afford it go for it. Looks pretty sexy, and that's coming from a mac hater.
So far I've used Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Cingular. Out of all those I can safely say that I would only ever go back to Sprint or Cingular. Since obviously Sprint didn't work out, go for Cingular.
Btw, protip: If you can, get a quad-band GSM phone, or a phone with 1900/850. The extra 850 band gives you almost perfect coverage wherever you go. Right now I have the SLVR L6 (Unlocked) and modified to have the extra 850 band with Cingular and I get full bars wherever I am. Shouldn't be much different for you.
Do your research.
Call customer support and ask for a coverage check on your home location (and any frequently visited locations such as work) and ensure coverage is guaranteed in those areas before you join their network. That information is available. Also inquire about any coverage guarantees they may have available to you; some telecommunications companies have Coverage Service Guarantees that give you thirty days (or less) to test the service and exit their network with no cancellation or early termination fees. You only pay for the service you used from the moment of activation to termination.
Plenty of things come into coverage issues by the way guys - not everything is carrier related.
When I activated the service, the guy I was talking to said that the phone signals were excellent in my area. I made a few calls to make sure and the signals were just fine (of course, I was in the building where I got the phone). It was until I got home that the signals were awful.
Lucky for me, Sprint did have a 30-day trial thing so I'm offing the service just in time. It's inconvenient, yeah, but it'd be even worse to have the phone for two years and have the service suck.
I just want to ask other people here what they've experienced with other carriers. Fine print, service fees, etc.
Well, if anyone has had a poor service for two years and not made an effort to exit their company, then they only have themselves to blame. No one ever forces anyone to stay in a contract and keep their service, at the end of the day. If service started becoming poor after two years of otherwise good coverage, it's either due to network difficulties or a faulty handset. Phones only last so long before things start acting outside intended operations.
There really is no excuse, from the customers side, at the end of the day.
Well, yeah. If I didn't cancel it then I'd be a ****ty consumer. I use my cell phone enough to the point where it would be horrible to have the signals cut off. I make a lot of phone calls to my family in Utah and the signals seem to be the worst during those calls. I tried calling my house phone while I was in the same room and the thing just cut off every few seconds. No excuse!
I think it just depends on your location. T-Mobile out here isn't so bad. I've been with them for about 2 years now and I haven't had any serious problems with the service, especially when I've needed it most for a few emergencies. I'm not entirely sure why everyone hates T-Mobile, you know, seeing as to how T-Mobile and Cingular share cell towers and whatnot, and you can roam on either network. The key to a good signal is getting a good phone, basically.
If you have Criket where you are, I'd avoid it. I've heard nothing but bad of them everywhere I go. Then, of course, there are Alltel, Nextel, and Verison to look into, I guess. Verison supposedly sucks (I don't know), but my friend has Alltel and she seems to think it's the best service you can get.
I had the Sprint Katana, the phone they advertise all over the place. Considering the guy said that my phone was great and my reception would be great, I got it, tried it, and agreed. It's just a big stupid coincidence that my phone happens to suck when I'm 20 minutes down the road.
Verizon has the best signals but they have the ****tiest customer service. I totally love Verizon and the only problem I ever encountered was with customer service, but since I barely need assistance it wasn't a big deal. I had T-Mobile and I didn't have a problem with it, either. My aunt had Cricket and said it worked fine, but roaming would be an issue for me if I were to travel.
I'm thinking between Cingular and Verizon. Verizon is expensive as all hell, though. Cool phones to choose from. <3
[quote=Fate]I had the Sprint Katana, the phone they advertise all over the place. Considering the guy said that my phone was great and my reception would be great, I got it, tried it, and agreed. It's just a big stupid coincidence that my phone happens to suck when I'm 20 minutes down the road.
Heavy advertising is usually for the reason that the phone is poor quality and without trying to sell it as high quality and fashionable, there would be no way it would sell itself. A sales person is never going to put down one of their own products, it's just not logical for a company to say, "Here's one of our bad products." They want to sell the image that everything they have available is of the best quality you can get. That's the same with any company that produces and sells a service or product. Funny part is, suckers such as yourself prove it works.
By the way, carriers usually have built in base stations on the roof of their store. Of course your reception will be perfect when you're standing in the store, right underneath the antenna. Not a good idea for their own stores have poor reception, right?
Sucks that I even asked "which has the best reception seriously aaaaaaaaa don't care about price either" during the entire purchase. I actually did find out later that they had some kind of antenna. I didn't even buy the most expensive phone and these guys are paid on commission. It doesn't make too much sense to me to sell me a service that didn't cost as much as others. I'm just angry about the inconvenience of it all. :mad:
Again, not one single carrier is going to admit they have poorer coverage than a competitor - it defeats the entire purpose of them even being on the market. Never expect a sales person to be honest with you and treat you as a person as opposed to a potential money bag. It just isn't going to happen, without having some personal relationship with them outside of the store. Only a friend or partner is likely to tell you if the company they work for truly blows or not.
Frankly, the only way you can protect yourself is to do your homework without involving the company at all. Don't ask questions about other carriers, they're not going to be helpful in aiding you towards the "better competitor." Ask for the facts:
What phones do you have available for me?
How much are they?
What rate plans are available for these phones?
Is there an early termination fee?
Do you have coverage in ?
Can you perform a coverage check for me, how close is the nearest base station to ?
Do you have coverage satisfaction guarantees?
Never use the words "best" or any other word that allows them to indicate their service is of the highest quality, in any way. Never use questions or sentences that allow them to mention a competitor. If they need to refer to another carrier to prove their point, they have no proof to make it a fact - they'll just expect you to be stupid enough to take their word for it. Why would anyone opt for the competitor who has just been labeled worse than the company you are talking to?
Lastly, don't let them talk you into anything. If you don't want to commit yourself to them without thinking about it or looking around for the same type of deal, don't be afraid to say, "I'll give it some thought, and I may be back later to take you up on that offer." This makes them think they've sold you, without you signing anything to lock you to their name.
Done and done.
I knew the guy who got me the phone. He said his service worked fine. Before I signed into contract, though, I really did ask all those questions that you gave because I'm really worred about my credit right now and I need a plan that works for me. I'm also super scared of contracts (I think it's just the word "contract", it sounds so permanent), so I asked every question that involved payments and fees and whatnot. Considering the guy lives in the same area as I do, I didn't think it was a problem to get the service he suggested. Something weird happened along the way and my service just didn't work. I tried using his phone and it worked fine! Weird!
I miss my Verizon service. After all this mess, I think I'll just go back to them. There's really no reason for me to switch from a company I was satisfied with.
Faulty handset, in that case. It can happen from time to time.
Crap, already cancelled. :mad: :(
They should have pointed this out to you before you canceled your service - it's part of standard troubleshooting. They need to determine if it's an issue with their network (which they better have a high interest in resolving), a SIM card issue or handset fault. If they did none of these issues or raise a fault report to their engineering department, then you haven't really lost anything by canceling.
If they couldn't figure out it's the handset (particularly your friend, after borrowing their handset), then they're just moronic and not worth the money you would be paying them. No big loss, go back to the carrier who made you happy and move on.
They didn't even ask me about my handset. **** Sprint. :mad: