Cell Phone Coverage

T

txtxyeha

250+ Posts
Moving to Austin, new job will have me in the car some. Wanted opinions on cell phone coverage in Austin/Arboretum area.
 
I've had ATT cell for years ... why I have no idea. Service is inconsistent, selection of phones is poor and customer care is poor.

When my next ATT contract is up, I'm switching to Sprint.
 
live in the arbor area now. sprint was inconsistent when i moved there in 2000, but now it's fine.
 
don't get Nextel.

St. Ed's pays for nextel for me and i'm glad i don't pay for it.

I doesn't work at :

a. My house (Manchaca/Slaughter)
b. My parents' house (Oak Hill)
c. The bathrooms at St. Ed's
d. in any store in the 1st level of Barton Creek Mall

and more, I'm sure.
 
Thanks, guys! I've been with Sprint for 5+ years and their coverage and service has steadily improved in San Antonio. Looks like I can keep my same phone/plan.
 
I had Sprint and hated it. Maybe they've improved, but my service would go out in the middle of Austin, right by my house. 45th and Mopac. I switched to AT&T and haven' t had any trouble.
 
I'll tell you what Cingular has done to me. They I had just bought a phone from them when they switched over to digital and they made me buy another phone. They did give me some credit for my 1 1/2 month old phone but it was only about 1/4 to 1/3 what I paid for it. As soon as my contract runs out Im going to Sprint. Screw Cingular!
 
Sprint is the worst thing to ever happen to business. Every single month they screw up my bill. I have to spend a couple of hours each month arguing with them that no, I haven't changed my plan and since I didn't go over my minutes the bill shouldn't be $50 more than last month. They also have the most worthless customer represenatives. I have recieved FOUR different answers from four different people to the same ******* question. Depending on the pollen count that day is dependent on what answer I will get. Also, I get bumbed from my calls pretty often since their service goes in and out all over austin. As soon as my contract runs out, I am switching to anybody other than sprint.
 
Well, that individual store ripped you off, when they switch to digital all they had to do was change a setting in your phone. But Cingular is ten times better than Sprint. Sprint has more holes and downtime than anyone else
 
Ms. Cacti got a Sprint phone, and the coverage is bad. It is so irritating to use the damn thing, I hate it. It wouldn't work at all in our house (noth Austin, near Yager Lane), then they made a big deal out of saying they got a new tower three miles away, and now it usually works in the house, if you don't walk around too much.
I took it on a trip to Abilene, and it never got coverage anywhere out that way. I tried to call home several times. I would like to smash it with a sledge hammer, but Ms. Cacti might frown on it.
When we drive anywhere, and even in the house, it beeps all the time, which I think is a roaming search for signal thing. Very irritating.
Are all cell phones like this? I don't know how anyone uses them.
 
I have Nextel and other than far west, it works well for me. Although, from what I hear, I don't think ANY cell phones work REALLY well.
 
I've had Att for 4 years and never regretted it (lived in Austin the whole time).

The only problem is their selection of phones, or lack there of.
 
Every, and I mean every, single sprint and voicestream tower is along IH-35. you stray far from there and your service is basically nonexistent. Every wireless company has screwed up or screwed a customer once in a while. If you are using anything except cingular or at&t you are getting screwed worse and more often. They are far and away better than the others in spite of their faults.
 
Nobody can compete with VoiceStream (Jamie Lee Curtis commercials). Do some research and compare on the internet. I was sick and tired of AT&T and switched. I have not had one single problem with VS and I have been with them about a year. You get more minutes for less money with great coverage. What's not to like?

Sincerely,
VS Spokesman
 
They have ANYTIME minutes during the week, which beats the hell out of nighttime minutes. I thought nighttime minutes was from the stone age LOL Is that still around?
 
Sprint Customer Service blows ***, but the plans are the best and they are the cheapest. Granted, my phone never worked when I lived over by Barton Creek Mall, and I always seemed to be roaming on 6th street.

PUT UP MORE ******* COMMUNICATION TOWERS AND STOP BEING CHEAP!
 
well lets see..

Voicestream:
500 anytime minutes
Unlimited weekend minutes (midnight Friday - Midnight Sunday)
Free LD
$39.99

AT&T:
500 anytime minutes
Unlimited NIGHT and Weekend Minutes (M-T from 8 pm - 7 am, Friday 8 pm - Monday 7 am)
Free LD
$39.99

Same price but with AT&T you get unlimited calls at night starting at 8 pm, plus the weekends start at 8 pm not midnight!)

BTW Voicestream is the only mainstream provider that doesn't have night time minutes.
 
AT&T works great for me - always has. My girlfriend had SWBell, and had no problems until they combined with others into Cingular, and immediately she had bill discrepencies, bad coverage and terrible customer service. Sure that could have been because of the merger, but it was a pile of steaming crap. So she switched to AT&T and now she has no problems.

Voicestream screwed over her brother pretty bad - their billing system was ****** up. Kept retroactively billing minutes resulting in inflated bills. It was the most screwy attempt at cheating a customer.

Don't know anything about anyone else. I do notice that AT&T's coverage is sometimes a bit flighty, but on the whole, it serves my purposes...
 
Cingular will **** you harder than a 400-pound cellmate at Huntsville.

The only thing in this world more incompetent than Cingular's customer service is French military strategy.

The only thing more malevolent than Cingular's attitude towards its customers is the growing trend of offering cobbler without ice cream.

I would not use a Cingular phone if they offered me $1000 a month to use their service -- because I am sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that they would find a way, once I was committed, to back-charge me $27,339.47 for phone calls made on someone else's line in 1935 to a number that has never existed and in fact is mathematically impossible.

If you ground up Cingular and put them on a roll, I wouldn't wipe my *** with them.

We use NExtell right now. A little pricey, and we lose coverage in a few places (Far West, always, but it works just about everywhere else in town, and has good signal when travelling), but they take a wild, wacky, and novel approach -- they don't actually spend every waking second trying to **** their customers. Call me crazy, but that's the kind of approach I can handle.
 
Hayden, that's interesting because I haven't had one problem, yet that was my biggest beef with AT&T.

One time they overcharged me by about 100 DOLLARS. I had phone numbers that showed up on EACH AND EVERY BILL that I had never called, nor had I received. People from Brownwood, Texas?!

So each time I'd have to go down the list and correct them. I mean ATTEMPT to correct them. After confirming I had cleared up the problem with the CSR, I was then charged late fees on top of it. Absolutely maddening. When I asked to speak to a manager I got hung up on. AT&T was a nightmare for me.

As far as comparing plans go, when I switched to VS, AT&T's offer was not as good as the one listed. The difference being, they have upped the ante, while VS has stood pat.
 
So apparently we should not use:

1. Sprint
2. ATT
3. Nextel
4. VoiceStream
5. Cingular

Well who the hell is left????
 
I've had AT&T for years. Quality isn't the best, but coverage can't be beat. I've used my Nationwide L/D to call home from the deck of a cruise ship in Alaska, Cancun and Puerto Rico. When we're travelling, my boss often borrows my AT&T phone, which WORKS, when he can't get a dial tone on Sprint.
 
I actually really like Cingular...I travel a lot so the nationwide plans are great. I had Sprint for a year, and my biggest problems with them were: Customer Service (really bad - It wasnt unusual to wait 30-45 minutes to talk to anybody) and coverage.
I could not make any calls in a stadium at all, which really sucks, especially when you are trying to find your friends....and my phone never worked at the Disch for whatever reason. They said that there's just a spot at MLK / I35 where there is no coverage.
I never have to wait more than 5 minutes to talk to anyone at Cingular, and their coverage is nationwide, so I'm happy. I havent been able to try 'em out at DKR yet, though...
 
I am gonna be making the plunge into cellular, blech, and have done research amongst friends and others. I have found that everyone has beef against one company or the other. Nextel and Sprint seem to be doing a good job screwing people very well more than the others. Cingular seems to need to fire their entire billing staff and start from scratch. Service seems to be adequate. AT&T surprisingly seems to have the most happy customers which may not say too much since they had horror stories w/ someone else and have not had one yet, if they will w/ AT&T. I am lucky because a good friend of mine works w/ AT&T customer service here in Austin. If something goes wrong I can call her and she can do alot to help me. At least I know if she says there is nothing to be done that is the truth and that she would have done all she can for me. That is a perc I cannot turn down. It is gonna be AT&T for me. I hope I am not gonna be one of the ones that swear they are changing to company ____ at the end of their service contract and count down the days.

Good luck to those beginning the search for new or newer service. I have contemplated getting one for about 6 months now and am exhausted. I am tired of asking people who they have, how is it, what is the best/worst thing about that company. It is time to act. AT&T for me.
 
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