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I love your plans. I'm w/VZ because of the coverage here in the mountains. I live in Colorado and go on motorcycle rides and VZ is simply the only option for being in the mountains unless I stick to major highways..which I don't. VZ doesn't work everywhere, but it works most places.
I love Sprint's phone lineup and love their plans...too bad the coverage isn't as good and I'm paying more than I feel I should.
Totally agree - am with Verizon because most of my contacts are with Verizon. Sprint has come out with some of the best plans ever and now with free mobile to mobile any network they will be unstoppable. This is the way it should be. When are the other big companies going to wake up.
I wish Sprint service could be reliable too. I am with verizon. Most everyone I know is with verizon. I would still be willing to make the switch but sprint is only reliable in the major city areas of Georgia. I need a reliable connection.
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I guess I must not travel anywhere outside Sprint footprint...Im travel alot 30% of the year and I have yet to be without Sprint service or roaming...
Same here I have been all over the country and have never not had signal.. Also, I like how sprint phones are more open to use and download whatever you want.. I've been in places that I had signal and VZ didn't so it works the same with all carriers.. but most sprint phones can roam freely so it really doesn't matter... to me anyway..
I have unlimited minutes and data to call/text/message whomever I want without the need for lame "circles" and having to make sure someone is using the same service first so I don't waste minutes lol.. Freedom is much better.. so I stay with sprint..
Sprint has American Roaming. No matter wher you go in the country, you will always have coverage. I called CS and ask about charges with American Roaming. I was told there is now extra charge if you are not in the Sprint network. You can use a Verizon tower and there is no charge. It does not cost extra because it is an add on for the Everything Data plan.Just ask about it.
I'm quite positive I can find places where this doesn't apply.:D
I dont know where these people live and travel....
I go up and down the East Coast constantly (NYC, NJ, Philly, Pittsburgh, DC, Miami) I've been to Chicago, LA, SF, Seattle, Hawaii....
My phone has never said "No Service" I would love to see these places...
Even my road trip from NY to MIA or Pitt, NEVER Once did I even Roam....
That's basically why you pay extra with Verizon...for their coverage. Whereas Sprint thinks about the phones and plans, Verizon's spokesperson has admitted that Verizon's priority is their network.
Since none of the places I visit is out in the boonies, I have no need for Verizon's network.
Sprint works fine for me but for some people, such as the OP, the combination of a more developed network and a better chunk of spectrum (850mhz) verizon is the better choice. Being able to roam on vzw isn't exactly as good as having them as a carrier.
My last roadtrip from South Florida to Kansas never left me without a signal. Used Google Maps the whole way up as well. I guess some of us aren't visiting the remote dead zone areas of the coverage map.
As a professional driver, if Sprint left me in the lurch, I'd be somewhere else. I've found 2 places that I get a signal snafu. A stretch between Monee and Manteno, Il. And a 7 mile stretch on I-35 between Wellington and Wichita, Ks. The signal bounces up and down like crazy in those 2 places. The one real dead zone I've found is on the West Virginia Turnpike, a 10 mile dead spot in the mountains.
For all, I really don't think that is beyond reason, considering I drive on average 120k miles or more a year.
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Socialize it! Just Kidding...ouch...stop throwing rocks. But really all the companies share towers and then just compete over phone and plan prices? Sounds good to me....probably not to VZ though who's makin' some change off of us with VZ. I like VZ. If they lowered their rates a little or had comparable everything plans...I wouldn't have to ask if I should switch...I'd just stay put.
I would switch to Sprint too if I could, but if I did I would be roaming about 80% of the time and they would kick me off. Alltel definitely has the network here in Arkansas, it would have been nice if Sprint had bought them instead of Verizon
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Here's the Real Deal on Coverage
Pulled from the Story Below!
ATT - "Cingular's standard GSM voice service reaches 270 million people"
Verizon - "Verizon offers standard voice coverage to 291 million potential people if you include its roaming partners who provide service where Verizon does not. If you discount the roaming partners and just include towers owned and operated by Verizon, coverage is 255 million people."
Sprint - "Sprint's standard voice service reaches more than 295 million people (including U.S.-owned islands like Guam)"
T-MO - "T-Mobile reaches 275 million people in the U.S."
Per Yahoo! Tech:
Who Really Has the Largest Cellular Network?
See Comments (559)
Buzz up!0 votes You've seen the commercials. You've heard the debates. You can't go a week without hearing Verizon Wireless, Cingular, or Sprint claim to have the biggest or fastest wireless network in America... or sometimes all three of them!
So who's right? Who really does have the biggest cellular network in the U.S.? I put the question to the big three networks to find out how they make their claims and what data they had to back it up. (And while I love T-Mobile as much as anyone, its network is decidedly smaller in both coverage and number of subscribers, nor do they make such grandiose claims, so it was originally excluded in this survey (update below).)
For starters, you'll see that no carrier claims to have a larger network based on actual geographic coverage (except Alltel, see below). In fact, no carrier even seems to know how much square mileage its network actually covers. It just isn't measured, and that data doesn't exist.
What cellular carriers use instead is a measurement of the total number of people who are physically located in the service area of the carrier. The total number of people who can reach the network is how carriers make claims about the size of their coverage; presumably the more people you can reach, the more physical ground you cover, but that's not necessarily true.
Obviously, more people live in urban areas than in rural ones, so all carriers focus their efforts on reaching the most people where they live. Rural coverage exists, but there's no way to easily tell whether one farm or another is going to have coverage aside from looking at a coverage map in detail.
With that in mind, here's what the networks said—this is all from their own mouths; I'm not spinning the information at all—about their wireless service (in the order they returned my calls).
Cingular/ATT
Cingular's standard GSM voice service reaches 270 million people, and its 2.5G EDGE service (a service that's a bit faster than GSM) reaches 250 million potential people. Cingular's 3G HSDPA service reaches 70 million people in "80 to 90 cities" and covers 40,000 miles of highway. Cingular also points out that its network is all-digital and has no analog roaming, making it the largest all-digital network in the U.S. Since it's GSM, you can also take your phone worldwide (with voice service in 200 countries and data service in 100), which you can't do with CDMA networks like the other two carriers have.
Verizon Wireless
Verizon offers standard voice coverage to 291 million potential people if you include its roaming partners who provide service where Verizon does not. If you discount the roaming partners and just include towers owned and operated by Verizon, coverage is 255 million people. Verizon's 3G EV-DO network reaches 150 million-plus people. Verizon also claims to have the largest network by number of subscribers: 52.6 million retail subscribers and 54.8 million if you include resale/rebranding agreements with other carriers. Verizon also notes that J.D. Power consistently ranks Verizon as having the highest overall call quality on the market, along with T-Mobile. Verizon also claims to have the most reliable network in the States, based on a variety of third-party studies.
Sprint
Sprint's standard voice service reaches more than 295 million people (including U.S.-owned islands like Guam), and the Nextel iDen network reaches 264 million people. Sprint's 3G EV-DO network reaches 158 million people in 220 markets with more than 100,000 residents and 486 airports. Sprint's recent claims are that its broadband service is 5 times faster than Cingular's, but this is comparing to Cingular's old 2.5G EDGE service and not its newer 3G service (which has a comparable speed). Technically speaking, Sprint suprisingly has the largest amount of coverage.
Alltel
Here's what Alltel (finally) says: Alltel has 11 million customers and cover 72 million potential customers. "Our network covers more square miles nationally than any other carrier's network—hence we are the largest network." When I asked how the Alltel network could be larger geographically but cover less than a third of the population that the other carriers do, Alltel said, "There is no tie between pops [people covered] and network coverage... our build-out network covers more square miles than any other carrier's... pops really pertains to population in a licensed area." It seems to me that there actually is a strong tie between the geographic size of the network and the number of people living inside that area. And since no other network actually even measures the size of its network geographically, I have to take these claims with a grain of salt.
T-Mobile
T-Mobile got back to me with this information: T-Mobile reaches 275 million people in the U.S. and has 23 million customers. The company didn't offer information about how much of its coverage is through its own network vs. its affiliates.
And that's the scoop!
So who's got the biggest network? If you compare geographic coverage maps, it sure looks like Verizon, but Sprint genuinely seems to cover more people, if by a small margin, with both voice and high-speed data. (Those coverage maps are hardly standardized, so it's tough to draw conclusions based on them.) Cingular, however, does have an advantage by having more digital service. Analog roaming, common in rural areas, can be expensive and buggy, and many phones simply don't have analog radios at all any more. Cingular's international support is also worth noting. Then there's Verizon: Those call quality claims are hard to ignore and are probably more important to most users than a few extra towers out in the boonies.
Bottom line: All three networks are suitably large for more than 99 percent of U.S. users. Unless you frequent parts of Montana near the Canadian border, you shouldn't experience dead zones more than once in a blue moon. My recommendation: Find a phone you love and a plan you can afford and give it a try near where you live, but don't worry too much about who's providing the service.
Note: This does not mean that all three carriers are equally appropriate for every mobile phone user, but that, on average, they all have coverage that spans most of the country. Check out this post for more help on how
I'm guessing the OP was talking more about the "quality" of coverage available to him rather than the "amount" of coverage.
Verizons number of POP's is far greater now with the addition of Alltel. However for a long time Verizon did a good job at hiding their lack of coverage in many areas (like the entire state of OK).
Sprint has decent coverage and great roaming agreements. My only complaint is that my Blackberry holds on to Sprints signal longer than it should before it decides to roam. It will sit on -110 with zero bars of service all day long at my parents house and never roam unless i put it in the dryer for a few minutes to block any and all signal from it.
If Sprint would set the roaming threshold a bit lower i think a good number of customers would have a more positive experience when using their devices in areas with little or marginal coverage.
Verizon and Sprint already Factor Alltel's coverage in to their 291 and 295million claims of POP's covered...So Sprint still leads by 4 million w/Roaming
I agree BB will hang onto poor Sprint signal's tooo long.....But I found out my phone will switch to roaming when trying to make call and if it will not connect on to Sprint it will make its way around to Roaming and Connect.
That's interesting... I'm also glad to see that in FY10 Sprint plans to spend a bit more on their network and continue filling in coverage holes where they exist.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, roaming is included, as long as your use 51% of your minutes on the Sprint network, you can use the other 49% roaming (albeit Verizon, Alltel, etc...)
As for the OP, if you're roaming while you're at home, and you make most of your calls from there, it might not be such a good idea.
Great info Lenny
This thread is funny.. Posting PRL data to prove points and arguing why Sprint is as good as VZW.
Still confused though - why does VZW have nearly 2x as many subscribers? Oh that's right, because we aren't about to go under financially and can afford to buy up companies.
Great points. Sprint-Welcome doesn't show a whole lot of green either, but enough gray.
So yes, while Sprint offers coverage to millions of people it does not offer the ability to use VZW/Alltel cell sites for the duration of the agreement. Try searching Peabody, KS with the coverage tool. Yes - there is coverage, but it is roaming. So what happens when you try and enter the zip code for Peabody into Sprint's "checker"? The following appears:Off-network Roaming on Sprint Phones: Not available with single-band phones, or to customers residing outside an area covered by the Nationwide Sprint Network. Sprint may terminate service if (1) more than 800 minutes, (2) a majority of minutes or (3) a majority of data kilobytes in a given month are used while roaming. International calling, including in Canada and Mexico, is not included in plans with no roaming charges. Roaming usage may be invoiced after 30-60 days. Data services and certain calling features (Voicemail, Caller ID, Call Waiting, etc.) may not be available in all roaming areas.
My roommate just got charged an insane amount for roaming outside of Cellular South coverage. Even though it was "nationwide" the majority was roaming.The following errors were found while processing your request
We're sorry...
Sprint does not currently offer wireless service in this area. However, please check back because our coverage is continuously growing.
If you believe you entered a valid ZIP code, please try again.
Mine is better then yours has been discussed many times in Sprint forums thanks to V boys like yourself looking for any reason possible to bring Sprint down.
Ive went into debate on this subject more then a few times always coming out on top.
Its a waste of time ,you have your mind set ,install Sprints OS build 57 and enjoy Verizon :)
Oh trust me I'm just stating the facts. Sprint doesn't have nearly the larger network Lenny wants it to have. You can debate your opinion all day long, but when it comes to factual information - sorry, you lose.
First off Lenny will barrier you in fact putting Sprint on top..no way around it.
tsguy52 this topics been played out..heck 20 threads in this forum ive been involved.
I throw up maps , you throw up maps which shows Verizon has more snow..that's the outcome no way around been there done that.
We then get into data..I throw up PC world ,Giz etc 3G test that prove Sprint has faster data.
We then get into rate plans..oh so fun that is.
Sprints cost less gives more are CS sicks.
Thread on top of threads yield the same results.
BORING
Anyway good luck with Lenny