Last night the wife and I went to Cingular to see about possibly getting new phones and renewing our contract. The lady working there seems nice and asks us what we liked and didn't like about our current phones. I tell her that my phone is really hard to hear on that I'm constantly saying, "do what?" during my conversations. The wife says that her phone is constantly dropping a signal and that the battery dies very quickly. I then ask the lady what kind of deal we can get if we renew our 2 year agreement since I don't want to pay full MSRP for a phone.

Lady goes on to tell us that if we sign up for MediaNet for $10 month we can get $20 off a phone. "Meida Net, what's that?" I ask. Oh it's internet, text messaging, blah, blah....I don't want that I tell her I just want to make calls. She then tells my wife that LG phones are horrible and she could write a book about their problems. Wife says, "like what?" She doesn't have an answer. She then says that Nokia builds a hardcore phone. Hardcore?  

Are these companies clueless? I don't want a phone that does the Internet, takes home movies, plays Chutes and Ladders, files my taxes...I just want to make a freakin' call that isn't dropped and that I can hear the person I'm talking to. I don't need some idiot at the store telling me that this and that phone is hardcore.

You don't want cingular.  They have probably the worst customer service (all customer service, even the one's you call with problems).  I'd suggest going with a different provider.  My phone broke.  I had insurance on it.  Took me a month to finially jump through all the hoops to get another one, because cingular has a different company doing their insurance, and that company only cares about making getting a new phone about the most difficult problem you will ever face.  Plus their phones suck, their reception sucks, and their plans may look good, but they want you to get media net, etc.  $20 off a new phone, if you pay $10 a month is a rip.  $10 a month for 2 years is $240.

I had Sprint PCS and didn't care for them either. Has anyone had luck w/ Verizon and their phones?

I have Verizon and I'm very happy with them.  Have been with them going on 5 years now.

Their customer service is pretty good too.

When I got my replacement phone they put the all the info from my old phone into the new one for free.  Hell I was even special enough to break it 1 hour after I walked out of the store with it.  I dropped it off the second floor of the mall through one of the open space thingies you can see the first floor from.  They replaced it for free.

Depending on where you are your mileage may vary.

Quoted: I have Verizon and I'm very happy with them.  Have been with them going on 5 years now. Their customer service is pretty good too. When I got my replacement phone they put the all the info from my old phone into the new one for free.  Hell I was even special enough to break it 1 hour after I walked out of the store with it.  I dropped it off the second floor of the mall through one of the open space thingies you can see the first floor from.  They replaced it for free. Depending on where you are your mileage may vary.

HTF did you manage that, dude?

Quoted: Quoted: I have Verizon and I'm very happy with them.  Have been with them going on 5 years now. Their customer service is pretty good too. When I got my replacement phone they put the all the info from my old phone into the new one for free.  Hell I was even special enough to break it 1 hour after I walked out of the store with it.  I dropped it off the second floor of the mall through one of the open space thingies you can see the first floor from.  They replaced it for free. Depending on where you are your mileage may vary. HTF did you manage that, dude?

Manage what?

To get them to replace it for free!

(I won't ask how you dropped it from the second floor of the mall)

Quoted: To get them to replace it for free! Well since I was a long time customer along with my family.  The extra shit I bought when I picked out the phone that later tried to fly.  I explained to the manager what happend and got a new phone again.  Being polite and not expecting a replacement was a big part of it I think.  I did ask for one and to my surpise they gave it to me. (I won't ask how you dropped it from the second floor of the mall) My brothers 4 year old (at the time) kid wanted to see if the phone would bounce.  It did but not like he wanted it too.

Quoted: Verizon has the best coverage, and has had great customer service. At least they have for me. My brother works for Verizon, so anytime I need something I let him handle it. My last replacement phone (Samsung) cost me $14.95.

So does my brother, wierd.  He works in the customer service department when you call on your cell.  He's a supervisore now or something.

Quoted: You don't want cingular.  They have probably the worst customer service (all customer service, even the one's you call with problems).  I'd suggest going with a different provider.  My phone broke.  I had insurance on it.  Took me a month to finially jump through all the hoops to get another one, because cingular has a different company doing their insurance, and that company only cares about making getting a new phone about the most difficult problem you will ever face.  Plus their phones suck, their reception sucks, and their plans may look good, but they want you to get media net, etc.  $20 off a new phone, if you pay $10 a month is a rip.  $10 a month for 2 years is $240.

+1.  I hate Cingular with every fiber of my being.

at&t was good until cingular bought them. I have verizon now and I have no complaints. I got an awesome company discount through them as well.

If you are looking for a phone that has a really good speaker and reception, get the moto e815. It's also very moddable so you can do cool stuff to it if you want.

Does anyone have experience with Alltel?

I use Cingular and have had excellent service whereever I go.

i had sprint.   sprint is the devil


i have verizon wireless now with my v710.   couldn't be happier

Quoted: I use Cingular and have had excellent service whereever I go.

Their coverage I had few complaints about.  Their customer service is the worst in the industry (according to the FCC) by a long shot.  In my experience their entire service plan was build around lying to get you to hang up / walk out of the store.

Big ole +1 for Verizon.

I've got 3 phones with alltel. I've been with them for about 8 years. No problems.

And all 3 of the phones are LG, and IMO they're better than any other brand I've used (Motorola, Samsung, Kyocera, Nokia)

I had Centurytel for a few years then switched to Nextel for about 5 years.  I've had a Verizon phone now for about 2 years.  I love it!  Big +1 for Verizon.  I paid about $150 to $250 a month with Nextel.  I haven't paid over $90 a month with Verizon so far!

-Smalls
Sgt. of Marines

Has anyone had luck w/ Verizon and their phones?

We have 24 of their phones at work, and they drop calls more often than not.  It's embarrassing use a Verizon phone when talking to a customer.  I regularly send crews out to five of the 100 largest metro areas in the country, and Verizon's coverage in some parts of those cities is barely acceptable and in other parts nonexistent.  Verizon is tearing down a lot of towers to cut costs so their coverage is just going to get worse.  I know someone that rented land for five Verizon towers three years ago and since then Verizon has abandoned all five of them.

For example, my Verizon phone doesn't work at my house, downtown in my office, near Interstate 85 at our other office, and where I-26 and I-85 intersect, but it works acceptably in most of the places in between.  It just doesn't work in the places you think it would be obvious that they'd have coverage.  The Sprint phone I had from 1993 until 2000 worked in all of those places.  Around here, Verizon in 2005 is nowhere near as good as Sprint was in 1993.  Unfortunately Sprint has sold their towers so their service is now even worse than Verizon's.

Also, make sure your voice mail works before leaving the office just in case.  Verizon upgraded their voice mail here over four years ago, and my voice mail still doesn't work.  Even though we spend about $25,000 per year with Verizon, we still haven't been able to find someone there that knows who to talk to about technical issues with voice mail.  Verizon is a text-book case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing...times a million.z

In the past 2 months Ive had 3 different carriers. Nextel (which I used to work for and have had for a few years) went downhill quickly. Their rate plans were extrememely expensive and I could only get a signal if I kept my phone next to my kitchen sink window...shit you not. Then I ported my number over to Cingular. I got the Razr through them and all calls sounded like the person was under water, I would have full signal but calls wouldnt go through, text messages wouldnt come through or go out. They replaced the phone for me and when I went back to Cingular again the people there looked at my like I was crazy and making the problems up. Switched to Tmobile after a week with Cingular and got the Razr and get full bars whereever im at, they have been very helpful answering questions and my rate plan is about 30 bucks cheaper then the CIngular, and close to 50 cheaper then Nextel with a ton of extra features...

I had Cingular for 5 years...good for the first 3 years and then downhill from there.  I switched to Sprint and couldn't be happier.  It's all about location people.  If you live out in the middle of nowhere you're not going to get great service.  Certain phones are better than others as well.  Example being...Sanyo is way better than Samsung for Sprint.  Do your homework.  As far as Customer Service...Sprint is great.  Cingular pissed me off and lost me as a customer.  I spend about $100 a month...I know that's not a lot...but it's something.  Now Sprint gets my  money.

Quoted: Last night the wife and I went to Cingular to see about possibly getting new phones and renewing our contract. The lady working there seems nice and asks us what we liked and didn't like about our current phones. I tell her that my phone is really hard to hear on that I'm constantly saying, "do what?" during my conversations. The wife says that her phone is constantly dropping a signal and that the battery dies very quickly. I then ask the lady what kind of deal we can get if we renew our 2 year agreement since I don't want to pay full MSRP for a phone. Lady goes on to tell us that if we sign up for MediaNet for $10 month we can get $20 off a phone. "Meida Net, what's that?" I ask. Oh it's internet, text messaging, blah, blah....I don't want that I tell her I just want to make calls. She then tells my wife that LG phones are horrible and she could write a book about their problems. Wife says, "like what?" She doesn't have an answer. She then says that Nokia builds a hardcore phone. Hardcore?   Are these companies clueless? I don't want a phone that does the Internet, takes home movies, plays Chutes and Ladders, files my taxes...I just want to make a freakin' call that isn't dropped and that I can hear the person I'm talking to. I don't need some idiot at the store telling me that this and that phone is hardcore.

Most sales people are clueless, yes

Most of what the sales person told you is correct though.  Don't buy an LG brand phone for GSM type service (dunno about CDMA).  Nokia does build good phones but the receive audio tends to not be as good (one of your requests).  Don't get bullied on the media net stuff, if you go to an independent dealer versus a company owned store you should be able to get the better price w/o the "bundled" features.  Or just get the phone then call in and cancel the features

The Motorola V3 RAZR phone, while pricey, has really good sounding receive audio, and great signal reception.  My experience with Verizon's system performance is similar to zoom's, with the added caveat that CDMA technology service doesn't perform very well in rural areas when you're far from a tower.  Sprint is even worse.

I've traveled to a lot of places and had very little trouble with Cingular.  My brother in law travels all over the country and has access to cingular, sprint, verizon, and nextel phones, and he says cingular is the best - he pays for a cingular phone rather than rely on a company paid-for verizon phone.

Quoted: I had Sprint PCS and didn't care for them either. Has anyone had luck w/ Verizon and their phones?

Yes.

My dad has had VZW since they were Ameritech.  Very happy with them.  I have an LGVX3300 that is a basic phone with no internet, no games, but does have text messaging but if you don't use it than it's no big deal to have it.  

I have had fairly good luck with Cingular.  Bout 8 months ago, I had a massive dropoff in service at my house.  Calls wouldnt come in or go out.  I finally bitched loud enough that they put up a new tower just down the street from me.

I too got the media net package.  All I use is the text messages and when this month is up (27th for me) I am gonna cancel the service and just get straight texts or get someone there to show me how to use it and see if its cool enough for me to keep.  I too got the V3 and its a fantastic phone.  I use it along with my bluetooth headset.  It is well built, all aluminum construction and just feels solid.  That and I got the SEBP, its uber tactical  Nuttin says sexy like a Black V3 with a background of a 1911A1 by springfield, 3 loose rounds of Black Hills loaded Gold Dots and a Jack Daniels Zippo all on a rough hewn hand-made coffee table.  That picture turned out splendidly

Sprint sucks saggy old geezer balls.

I have T-Mobile, not too much to complain about other that my service sucks at my house for some reason, but is great everywhere else. Well that and that everyone I know has Verizon.

Quoted: Sprint sucks saggy old geezer balls. I have T-Mobile, not too much to complain about other that my service sucks at my house for some reason, but is great everywhere else. Well that and that everyone I know has Verizon.

I hear T-Mobile has basically no network outside of the major cities, at least I know they have no network outside of Chicago.  

Quoted: Does anyone have experience with Alltel?

Unfortunately, yes.

And I went to CellOne, only to find out that Alltel bought out CellOne but thank god they let CO be their own entity.

Sprint and Alltel can burn in hell.