[TriLUG] OT: cellphone companies in Raleigh area

Thu Jul 29 21:00:17 EDT 2004

I second the positive vote for Alltel, I have one for work, and my wife
has our personal phone with them as well.  I work in Raleigh most of the
time, but go to Wilson a lot.  There are some minor spots, usually when
right under some other companies tower, that you get a drop,  but
overall the signal is great.  We have the national plan, $40 a month
gets 300 minutes of anytime, and unlimited nights/weekends, and 300 more
minutes of alltel to alltel.  

About 2 years ago, when I first went to get a company cell phone, I went
to AT&T, couldn't get a signal in my kitchen.  I live right on the
Raleigh city line, to the NE.

On Tue, 2004-07-27 at 16:14, Jaimie Livingston wrote:
> I live in Fuquay, but work and travel in the more rural parts of NC. I
> use, and really like AllTel. I don't have the described problem when I
> travel from Raleigh to Atlantic Beach down 70E, when I travel to NE NC
> (Edenton, Elizabeth City, Manteo, Outer Banks) down US64 or US264. I
> have had some problems with signal strength in the northern piedmont
> areas, particularly Person County near West Lake. I subscribe to the
> AllTel National Freedom plan and use a TriBand AMPS 800/CDMA 800/CDMA
> 1900 phone (Kyocera 3225, and before that a Kyocera 2135). I went thru
> several Nokia phones before settling on the Kyocera 3225. I would have
> prefered a Kyocera 3245 with the retractable antenna, but could not get
> one in this area (I don't know why).
> 
> The coverage in rural Eastern NC, particularly east of I95, is mostly
> 800Mhz Analog and CDMA 900Mhz, so a TriBand AMPS/CDMA phone is a must.
> If you are going to stick close to metro areas, then a dual-band CDMA or
> GPRS phone will work OK. I'd avoid PCS if at all possible. Don't expect
> data services (like SMS, e-mail, or web browsing) to work outside of the
> metro areas. Data services include picture mail and SMS.
> 
> US Cellular works great over most of NC, and also uses AMPS 800 for the
> more rural parts of the state. I believe that US Cellular and AllTel
> have a cooperative agreement for roaming customers. AT&T & Verizon are
> OK in the metro areas, but don't cover a good portion of the state. In
> the past, Sprint's service has been poor, unless to don't travel more
> than a few miles from the Interstates or major metro areas.
> 
> I think folks who are selecting carriers for work in rural NC need to
> pay attention not only to the carrier and plan offerings, but also to
> the carriers roaming agreements and to the phone they select. Many of
> the newer, hip phones and smart phones will cause nothing but
> frustration if you frequently travel in rural areas, regardless of what
> carrier you use.
> 
> Jaimie
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: trilug-bounces at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-bounces at trilug.org] On
> Behalf Of Chris Bullock
> Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2004 3:09 PM
> To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list
> Subject: Re: [TriLUG] OT: cellphone companies in Raleigh area
> 
> 
> I would have to say stay away from Alltel, my mother lives in greenville
> and on her commute from Greenville to Atlantic beach there is no
> coverage between metro areas, meaning no signal from greenville to new
> bern and then no signal from newbern to havelock.  I have US Cellular
> and the service works great all over eastern NC and also the RTP area.
> I know you will be traveling to New Bern, but I have stayed on a call
> from Raleigh to Greenville with no lost signal, i admit it does get weak
> in certain places but never loses entirely.  The problem with some of
> the "newer" companies is that they will not support analog signal, I
> know that US Cellualar and Alltel do offer these. 
> The plans aren't as great with USCC but I dont need 50 state no roaming,
> I just need a cell phone that works. --chris
> 
> On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 13:50:22 -0400, Jim Wright <jwright at netcentrics.com>
> wrote:
> > As you will be traveling to New Bern, I believe that Alltel has some 
> > of the best coverage in NC.  I also have heard bad things about them, 
> > but I (and just about every member of my family) has been with them 
> > for multiple years with little or no problems.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: trilug-bounces at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-bounces at trilug.org] On 
> > Behalf Of Mike Fieschko
> > Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2004 12:18 PM
> > To: trilug
> > Subject: [TriLUG] OT: cellphone companies in Raleigh area
> > 
> > Good afternoon,
> > 
> > Apologies if this off-topic post runs afoul of list rules.  (Didn't 
> > get any rules with the sub confirmation back in June, and didn't see 
> > any on the lug site.)
> > 
> > I'm moving from New Jersey to the Raleigh area.  Right now I have AT&T
> 
> > wireless telephone service.  What are listmembers' experiences, good 
> > and bad, with wireless telephone companies in the area?  I need a 
> > basic package, but no roaming (family in New Bern).
> > 
> > Off-list replies might annoy others less.
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