[NA] Sprint Cell Service

vontresc

vontresc

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Well my Verizon contract is up, and I just got done reading about the new Palm Centro. I've been pretty happy with my current Treo 650, and would like to stick with Palm. The only thing is that the Centro is only officially available through Sprint ($99 which isn't too shabby). I had them a long time ago when their coverage wasn't all that good, and was wondering how thay stand up to Verizon.

Also for all the Apple folks out there when is the iPhone 2.0 due out?

Thanks

Pete
 
I had sprint all through college. They worked decently well in Kansas, Iowa, and Minneapolis. It was also surprisingly good in Arizona. When I came out east, though, my coverage dropped to almost nil (not at all at the airport, only one bar if I stay near the windows in my apartment). I don't have anything specific bad about them, but I'm just a much happier person now that I have verizon.
 
Teller1900 said:
I had sprint all through college. They worked decently well in Kansas, Iowa, and Minneapolis. It was also surprisingly good in Arizona. When I came out east, though, my coverage dropped to almost nil (not at all at the airport, only one bar if I stay near the windows in my apartment). I don't have anything specific bad about them, but I'm just a much happier person now that I have verizon.
Click to expand...

They had better have kicked butt in Kansas, that is where the home office is!

I can tell you that no matter which carrier the coverage will vary form market to market. There are a lot of factors that go into 'good coverage'. understanding the traffic usage model and the customer are a big portion of the system design. That factors in with other things such as link budget, topography, propagation models, and lastly how much money the carrier wishes to spend.

Cost of the cell site is about a $1million. On average the cell equipment from a company such as Motorola, Ericsson, or Lucent is about $100,000. The rest is the cost of the antennas, tower, back up power, and legal issues related to the real estate. Even with a price tag of a million for each cell most cell carrier have most of their money locked up in handset subsidies.
 
vontresc said:
Well my Verizon contract is up, and I just got done reading about the new Palm Centro. I've been pretty happy with my current Treo 650, and would like to stick with Palm. The only thing is that the Centro is only officially available through Sprint ($99 which isn't too shabby). I had them a long time ago when their coverage wasn't all that good, and was wondering how thay stand up to Verizon.

Also for all the Apple folks out there when is the iPhone 2.0 due out?
Click to expand...

I've owned phones with several different carriers, and I've also gotten to observe my trainees' use of their phones as we travel the country... So, I can give you a good idea of what the "nationwide" coverage really is.

Sprint: SUCKS. Part of that is that their customer "service" made me HATE them, but they have large gaps in their coverage. You'll be fine, even good, in big cities but as soon as you're in a traffic-jam-free area, you'll be entering what a Sprint-using friend of mine calls "The Sprint Free Zone." He'll even call me from Nebraska to say "Hey, I'm in Nebraska and headed to California, I'll call you in a couple days when I get signal again."

Alltel: The only company that manages to have worse "nationwide" coverage than Sprint.

Verizon: Coverage-wise, pretty darn good. Verizon is one of only two carriers that I feel have true nationwide coverage, with very few gaps in very VERY rural places. However, Verizon works best if you're standing still. Their network botches a LOT of hand-offs.

AT&T: The other carrier with true nationwide coverage. The only big gap I've found is about the western 60 miles of Montana. I still do drop calls, but I drop noticeably fewer calls than I did with Verizon.

Nextel: Haven't used 'em since the Sprint merger. Their coverage is probably better now, but see "Sprint SUCKS" above.

As for the "iPhone 2" you will NOT see one before Macworld Expo in Jan. 08. I expect that the first change you'll see hardware-wise will be a move to HSDPA ("3G") from EDGE, but that won't happen until the 3G chips have significantly reduced their power consumption.

It's kinda funny, so many people have speculated so much as to what will be in the 2nd-gen iPhone, it's gotten crazy. I saw one post on a medical message board where a doc said something to the effect of "I'm waiting for the 2nd-gen iPhone because I hear it'll have a built-in defibrillator." :rofl:
 
Sprint ain't as bad as Nick may think. Yeah, the customer service sucks, but in 12 years of sprint in 4 different parts of the country and all the travel I do, I'm still a customer (4 phones), and likely to stay that way.

I've only needed Sprint's customer service a few times and while not convenient it does get the job done. IMO customer service sucks for just about every national company. My 9 year old wanted the "Pirate alarm clock" promoted by Kellogg's on their cereal boxes (and I'm a softie). ... "allow 4-6 weeks for delivery" they say, but they cashed my $4.99 "shipping and handling fee" in August and just yesterday I got a note saying they should be shipping it "sometime after December 21." Customer service is a cost center, and American business today cuts corners wherever it can on cost centers.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
As for the "iPhone 2" you will NOT see one before Macworld Expo in Jan. 08. I expect that the first change you'll see hardware-wise will be a move to HSDPA ("3G") from EDGE, but that won't happen until the 3G chips have significantly reduced their power consumption.
Click to expand...

Even if HSDPA gets into the phone keep in mind that in the US AT&T is going to keep using EDGE and then go to eEDGE while they continue to deploy their HSDPA coverage.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Alltel: The only company that manages to have worse "nationwide" coverage than Sprint.
Click to expand...

Alltel is what is termed a regional carrier, like US Cellular. They do not have the spectrum licenses for a nationwide deployment but they should have roaming agreements. Can you roam onto the Verizon or Sprint network if one is available?
 
I have Verizon for personal use and Cingular for work.

Verizon- no complaints about coverage. I've used it in places that I think I shared the tower with one other person. I gotta get into rural Nebraska & see how it works.

Cingular- one of our managers had to change to Verizon since she had no coverage in her part of Nebraska. Away from Lincoln or Omaha- no joy.
 
I just switched our family plan from Sprint to t-Mobile, and canned the Treo 650 for a blackberry (and I'm a long time Palm user). The Treo was a bad compromise, in my opinion - while being a good, maybe even great PDA, the phone quality was horrid.
The Blackberry Pearl, list $279 at Costco, has a $200 instant, in-store rebate and a $50 mail-in rebate - total cost $29 ... (plus tax)
 
gkainz said:
I just switched our family plan from Sprint to t-Mobile, and canned the Treo 650 for a blackberry (and I'm a long time Palm user). The Treo was a bad compromise, in my opinion - while being a good, maybe even great PDA, the phone quality was horrid.
The Blackberry Pearl, list $279 at Costco, has a $200 instant, in-store rebate and a $50 mail-in rebate - total cost $29 ... (plus tax)
Click to expand...
No free lunch. I find the voice call quality on my wife's Blackberry Pearl terrible.
 
So far the voice call quality is considerably better than my Treo. What are you comparing her BB Peal to? Perhaps I upgraded from horrible to just terrible? :)
 
gkainz said:
So far the voice call quality is considerably better than my Treo. What are you comparing her BB Peal to? Perhaps I upgraded from horrible to just terrible? :)
Click to expand...
Her old Blackberry was poor voice quality as well. Her current other cell phone is a low-end Sanyo flip phone that's about a year old. From the "other party" standpoint, it's much clearer (despite Sprint service?). Both Blackberries have sounded thin and hollow, with some background static thrown in. She says the Crackberry receives fine, but I've not used it. She usually uses the personal Sanyo, but if she misplaces it or kills the battery she'll resort to the company-supplied Blackberry.

My phone is about dead (the hinges are 3/4ths broken) and I was thinking about a Treo. Glad to get the heads up to stay away!! Have you used a Palm Centro?
 
Ken Ibold said:
Her old Blackberry was poor voice quality as well. Her current other cell phone is a low-end Sanyo flip phone that's about a year old. From the "other party" standpoint, it's much clearer (despite Sprint service?). Both Blackberries have sounded thin and hollow, with some background static thrown in. She says the Crackberry receives fine, but I've not used it. She usually uses the personal Sanyo, but if she misplaces it or kills the battery she'll resort to the company-supplied Blackberry.

My phone is about dead (the hinges are 3/4ths broken) and I was thinking about a Treo. Glad to get the heads up to stay away!! Have you used a Palm Centro?
Click to expand...

I am somewhat partial to the MotoQ
 
I haven't tried any other Palm newer than my 650. To be fair, I did read that there were software patches that addressed the poor volume control and I didn't apply the patch(es).

I don't know if the patch addressed sound quality, but I don't see how poor quality speaker - if that was the problem - could be fixed by software.
 
gkainz said:
I haven't tried any other Palm newer than my 650. To be fair, I did read that there were software patches that addressed the poor volume control and I didn't apply the patch(es).

I don't know if the patch addressed sound quality, but I don't see how poor quality speaker - if that was the problem - could be fixed by software.
Click to expand...
I've never been happy with my 650. The last OS upgrade cut down on lock-ups but still happens.

I tried out the 680 last year. After a week, I sent back. It was 10x worse than the 650.

I love the Palm features but its reliability bites.
 
I've just recently changed cell providers so I haven't gotten around to traveling to the odds and ends of my state yet.

Sprint: Just switched to them a month or 2 ago and they seem to work fine. I live in Los Angeles, CA so virtually every cell company has coverage in virtually all the populated areas of Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside county. The only reason I left my old carrier is because Sprint actually has decent (2-4 bars) at my house and good coverage anywhere else I tend to be.

Cingular or AT&T: My old carrier. Since the baby bells got back together I used to have coverage virtually everywhere I've been (SoCal, Palm Springs, AZ, Vegas, NY). That is everywhere except for the 2 blocks around my house and a really poor area near Watts, CA. I was with them since they were Pacbell Wireless then Airtouch, then Cingular (SBC merged with them), and now AT&T and its only gotten better with each name change except for coverage at my house.

P.S. Have you checked the coverage map for your area(s) on the Sprint website?
 
I had the lockups when I first got the 650 as well, since I sync'ed it from my previous non-phone palm. I removed all my 3rd party add ons, applied Palm o/s patches (the volume patch was not palm - it was a 3rd party hack) and the lockups went away. Palm as a PDA was very reliable for me.
 
Pete,

FWIW, I'd say if you want an iPhone eventually, just get one now. Most of the potential upgrades can be done in software, and it just about does it all already anyway.

Thankfully, they did do one particular thing very right: Regardless of all the other fancy-schmancy features, the phone part itself is the best cell phone I've ever owned.
 
My experience with Verizon is basically as Kent outlines. Im much happier with them than I was at US Cellular. FWIW Verizon has always had a useable signal when im standing in the middle of a field next to my glider and thats a very good thing!
 
I just got the Muziq phone by LG for Sprint, which is the third phone I've had with them - each one obtained with a renewal. I've had Sprint for the past 4 years, and unless I'm in an elevator shaft or in Casper, WY, I really haven't had any problems with coverage. I only have a couple of complaints about the new Muziq phone, which I bought because I'm too cheap to get an iPod (yet, but I'm sure I'll break down one of these days):

First, the built-in FM transmitter so that you can listen to your MP3's in your car doesn't work worth a crap, unless you're holding the phone in your hand and letting it use your body as an antenna - which is very tough when you drive a stick shift like I do. I've tried putting it up on the dash, in the storage compartment directly under the radio, on the passenger seat, in the console by the shifter, and I've run through the gamut of available radio freqs, but still the signal comes across really staticky (is that a word?) after I put the phone down. This makes it really tough to enjoy the sounds of Tony Condon's or Will Hawkins' voice as they come over my stereo speakers while listening to the podcast.

Second, apparently the mp3 files that you download have to be in some "standard" format, that not all of the podcasters I listen to use. The files still play just fine, but the total time on the track reads as 0:00 minutes long, so if you pause the file or try to back up or fast forward anything, or get a phone call (which automatically pauses the file), it just starts over from the beginning. When you're already 36 minutes into Tony and Will's conversation, that's really inconvenient when you can't fast-forward through all of the parts you've already listened to after you get a phone call that resets the track.

Other than those things, the phone works well, no voice quality issues, and the handsfree headphone hookup thing that came with the phone works better than any handsfree device I've used before.
 
t0r0nad0 said:
This makes it really tough to enjoy the sounds of Tony Condon's or Will Hawkins' voice as they come over my stereo speakers while listening to the podcast.
Click to expand...

PJ, this may be what some would call a 'feature'
 
gkainz said:
I had the lockups when I first got the 650 as well, since I sync'ed it from my previous non-phone palm. I removed all my 3rd party add ons, applied Palm o/s patches (the volume patch was not palm - it was a 3rd party hack) and the lockups went away. Palm as a PDA was very reliable for me.
Click to expand...
Got a link for the patches? Particularly volume.
 
Ghery said:
I wonder why that might be? :D
Click to expand...

frances-mcdormand-2.jpg

Jus' a kinda coincidence der

:D:D:D
​
 
I've had several carriers thru the years:

Sprint has terrible coverage and horrible customer service. When I first went
with them I got to Miami and had no service. It kept asking for a calling card even though I'd signed a contract with them for nationwide service. Ends up whoever set it up gave me a number that was in the range that requried a calling card. Took 4 days of almost constantly talking to different people to finally find one who'd delete the account and set up a new correct one. If
they were the only carrier left I'd give up cell phones.

Alltel is almost as bad as Sprint on coverage and as bad on customer service.
You go to the Alltel store and you're required to take a number and wait for ever just for them to sell you something.

I now have Verizon and their coverage is great and on the instances where I've needed help from their support they've been pretty good. The people
at their store are friendly and helpful.

RT
 
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