Cell Phone Service in Ely, NV (live in, transit, areas)

[captne76]

I will be setting up a cell phone to use in Ely, Nevada on a permanent basis and was wondering which carriers provide service there.
Checking online most of the big ones listed it as roaming except Verizon who seems to cover that area well.

[nickw252]

I live in Ely and have Verizon with good service. I know people with AT&T and they say they have fine service as well.

By extension of the merger between Verizon and Altell, I would assume Altell works just fine as well.

[nickw252]

Was talking to someone at work today and he mentioned that he has T-Mobile and it works fine in Ely.

[uli2000]

Currently, the only two carriers that provide service are Verizon and Alltel. If you have AT&T or Tmobile, you are roaming off of Alltel who set up a very limited GSM network for roaming revenue. Alltel has been purchased by Verizon and as part of the purchase, some of the areas have to be sold off to other companies, which includes Ely. At&t will aquire the Alltel network in Ely after government aproval, most likely around the end of the year. AT&T will transition the Alltel CDMA network to GSM/WCDMA (3g) sometime after they assume control. Currently, both Alltel and Verizon have excellent service in the area. You can take your chances and go with Alltel (who only requires a 1 year contract at this point) and face the possibility of potentially worse coverage when AT&T takes over and converts the network, or go with Verizon and not have to worry about it.

[captne76]

Thanks all, this is for a wireless terminal where I already just bought the electronic gear for it at about $700. Its for business communications, work paying for it, so I went with Verizon since it looks like they have a strong signal in the outskirts where its going.