Wireless Companies (Omaha, Lincoln, Ashland: travel, work, house)

[mattpoulsen]

Lately I've been thinking about switching my family's cellular service. The coverage area need is primarily in Omaha and Lincoln withe occasional trek to northcentral Nebraska.

I currently have Alltel and have grown tired of the continual network problems and poor customer service. I 'm not so much seeking opinions on Alltel as much as I'm seeking opinions about the other major carriers in Nebraska.

Particularly, what are your opinions and complaints about AT&T, Verizon, and Spring coverage in Omaha and Lincoln?

[Dave1215]

I switched from AT&T to Alltel for the family. I also switched my previous Verizon plan to the family Alltel plan.

Coverage between Omaha and Lincoln with AT&T was sporadic and its good with Alltel.

Also, when traveling if Western Nebraska we had trouble with coverage with both AT&T and Verizon, but no issues with Alltel.

Verizon coverage in Omaha I never had a problem with.

[mattpoulsen]

Dave,

Could you tell me when you were last using AT&T. AT&T really expanded their coverage when they merged with Cingular. Do you remember if it was before or after that? Thanks.

[mezmez]

I work for a Verizon store and there is a map they can pull up that is very accurate that will show you exactly where you get service up to 250 feet. It is not the map on Verizonwireless.com but rather in their order entry system. Ours is called eroes.
Go in and ask them to pull it up for you.

[mattpoulsen]

Mez,

I've generally heard good things about Verizon. Also, I used to go out to north central Nebraska and Verizon seemed to have about the same service as Alltel. Someon had told me that Verizon piggy backed off the Alltel network in western Nebraska. I'm not sure if that's accurate or not...just what someone told me. Is that at all accurate?

[Trevor92]

Originally Posted by mattpoulsen

AT&T really expanded their coverage when they merged with Cingular. Do you remember if it was before or after that?

Just to clear up possible historical confusion. Cingular merged with At&t wireless in February 2004. It simply rebranded itself as the "New At&t" in early 2007. If there was an expansion in coverage area recently, it most likely had nothing to do with the merger. If This link to Wikipedia may provide a few more details: AT&T Mobility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And includes these clips I included to summarize things:
"After a bidding war ..., Cingular announced in February 2004 that it would purchase AT&T Wireless Services, Inc., for $41 billion."
"On January 14, 2007 AT&T launched the transition of the Cingular brand to AT&T in television advertising and customer communications, by creating the 'Cingular is now The New AT&T' logo."

Originally Posted by mattpoulsen

I've generally heard good things about Verizon. Also, I used to go out to north central Nebraska and Verizon seemed to have about the same service as Alltel. Someon had told me that Verizon piggy backed off the Alltel network in western Nebraska. I'm not sure if that's accurate or not...just what someone told me. Is that at all accurate?

I frequently visit the cell forums at Howard Forums, and everything I've read indicates that alltel is the best in terms of price and coverage throughout most of Nebraska. A few people there have complained specifically about the network in Lincoln over the past month, and subsequently was told that alltel is adding capacity around Lincoln and that should be complete in the next couple weeks. If you're experiencing problems in several locations on more than one of your phones, it would be something that I would report to customer service. At&t, Verizon, and Sprint, are limited mainly to Omaha and Nebraska and are PCS, rather than Cellular carriers, which usually doesn't allow as expansive of coverage and for that reason, have decided just to cover those two larger cities. Just view their coverage maps online and they all show roaming everywhere else within the state. On the Verizon map, make sure you switch it over to pre-pay so that it won't show you coverage in all the places you're just roaming on alltel. In much of Nebraska, you 'd just be paying more for ATT, VZW, or Sprint service, because of their lack of special incentives like My Circle, and you'd be using the same signal outside of Lincoln and Omaha. Data problems are also much more of a problem on a roaming network. I would also say that I don't think you'd find any real improvements in Customer Service as all providers are poor in this regard imo after trying all 4 you're considering at one point or another.

[mattpoulsen]

Trevor,

I followed cingular and at&t at the time of the merger. One question I have is why wouldn't there be an expanded coverage when the two merged? You had the old AT&T, which was pretty horrible in Nebraska, and then Cingular merged with that old AT&T and rebranded itself as the "new AT&T". At any rate, the coverage from the new AT&T would, in my naive few, be more robust than the old AT&T as it has now combined the cingular and old AT&T companies. Obviously, this is much more complicated then I am presenting here. The reason I am more interested in the "new AT&T" is that people seem to be much more happy with AT&T now than they used to be (before the merger).

Part of the reason I want to change companies is I need a data service plan and Alltel doesn't seem to offer many options in that regard. In fact, I can't even get my data service to work in Omaha right now. It'll work when I'm in Lincoln, but shuts off after I get east of about Ashland.

[Trevor92]

There might have been in February of 2004 when the ATT Wireless + Cingular merger happened. However this merger was completed later in 2004 and the networks were integrated. I was just pointing out that when the "New At&t" was marketed in 2007, it was the exact same network that Cingular used from late 2004-early 2007, it was simply a name change that took place in 2007. Over the course of those years from 2004-07, there may have been network improvements, cell sites added, etc. but it wouldn't have had anything more to do with the merger after mid-2004.

Here is alltel's data service map for Nebraska: Alltel MobileLink Coverage
Blue is EVDO/3G at 400-700 kbps with bursts up to 2.4 Mbps. Purple is 1x/RTT at 40-70 kbps, It's the largest high-speed data network in the state. I'm not sure why you'd have data problems east of Ashland as alltel has high-speed data throughout the area. Are you using an EVDO capable device? AT&T is EDGE only at 100-150 kbps and has no 3G offered in NE.

[mattpoulsen]

Trevor,

Ok. I see what you're saying with the AT&T/Cingular issue.

As far as my data service...right now I do NOT have an EVDO device. I didn't really need it before and just had a cellphone with a SLOW data service, so I could routinely check email. However, I need to bump that level of service up and will soon be getting a new 3G device.

Nevertheless, my data service had always worked fine in and between Omaha and Lincoln. But in the last few months I cannot connect while in Omaha. Its pretty predictable too. I can leave my house (western Omaha) and commute to Lincoln and I can nearly pinpoint where I will lose data service. Could this have something to do with not having an EVDO device?? In the past I've never had a problem.

[Dave1215]

Originally Posted by mattpoulsen

Dave,

Could you tell me when you were last using AT&T. AT&T really expanded their coverage when they merged with Cingular. Do you remember if it was before or after that? Thanks.

I had original AT&T then thru Cingular and back to new AT&T. Just recently switched to the Alltel family plan. I also saved over $30/month on the 3 phones I switched to a like plan at Alltel.