Mobile Phone Service (Wake Forest: house, buy, price)

[JoeChristmas]

We finally moved in to our house in Wake Forest. We need to purchase mobile phone services for my wife. Any suggestions? Our requirements are:

1) GSM standard, as we'll be in Europe often and need coverage

2) Ability to send and receive SMS (text) messages

3) Low cost plan, mainly for sending and receiving SMS's, but also for placing 2-3 calls per day maximum.

My company will supply me with a phone/Blackberry, so we're only interested in one mobile phone. However, it's possible that I'll buy a second, "private" mobile phone if the price is right, or if there is a special offer and favorable rates for purchasing two phones with the same provider.

I'm completely clueless to the strengths/weaknesses of mobile phone providers here in the US, so any advice is welcome!

--JC

[North_Raleigh_Guy]

My wife and I have Verizon Wireless mobile phone service and enjoy great coverage here in the triangle. I don't know much about GSM standard thing but I am sure folks at the store could help you with that.

[tarp]

Verizon Wireless is not GSM. It uses the battery-draining CDMA standard which only works in the U.S., Canada, and a few other random nations.

Your only national choices for GSM providers in the U.S. are T-Mobile and Cingular, which is now renamed to AT&T. T-Mobile has the better pricing of the plans. Ask around and see how the T-Mobile signal strength is in the areas where you plan to use the phone. It is interoperable in almost every country however the roaming rates are high - $1 per minute in Europe. You'd be better suited by unlocking the GSM phone (T-mobile allows its users to unlock the phone once they've been a client for a few months) and purchasing a pay-as-you-go SIM card with a local phone number in whichever country you are visiting.

[NewUser]

You mention that your wife would only use the phone for 2-3 calls per day maximum, but don't say whether she will be on the phone for 1 minute or 1 hour for each of those calls.

My wife purchased a pay-as-you-go plan and she is very happy with it. Of course that is a wise choice if you only plan to use the phone a few minutes each day.

I have a company provided cell phone and Cingular account, so we use that as our primary cell phone on nights and weekends.

[Packer Fan]

Originally Posted by tarp

Verizon Wireless is not GSM. It uses the battery-draining CDMA standard which only works in the U.S., Canada, and a few other random nations.

Your only national choices for GSM providers in the U.S. are T-Mobile and Cingular, which is now renamed to AT&T. T-Mobile has the better pricing of the plans. Ask around and see how the T-Mobile signal strength is in the areas where you plan to use the phone. It is interoperable in almost every country however the roaming rates are high - $1 per minute in Europe. You'd be better suited by unlocking the GSM phone (T-mobile allows its users to unlock the phone once they've been a client for a few months) and purchasing a pay-as-you-go SIM card with a local phone number in whichever country you are visiting.

Umm I am not sure where you are getting your information (sorry to derail the thread here...)

CDMA is in 81 countries. Though not as popular in Europe, there are still 7.5 million CDMA subscribers in Europe. Asia is the most popular with 155.6 million subscribers (source: http://www.cdg.org/worldwide/index.asp) and 119 million subscribers in North America.

If the original poster is from Europe or needs to go to Europe (or the Middle East) then GSM would be the way to go. If you are heading to Asia, Austrailia or South America then CDMA might be better. Also CDMA 3G offers better data speeds.

I have never had a problem with your so called battery drain. My brother has the same model phone I do, he is on Cingular and I am on Sprint. He always has dropped calls and sounds like he is under water. My battery lasts just as long as his does. Funny how my co-workers with Cingular need to step outside while my phone works just fine at my desk.

No I dont work for any cell companies and do not have any financial investment in them. Just a user of the technology and have researched the topic for a past employer.

Sorry for the interruption... we now rejoin the conversation already in progress.....

[NewUser]

It could be that Cingular has modified their network settings to handle more subscribers at the expense of call quality. This may be a band-aid until they can get more cells on-line. I know that I had problems with coverage around certain areas of RTP, but those seem to have gotten better recently.

[DaIceman73]

Does durham support t-mobile

[Bull City Rising]

T-Mobile doesn't operate (i.e., have retailers or vendors, provide new accounts) in North Carolina. Your phone may still work okay here roaming on another network, but you'll want to make sure that your plan (for instance) includes roaming so you aren't paying big bucks for being loyal.

I'd suggest a Google search on "t-mobile north carolina" -- there are some interesting posts elsewhere about whether T-Mobile to T-Mobile calls show up properly due to roaming, for instance.

I've heard anecdotally that some people use the move to NC to get out of their T-Mobile contracts by arguing that since the vendor doesn't provide service in the state they need to be set free. Don't know if that always works or if you're interested in changing service, but something to try, perhaps? Verizon, Sprint, Cingular (i.e., the Once and Future AT&T), and Alltel are the dominant ones here.