Cellular Service in the Portland Area
Louis Bybee
includes free incoming calls (most do), and you can work that to your
advantage, your cost will be considerably lower than many other
providers.
The only serious down side is coverage. As long as you stay within close
configns to major metropolitan areas, or freeway corridors, it's not too
bad, but stray from the above, and you're out of luck.
The "two way radio" feature is a prize winner, but a little misleading.
The handhelds don't communicate directly, but operate through the cell
sites. If you aren't in a coverage area, or in the basement of a
building (even right next to each other), the feature wont work. If you
can't make a call, you can't use the direct connect function.
Depending on the size of your business (number of phone units used) you
can strike a very attractive agreement.
Overall I believe Nextel can be the best service for many business
applications.
Louis
Lewis Landscape Services wrote:
>
> I know we've been through this discussion a number of times here on
> pdx.forsale. And as a business owner who's constantly on the phone we've
> tried about every service out there in the past several years in an
> effort to find good service at decent rates.
>
> I just wanted to share that recently we found it - NEXTEL. I don't know
> why I didn't try them sooner. I guess I just didn't fully understand
> what they had. But we've been with them now 2 months or so and I am
> happy to say the service has been nothing less than amazing.
>
> My work requires that I take a lot of calls on the road in many
> different neighborhoods and cities. And every service so far has had
> it's dead zones (or at least areas where you'll get switched to Analog
> Roaming, which is almost worse since it's so expensive). These are
> typically up in the hills (e.g. Forest Heights, Bull Mountain, Murray
> Hill, etc.) as well as out in the country. But with Nextel, I have yet
> to find any dead zones whatsoever.
>
> I can be in Forest Heights in Portland and travel through Beaverton,
> through Tigard, out Hwy 19 to Cornelius and the phone gets perfect
> reception straight through - impossible with any other service we've had.
>
> The pricing plans were pretty good as well. Especially since they only
> count seconds (as opposed to the way most companies will charge you 2
> minutes for 1.05 minutes). So their minutes go further.
>
> Almost as important is the fact that their customer service department
> is well staffed. Anyone who's ever owned a cell phone knows it takes
> about 20 minutes to ever talk to a live person usually. Not so with
> Nextel. I've had to call on some minor things a few times (just getting
> used to the phones) and they answered within a minute or two every time.
> It was refreshing.
>
> There are a lot of other cool features as well. The 2 way radios are
> invaluable in a family or company situation. We use them all the time.
> But the biggest reason I love them is because the service is so great.
>
> Just thought I'd pass that on. I wish I had switched a long time ago.
> And if anyone's interested, I would be glad to pass on the number of the
> sales rep who we used. He's been very good to us and deserves referrals.
>
> --
> Jim Lewis
> Lewis Landscape Services
> http://www.lewislandscape.com
> (503) 524-3679 Fax: (503) 213-5921
electr...@cybcon.com
The ability to talk to individuals or different groups is great. The
reception is great as you have found. I have found few places were there are
problems other than in some elevators (not all) and some basements in
downtown.
Glad you like yours also.
Chris V