ATT vs. Verizon in Oregon - Which is better??
davefr
areas of Portland and the Oregon coast? Does any one company offer a
technical or service advantage?
ATT has the best rate at $19.95 for 60 minutes/mo. Verizon is $25 for
100 minutes/mo. I don't need lots of airtime, free roaming, or frills
since this would be for occasional use.
I missed out on the recent Verison promo where they were throwing in
extra night and weekend time with the $25 plan. Does anyone know if
this can be negotiated back in if I ask customer service?
Dan Albrich
season (at least typically). The other thing is that the best promotions
seem to hit a particular price point, say $29.99 or $39.99 (and these days
even $45 dollars) monthly. These are the ones that are the best deals per
minute if you use more minutes.
Both AT&T and Verizon are generally good carriers. I was with AT&T for 1.5
years and have been with Verizon for 1.5 years. I currently have two
Verizon phones and carry an AT&T network prepaid phone. (By the way, you
may want to look into www.ecallplus.com or AT&T's own free2go to get a rate
as low as $6.67/mo. if you don't mind prepaid. Keep in mind prepaid minutes
roll over so for a light duty user this can get your cost way down. ) With
ecallplus you have to make at least 1minute call per month, and add airtime
every 90 days to keep your accural. With Free2go you need to add airtime
every 45 days. Ecallplus has a $20 card (which for 90 days gets you the
$6.67/mo figure), and free2go has a $10 card (which for 45 days gets you the
same $6.67 rate.) Since ecallplus has no Oregon area codes (why?)-- I only
recommend free2go for use in Oregon.
AT&T has stronger geographic coverage, and more licensed and built out areas
in Oregon at the moment. They also have more digital coverage than Verizon
which saves battery life and usually means better quality audio. I live in
Eugene now, parents in Portland, and travel the state frequently. I can say
with certainty that AT&T is the stronger for basic voice service and
consistency of features here. Neither is bad, but AT&T has the edge at
this time. Verizon (if you see their current website) has been moving their
lowest cost of service plans steadily upward. At the moment I cannot find
their $25 offering... Anyway, I'd choose AT&T...
-Dan
--
Eugene, Oregon -- Pacific Northwest
"davefr" <hennyh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:c8c760cf.02052...@posting.google.com...
Dan Albrich
Both Verizon and AT&T have good digital coverage at the Northern Oregon
coast, and in and around Portland. So for the specific areas you mention,
either will work fine.
Both have gaps along the highways leading to the coast (through the
mountains) but not for more than 10-15miles. AT&T and Verizon definitely
beat any other carrier in Oregon for local coverage (i.e. Voicestream,
Nextel, Sprint, Qwest etc.)
Oddly, if all you care is city coverage, Voicestream is actually very strong
in Portland and along the I5 corridor (I was with Voicestream for a year or
so), but they lack rural coverage. It's not on their maps yet, but the
Voicestream folks here in Eugene claim they now have coastal coverage on the
northern Oregon coast. Anyway -- I mention voicestream because they tend to
be cheap, and if you don't care too much about rural coverage they are good
locally.
-Dan
--
Eugene, Oregon -- Pacific Northwest
"davefr" <hennyh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:c8c760cf.02052...@posting.google.com...
Dan W.
I have no experience with actual use though. Seattle is ATTWS home
abse, so i would expect that part of the country to be AT&T Land.
hennyh...@hotmail.com (davefr) wrote in message news:<c8c760cf.02052...@posting.google.com>...
MARK HENDERSON
Dan W. <homi...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>According to their maps, ATTWS has the better digital coverage in OR.
>I have no experience with actual use though. Seattle is ATTWS home
>abse, so i would expect that part of the country to be AT&T Land.
AT&T does have more extensive digital coverage in OR (and also WA).
However, Verizon is catching up. I was surprised to see Verizon had
digital coverage in Lincoln City, OR in November. It was analog the
year before. AT&T had a huge head start in their digital rollout in
the Pacific Northwest - AT&T had digital in Seattle in 1996. Airtouch
(formerly US West Cellular, now Verizon) came out with digital quite
a bit later.
I have phones from both AT&T and Verizon. Generally in WA and OR, AT&T
does better, especially if you really want digital coverage.
AT&T has the edge in roaming B.C. as its roaming partner (Rogers
AT&T) is digital everywhere they have coverage and all the features
work (text messaging, voicemail notification). Telus, the Verizon
roaming partner, is still analog in out of the way places and even in
digital areas there doesn't seem to be any support for text messaging
for roaming Verizon phones. Hopefully this has changed since my last
trip to B.C.
Right now for a new customer, the compelling reason to go with
Verizon is that their local plans are a lot better (e.g. 1000/4000
for $50/month) and they have data support (3G soon, but right now
only 14.4Kbps CSD in Seattle). AT&T has a more complex path to
high speed data support. Dual mode GSM/TDMA phones give reasonable
coverage but AT&T doesn't have any GSM/TDMA/AMPS phones available
yet, so if you need AMPS it is a problem.
--
Mark Henderson
"Heilir æsir. Heilar ásynjur. Heil sjá in fjölnýta fold." - Sigrdrífumál
OpenPGP/GnuPG keys available at http://www.squirrel.com/pgpkeys.asc
HTML-only email addressed to me is automatically and silently discarded.
Al Klein
posted in alt.cellular.verizon:
>ATT has the best rate at $19.95 for 60 minutes/mo. Verizon is $25 for
>100 minutes/mo.
Which makes AT&T 33.325 cents/min, and Verizon 25 cents/minute, so how
is AT&T the better rate?
>I don't need lots of airtime, free roaming, or frills
>since this would be for occasional use.
That's what everyone says before they have a cell phone.
>I missed out on the recent Verison promo where they were throwing in
>extra night and weekend time with the $25 plan. Does anyone know if
>this can be negotiated back in if I ask customer service?
If it's not available, it's not on the computer, so they can't select
it.
--
Al - rukbat at optonline dot net
Dan Albrich
I forgot to mention consumer cellular who resell's both AT&T and Verizon
network time with plans starting at $10/mo (with no included minutes). See
www.savecell.com.
They have plans at $15/mo with 30 minutes etc. Anyway, another cheap
limited option.
-Dan
PS: I agree with Al that everyone says they don't need many minutes or
services when they start using cellular service. For many of us, that
changes rather quickly--- these things (cell phones) are actually very
useful and convenient.
--
Eugene, Oregon -- Pacific Northwest
"davefr" <hennyh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:c8c760cf.02052...@posting.google.com...
Mark Henderson
Dan Albrich <junk...@shaney.uoregon.edui> wrote:
>Oddly, if all you care is city coverage, Voicestream is actually very strong
>in Portland and along the I5 corridor (I was with Voicestream for a year or
>so), but they lack rural coverage. It's not on their maps yet, but the
>Voicestream folks here in Eugene claim they now have coastal coverage on the
>northern Oregon coast. Anyway -- I mention voicestream because they tend to
>be cheap, and if you don't care too much about rural coverage they are good
>locally.
Here's a more up to date Voicestream map for Oregon
https://myvoicestream.com/images/rightpoint/CoverageOregonMap.gif
DLWT
longest year of my cell phone life. I hated it. On the Coast of
Oregon I could hardly get anything. Shoot near my home in Washington
State I had a heck of a time. I have heard that Verizion has added
cell phone towers or whatever they are on the Oregon Coast near
Lincoln City (shoot my folks are down there now, wish it was me LOL).
Most times I call down there to their Verizion Cell Phone I always get
them and vis-versa
Dan Albrich
Eugene Oregon just got digital signal in 2000. AT&T had digital signal here
much earlier. AT&T has had digital signal at the northern Oregon coast for
years, and Verizon just added digital there recently. Infact, Lincoln City
has only had digital for about 8 months. AT&T has had consistently better
service in Oregon, and continues to have better service here today.
Another thing to look at is AT&T stores vs. Verizon stores. Even though
330,000 people live in Lane county, all we have is one small Verizon Kiosk.
AT&T on the other hand has full fledged stores. There really isn't much of
a comparison between AT&T and Verizon in Oregon. Verizon is playing
catchup, and very slowly at that.
The Ski areas of Oregon have digital signal with AT&T, which is included in
their network advantage plan. Willamette pass, and hoodoo are analog-only
in Verizon land, and not included with AC (US Cellular). If you travel
south of Eugene, Verizon roams on Sprint with no text messaging or even
voice mail indication and I've never seen QNC work and Verizon data folks
say it won't. All AT&T features work seemlessly including text messaging
#121 etc. in the same area.
I've been carrying both AT&T and Verizon phones across the state of Oregon
for some time (1.5 years with Verizon, and prior post-paid AT&T customer for
1.5 years). I currenly have 4 cell phones, two Verizon and two AT&T. AT&T
is much stronger in Oregon than Verizon. No question about it.
-Dan
--
Eugene, Oregon -- Pacific Northwest
"DLWT" <dlwt...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:591ebe76.02053...@posting.google.com...
Mike C
affiliate)Wireless, and Cingular(GSM), just call us crazy wireless geeks ;)
lol
"Dan Albrich" <junk...@shaney.uoregon.edui> wrote in message
news:PGWJ8.78621$352.4308@sccrnsc02...
Dan Albrich
-Dan
--
Eugene, Oregon -- Pacific Northwest
"Mike C" <cali...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:tR0K8.225$Uh1....@news3.news.adelphia.net...
Mike C
an Oregon/California Wireless group, it's a thought :) Take care.
"Dan Albrich" <junk...@shaney.uoregon.edui> wrote in message
Dan Albrich
service in Oregon. Easy enough- just time to get things together.
User group -- sounds like fun. It's more likely we could join each other
for a cup of coffee if we travel through the other's home area. I don't
know many local cell-phone geeks. Lots of users, but fewer ethusiasts
(geeks)...
-Dan
PS: If you do travel through Eugene, feel free to look me up. Send me
email.
dalb...@oregon.uoregon.edui (remove the i at the end).
--
Eugene, Oregon -- Pacific Northwest
"Mike C" <cali...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:mwdK8.266$Uh1.1...@news3.news.adelphia.net...
Mike C
here, lots of users also, but few enthusiasts.
"Dan Albrich" <junk...@shaney.uoregon.edui> wrote in message