You won't be talking much on this phone
Written: Jun 26 '02 (Updated Jun 26 '02)
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Pros: Coverage, rates
Cons: 'Sound' quality
The Bottom Line: AT&T's network give you good coverage with all kinds of static in the Bay Area.
Their plans are ok.
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| ptiemann's Full Review: AT&T Mobile Phone Service in San Francisco/San Jos... |
I've had sprint PCS service for ~ 4 years with interruptions and 3 months ago, they tried to force me out of my calling plan which got me upset, so I changed providers. My old sprint was month-to-month contract where you can cancel anytime and they even refund you the unused days of the month.
After comparing plans and service areas, I bought a phone and one year service from Cellular One/ AT&T. AT&T bought the service from Cellular One in the Bay Area, but in my county it's still Cellular One. The network is the same. I picked the Panasonic Allure phone which got good reviews here, so I doubt that my phone is responsible for my problems.
Coverage
A friend of mine who lives in the Bay Area has a contract with AT&T and I had noticed earlier that this network seemed to offer much better coverage than sprint PCS had offered. Partly that is because my sprint phone was digital only but my friend's (and now mine) work on 2 or 3 bands - they switch to analog if necessary.
Indeed the coverage of my new phone IS better. I get a signal on various roads in the mountains where my sprint phone does not get one (I still carry it in my car and sometimes I look at it stating 'no service available').
Good Coverage
Rates
The new plan offered unlimited night & weekend minutes which seemed to be so much more than 1000 minutes ;-)
Turns out that it's hard to actually use over 1000 minutes. Oh well, at least I knew I _could_ ...
Also after cancelling my old service with sprint, sprint offered to match or beat my new contract but I had to decline since I had signed a 12 months contract.
I hear that some service providers determine night time now starting 8pm or even 9pm. Both AT&T and cellular one still have 7pm-7am nighttime.
Satisfactory Rates
Sound Quality
Here comes why I kind of regret to have switched. The soundquality of my new phone service is very poor. Everyone complains and asks me to call back later when I'm home or in the office.
If I drive e.g. from Santa Cruz to Capitola, I will have halfway understandable conversation at the starting point and at the endpoint of the drive but in between .. I have to hang up. Well, one shouldn't use a phone in a moving car anyway.
Initially I suspected that there's something in my car that disturbs the phone. Wrong. The phone just brings a LOT OF STATIC. Sometimes it helps to hang up and instantly dial again, hoping that it will make a digital connection this time - although there's _always_ a fat "D" for "digital" in the display but it's NOWHERE NEAR sprint's quality.
The display also usually tells me that the signal is very strong (4 out of 4 possible bars) but this doesn't guarantee that people can understand me. Coincidentally, half the time *I* can understand the other side fairly well, but all they hear from me is STATIC. By the way, the calls never drop, but the static is so bad that I will choose 'Terrible' in the selection box below.
The static is also on a Nokia phone, so it is definitely not a problem with my Panasonic.
Did I make my point clear?
Quality: Too much static - very poor!
"Amount Paid:"
$35/month for 300 minutes / month peak time and unlimited night & weekends
$120 for the phone with a $30 rebate = $90.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 35
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Epinions.com ID:
ptiemann
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Member: Peter Tiemann
Location: Capitola, CA
Reviews written: 260
Trusted by: 2791 members
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