What's happened to Verizon Wireless?
- Thread starter grampi
- Start date
The coverage area will vary by service provider. The areas I frequent Verizon and Sprint customers are struggling to get usable signals and data speeds. AT&T is there and works. When I travel it varies - they all have their strengths and weaknesses, but from experience Sprint was just always terrible and T-mobile was hit or miss outside the Cities.
I'm with AT&T due to better coverage (for where I am, not anyone else) and their plan is not much more than what I'd get on prepaid, and prepaid gets me slower speeds and a MUCH lower cap on hotspot usage, which is a requirement for me (work).
I'm with AT&T due to better coverage (for where I am, not anyone else) and their plan is not much more than what I'd get on prepaid, and prepaid gets me slower speeds and a MUCH lower cap on hotspot usage, which is a requirement for me (work).
GON
$100 Site Donor 2024
I have a ATT personal phone and a Verizon work phone. I travel CONUS weekly typically working in three to four different states each week. I often need to use my work phone when I prefer to use my personal phone, because Verizon has coverage as ATT does not.
I was surprised to discover how much more coverage Verizon has in the Western USA/ Rockies than ATT. One of many examples is on I80 throughout Nevada. From Elko Nevada almost to Reno, Verizon has near full coverage, where ATT has slim to none. I can say the same for many other areas in places like Wyoming, Nebraska, and Arizona. I knew Verizon was big on the east coast, but had no idea how much better coverage Verizon providesover large areas west of the Mississippi River.
I was surprised to discover how much more coverage Verizon has in the Western USA/ Rockies than ATT. One of many examples is on I80 throughout Nevada. From Elko Nevada almost to Reno, Verizon has near full coverage, where ATT has slim to none. I can say the same for many other areas in places like Wyoming, Nebraska, and Arizona. I knew Verizon was big on the east coast, but had no idea how much better coverage Verizon providesover large areas west of the Mississippi River.
If you are happy with Verizon coverage and wireless service and have Comcast/Xfinity service at home check out Xfinity Mobile as they ride on the Verizon network at much lower cost. Only bad is if you don't have Comcast/Xfinity at home you can't get Xfinity Mobile, for some reason they require you to be a home subscriber to get the mobile service.
I have been with them for ~3.5 years now and in the "good" days before I shattered the screen on my long paid off iPhone X my bill was $47/month unlimited, some months I had lower usage and was able to switch to by the gig and pay $27 ($12/gig+tax). Have not had any issues and service in the Xfinity stores around here has been pretty darn good for both my mobile and cable/internet needs.
I have been with them for ~3.5 years now and in the "good" days before I shattered the screen on my long paid off iPhone X my bill was $47/month unlimited, some months I had lower usage and was able to switch to by the gig and pay $27 ($12/gig+tax). Have not had any issues and service in the Xfinity stores around here has been pretty darn good for both my mobile and cable/internet needs.
I also just buy the phone. With my previous iPhone 5, 5s and now SE2,
I get the phone from Apple, then activate it at a T-Mobil store.
BTW. I had ATT for years. Back before Cingular. We have three phones activated. Price kept going up and customer service became “customer no service”. Needed GSM coverage not CDMA, so Verizon was out of the question. T-Mobile now costs me half what ATT was charging me. Also, I’ve never had problems with their good customer service. I drive from Central Florida to Roswell NM and I have coverage everywhere.
We got new Verizon phones in August and our very small town Verizon store had screen protectors and cases. We have had them for years with no issues.
I have been with VW since 1999. The only time I strayed away was in 2014. My friend kept telling me about how good AT&T was. Well, that only lasted for a week. IMHO, VW has the BEST wireless service around.
JHZR2
Staff member
I have ATT personally, but my work phone has switched between VW and ATT a few times. Used to be that VW was better. We recently switched back to VW (like in the last 1.5 years), and I’ve found it to be worse than ATT. Especially since COVID, call quality, dropped calls, etc are all worse on VW. I’ll use my personal phone actually on occasion as the signal is more trustworthy and call quality better.
JHZR2
Staff member
This sounds like the argument that "Mobil One sold at Walmart is worse than the stuff sold at NAPA." I pay tracfone for gigabytes. It's in their interest to deliver as many as they can to me, as quickly as possible.
I get congestion at lunch time, working in a few hundred acres with 5000 co-workers. But that's the physics of RF spectrum sharing. Verizon still has the best rural coverage, at the lower ch 13 700MHz band that gets through trees. Tracfone is how I get at those towers. cellmapper.net will show you whose towers you get to reach.
OPs issue is whether his brand is "up and coming", and trying hard to build customer base, or "coasting", milking money from their established, comfortable(?) customers, and decreasing spending. Every brand does this at some point.
Cricket limits their users to 8mbps download on their unlimited plans. Verizon removed the speed limit they had in place on MVNO’s using its network, which included Tracfone. But regardless of carrier, MVNO’s will be the first to be throttled in times of congestion, followed by subscribers who use big chunks of data, followed by everyone else.
I do think VW is guilty of resting on their laurels. They are most definitely NOT providing the same level of customer service they once did, but they are still THE most expensive provider out there. Something's gotta giver here; they either need to go back to their original ways, or lower their prices to consumers as to reflect their diminished services...
You just described the #1 benefit of living in a free market.
Unfortunately, when it comes to cell phone service providers, the playing field isn't level. If all providers had the same level of coverage areas, it would be an easy choice to go to another provider, however, from all of the info I've read so far, none of the other providers have as good of a coverage area as VW does...so the choice to either stick with VW and pay the high prices, and deal with their shortcomings in customer service, or switch to a less expensive provider and deal with more dropped calls/worse coverage area, and probably just as bad customer service...
The playing field is level. The other carriers can increase coverage if they so desire. Raise capital to erect more towers and
improve infrastructure. To suggest otherwise invites two alternatives. One, a monopoly like we had with AT&T coincidently speaking. Two, allowing government to control. (No politics intended to be discussed. Just trying to make a historical point.) We will always see companies grow so large that they do become monopolies but that is where I want to see intervention such as the Sherman Act, Clayton Act etc.
improve infrastructure. To suggest otherwise invites two alternatives. One, a monopoly like we had with AT&T coincidently speaking. Two, allowing government to control. (No politics intended to be discussed. Just trying to make a historical point.) We will always see companies grow so large that they do become monopolies but that is where I want to see intervention such as the Sherman Act, Clayton Act etc.
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If your even remotely good with cell phones, go with RedPocket cell service. You can pick ATT, Verizon or TMobile. We pay $71.26 for all 3 lines unlimited everything, 8 gb of high speed for EACH line on the ATT network.
Been a fan of ATT networks for decades and only gets better, but Redpocket you choose your network.
Been a fan of ATT networks for decades and only gets better, but Redpocket you choose your network.
I agree. Their CS has gone south lately. But, I never have a problem getting ahold of CS. And, they are the most expensive provider if you're in a contract. I have been a prepaid customer for years and find these rates are very affordable. They have come down drastically on their prepaid plans in the last few months.
