> Hello all, > > I'm going to lose my employer-provided cell phone soon and > I'll need to find a provider and plan. I've used Cingular on > the east coast (which has now crept its way out here) and my > current cell phone is with T-Mobile. > > I'm looking to get two cell phones (one for me, one for my > wife), and ideally the plan I get will allow me to talk to my > wife for free. > Instant messages are not required but useful, but I don't > want to pay too much for them. I only need 500 minutes per > month or so. Good service (coverage area), sound quality, > and decent phone selection are important. I'm not interested > in a phone that can take pictures, record movies, send faxes, > record voice notes, or allow me to watch a DVD rip while > playing Duke Nukem 3D on the MAX. > > I guess many (if not all) of the people on this list have > cell phones, and I understand this is an issue of notable > religious significance. > So, please chime in; what do you recommend? What is your experience? > Feel free to reply privately if you want to keep the thread short. :) > > Thanks! >
Jonathan, My 2 cents--stay away from Cingular. Once you decide on a provider, you're stuck with them because of the darn contract agreement--for the most part. I have had multiple AT&T phones, and now cingular phones, and the service has been VERY poor. I'll have perfect service, and get dropped calls, I also have poor service in many areas in Portland (from 2 bars to no service in my house, which is 30 blocks from where we meet every month). I can't make calls during rush hour in downtown, and more... Don't even get me started on the billing issues (they canceled my service 2 months in a row for not paying--when I had!). AT&T service rocked when it was using (I think) TDMA. Since they switched to GSM, it's been horrible. Of course, a big perk is it seems like 70%+ is on Cingular--allowing for free calls... Maybe you should be a VERY early adopter, and just go VoIP? I keep hearing rumors about city wide wireless... _______________________________________________ PDXLUG (a Portland Linux user group) mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlug.org/mailman/listinfo/pdxlug IRC: irc.freenode.net #pdxlug & #orlug
