t-mobile vs. verizon vs. cingular vs. sprint

especially*

ok reason why verizon copy 3g is 5x faster then cingular or TM is beucase they are comparing to their EDGE network which is bassicaly 2.5 G. cingular now has 3g and i dont see sprint or verizon claiming its faster then cingulars 3g network. TM will be getting it soon also. also sprint has said to be moving on to WiMAx which is 4g i think its a good move. why? because the japaneese are just moving on to 3.5G while pople in usa well at least sprint people will have 4g what the koreans are moving on to and what sprint does verizon does and vice versa since they are both CDMA networks.

i my self work for a t-moblie dealer and one thing i personally do is bassically worn my customers about the network. if i know the area is bad for no signal i will warn them about it and prolly tell them to check out another service. also the system TM uses checks signal around their area before even running the credit app. i dont know how cingular, verizon or any one does it but that is a great idea.

also about TM, TM uses the 1900mhz freq which does not travel as far or penatrate walls as well as 850 which cingular uses. there for TM requires more towers to be put up then cingular towers which use 850mhz freq a signal that travels farther and penetrates better tho by doing that you loose the voice quality of the call. their new plan is to use 1900mhz in the cirty heavy useage areas and 850 in the more rural area's. i do not know what freq verizon and sprint use tho i assume is simmilar to cingulars. mabye higher. if someone can tell me that would be great.

CDMA VS GSM. yeas they both have their advantages. to me where gsm wins is how you are able to recieve data packets and still be able to receive calls. with CDMA you are using the line to to trannsfer data so you will never know if someone is calling you. GSM you can bassically be getting data and have phone part on standby where are CDMA its one or the other. and yeas cdma is better for security as someone said it spreads over multiple channels. also as someone noted it is a WWII technology the USA devoloped it to trannsfer messages over the air and stop the germans from intercepting it. brillient idea to me.

also the cingular blackberry perl is orginally a TM phone. TM had to make another color out to differientiate them selves from cingulars.

if there is any thing wrong on here please correct me.

i have TM and i love how you can instantly get results of your Bal and Min usage right away, however, i've never really had bad exp with any reps

i tried VZW for 15 day per and i was impressed, they had great coverage, but the only thing i truly disliked was the bat life on the phone, i guess its the freq regulations they try to keep up with, and the generic menu setting, i guess its to allow their customers to still know how to use their phone if they get it replaced. Reason why VZW charge high for their service is they're constantly improving and they know they can give the best reception

As far as Cingular, i had them during the conversion of ATT to Cing, and that was horrible, i got constant dropped calls and it became fustrating. My point is, if Cing is so good, they do not need to be sending out flyers to ppl to promote their phones/service.

well if that where the case why does Verizon have to advertise their service all the time the same goes for Sprint, Verizon, TM and now even alltell, they some nice voice plans.

All cell phone carriers suck.

You've seen the commercials. You've heard the debates. You can't go a week without hearing Verizon Wireless, Cingular, or Sprint claim to have the biggest or fastest wireless network in America... or sometimes all three of them!

So who's right? Who really does have the biggest cellular network in the U.S.? I put the question to the big three networks to find out how they make their claims and what data they had to back it up. (And while many users love T-Mobile , its network is decidedly smaller in both coverage and number of subscribers, nor do they make such grandiose claims, so it was originally excluded in this survey (update below).)

For starters, you'll see that no carrier claims to have a larger network based on actual geographic coverage (except Alltel, see below). In fact, no carrier even seems to know how much square mileage its network actually covers. It just isn't measured, and that data doesn't exist.

What cellular carriers use instead is a measurement of the total number of people who are physically located in the service area of the carrier. The total number of people who can reach the network is how carriers make claims about the size of their coverage; presumably the more people you can reach, the more physical ground you cover, but that's not necessarily true.

Obviously, more people live in urban areas than in rural ones, so all carriers focus their efforts on reaching the most people where they live. Rural coverage exists, but there's no way to easily tell whether one farm or another is going to have coverage aside from looking at a coverage map in detail.

With that in mind, here's what the networks said—this is all from their own mouths; I'm not spinning the information at all—about their wireless service (in the order they returned my calls).

Cingular
Cingular's standard GSM voice service reaches 270 million people, and its 2.5G EDGE service (a service that's a bit faster than GSM) reaches 250 million potential people. Cingular's 3G HSDPA service reaches 70 million people in "80 to 90 cities" and covers 40,000 miles of highway. Cingular also points out that its network is all-digital and has no analog roaming, making it the largest all-digital network in the U.S. Since it's GSM, you can also take your phone worldwide (with voice service in 200 countries and data service in 100), which you can't do with CDMA networks like the other two carriers have.

Verizon Wireless
Verizon offers standard voice coverage to 291 million potential people if you include its roaming partners who provide service where Verizon does not. If you discount the roaming partners and just include towers owned and operated by Verizon, coverage is 255 million people. Verizon's 3G EV-DO network reaches 150 million-plus people. Verizon also claims to have the largest network by number of subscribers: 52.6 million retail subscribers and 54.8 million if you include resale/rebranding agreements with other carriers. Verizon also notes that J.D. Power consistently ranks Verizon as having the highest overall call quality on the market, along with T-Mobile. Verizon also claims to have the most reliable network in the States, based on a variety of third-party studies.

Sprint
Sprint's standard voice service reaches more than 295 million people (including U.S.-owned islands like Guam), and the Nextel iDen network reaches 264 million people. Sprint's 3G EV-DO network reaches 158 million people in 220 markets with more than 100,000 residents and 486 airports. Sprint's recent claims are that its broadband service is 5 times faster than Cingular's, but this is comparing to Cingular's old 2.5G EDGE service and not its newer 3G service (which has a comparable speed). Technically speaking, Sprint suprisingly has the largest amount of coverage.

Alltel (updated 10/2/06)
Here's what Alltel (finally) says: Alltel has 11 million customers and cover 72 million potential customers. "Our network covers more square miles nationally than any other carrier's network—hence we are the largest network." When I asked how the Alltel network could be larger geographically but cover less than a third of the population that the other carriers do, Alltel said, "There is no tie between pops [people covered] and network coverage... our build-out network covers more square miles than any other carrier's... pops really pertains to population in a licensed area." It seems to me that there actually is a strong tie between the geographic size of the network and the number of people living inside that area. And since no other network actually even measures the size of its network geographically, I have to take these claims with a grain of salt.

T-Mobile (updated 10/3/06)
T-Mobile got back to me with this information: T-Mobile reaches 275 million people in the U.S. and has 23 million customers. The company didn't offer information about how much of its coverage is through its own network vs. its affiliates.

And that's the scoop!

So who's got the biggest network? If you compare geographic coverage maps, it sure looks like Verizon, but Sprint genuinely seems to cover more people, if by a small margin, with both voice and high-speed data. (Those coverage maps are hardly standardized, so it's tough to draw conclusions based on them.) Cingular, however, does have an advantage by having more digital service. Analog roaming, common in rural areas, can be expensive and buggy, and many phones simply don't have analog radios at all any more. Cingular's international support is also worth noting. Then there's Verizon: Those call quality claims are hard to ignore and are probably more important to most users than a few extra towers out in the boonies.

Bottom line: All three networks are suitably large for more than 99 percent of U.S. users. Unless you frequent parts of Montana near the Canadian border, you shouldn't experience dead zones more than once in a blue moon. My recommendation: Find a phone you love and a plan you can afford and give it a try near where you live, but don't worry too much about who's providing the service.

Note: This does not mean that all three carriers are equally appropriate for every mobile phone user, but that, on average, they all have coverage that spans most of the country.

for all that are new:

ok lets get one thing straight here. cingular is the dominant company, with the best phones by far. don't even try and convince me they don't. and the best service, in my view. they have the best phones out there today i mean look at these titiles: Samsung blackjack, cingular 8525, 8125, blackberry pearl, nokia e62, the treo family, the slvr, and of course the ever so popular razr. the only thing verizon or sprints got going for them is the treo family, the razr and the motorola Q. Thats like what 6 phones combined with both companies? wow that sucks. get some better phones. Ok TM the only thing thats going for it is the t-mobile mda, the sidekick, the razr, and the fact that they are gsm (uses sim card). Post a reply if u agree with this. who gets tired of using your phone after about 6 months and want a new phone? i kno i do. if i want to switch phones all i do is by an unlocked or cingular phone. pop in the sim card and thats it. can you do that cdma? no you cannot. thats the one of the reasons why your so terrible. if you want a new phone, u have to: one have a verizon phone. cannot be any other service provider. two: you have to have a clean esn. three call up verizon or sprint and talk to someone and have them switch it for you. screw that, why go through such a hassle when u could just pop your sim card right in? thats rediculous. also cingular is the only company to have 3g. (better signal, downloads etc). please reply to this messages i want to hear your lame excuses about how verizon or sprint is better. thank you, and remember Cingular is the best, check out the iphone in june!

obviously u havent had a phone with 3g like mine. ive never. truthfully never has no service. i always have service.

Will everyone please just ignore this little kid from now on. Thank you!

t-mobile vs. verizon vs. cingular vs. sprint

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