I am in the market for a pay as you go phone. After a lot of research, I have determined that the carrier that delivers the best mix of pay as you go plan options and customer service/user reviews is AT&T. I went into my closest AT&T store (in Madison, Wisconsin about 50 miles southeast of my home) to ask some questions. Their coverage map showed spotty coverage in my area. Doing some research on this website, I found out they have no towers in my town (Baraboo, Wisconsin). it looks like the only carrier that has reliable coverage and multiple towers in my area is US Cellular. And I absolutely hate their plans. they assume nobody who lives in Baraboo would EVER travel outside of the area (infuriating assumption) so they charge $0.69 per minute for roaming charges on their pay as you go phones. The next decent coverage carrier in my town is Verizon. They too charge a premium for roaming.
I need a pay as you go phone because my husband doesn't have a cell phone, and he needs one in two situations. One, when he is at work, he often is outdoors and not near a phone. When he's delayed (which is often), he wants to let me know but has no way to do it. The second situation is, he gets about 5 times more vacation than me. When he is on vacation, he can never call me because he doesn't have a phone and isn't comfortable asking people to borrow a phone. Plus I have no way to contact him if I need to get a hold of him. With those two scenarios combined, I doubt we would use much more than 30-40 minutes per month at most on his phone. (I have a work cellphone that I am able to use for free on nights and weekends and this works for both of our combined couple cell needs most of the time) Thus, my need for a pay as you go phone, with national roaming free. And we end again at AT&T. By the way, my husband works in Wisconsin Dells, and AT&T has fantastic coverage up there. So it's almost not that big of a deal that their coverage is spotty at home, since his biggest uses of the phone won't be from home. But, if you are going to pay for something, might as well get the most use out of it. So I'd like to choose the AT&T phone that will get me the most reliable signal in rural areas.
Is there an AT&T phone that would get better coverage in a rural area? Or that would work better with partner towers? I think my best option is to buy an AT&T phone on Ebay, and then take it to my AT&T store to get it activated for their pay as you go plan. I would go with the phone they provide with the pay as you go plan, but the AT&T rep said it didn't get amazing reception.
Advice or thoughts on the best strategy to take? FYI, I've read awful reviews of Tracphone, Virgin Mobile, Boost Mobile, and Net10 pay as you go customer service. I'd like to avoid them if at all possible.
Thank you for your thoughts.
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Cptech31 Posts: 650
Phone Model: Nokia 6085
Service Provider: AT&T/Cingular
Thu May 28, 2009 8:17 am
We do have moderate coverage in the area for ATT cell phone service us cellular is a roaming partner with ATT
refuge Posts: 2
Thu May 28, 2009 4:29 pm
Great, how about a phone model recommendation that would get the absolute best reception on US Cellular towers?
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