On 1/21/2012 5:52 AM, George wrote:
> On 1/18/2012 12:31 AM, miso wrote:
>> On 1/17/2012 8:01 PM, who where wrote:
>>> It seems at least a couple of you guys are abreast of what's what in
>>> the USA at the moment for smartphone users, so I hope you can give us
>>> some advice.
>>>
>>> On a previous trip we have opted for cheap GSM burners on AT&T. This
>>> time around we will be visiting the western third of the states for 3
>>> months (Mar-Jun) and have iPhone 3GS phones which we intend to use.
>>>
>>> A plan isn't normally all that clever for transients. We are low
>>> volume voice/text users and presently use v.little data (current
>>> allowance is 50MB/month and that has never been threatened). I
>>> understand that in terms of coverage AT&T are ahead of T-mobile (tnx
>>> miso). So the question is really who has a pay-as-you-go (i.e.
>>> pre-paid, no doubt) deal that we should look into, including network
>>> resellers?
>>
>> In urban areas, T-Mob and AT&T are close. [I was shocked how good T-Mob
>> is in Philadelphia.] In some rural areas, T-mob is lacking if AT&T is
>> the only provider. Other areas AT&T and T-Mob both roam on say Cellular
>> One, so there is little difference. If you are going to the sticks in
>> the west, you probably want Verizon. I've contemplated getting a verizon
>> burner myself.
>
> I think Philly was Omnipoints (I think that was the name of the original
> company) pet city. A friend worked for them. They were based in NJ.
>
>
> It doesn't need to be a rural area. In general tmobile has the least
> amount of infrastructure. I don't live in a rural area and tmobile only
> has poor native coverage in the built up areas. When they dropped the
> att roaming the few people I knew who used tmobile moved on.
>
> I loved the fanciful att spin about "helpging rural people" to justify
> the buyout..
>
>>
>> I know T-mob has burners in Fry's, but all you want is the simcard. You
>> do know the iphone has this "no simcard issue." It is not the kind of
>> phone you want to change simcards on and depend on it working. It is
>> very touchy regarding the simcard insertion/removal. That didn't get
>> fixed on the iphone 4. I haven't heard if the 4S hard the same problem.
>>
>> I guess you've seen those phone kiosks in the states since you have been
>> here before. They sell simcards to visitors. I don't know much beyond
>> that. I had to buy a phone out of contract, had a lot of problems with
>> Craigslist sellers not completing deals, and ended up getting a good
>> deal at a local kiosk. The woman was a wiz with phone and simcards. She
>> unlocked my phone and plopped in an "international" simcard just to show
>> it was unlocked. I'm assuming you managed to unlock the 3G you are
>> bringing.
>>
>> I assume you also know about A-GPS issues.
>>
>> Which remind me. I'm going to send the T-Mob CEO a letter bitching about
>> no roaming on well established AT&T towers. They got their $3 billion
>> from the failed "merger", so start the roaming.
>>
>
T-Mobile didn't drop the AT&T roaming, at least where I have traveled.
In the bay area, it is generally a better network than AT&T. What T-mob
doesn't seem to be doing is adding AT&T roaming as AT&T extended their
network. I can "see" the AT&T towers using software on my phone. I know
people that get service. Pisses me off.
There are places where T-Mob and AT&T overlap, but maybe AT&T has one
more tower than T-Mob. Ft. Irwin in Ca for instance. But I can see why
T-Mob doesn't contract for just one tower. There would probably be cases
where unneeded roaming would be happening on that one tower.
There are also places where T-Mob has that one extra tower and AT&T
doesn't. But the edge is in favor of AT&T.
There are coverage maps on the net (gsmworld or something like that),
but they don't seem to be very accurate. I can tell you some of the AT&T
coverage is fiction. That is somebody submitted a projected coverage for
a tower, it got on the AT&T website, but the tower isn't active.
Ditto on Omnipoint, at least on the east coast. The guys at 2600 mag
used to hack it all the time.
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