I am in the process of switching from a "pay as you go" cell phone plan to one of the major companies. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, etc. I would like to know what companies everyone is using and what you like or dislike about them. I need to make sure that I have good service coverage for the Asheville, NC and Knoxville, TN areas. My daughter will be attending school at Warren Wilson College just outside Asheville and we live in Knoxville.
Ladies, thanks for the comments about cell phone experiences. After checking out the coverage maps, it looks like Verizon has the best service in the area around Asheville, NC. As soon as my phone is out of the "pay as you go" minutes, we will be switching over to the family plan with Verizon. I don't like the ideal of a monthly phone bill, but our current phones are costing more with 2 teenagers texting all their friends. In the long run, a unlimited text plan will be better financially.
I have had sprint and verizon. I have been happy with both, but my husband had less coverage/more dropped calls with the sprint phone. you may want to go to each website to look at coverage. most plans will offer free long distance, family to family (friends to friends) calls that don't eat your cell phone minutes
My family has been using Verizon for the past 6 years. My old phone was a inexpensive flip phone and I had no issues with coverage at all. I just got a ally phone and I couldn't get coverage in my house. I called the Verizon support and they worked with me. They even offered to send me maps of the coverage area. Finally, they told me to go get a new phone. I ended up with the droid and I love it. Verizon really worked with me on the issues I was having. They were very patient and honest, so I appreciate their service for sure. The only issue I have is that when you go into the Verizon store, it was always a wait. However, most of what I needed could be handled over the phone. My son and I have unlimited text with ours and got it at a reduced rate. They employee kept asking my husband where he worked - come to find out, there was a 20% discount with his company that we wouldn't have known about. My experience has been wonderful with Verizon. I would definitely check the coverage areas for the different companies. I was also told that the Motorola and Samsung phones had better antennas than the LG phone I started with. Good luck!!
We use AT&T, in Knoxville. We moved from Missouri, near STL and have never had trouble except for Friday the entire service went down for a couple of hours. I like them because they have roll over minutes, unused minutes you get to keep and for us it was only $10 to add additional lines.
We've had AT&T for years and we are happy with them. My husband is on the road a lot and coverage is vital. The only times we have issues is when he is going through much smaller towns and there are not as many towers. That is not often so for the majority of the time, we are covered.
As far as rates, I have no idea how to help. We all 3 have IPhones. My daughter is o my plan with me and by the time I pay for unlimited texting, etc (which will soon go away), and the 2 data plans, our bill is $191 per month.
Hubby's plan has more minutes included, texting and data plan and his bill runs $171 a month.
I do know they have better plans, ours is higher due to the unlimited texting and IPhone data plans.
Good luck.
Hi L.,
We live in Knoxville. We use verizon because my husband's company provides a cell phone for him and that is who they use. We get great coverage. I had some trouble with coverage inside my house one time and called them about it. They were very helpful and even offered to put in some kind of booster signal inside our house if their technical people were not able to fix it (they did fix it - it was related to some kind of servicing they had done to a tower in our area). I think verizon is on the expensive side although I have not compared plans to other companies for some time. You get unlimited verizon to verizon calling that doesn't count against your minutes and that is great. You can also pick a certain number of non verizon numbers or land lines to put on a list that you can call and it doesn't count against your minutes if you get the friends and family plan.
One thing I can't stand about verizon is if you ever have to go into the store for anything - the wait is usually pretty bad.
We had trouble with AT&T prior to moving to Knoxville and I would never used them again. In my opinion, terrible customer service!
Hope that helps!
Cyndi
