mikeymobiles

NO problems at all dude..it's a great service give it a 15 day try....

AaronT

The only complaint I have about Verizon Wireless is the lack of choice in phones.

kensteele

Is that a bad thing?

YuppieCL

exactly! i, as an employee, get unlim ptt for fuckin $5 a month. there's no way it'll be the same for a consumer... (i'm not as cool as fotis to get a demo line or expense it out )

mikeymobiles

Bro...you dont have to work direct to get demo's...heck i got phones up the ass..it's all about who u know....

Sarlacc

I bet you...I bet you do...:piitb2:

fbazakos

hang onto your shorts, there are some phone coming out for verizon before christmas that have capabilities not offered by any other provider.

2001CL

I had spring for a year and a half, personally i think it is the worst cell phone provider out of them all. My brother in a complete different part of the state had the same problem.

Right now i'm on nextel, whoever said that their calls arent clear hasnt had one. It is on the top hands down.

My mom has verizon, it is a pretty good company too, her calls are clear as mine.

If u have to choose get verizon or nextel, whatever you do, dont get sprint. All i know is that i hope nextel prices are going to go down now. Also about how they charge you per minute with ptt, nextel charges per second and doesnt round, if you dont have unlimited. I'd like to see if other follow suit.

kensteele

Nobody else is going to follow that bad idea....

kensteele

Yeah new capabilities to Verizon. I've been waiting for years now for Verizon to be the first at something new and useful....

fbazakos

yeah, like 2-way SMS, or Push-To-Talk, or 3G1X data, or Blackberry over 1X, or 1X EVDO data ... should I go on or have you been sleeping all these years?

:shakehd:





to 2001CL, per second billing is a thing of the past. unlimited nationwide push to talk, including groups of up to 20 is what you get from verizon wireless. nextel can't touch that deal ... heck ... they can't do nationwide group calls.

also, generally speaking, the voice quality of cellular or PTT calls on Nextel's iDEN network are inferior to the same CDMA calls on 800 mhz networks.

mikeymobiles

Yea i heard some crazy stuff is suppose to happen between thanksgiving and xmas....

Slooo97CL

iTrader: (1)

stole ptt whats verizon gunna have next rollover?

mikeymobiles

That's dirty...cause even if verizon steals it...it's pretty much perfected by verizon anyway...

Slooo97CL

iTrader: (1)

since when is the word "perfection" associated with initial delay?

proaudio22

That's a load of shit. I had Verizon and Sprint before Nextel, and my buddy had Suncom - we got our Nextel phones from work and they sound MUCH better than any of the other three. Not to mention Nextel service is a hell of a lot better. Coverage in metropolitan areas is flawless. It's a business oriented network, so that's to be expected.

Who cares about nation-wide PTT. Sounds like some dorky soccer moms yakkin it up. PTT is a replacement for walkie-talkies. It's not a replacement for a phone. Dumbass people...

MaCe

i have verizon and cant complain at all about the service .. and now that there gunna be doin ptt shit its gunna be great ... also u verizon guys im in need of a new phone .. i take it i should just stick it out and wait till christmas ?

fbazakos

PTT has been around since World War I. That is a fact. Verizon's customers wanted PTT, so they delivered.

Nobody wants rollover, all that means is customers are paying too much each month. You think it is hard to implement? No ... it's just worthless so nobody else is doing it.

fbazakos

is it all about the "intial delay" -- have you even tried it ??? used it in the business envirnoment? or are you just spewing out what all the nextel groupies say on the internet?

he's talking about the coverage area, network quality, small handset, awesome customer service, the ability to do nationwide group calling, the ability to setup your own groups, knowing if a buddy is online BEFORE you PTT him ..... do I need to go on?

darrinb

i heard verizon is gonna come out w/ $80 unlimited

fbazakos

I hope you aren't calling me names? I am not intending this conversation to be that way. I am just trying to help out everybody on this board because of my intimate knowledge of the wireless industry.

I understand your personal experiences, and respect your opinion. I would hope I could get the respect from you. Everything I saw on here is factual, and can be backed up. Most take my word for it because they know me, you can hit me up on PM if you feel otherwise.

At any rate. I would like to point out a few errors in your comments, I hope you do not take this the wrong way.

The fact that Nextel's marketing department focuses on business has nothing to do with their network. They run quite possibly the worst technology as far as quality goes. The iDEN technology is out-dated, and they all looking to replace it with CDMA ... and doing PTT with Voice over IP. Sounds familiar? Verizon has been running CDMA (along with Sprint and other carriers) for many years. This summer Verizon used VoIP to deliver the PTT feature to their customers. I can get into the benefits of CDMA more if you want, but not only do you get higher voice quality, but better handoffs and longer battery life. Nextel has another problem. Their cell site buildout consist mostly of omni (whip style) antennas. Most other carriers use sectorized sites. What the difference? An omni (as in one) antenna just spews RF out and it goes ... well ... wherever the terrain takes it. CDMA with sectorized sites allows all 12 (usually for Verizon) antennas to be individually controlled and powered to deliver RF into the areas where needed.

As far as Nextel coverage being flawless, the data that I have seen seems to indicate otherwise. Generally speaking, nationwide, the order for providers as far as network quality goes is as follows (quality is defined by number of dropped calls and ineffective attempTs). #1 Verizon Wireless #2 AT&T Wireless (TDMA) #3 Cingular (TDMA) #4 Sprint PCS #5 AT&T Wireless (GSM) #7 Cingular (GSM) #8 Nextel #9 T-Mobile ... Now these are nationwide averages, some local providers (ex: Cincinatti Bell in Ohio kicks everybody's tail) may take certain markets ... but most users need a solution that is nationwide.

Which brings me to my next point ... Nationwide PTT. Nextel just broke their butts to deliver nationwide PTT to their customers this summer. People want this ... big time. Nextel doesn't have the ability to do group calling nationwide. There are many trucking firms that want to reach 15 drivers at once no matter where they are in the country. The demand is high, Verizon is exceeding all anticipated expectations with their PTT feature. Sprint, AT&T, and Alltel are all accelerating their PTT development.

Again, what I have said above is factual, not my opinion. I'd write more, but I'm tired. Let me know if you have any questions.

fbazakos

you can already get unlimited nationwide PTT (including group calls) for less than that. I think it's $59.99 ... I'm not much for price plans though.

proaudio22

Never did I call you any names. I did say that your info on Nextel sounding worse was a load of shit COMPARED to my opinion. It may very well be that Nextel's phones simply have better sound quality than others. I've heard a wireless phone call to a land line maybe three times. If you are reffering to that sound quality, I retract my statement. However, if you are reffering to the quality from the actual phone, my previous statement still stands. The last comment in my post "dumbass people" reffered to the idiots that demand nationwide coverage. IMHO, PTT is a replacement for walkie talkies. Either around the city or withing 100ft of each other. Personally, we used Motorola UHF radios at work and it was a pain in the ass to haul those damn things around. Now we use the PTT for everything and I only need to carry my phone. If you need to talk to someone on the West coast from the East coast, call them. That's what phones are for. I don't see how anyone carries on a normal conversation on PTT anyway. It's a pain in the ass.

I apoligize if my comments offended you. The only thing in my post that was directed at you was the comment about Nextel's sound quality. All the other comments were my personal opinion on how all of this nationwide PTT shit is BS. That has nothing to do with you.

Of course I will not take it the wrong way, as I hope you would also not take my reply the wrong way.

I disagree with this statement, read on.

I would agree with some of this. I am an audio guy by nature, I deal with home theater, pro a/v, and small touring sound. The one thing I dislike about Nextel is the interference it causes (tick tick tick noise) in audio equipment. As far as the technology goes, I really don't care what they use as long as they get the coverage right (more on this below as well). I disagree on the battery life. I think this strickly depends on the phone. With Sprint, I had a Samsung phone, and the MAX talk time continously was 2.5 hours. I now use a Motorola i95cl (color screen phone) and I personally have talked for a tad over 5 hours straight. CDMA may use less power to transmit, but still - battery life depends on the phone. One thing I have notices with Nextel's iDen is that it tends to work better inside some buildings than CDMA, and worse in others. I would think that this would have to do with the materials the building is composed of.

I know nothing about any of that, I'll take your word for it.

Your data is on national averages. I specifially stated within a metropolitan area. This is where I believe Nextel's focus on business affects their network. I can travel 15 minutes outside my city on a minor road, and lose Nextel service, where my Sprint and Verizon were just fine. However, in the city - my Nextel service is flawless, especially compared to Sprint - whose coverage in my city sucks. There is one specific spot here where EVERYONE complains about a dead spot, and I can talk right through the whole area. Nextel focuses only on metropolitan areas and major hiways, they don't have much coverage at all outside of that. This may cause them to lose some normal customers but gain business customers. Most of our government in this area uses Nextel. So, while your facts are correct - they are simply statistics. Statistics can be skewed in many ways, even being completey factual. Yes, users need a solution nationwide - but business also need flawless coverage in their cities. The main reason I dropped both Sprint and Verizon here was the coverage drops and the dumb shit from Sprint about "cannot make call, etc" - even when I was in service. Your data also does not reflect customer service.

Again, I personally couldn't care less about nationwide PTT. If the trucking companies want to talk to some drivers, call their asses.

mikeymobiles

Nope...why should they??? They have people pay hundreds of dollars every month in overage charges and people stay with them..why pay 80 for unlimiteD?

alienweb

why pay 80 or why charge 80?

id pay 80 for unlimited in a heartbeat...im on the highest verizon plan and still cant keep within my minutes

mikeymobiles

why charge $80...

fbazakos

Ok, now that we got that all straightened out we can have a civilized conversation.

I am going to have to stand by all my previous statements, because they really weren't opinionated, perhaps I can explain a bit more to help you understand.

Technically speaking, iDEN (which is just TDMA technology, which is turn is just AMPS (analog) on steroids), cannot encode, transmit, and decode voice as well as CDMA can. This "quality" can further be affected by what frequency a carrier operates on. For example, while Verizon and Sprint both use CDMA technlogy, the quality of the sound you hear on Verizon will generally be better because that carrier operates at 800 mhz, and Sprint operates at 1900 mhz. The higher the frequency, the lower the voice quality. AT&T's new GSM network is at 1900 mhz and you can hear how much worse it is, even though GSM is "supposed" to have a better voice quality than their legacy TDMA network at 800 mhz. Now this is all for regular voice calls. PTT calls are a different monster. Nextel truncates the spectrum and compresses the heck out of your voice. Since most people use the speaker, the loss of quality is usually blamed on that. In actuality, the quality is poor because they can transmit smaller packets faster, so they just put less "information" in it.

Many carriers sell handsets that interfere with audio equipment. Nextel and T-Mobile are notorious, and I am surprised it hasn't caught up with them. On another note, Nextel's radio equipment at their cellsites causes interference for other carriers all the time. It happens all the time, I speak from personal experience. They are over utilizing what they have, and it leaks into the spectrum of other carriers. At some point, it is going to bite them, and people Nextel will have to make some major changes.

Coverage and Technology go hand in hand. As do the frequencies that the carrier operate at. That last point is a simple function of mathematic, if you transmit at 800 mhz with x amount of power, then at 1900 mhz with x amount of power, you will only get the signal half as far at the 800 mhz went. This is the problem Sprint has, and why At&t's new GSM network blows, the tried to build out on their old 800 mhz sites, but they don't overlap enough for 1900. Back to the point of coverage and technology, if you aren't seeing loss of service or dropped calls, great. I can guarantee you that in your market, and in every other "metropolitan" area in the United States, that the coverage provided by Nextel is not as good as Verizon's. That is a bold statement, but it is accurate.

Battery life goes hand in hand with coverage, technology, and of course the handset. To make things simple, if you have x amount of battery under y coverage, then the phone that is on a CDMA network will last longer in standby and talk time than a phone on a TDMA or iDEN network. Nextel makes some huge phones, so with a big battery it may seem better, but in actuality, it isn't. Not to mention, CDMA phones do not work hard when they are in good coverage. They actually power down to the point that they have to barely work at all if you are right under a cell site.

In building coverage depends totally on RF. RF does not propogate through buildings well at higher frequencies. Again, this is an issue for Sprint, and At&t (gsm) ... If there happens to be a site right outside, you're going to be doing just fine in the building even if it is a foot of concrete (ok that was dramatic but you get the picture). The point of this is that Verizon has more cell sites than any other provider, not to mention that they are almost always sectorized. Again, in building coverage is really luck of the draw. It is impossible to test all the buildings.

You have to understand something about Nextel's build plan. It wasn't a business decision by the to cover metropolitan areas so they could win contracts from the government. EVERYBODY BUILDS THE CITIES AND CORRIDORS FIRST! Look at Sprint's network. Look at T-mobile's network ... lotta islands ... lotta spaghetti coverage. At least Sprint has roaming agreements with Verizon and their handsets are backwards compatible with analog. With Nextel, you are totally out of luck if you are off their network, in a dead-spot, etc. It takes TIME and MONEY to build the kind of coverage that Verizon and At&t have. Imagine having the coverage you have today, times about four. Every business customer I know looks at coverage and quality first. Your experiences seem to go against what all the data says, and what all the users say, and everything I've seen when comparing the quality of nextel's network to another provider.


Customer service I don't have to really post all the awards, do I? Everybody knows about the customer service at Nextel and Sprint and others ... I will let the customers on here speak their minds on that.

Python2121

fbazakos, youve basically just convinced me to get verizon PTT

ok lemme, and im teliing you all that beyond what i have read here i am grossly uninformed, just ask a question

why do higher frequecies do better for cordless phones inside buildings but not for cell phones?

also i knew that nextels screwed w/ my car radio, but i was wondering why it was still acting screwy and thats cause i have tmobile, thanks for the info

btw id like to thank everyone for this really informative thread

kensteele

You can choose any carrier you wish. But I would advise you to NOT sign a long-term contract and lock yourself in. With LNP on the way, you should be able to switch carriers and keep your number...but most importantly, there's lots of change abound in the industry; a lot of new, cool things coming soon. Locking in with ANY carrier before the goods are revealed for the Holiday season is like buying a turkey next week.

darrinb

i get 1000 any time minutes, free nights and weekends, free 2 way, free nation wide for 55.00 on my nextel

i dont think any verizon plan is better than that for 55 bucks

proaudio22

I've got the same plan...except for work pays for $50 of it hehe.

fbazakos

PTT is pretty neat, remember that it will only work with other users on the same carrier. If you don't know anybody else with Verizon PTT, it may not be worth the investment yet. I know of a few families that have set themselves up with Verizon PTT, one in particular because the father travels all the time, the kids are all over the country for college, and the mom is at home with the younger kid. They get together on a PTT group call every night to catch up on their day.

Regarding your question about cordless phones, the same mathematical principles apply. Inside your house, those higher frequency phones won't perform as well, because of walls. But this is more than offset due to interference at the lower frequencies. Unlike cell phones, cordless phones just broadcast on a "public" frequency. Things in your house that operate on power tend to cause interference and degrade the performance at the lower frequencies. Over the last few years, the FCC has allowed 2.4 and 5.x GHz for these cordless phone. Not much interference up in that range. There are also more channels available for individual conversations.

We get interference here from Nextel because they are RIGHT next to us on the frequency band. If we are 851-855 mhz for send and 861-865mhz for receive they are like 851-860 mhz for send and 866-870 for receive. Even if things are configured properly they tend to interfere with each other, and cause poor performance such as dropped calls. This is reason you aren't allowed to use cell phones on the plane (mainly, there are other reason) ... but public safety and maritime communciation occures right in between the send and receive frequencies for 800 mhz band cellular service. It's pretty retarded, and the FCC offered a swap out to 1900mhz, but nobody in their right mind would want to go to 1900mhz (aka, PCS frequencies) from 800mhz (aka, cellular frequencies). Knowing this, the average consumer can now ask the question "Why does Sprint brag that their are ALL PCS" ... ? Exactly, it's all about buzz words and marketing. To the people in the industry, we know it is inferior.

Let me know if i answered your questions or not.