Cell Phones: Wireless Carriers and Reception Explained

By Cathy L. Kimble

Cellular Phones need reception in order to work. Good reception means a good experience, Great reception means a great one. Anyone looking can easily spend the same if not more time comparing a cell phone carrier and their plans as they would comparing the cell phones themselves. Getting proper information on this is hard. The reason for this is that the time and variables involved are so great that many online review site tend to steer clear of the subject.

As said by J.D. Power and Associates, wireless service has reached such high quality that cell phone users no longer find it a requirement to maintain a land line as well as a cell phone. It appears cell phones are enough. But as with most statistics there are combating results. According to comScore Networks, an amazing 1 out of 4 cellular customers are not satisfied. These combating statistics show how cellular technology is still in its growing stages. Even ask someone about their service, you will always get miced results, those that love and those that hate their carrier, with plenty of stories to boot. J.D. Power and Associates also finds that people who had an unresolved problem with their carrier, after trying customer service, were six times more likely to switch provider. That is were cancellation fees come into play. You see cell phone companies want to maintain their customer for good or for worse and have implemented cancellation fees to increase customer retention. Even the intro of 3G Networks, which started off with great expectation has received its share of complaints. So how do you decide on the best carrier? Well here is a rundown of which carriers rank best.

As said by comScore, Verizon as a Wireless Service Provider has continuously raked tops in both coverage and service. And, surprisingly, a low six percent of their customer break the contract.

AT&T/Cingular come in second, just behind Verizon. Alltels customer service contract breakers are more numerous, coming in at 9 percent, while Sprint/Nextel have an even higher dissatisfaction rating at 11 percent. At the bottom of the heap is T-Mobile, with 15% of customers wanting to break out of contract obligations.

Keep in mind that the above comScore survey is not location specific and it also uses the ration of contracts being broken as the main deciding factor for popularity. J.D. Power and Associates confirms that Verizon is the leader, but also mentions that this leadership is more specific to the Northeast (Verizon has the strongest coverage in the Northeast). And T-Mobile that had the lowest rating with comScore, ranked first for the Southwest, according to JD Power and Associates. Moreover, Verizon ranks lower when speaking in terms of the CDMA mobile telephones that run it. These CDMA rather than GSM phones tend not to accept Subscriber Identity Modules (SIM Cards) which prevents their use when travelling overseas. Another downer is that Verizons rates are considerably higher that the competition and their billed appear to be complicated to read.

J.D. Powers and Associates also says that in the Southwest, Sprint is very popular. But at the same time concedes that in terms of call quality Sprint rank very low. A PC Magazine survey also confirmed the latter statistic. However PC Magazine also ranked T-Mobile as the best carrier in terms of pricing, second only to Alltel. As well T-Mobile has a wide range of cell phone in which you can use its service and since T-Mobile uses GSM you can use a SIM card enabling international use.

When is comes to prepaid cell phones, they deserve a category on their own. Virgin Mobile had the highest points, just ahead of TracFone and T-Mobile. Verizon Prepaid service as well as AT&T prepaid service follow in order of decreasing popularity, with good old Sprint/ Nextel at the bottom of the rankings.

Which carrier you choose may depend not only on how many phone calls you need to make but also on what part of the country you will be using your phone. Also if you travel a lot internationally and even what type of cell phone will best suit your needs. It pays to do the research and ulimatley avoid being trapped in a contract that you are unhappy with.

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