Switching Cellular Phone Providers

[Rich Riddle]

We are likely going to switch our cellular phone provider from AT&T. Reception gets a bit spotty here and is down right terrible when traveling from Virginia to Kentucky. We are pondering Verizon. What say you folks? Is one as bad as the other?

[Gary Yoder]

I had verizon for years and couldn't complain. My cell service was almost always better than anyone on another network. But that may have more to do with where I'm at.

[Larry Frank]

In my opinion, there is not too much difference between providers but you have to choose phones and plans carefully. In your case, I would talk to as many people as possible to find which company has the best reception in the area you are interested in.

[Matt Marsh]

I have Verizon here in Northern MN. I use to have AT&T. I agree with Larry for the most part regarding plans and service. Although the reception is adequate here, there are dead spots with all providers. My first 2-year contract with Verizon ended last month. I use to have an iPhone 5S, 16gb, which for a person that likes to keep songs and pictures, is woefully too small. I wanted a new iPhone 6 with 64gb of memory. Verizon's new plans are terrible. They now require that you pay full price for your phone ($800+ in my case), paid for on installments via your monthly bill. The new plans only offer discounts for data packages of 6 gigs or more. Even though you may only use 2 gigs of data per month, it is now actually less expensive to choose a larger data package. In the end, your monthly bill will be significantly higher than you were paying on the old "Share Anything" plans.

I lucked out this time and slipped in just under the wire. Walmart had a deal worked out with Verizon that extended the old Share Anything plans that included a discounted phone purchased upfront ($199 for my new 64 gig iPhone 6). When I walked in the door at Walmart, I was actually planning on switching to Straight Talk. Then the sales person told me about the extended deal that Walmart had with Verizon. Not sure what I'll do in two years, but it won't be with Verizon if the current plans are all that are offered at that time.

[Shawn Pixley]

I had Verizon but switched to ATT because we couldn't get decent reception at our house or in our neighborhood. Where I go, I get decent ATT coverage but ymmv. Shop plans carefully. I am still on my all you can eat data plan though they would love me to get off it.

[Matt Meiser]

We switched to Verizon about 5 years ago and they've been good to us. I've never been without service unless I'm at a family members in a valley in very rural Missouri or deep in a metal building (factory, big box store, stuff like that.) Last time I was in a stadium (Ford Field) service was great because they added antennas inside the building. They even roll out portable towers for big events like our county fair. Before that we had Sprint. We had a huge increase in price but since the two closest Sprint towers were out of service for maintenance for months with no expected restoration date I'd rather pay more for something than something for nothing. Our Sprint phones didn't work for most of the week we were in Maine either.

[Rich Riddle]

Well one thing that will help with price is we are going from four telephones to three. That should reduce some costs.

[Mark Patoka]

My wife and the rest of the family uses Verizon and have had pretty good reception no matter where we travel in the country. I have a Virgin Mobile phone which uses the Sprint network and I have more issues with reception, particularly when I'm away from more civilized areas.