THSCC Forums

i have been a nextel customer for 7 or 8 years, they are great for work and generally not had any problems.

however, nextel does not yet work in l'burg, and i have heard some of greenville is off the network also. i suspect half of the venues i will attend will not be in a nextel service area.

i am looking for a celluar phone to fill in the gaps for the "just in case" stuff. any insight would be appreciated.

I'm with Cingular and am well pleased with them. But my experieence has been the more remote a location you're in, the less likely it is to work. At VIR for example it doesnot do anything, even though you can see *someone's* cell tower from the paddock.

My phone worked fine in Greenville. Don't remember if it worked in Laurinburg or not.

Apparently Verizon is the one to have if you want it to work in remote locations. I tried them, and it worked great everywhere but my house.

My Verizon phone worked in L'burg.

It happens to be marginal at my house in NW Raleigh close to I540 and Leesville Rd even though I live next door to a Verizon engineer). The problem is that even though we are reasonably close to 2 or 3 towers we are down in a "hole".

_________________
Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

I've been told that AT&T (weren't they bought by somebody?) works at VIR. I have Sprint, which seems to work at all of our NC autocross sites, but is hopeless more than 3 miles north of I-85 in Durham and Orange counties. I'll get a roaming signal at the Danville airport, but whoever is providing that analog service doesn't recognize my phone. VIR is out of the question.

My sprint phone (Sanyo 8100) works 100% of the time at Lburg and Sanford, and about 50% of the time at VIR. Works great down US1 and on every interstate hwy I've travelled on, but not so good north of Hillsboro.

I'm quite happy with Sprint - great customer service with the IBM support line, coverage that just seems to improve, and a good plan (2000 minutes between 2 phones, free unlimited high-speed modem use, $75+tax=$83/mo). My main complaint with them these days is lack of a bluetooth flip-phone. Their phone selection seems sucky in general. IF I find a good deal on a Sanyo 8200 I'll be getting one of those (thinner than the 8100 and w/ speakerphone, plus I can use all my accessories).

PS - just as a point of trivia - All the good guys on "24" use Sanyo 8200s, and some of the bad guys too.

_________________
Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

I disagree with the above opinions:

Sprint CSR means that you have to speak Indian ( and I mean red dot, not feathered)

Verizon, however, has their CSRs in the Outer Banks or Greenville SC. Wowzers, was I surprised to find that out. I have *never* not had coverage at a THSCC event.

The Westerfields and I even had a contest at VIR last autumn, and found tht Verizon was the only carrier that a) had service and b) wasn't roamong.

Booing!!!

Just my $0.02

_________________
Has no responsibility whatsoever.

I have AT&T currently who has sold all of thier NC and SC accounts to Suncom....I am still awaiting the outcome of that to see if Suncom is going to offer a national plan (they are a regional service provider only right now) or if they will let me break my contract. If they do that, I will most likely be going with Verizon. As far as coverage....right now I pretty much get the same as any Cingular customer. My phone works at all our sites (with the exception of Danville maybe, don't remember). I didn't get service at Laurinburg until the most recent events this year, they must have put up a tower near there recently. If you look at Cingular's coverage map for some reason, most of South/Southwest Virginia is not covered, and I always have a problem in those areas (which includes VIR....I didn't have a single all last Saturday at South course). Other then that, I have been very happy with my AT&T/Cingular service.

Sprint...I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I am happy to hear that Art and Mike are enjoying thier service with them, but I manage my work's account with them and have nothing but trouble. Thier customer service has always been horrible for me and I get nothing but complaints from the users. Problem with Sprint is...with thier PCS service, they don't share towers with any of the other providers (most of the other companies use GSM and share towers). So if you are not near a Sprint tower, you are screwed (basically, you have to stay near larger cities.) If you do decide to go with Sprint though, I recommend you stay with either a Sanyo or LG phone. I don't care what cool features they have, Samsung phones (with any company, but especially with Sprint) have very poor reception.

_________________
Stephen Westerfield
2009 Infiniti M35 | 2007 Honda Fit Sport | 2005 Ford Mustang GT |2000 GMC Sierra |1992 Acura Integra LS | Super Westerfield Bros Acura Integra

We have Verizon and it works at all the events and VIR.

The only problem I've had is on I-40 a half mile before exit 312(42 Hwy) then the signal comes back about a mile after the exit.

We've called my grandmother from mountain tops and waterfalls!

Alltel seems to work well at VIR, not sure about Laurinburg + G'ville. I get the same dead spot on I-40 near Exit 312 that Christine mentioned- also a bad dead spot on I-95 north of Rocky Mt- the Antenna icon shows all bars, then the call gets dropped, and it goes back to having all bars again when I call back...


Their customer service is decent, but we haven't had any major issues that required their attention- so.....


Bret.

nextel has come a long way since i first started with them. i am going to get a second set of phones for myself and my wife as her hobby takes her into the boonies at times also. as these will be a secondary phone, what do you all think about those disposable trac phones? i have only ever had a nextel radio/phone thus cell phones are pretty much foreign to me. thanks.

I have Alltel and it sometimes works at L'burg, sometimes not. It is spotty until i get to aberdeen

Otherwise it is fine.

Verizon theoretically has best nc coverage