Now that AT&T has followed T-Mobile's example by screwing the pooch on my
cell phone billing, and I've flung yet another SIM-locked Motorola V600
out the window of yet another moving vehicle, and am about to enter into
another year long "you violated the agreement first" small claims battle, I
need a new GSM provider. I'm going to buy an unlocked tri-band GSM this
time. Anybody had notable (good or bad) billing and/or customer service
experiences with Voicestream or any other GSM provider with native coverage
in the San Francisco Bay Area?
(If you reply privately to me, I'll summarize back to the list.)
I've flung yet another SIM-locked Motorola V600 out the window of yet
another moving vehicle
littering!!!!
am about to enter into another year long "you violated the agreement
first" small claims battle
i guess we value our time differently
I'm going to buy an unlocked tri-band GSM this time.
strongly recommended. or, as here in fiji, one can get a phone
unlocked for a few bucks (couple of guys on a bench in a street
stall).
Anybody had notable (good or bad) billing and/or customer service
experiences with Voicestream
voicestream is t-mobile. telephant stupidity and error rate are
proportional to size. hence, coverage and intl roaming with clue
and good billing are not likely.
but at least some branch of t-mobile and at&t have something to
do with the internet, though i doubt that makes this thread on
topic.
randy
strongly recommended. or, as here in fiji, one can get a phone
unlocked for a few bucks (couple of guys on a bench in a street
stall).
Triband phones mostly operate on 900/1800/1900 frequencies. There is a
major US deployment of GSM on the "cellular" GSM 850 band. So if you are
with a triband phone on anyone other than Tmobile (which uses only
1900gsm in the US), you will not get adequately covered. You want either
a US centric triband for use in the US with ATT/cingular that operates
on GSM 850/1800/1900 and then get a world triband on GSM 900/1800/1900
and swap sims in and out (trivially easy to get most gsm phones
unlocked), OR you want a quadband like the moto v600 or treo 600 GSM
which operate on 850/900/1800/1900.
voicestream is t-mobile. telephant stupidity and error rate are
proportional to size. hence, coverage and intl roaming with clue
and good billing are not likely.
Verizon now has a worldphone that will roam onto vodafone GSM
internationally. Their rates don't appear to be too prohibitive. Though
if you are going to be calling a lot while abroad, I suggest picking up
an unlocked nokia 6310i and prepaid sims as you fly into airports.
Put up a web page with your current phone number of choice.
Also note due to fraud mitigation, most phones only allow you to call
within the country you are in or back to the home country, all the while
charging you an exhorbitant price.
If you _really_ need to be connected at all times, get a sat phone. Some
mobile gsm roaming charges are more expensive than a globalstar.
/vijay
Now that AT&T has followed T-Mobile's example by screwing the pooch on my
cell phone billing, and I've flung yet another SIM-locked Motorola V600
out the window of yet another moving vehicle, and am about to enter into
another year long "you violated the agreement first" small claims battle, I
need a new GSM provider. I'm going to buy an unlocked tri-band GSM this
time. Anybody had notable (good or bad) billing and/or customer service
experiences with Voicestream or any other GSM provider with native coverage
in the San Francisco Bay Area?
Voicestream IS t-mobile, at least out here.
-Dan
Now that AT&T has followed T-Mobile's example by screwing the pooch on my
cell phone billing, and I've flung yet another SIM-locked Motorola V600
out the window of yet another moving vehicle, and am about to enter into
another year long "you violated the agreement first" small claims battle,
Been there. The court saga for only few $$$ is usually not worth your time
and any collection efforts for contested cellphone (and most other telco)
charges and contracts can be stopped with couple properly written letters
(its their job to go after you in court, not yours).
I need a new GSM provider. I'm going to buy an unlocked tri-band GSM this
time.
Anybody had notable (good or bad) billing and/or customer service
experiences with Voicestream or any other GSM provider with native coverage
in the San Francisco Bay Area?
http://www.gsmworld.com/roaming/gsminfo/cou_us.shtml
But as far as I know T-Mobile and ATT are the only two nationwide GSM
providirs (Cingular too, but I hear it will soon be same as ATT).
In my opinion GSM is really overrated and not seriously well deployed in US,
consider CDMA providers, at least internet access would be faster
(and typically cheaper) if you're using smartphone.
Way off topic, hit delete now.
Triband phones mostly operate on 900/1800/1900 frequencies. There is a
major US deployment of GSM on the "cellular" GSM 850 band. So if you are
with a triband phone on anyone other than Tmobile (which uses only
1900gsm in the US), you will not get adequately covered. You want either
a US centric triband for use in the US with ATT/cingular that operates
on GSM 850/1800/1900 and then get a world triband on GSM 900/1800/1900
and swap sims in and out (trivially easy to get most gsm phones
unlocked)
I've had no drama at all going internation with T-Mobile service, using an
unlocked (nokiafree.org) AT&T 6310i phone.
if you are going to be calling a lot while abroad, I suggest picking up
an unlocked nokia 6310i and prepaid sims as you fly into airports.
Put up a web page with your current phone number of choice.
Ugh. Much more convenient to just carry your phone with you 
Also note due to fraud mitigation, most phones only allow you to call
within the country you are in or back to the home country, all the while
charging you an exhorbitant price.
Um, sorry but I've never seen this. I used to world-roam on AT&T, and now
I do it with T-Mobile and never had any such drama. Kind of hard to place
a call in Europe without calling the next country over
AT&T used to rip me a new one for intl->intl calls, but t-mobiles rates are
roughly half that and apparently do pass-thru charges for calls which don't
leave a given providers network...? Anyway, I spent nearly a month in
Spain this spring and my cell phone was my only contact, for both voice and
many long hours of GPRS internet access, and the bill was only $890 or
something similar.
(I had a few 2.5k phone bills on similar length trips to England while
using AT&T...)
That used to be true, but has fast fallen away out here in Cali.
Motorcycle racetracks are out in the boondocks, and are often the last
places to get good cell coverage. About a two years ago GSM phones started
having better coverage than CDMA even at those locations, at which point I
gave up and went GSM
I have had nothing but terrific customer support from T-Mobile in the Boston
area. They even answer the phone! Their coverage is spotty in many
areas I have travelled around the U.S., but it is improving and you can set
your handset to auto-seek an available network. (They have reciprocal
roaming agreements with AT&T and Cingular.).
However in large parts of Maine there is NO service anywhere.
Voicestream was bought by T-Mobile.
You can get unlocked handsets off eBay; I bought two Motorola triband
units for $80 each. Notes from my T-Mobile rep:
- OUTDATED HANDSETS:
-Nokia 8890: some problems
-Motorola Timeport series (all except one model is triband including
L7089). Larger than V series. P280 is triband but has problems
-Siemens one triband model. Problems.
-[JR also finds: MOT P8097 Ericson R520]
- Meg says can buy in aftermarket unlocked triband (or T-Mobile/Voicestream)
Ericson T68m or T68i, Mot P7389 Timeport or L7089 (buy on eBay)
My daughter will take that Motorola V600! (She nags me daily to buy one for
her.)
Jeffrey Race
ditto. color me clueless, but AT&T worked once upon a time, and T-Mobile works quite well for me now.
This is more of an issue in SE asia in my experience than in europe.
/vijay
voicestream is tmobile everywhere
voicestream is tmobile everywhere
i forgot to mention that there is a bit of a boom-giggle
in there. t-mumble paid about $3,400 per customer to buy
voicescream.
randy
vijay gill wrote:
> > Also note due to fraud mitigation, most phones only allow you to call
> > within the country you are in or back to the home country, all the while
> > charging you an exhorbitant price.
> Um, sorry but I've never seen this. I used to world-roam on AT&T, and now
> I do it with T-Mobile and never had any such drama.
This is more of an issue in SE asia in my experience than in europe.
Sorry, again YMMV but I had no trouble with this in either Taiwan or
Singapore, when I was responsible for support in those countries, Japan and
Korea combined. I never saw a problem calling between any of those.
Not saying it isn't so, just saying I never had this trouble me-self
Just wondering: what do you guys pay per minute when roaming on GSM networks abroad? For me it's around 1 euro ($1 excluding sales tax) to call within the country itself or back home and about half that for receiving calls in most European countries and the US.
While this thread is rapidly become more annoying than a rectal itch to
edward scissorhands, at the risk of continuing this some more, here is
the roaming from ATT wireless for india,
http://www.attwireless.com/international/travelguide/coverage_details.jsp?CIDL=356
Calls to international designations other than the USA are not allowed.
Lets see Malayasia
You may not be able to place calls to international destinations other
than United States while roaming in this country. Calls can be
completed within the visited country and back to the United States.
Ditto Pakistan
Bangladesh
Indonesia
etc.
I am sure there are many counterexamples where it worked for you, but
I've recently as of May this year, have international calls other than
the US fail for me while on ATT while in SE Asia.
YMMV, HTH, HAND, etc etc
/vijay
<http://www.t-mobile.com/international/coverage.asp>
USA users roaming abroad payUS$ 0.99, 1.49, 1.99 2.99 or 4.99 /min depending
on location
Secret is to get a local sim card in foreign countries.
Jeffrey Race
You can get most of these phones unlocked from the sim lock
and then <british>flog</british> it on ebay - goes to the time
and effort costs of the aggrevation of dealing with mobile
operators.
Regards,
Neil.
t-mobile usa has significant holes in thier roaming agreements as far as I'm concerned... the most glaring ones in my recent past were korea telecom, and sonatel (senegal). t-mobile deutschland of course roams both places.
joelja
t-mobile usa has significant holes in thier roaming agreements as far as
I'm concerned...
Here in Austin, 3 years ago voicestream sold most of their GSM towers to
ATT, and then sold their out-of-luck customers to tmoble.
tmoble still drops every call on IH-35 by Capitol Plaza Mall.
-bryan bradsby
AT&T spun off AT&T Wireless a couple of years ago, and the spinoff is
renting the brand name and the Death Star logo, and probably buys a
bunch of network and telco service from AT&T but is otherwise
unconnected. As a stockholder of the spinoff company, I'm
disappointed though not surprised that they annoyed you (they've been
annoying lots of their customers recently), but my stock isn't much
affected because Cingular has offered to buy them for $15/share, so
the stock price has stabilized in the mid-$14 range until that happens
or dies.
Meanwhile, AT&T has started to resell Sprint Wireless to their
business customers.