Part 1: Carriers

Part 1: Carriers, carriers everywhere.
Part 2 is here: http://imgur.com/gallery/oN9aB/new
part 3 is here : http://imgur.com/gallery/PrbH8lL/new

I worked for Verizon Wireless for a while (over a year). In that time I learned basically all the ins and outs of the great, big, messy system that is Cellular Networking in the USA. Since enough people seem interested in what those are, I am here to give them to you. Welcome to the series “How to only get what you need instead of what they want you to want.” I am starting with the biggest part of the entire Cellular shindig; the carriers themselves.

Let’s talk about the “Big Four”
This would be Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile. It should be noted that, really, there’s only a “Big 2” as Sprint mostly rents Verizon’s network and T-Mobile mostly rents AT&T’s network. They are, more or less, the RC Cola and Mr. Pibb to VZW+ATT’s Coca-Cola and Pepsi. I’ll still go over them, though, as well as where the REALLY small carriers come into play (more local city-or-county based networks). In order to keep it from being terribly ramble-like, I’ve come up with a few categories that allow me to sum up the major points of interest related to these carriers:

How’s the coverage?

How’s the price?

How’s the support?

Will they lie to you and how much?

How controlling are they?

If you know these 5 things, you probably know enough to make a basic choice as far as what direction you want to go in. That will also depend on your own individual needs, but I’ll go over all of that as well.

Verizon:

The one I worked for and, yes, the one that I use. It’s true that Verizon is also more or less the most expensive carrier available, though there are some defendable reasons for that. My family switched from AT&T to Verizon several years ago when I first started off to College, as Verizon was literally the only carrier to get service on my campus at all – everyone else, AT&T included, fell off about 15 minutes up the road. Verizon, on the other hand, had about 4 bars mostly everywhere on campus, and even kept call-capable reception quite far out into the trails that ran behind the main campus (woods). As far as plans go, the cheapest you’re looking at with Verizon is:

$25 – Basic Phone w/700 minutes + Unlimited Texting
$40 – Basic Phone w/Unlimited Call+Text
$60 – Smartphone with 1GB of data

That’s where you start – it goes up from there. The average family 4-pack bill that I came across was in the$200-$250 range, depending on things like Data Limit and Employer Discount. Some were higher, some were lower, and by-and-by this seems like a pretty standard price across the industry – these companies only have to be competitive compared to each other, and there are really only 2 options most people go to, so Verizon and AT&T will usually follow each other’s lead. It’s worth noting that Verizon does not consider Sprint to be a real competitor, despite being the other CDMA Network in the US. I’ll get into that later.

How’s the coverage?

Honestly the coverage is excellent just about everywhere in the USA. While the ‘maps’ each company, including Verizon, likes to wave about are total horsecrap, Verizon really does have the best coverage in the United States. This is, of course, broadly speaking as there are spots on every carrier that just inexplicably don’t have access when it seems they should – there is a street not far from where I live that is right smack in the middle of a coverage area, in the center of a well-populated area, that has absolutely no signal for Verizon but has flawless reception on AT&T. Broadly speaking, Verizon has the best data and call reception coverage, and this claim is indeed backed up by a number of third-party analytics awards every year, but broadly speaking doesn’t mean dick if your house happens to be a deadzone with a specific carrier.

How’s the price?

It’s definitely the upper end. Verizon doesn’t do Unlimited Data anymore, and depending on how much you need it can get expensive very fast. Lower data plans (really anything under 10GB/Mo) are still quite affordable for family plans, but once you start adding more lines than those 10 can reasonably support, be prepared to dig a bit deeper into your wallet.

How’s the support?

You get horror stories from any company’s support. It’s usually all you hear, because nobody bothers reporting good experiences. Verizon is no exception, but I will say this: Go to your local store FIRST. Please, for the love of God, if you are having a problem with your service or equipment, save yourself a world of time and misunderstanding and call the store you purchased your stuff from – the employees there have more knowledge of your account and savvy-ness level, as well as have more time, than the people at Customer Care do. If they need to, THEY can call into Care WITH you in the store. I promise, 100%, that this will get you answers and solutions much faster than simply calling into Care on your own… especially considering they can probably fix the issue without contacting Care at all.

Will they lie to you and how much?

Corporately, they are at worst very misleading to the same degree other carriers are. Again, this more or less goes to matching their primary competitor – AT&T – and the marketing practices of both are rather deceptive without being outright lies. If you ask flat out what your bill will be, they will of course tell you, but take their adverts with a grain of salt (or two). The most prominent one I can think of is “4 lines and 10GB of data for $140 a month with Verizon EDGE” That is to get you in the store. You will never, under any circumstances, be paying JUST $140 + Tax for those 4 lines. It is not possible. AT&T has a very similar advertisement with their NEXT program, and it follows the same rules. I will delve deeper into this conundrum in the post about Plans and Deals, but for now take the big picture point home: Carriers want to get you in the store. Sometimes they use Legalese wording to make that happen.

How controlling are they?

This depends on which service you go with. Presently Verizon offers several different plan options, which I will rate from LEAST CONTROLLING to MOST CONTROLLING, ie; they have less or more control over your account and what you can do with it.

-Pre Paid
-EDGE
-Contract

Prepaid is, obviously, very much in your hands. You don’t want service anymore? Stop adding service to your account. Easy peasy. Done.

The EDGE plan is a very complicated one, but to put it in a nutshell it allows you to choose when you want to get a new phone – you may just have to pay a variable amount in order to get it done. Definitely the plan to go with if you always want the newest thing or have a high-data plan.

Contract refers to the old standard 24 month contract. You pay X for your phone up front, you have service for 2 years or pay a hefty cancellation fee, the only exception is dying. If you use your phone a lot and don’t mind waiting for the latest and greatest, there’s really nothing /wrong/ with the contract plans. This is the standard you’ve had for years.

As far as device compatibility goes though, they are top notch in this category. Verizon 4G Smartphones (Literally everything that has been released since the original iPhone 5 / Samsung Galaxy S3) come unlocked by default and can be taken to any carrier, US or otherwise, with little to no hassle.
We got foreign customers in all the time looking to outright purchase phones to take home with them after their visit because Verizon phones would work on their network. This CAN NOT be said the other way around; sprint phones work on sprint. AT&T phones work with AT&T and sometimes T-Mobile. While you CAN unlock these phones, it is usually a tremendous hassle to do so.

AT&T is one of the ‘Big 2’ providers in the USA, the networking parent company of T-Mobile, and the largest GSM network in the US, with its counterpart Verizon having the largest CDMA network available. It is worth noting that GSM is the network type used by damn near everyone OUTSIDE of the USA, but that CDMA phones generally have compatibility with GSM-based networks programed in. AT&T has fantastic coverage in most places you’re likely to actually go. Yes, Verizon had coverage in my quite middle-of-nowhere college campus and a good mile or two into the woods beyond that, but are you planning on going three miles into nowhere often?

That being said, their prices are EXTREMELY SIMILAR to Verizon’s, and really only get better than verizon’s on larger accounts (5-6+ Phones, 15+GB of data/mo) and are actually MORE expensive on single line plans or very small, 2-3 person accounts in most instances. As with Verizon, AT&T doesn’t offer unlimited data anymore, so your price will be dictated almost entirely off of how much data you need.

Also, as far as contracts go, AT&T has switched entirely over to its NEXT program, in which you pay the phone off in monthly installments instead of paying X up front and being signed in for 2 years. This can be a good thing, this can be a bad thing, it just depends.

How’s the coverage?

Good. It has its hiccups just like Verizon does, and doesn’t extend as far into the boonies as Verizon does, but if you are mostly in well-populated areas or major highways, you really shouldn’t notice a difference. Again, always consider checking if the places you are the MOST (home, work) are in good areas for a specific carrier.

How’s the price?

Oddly, a little high as far as low-level accounts go. You can get a better single-line plan with Verizon. Their larger bundle accounts are very well priced though.

How’s the support?

The exact same rule that I stated for Verizon goes here as well: Go to your store first. I beg you. I can not stress this enough. I have family that has AT&T, I have family that has Verizon, the rule is good across the board ; your store rep will GENERALLY be a better help than someone over the phone at Care, and at the very least your store rep can get answers from Care faster than you can. It’s also worth noting this is for AT&T CELLULAR. U-Verse is its own company that has nothing to do with ATT Cell other than having the same parent name, and in my honest opinion and experience U-Verse is a terrible service with terrible support that is at a terrible price.

Will they lie to you and how much?

To the same degree that advertisers tend to lie to you. See above with Verizon’s section. The primary difference is that now and then AT&T fall victim to the term “promotional pricing” that expires after a certain amount of time, but thankfully this is now almost entirely limited to their Home Services branch, not their cell branch.

How controlling are they?

Quite a bit, surprisingly. This is one area they stand out from Verizon. You basically have to go with the NEXT program now, and their devices do not come unlocked for other US carriers. Make no mistake that the unlock policy is to make it more difficult for you to leave.

Overall, AT&T is by no means a bad cell provider. For larger family plans or those who burn through data it may very well be the economic way to go.

I will warn you now; I do not have good things to say about sprint. SOME people have them and have no problems with them, but in my experience those people are rare. It being the other primary CDMA network in the USA, we learned a lot about them at Verizon since we often had to sell against them and their amazing advertisements. That said I’ll just get right into the primary points.

How’s the coverage?

It’s acceptable in major population centers, and everywhere else it’s shit. You can’t drive from Columbus to Cleveland, using a major highway, without losing service for an extended period of time in the middle. This is a two-hour drive if you’re taking it easy, on one of the largest and most-used highways in the state, between two major population centers. This is extremely common on Sprint. If you are in the proper centers of large cities, Sprint likely has good coverage. If you go out a bit further, in many cases even to the suburbs, the signal starts dropping quickly.

How’s the price?

Not as good as you would expect, especially with the advertisements they run that would have you believe their prices are at most half of what Verizon and AT&T will run you, which is simply not true. On average, Sprint’s service will run you about $20 a month less than what it will on one of the two larger carriers.

How’s the support?

That $20 a month came from somewhere, and this is it. If there was only one reason I could tell you not to pick sprint, it’s this one. I cannot stress to you enough that Sprint’s support is the WORST in the business. Seriously. Go to Bestbuy if you have problems with your sprint service; you are more likely to get help there from a rep that deals with all 4 carriers than by actually calling sprint.

Will they lie to you and how much?

Yes. While it is true that they fall into the same misleading advertising that both Verizon and AT&T do, they are guilty of it to a much more extreme degree. If you live in the US, I’m sure you’ve seen their aggressive marketing campaign saying they will cut your Verizon or AT&T bill in half. What they fail to mention until you are signing the paperwork is that they will only cut your DATA plan in half, you have to turn in your present phones for $0 credit, and you have to purchase new phones from them at full retail value; steep prices that may not actually save you much, if any, money per month when all is said and done. They are also very wily about giving you your own account information, including explaining your bill or giving you your account number.

How controlling are they?

Remember that story about the guy who sat on hold with Comcast for 3 hours trying to get his account number? Hello and welcome to Sprint. They may not be any more controlling than Verizon on paper, but in practice they make it very very difficult to access most of the information relating to YOUR account. The longest part of a port-in process for us at Verizon, with a Sprint customer, was getting the info we needed from Sprint’s customer care team.

They do not have a very good product, and they know it. Maybe it’s a vicious cycle where they can’t improve that product until more people get it, but either way; once you’re in Sprint’s network, they will cling to you for all they are worth and make leaving as difficult as possible for you.
Generally speaking I cannot think of many people who would benefit from Sprint’s level of coverage and prices that would not be BETTER OFF going with an independent carrier like Boost or Page Plus. At least Page Plus isn’t a hassle to leave if you decide to change providers.

T-Mobile:
I’ll be honest; I only ever met two people with T-Mobile in my time at Verizon and we didn’t really study their practices or advertisements all that much.

That being said, I am editing this section due to a number of PMs and Comments. as @gladerunlegend points out in the comments, "Maybe he doesn't know much about them because people don't switch from T-Mobile to Verizon... I think that speaks volumes for T-Mobile." This is entirely possible, especially after a small bit of research into T-Mobile's recent policies and plan rates. They appear to be a rapidly rising competitor in the Cellular field, and it seems you could do a lot worse than checking them out if you're looking for an alternative provider to Verizon or AT&T.

This is the shoutout to smaller-er carriers like Boost, Page, Consumer Cellular, and whatever your local Flavor of the City happens to be. There is not a ton to say about these guys because they are so small, but I will say what I can about them which is primarily who they are good for. If you:
- Live in a large city
- Do not travel often
- Live and Work in an area they have good service
- Do not travel far (different from often)
- Do not need the latest and greatest tech
Congratulations, these carriers are, honestly, probably the best fit for you. Seriously; they often have extremely limited service areas and device selection unless you bring your own from another carrier (like Verizon, since those work on everything), but if you live in a place they work well and do not tend to leave that area, they are insanely cheap and will give you what you need where you need it. Just don’t expect great things when you take a vacation, but hell! If you’re on vacation, maybe leave the phone behind anyway, ya know?

@greekbearinggifts made a handy little mini-guide/informative about one option under this category, Republic Wireless. You can see it and its affordability/options here: http://imgur.com/gallery/ShG34/comment/462056814/1?lr=0

What should I go over next?