Best Cellular Phone

[Stickles01]

Ok, here's the deal. My father works in rural and urban(if there is such a thing) West Virginia. He drives all over God's green earth as an insurance adjuster. At times he needs reliable cellular phone service, but finds it difficult in some mountainous areas and valleys. Does anyone have any experience with cellular phones in hilly areas and possibly have some links to reviews. I know there are alot of EEs and CpEs here that can give me some good advice. Any help will be appreciated.

Thank you,

Ryan

 

[paulr]

It's much more a matter of where the carrier has towers than anything having to do with technical characteristics of the phone. In general, Verizon seems to have the best coverage in the boonies, but nobody is really very good. If you need a phone that works everywhere, satellite phones are actually getting sort of affordable (under $1000 for the phone and around $1/minute for airtime, not that much more than some analog cellular plans from 10 years ago). But that may still be too expensive, and also may still not work so well in valleys or under tree cover.

Edit: one thing that can help is using a car phone (one that's installed in the car, not a portable) with an external antenna. Car phones are more powerful than portable phones and the external antenna increases the range quite a lot too.

 

[Stickles01]

I know, that's what I tried to tell my father, but he kept saying, "I don't care about towers, I want the best phone." It's hard to explain to someone who won't listen. I kept trying to tell him about wave propagation and reflection and transmission but he kept saying the same thing over and over again. He has that crappy Mitsubishi CDMAOne phone that has the removeable face plates, I admit, that phone sucks. I told him to get a phone with a large antenna and he would get better reception. I also informed him to get a handsfree car kit like I have, and he would usually get service anywhere. I told him to go with GSM as it is the new coding standard out now, and most providers will be offering it shortly, mostly because of higher bandwidth. Oh well, any more insight into the mountainous region and phone use experiences would be very helpful.

Thank you paulr

 

[BobVA]

What paulr said /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

It's best to check around with friends to see how the carriers in your area fare for coverage. Common wisdom is Verizon usually has the best coverage, but your locality could vary.

Definitely get a tri-mode phone that still includes 800 MHz analog. A lot of the newer phones are only digital - some of the older cell sites in the boonies are only analog, so you can see the problem of a digital only phone.

Do some research on USENET (do a Google search and click "groups") and check out reactions to any phone/carrier you'reconsidering. Try

"West Virginia" coverage cell

as a start.

Cell phones aren't created equal - some have much better performance in marginal signal areas than others, with car phones performing much better than handhelds. If you have the option to use a car phone (or an amplifier kit for a hand held) you'll get a lot better performance in the boonies. Car phones can run up to 5 watts and have higher gain antennas than handhelds (they have a max of 0.6 watts and inefficent antennas). Car phones are pretty specialized bits of kit, and even the amplifiers are getting hard to find. You may have to check around or get a referal to a shop from the carrier.

As a starter, check out the Motorola V60 on Verizon with a car kit.

Cheers,
Bob

 

[tiktok 22]

I'm with Verizon. They really do have the best coverage around. Got a Samsung sch-a530. Love it. It's all digital though, so if your in a low level region, you might not be able to call. My brother has the exact same package that I do and never had any problem with the trip he just made to Florida.

 

[Stickles01]

thanks fo the help, bob and tiktok.

 

[MicroE]

I have Verizon Wireless (VZW) and live in one of the most densely populated parts of the country (Bergen County, NJ). Overall VZW has the best service in NJ.
But there is NO VZW service in my town.
Sprint put up a tower in town but VZW didn't put an antenna on it.
No matter what phone you get and what network you use there will always be areas with no coverage.

 

[JohnJ80]

Picking the service is more important than picking the phone. Ask around about the service in the areas that he is in and see what is best there.

To get the best coverage from any phone he selects, make sure that it has analog roaming support too. That footprint is larger but the voice quality is much poorer most of the time.

That all being said, if he uses it in the car, there are 3W boosters that can be installed that work with most cell phones. Adding that will help him get the tower's attention and prevent the tower from dropping him. Then if he gets a phone that has the most sensitive receiver, then that will help the phone from dropping him.

I guess what I have heard, and I don't know how accurate it is, but Motorola is supposed to have the best recievers around. I know that my moto phone performs better than my sony ericson z600 but the SE kills moto on the ergonomics and reliability (over the T722).

So, I don't know if there is all that much difference from the actual phones, but getting the thing on an external antenna on the car is also a big deal in helping get better coverage. A lot of phone support that through their car kits.

J

 

[BuddTX]

Try using the search engine, there are often lots of good previous threads floating around!

CPF - Which Cell Phone and Provider ?

More Cell Phone Stuff

 

[GarageBoy]

www.howardforums.com THE place for cells

 

[felder]

Are you the same GarageBoy as from Blade Forums?

 

[felder]

Verizon has generally the best coverage and best customer service, but unfortunately different providers have better coverage in different areas. Just because one provider has the best general coverage does not mean that they have the best coverage for your particular area.

Considering what you have said about where the phone is going to be used, I would recommend going with a multiband phone. Digital phones are great in urban areas, but if your father is out in the country or drives all over the place then his best bet is going to be the old AMPS service. The sound quality sucks, and you don't get all the nice digital features but if it is possible to get a signal at all you'll get it with AMPS.

Here's a list of items I'd consider, in the order that I'd consider them:

1. A multiband phone that supports digital with fallback to AMPS service. He will have the best chance of getting continuous service if he can fall back to the AMPS network when out in the country where digital service is often not available.

2. Make sure the digital service utilizes a lower frequency band. Verizon in SF Bay area (where I live) uses 800 MHz CDMA...AT&T used to use 800 MHz TDMA, but are switching to GSM (which is very spotty right now) because TDMA cannot support high speed data transfer. Other services like T-Mobile and Sprint use the 1900 MHz spectrum. The problem with higher frequency bands is that they don't penetrate buildings as well. Both AT&T and Verizon are by far better in this area specifically because they use lower frequency bands. Verizon edges out AT&T because AT&T is transitioning their old TDMA network to their new GSM network. As they make the transition, the old network will get crappier, and the new network won't be fully rolled out for a while.

3. You said your father travels around a lot. If this is in the same general area, make sure the provider you choose has a good regional roaming plan. If he travels all over the country, make sure the provider has a good national roaming plan (like verizon america's choice or AT&T one rate).

4. Make sure the provider you choose has a decent backout clause so you can test out the phone. Verizon gives you two weeks I believe, and AT&T gives you 30 days. This way you can shop around a bit...try out a phone/service and make sure you get good signal whereever you need it. Another good way to test is to talk to other people with phones...ask them what provider they have and how good they think the service is.

5. Phone selection. Notice I put this last, because the best phone in the world isn't worth crap if you can't get signal or it costs way to much to use it. Phone selection should only be a factor if you have two providers that provide the above criteria and thus are having a hard time choosing which one to go with (even still you should try them both to see if coverage is better with one or the other).

 

[MrThompson]

In my area, Verizon has the worst customer service... For service in the local Sierras, ATT is the only way to go.

Moral? Check with your neighbors.

You may enjoy http://www.phonescoop.com for the hardware end of it.