UCI/Irvine People, need opinions on cell phone service

[? (=Þ)]

Okay, only speak from experience using service. I just need to know reception/call quality, dont care about plans or customer serivce, or price of phones etc.

How would you guys rate the following (from whatever you have experience using):

Verizon
Cingular
T-Mobile (I know they are new, but some people might have it already)
AT&T
Nextel
Sprint


thanks!

 

[Imported]

I'd like to know as well, seeing as how I'll be going there this month.. :Q

 

[BoyFreak]

do not get cingular...it is terrible...i live in CV and there is no reception at all there
just kept getting disconnected...have to go outside in order to get barely 1 or 2 bars max

 

[kt]

I've had Sprint and AT&T while I was still at UCI, they both are so so around that area. You'll get blackout in most areas for AT&T and SprintPCS. My friend has Nextel, it's a little better but still no reception in some area of campus.

 

[white]

i heard there was a cell phone tower on the engineering tower building, but i forgot which provider since i don't have a cell phone.

 

[Imported]

Damn.. I currently have Cingular. My contract ends at the end of December though..

 

[bUnMaNGo]

Verizon reception is shady around the ICS buildings. Cingular reception is spotty too but for the most party you get reception, but get the dreaded "system busy" message. Those are the only two I have experience with on campus.

 

[DocZaius]

I get a butt-load of reception with Cingular on and around the UCI campus. Just don't try to call from the basement levels of any of the buildings.

 

[bUnMaNGo]

according to the little newsletter that was posted on websites across campus this past weekend because of the scheduled power outage, there are two Cingular cell sites on campus- one on Engineering Tower, and another on Mesa Arts. Last year during move-in they gave out all those little Cingular sponsored welcome week packs.

 

[Ismisus]

ask them

http://www.anteaterforum.com/

official uci forum

 

[Dragnov]

Okay I sell cell phones and I go to UC Irvine and have pretty much experienced or have friends/customers/workers that have service around this area.

Cingular. Was absolutley horrible a year ago but several new towers. Works good on campus and anywhere near campus of course, but not good in Newport Beach, Corona Del Mar area. (Friends/friend's roomates have experienced) Expect to see LOTS of Nokia phones on campus, so if you dont liek to have a phone everyone else does...

Team Mobile = Cingular (they use the same towers).

AT&T. Average, pretty much anywhere on campus, Irvine, or neighboring cities. Kinda spotty in parts of Irvine though. (ex-roomate had AT&T)

Sprint. Spotty everywhere. Doesn't work well in the dorm rooms. Works avearge in Irvine and enighboring cities at best. (dorm room friend from 2 years ago has Sprint).

Verizon. As someone said before, doesn't work right around the ICS/Engineering buildings. Spotty in some places on campus. Works well in Irvine in general and neighboring cities. (Cingular & AT&T friends have no reception at my place, but my Verizon does... fyi I live right in between the 405 and 5 on Culver.)


FYI, no service will work in particularly great as you start moving west toward the coast. (Huntington Beach, Newport, Corona Del Mar, parts of Irvine, etc). The closer you get to Santa Ana, the better. =P

In general, Verizon is good (they leech off of everyone, 2 digital frequencies + analog = tri-mode), AT&T and Cingular (TDMA, which is going to be phased out or GSM for AT&T/GSM for Cingular) have been doing not so well lately, Team Mobile (GSM) is doing pretty well and might merge/buy out one of them (AT&T or Cingular), Sprint is slowly improving (but its all digital, and uses only one frequency which really bites.. analog roaming is expensive).

And CDMA provides better reception than GSM at the moment (you can take them farther away from the towers) but the phones are less full featured usually, but you said you dont care about that. GSM phones are the only ones that would ever work internationally also (if they are Tri-Band)

And don't go to Anteater Forum. It's horrible, its pretty much juast liek a group of 5 friends or so replying to each other the entire time.

Last but not least, I don't know anything about nextel.

 

[Ismisus]

it does have 106 members which is pretty large proportionally assuming all of its members are actually students. So I don't think its just 5 friends.

 

[SigEpUCI]

I have Sprint... the coverage has gotten much better over the last 3 years, but its pretty bad in many places on campus. OTOH if you go with cingular, you risk not being able to make/receive calls every now and then. (Seems like it happens the network gets overloaded alot).

 

[Dragnov]

Originally posted by: Ismisus
it does have 106 members which is pretty large proportionally assuming all of its members are actually students. So I don't think its just 5 friends.

There are 106+ members okay.. (I am one of them), but how many of them actualy post regularly? If you read most of the threads its usually just about 5 or so of them talking to each other calling each others names or something. ATOT is MUCH better.

 

[Rakkis]

Originally posted by: Ismisus
ask them

http://www.anteaterforum.com/

official uci forum

aef is NOT the official forum for uci. a great place for anteaters to post though.

from what i've heard, cingular has the less spotty service on campus. however, around lunch, you'll be lucky to get a call through. system gets very very busy at that time.

sprint, att, t-mobile are very good in the orange county area. however, a number of my friends have problems getting a signal inside some of the older buildings ('65) since their walls are so thick.

 

[Ismisus]

so anteaters...can I survive with my ATT cell phone without installing any "normal" phones in the dorm?

 

[Rakkis]

i haven't heard about reception issues in the dorms. however, telling us which complex you'll be at will get you an answer you can use

a land line should be discussed with your room mate though. (if you'll have one)

 

[? (=Þ)]

thanks for the feedback guys, keep it coming! Im not sure which dorm i will be at, but i would like to know about service overall, and specific areas that are good/bad. I sell cell phones as well, and don't want to sell someone something that is crap.

106 members outta i either 15,000 or 20,000 anteater students (forgot the figure) isnt that big of a pool. I figured anandtech's users should be a large enough group to get a consensus of opinions.

Gr1mL0cK:
Do you know if AT&T and Cingular will be sharing the entire GSM network when they convert to GSM? or will it be a limited sharing thing?

definately i know CDMA in general works well, but i too have heard cingular has errected cell sites on one (maybe more) of the UCI buildings... how is reception inside of buildings w/ GSM carriers even w/ the local cell site? GSM's single frequency tends to suck inside of buildings.

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

I couldn't be happier with Verizon.

nik

 

[datalink7]

Originally posted by: BoyFreak
do not get cingular...it is terrible...i live in CV and there is no reception at all there
just kept getting disconnected...have to go outside in order to get barely 1 or 2 bars max

I'm guessing that you shouldn't go with cingular. Boy Freak thought it was important enough for it to be his first post even though he joined back in May 2001

Must be pretty crappy :Q

 

[Dragnov]

Originally posted by: ? (=&THORN
thanks for the feedback guys, keep it coming! Im not sure which dorm i will be at, but i would like to know about service overall, and specific areas that are good/bad. I sell cell phones as well, and don't want to sell someone something that is crap.

106 members outta i either 15,000 or 20,000 anteater students (forgot the figure) isnt that big of a pool. I figured anandtech's users should be a large enough group to get a consensus of opinions.

Gr1mL0cK:
Do you know if AT&T and Cingular will be sharing the entire GSM network when they convert to GSM? or will it be a limited sharing thing?

definately i know CDMA in general works well, but i too have heard cingular has errected cell sites on one (maybe more) of the UCI buildings... how is reception inside of buildings w/ GSM carriers even w/ the local cell site? GSM's single frequency tends to suck inside of buildings.

AT&T and Cingular sharing thier GSM network? Hmm, to my knowledge, I have no clue. Didn't think they did, but I dunno... AT&T has already converted to GSM (in most parts of the nation) and OC has jsut recently. Pretty good plans... competes very well with Team Mobile. In regards to the GSM phones inside of buildings w/ the local cell sites, I have no clue. My Verizon gets reception in about half teh buildings (works inside the CS building, underground even, but not outside near it)

 

[? (=Þ)]

hmm... im not sure about what exactly is going on w/ AT&T/GSM, but heres my guess:

If AT&T is gonna switch to GSM, I figure they would at least be doing so to expand roaming coverage for their customers to allow them to use cingular networks when AT&T doesn't have coverage.
So I was just guessing that they *might* have some sort of deal where they would share the cell sites? I don't see the point of AT&T building and maintaining their own set of GSM towers in So Cal and restricting any use of them for cingular/t-mobile customers, and vice versa the other way around.

So thats my guess as to whats gonna happen.

in any case, I was hoping to find out how service is down there before the 8th or so, when t-mobile is gonna pull the 1000/3000 min promotions.