There is a service (Point.com?) which drives all over in vans measuring signal strength and # of calls dropped. Try Googling it.

Sprint sucks monkey nuts. Switched from them to T-Mobile and have been much happier. (Haven't trusted AT&T since they chose the Death Star for their corporate logo....)

Mark -- the problem is that I don't think that T-Mobile will work very well where I am, unfortunately. Everybody in my family is switching to T-mobile from AT&T, but I dunno if that's an option out here. T-Mobile seems to be strongest in cities ...

When I left AT&T, I went to Verizon. I'm very happy with their service!

Yeah, I switched from AT&T Verizon, too. Pretty happy with the service.

I'm on Sprint, and have been reasonably satisfied with them. They even have decent coverage in greater New Haven land. However, they were lousy during the blackout in NYC last year. Coworkers on T-Mob were able to place calls much sooner than I.

I was with SprintPCS for about 4 years. The big complaints I have had:

- lousy lousy retail locations that don't seem to ever have complete stock. i have found this true at multiple locations here in the city

- during the first year, billing deptartment would send me past due notices even after they cashed my check before the due date. no idea why. pain in the butt.

- the buildings i have been working in all seem to be in dead zones for Sprint. co-workers with AT&T and VZN were all walking around with working phones.

- phones kind of dorky.

- bad coverage in rural areas where my family likes to live.

I moved my wife and I to Verizon and we have been quite happy.
Great coverage (i get calls at my office - woo hoo!)
Decent selection of phones (we both have the Motorola V60 which I think (imho) is one of the best on the market).
Retail stores for customer service has been very pleasant. This is unnerving. :)

my wife travels all over, and she has had no problems as well. I believe they have one of the best networks overall.

Only con...
I am lusting after some of the GSM phones which aren't VZN compatible yet.

good luck.

I used Sprint as my case study in a business school class on the topic of "Most Miserable Customer Service."

Their coverage in NY was adequate but when I had my phone stopped working one day and I took it into a large retail outlet of theirs in Manhattan they basically refused to help me, accused me of breaking it on purpose and lying about it, and when I balked at the way they were treating me and asked to speak to a manager, they said I would need to call their general customer service center from the store. I sat on hold for 45 minutes *IN THEIR STORE* waiting to talk to someone. That person, when they finally got on, said they could do something about my situation, but I wasn't a profitable enough customer for them to make the effort. Needless to say, once my contract was up I changed to AT&T (which I, for one, never had any problems with in New York/Brooklyn).

Now, when the (unfortunately clever and seductive) Sprint commercials come on, my wife and I make the squint-eyed, split-finger curse gesture taught to us by a Greek soccer fan at the 1994 World Cup game when the Greek goalie let Bulgaria's 3rd of 4 goals dribble through his legs.

I vowed in the Sprint office that day to emphatically bad mouth Sprint forever more in the hopes of denying them revenues equal to what they stole from me. Ptah! A curse on Sprint!

I'm with Verizon now (AT&T's coverage is spotty in Southern California) and have never been happier. Nadine is with T-Mobile and doing fine as well.

For what it's worth, my T-Mobile phone is a Motorola V66; in the last 15 months I was on 6 continents, and it worked like a charm everyplace. Nothing fancy by current standards, but very functional, especially when using the hands-free headsets.

T-Mobile also made it very easy to switch international service "on"; the only thing I don't like about them is their web site didn't always want to work overseas for some reason.

If you've got a friend with T-Mobile who's willing to loan you a phone (and minutes) borrow them and test them where you live. I can't stress enough how much I hated Sprint.

I had Sprint service through Working Assets and didn't run into any real trouble in NYC, although I had a similar experience (at least with regard to cell phone availability) on the blackout day. I will be switching to Verizon, however, as, out here on the Oregon coast, I might as well be talking into a piece of kelp.

Ah, kelp. Always funny.

I'd just like to say thanks to Ennis for starting this thread, and thanks to everyone who's posted. I'm leeching off all your good advice, because Emily and I are about to take the plunge with a joint plan, new service + phones, etc. and we're sort of torn about where to go.

What's precipitating this move are our plans to marry and get ourselves down to one bill; and, admittedly more important, our gadget lust, which is tempting us toward cool Treo phones. (I love that my fiancee is a fellow gadget freak.)

I think every newpaper article comparing service plans begins with the same graf: "Everyone complains about their cell phone provider. So how do you choose one?" True enough....

I have had Verizon service for more than five years now: first through work, then kept my number and service with Verizon when I left the company – oh my GOD will you not believe how tough they made that (switching an account from corporate to personal). Indeed, Verizon pissed me off enough over billing/ownership issues over the years – they used to turn the phone off every six months, despite my flawless payment schedule, because they were confused over who owned the account – that I swore to myself I'd dump them as soon as I had the chance.

I have softened on Verizon recently, partly because my billing problems finally stopped and mostly because their service has become the most reliable in NYC. Indeed, I was with Trip on that fateful blacked-out night last year, and my Verizon phone was the only one working. My fiancee's Sprint phone was also SOL that night.

Emily, who hated Sprint about as much as I used to hate Verizon, has softened a bit on them lately. Their customer service appears to have improved recently, and their coverage finally extended into the Philly suburbs where her mum lives. Still, the cynic in me suspects they're only being nice to her because she's finally out of contract, and as longas she's month-to-month they desperately wanna keep her.

If we want Treos, our choices are Sprint, T-Mobile and Cingular. (Verizon, with its old CDMA network, is right out.) I'm still not sure I trust Sprint, despite Emily's recent impressions; and Cingular's impending AT&T merger creeps me out. Enough people here are effusing about T-Mobile that I think they may be the winner in our contest – although Emily smirks when she thinks about us throwing our business to, effectively, the Germans; she spent enough time living in Germany and using Deutsche Telekom equipment that she laughs at the Germans' ability to run anything technological.

So, final question, as long as I'm hijacking this thread: Has ANYONE heard a horror story related to T-Mobile? They can't be spotless; everybody complains about a cell provider sometime. Anyone?

Hey, if you guys have gadgetlust (mechanizierenfondelnemotzionenheit), you should definitely check out the Sidekick: http://www.geek.com/hwswrev/pda/danger/

It's a T-Mobile device, I think. My friend Evany has one and it positively blew my mind when she showed it to me. Or at least entertained me significantly. (I can put you in touch with her if you like.) It's a great combination of web and phone, in a completely groovy design (much more funtastic than the Treo, in my mind). Great ergonomics and a much higher hipness factor. Let's face it, Treos are for squares and salesmen. I think the Sidekick would be cool enough for the Owlanphys.

Only if they could record their own voices as the ringtone, so that when they got a call, everyone in a 5-block radius would hear, "PHYOW! PHYOW!".

I love my Sidekick for a number of reasons. Most of all, I love how it has all the functions of a high-end Executive Smartphone (email, Web, IM, SMS... even a terminal emulator!) while design-wise, it's a faddish, plasticky piece of youthtech. (And if you think I'm a fan, you should see some of the people on the forums I sometimes read, who own multiple Sidekicks and have given their devices NAMES.) HOWEVER, the Sidekick has a number of major flaws (aside from being as chunky as a bar of soap):

1) It's not a very good phone. Its speaker is small and awkwardly placed and there's no standard phone keypad. You either have to use the jogdial and the onscreen keypad or flip the screen up and use the keyboard. Both are rather difficult. Not a big deal for me (I'm more of a data user than a talker) but I'm probably atypical.

2) Unlike Palm, PC and Symbian phones, It has a closed operating system that does not allow you to add any of your own applications. You're stuck with whatever apps Danger deigns to give you (or these days, sell you). For me, that means that although I am excrucriatingly sick of Shuffle and the other games that came with the Sidekick and I really want Bejeweled, I just have to lump it.

3) The camera. It's great to have and it's part of what attracted me to the Sidekick, but... how did the poster above put it? It sucks monkey nuts.

As for T-Mobile, it's mostly fine, but I reiterate the above warnings about trying to use it outside major cities. Even in Brooklyn, I find that coverage dies in random places and at random times. However, I do love having GSM. Although the Sidekick isn't a world phone, when I go to Europe I can rent one pretty cheaply and use my SIM card, thus keeping my number. (Owlanphy warning: T-Mobile seems rather slow to provide activation deals on new phones--the most popular models are often backordered. Palm may have announced a T-Mobile Treo, but you may have to wait a while to get it from T-Mobile.)

Anyway, I plan to upgrade from the Sidekick as soon as a phone arrives that has both a better camera AND a full keyboard. I hope T-Mobile offers it, because they have the best data plan. Right now, my dream device is the Nokia 6820. Only problem is, it only works in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Damn them and their borders!

Kelp!

well, it was funny when Colin said it ... it must be all in the delivery.

Just ordered a T-mobile phone from Amazon (they were $180 cheaper than circuit city and $200 cheaper than T-mobile itself). Decided to go with T-mobile based on all your feedback, even though I could get a slightly better deal with Sprint, in the end I was uneasy about their service. After I found out that T-mobile has a tower nearby where I live, I figured it would be a safe enough deal.