OT- Options other than Verizon
- Thread starter Dean Pope
- Start date
US Cellular is good. I think Walmart's straight talk is really the best if you factor in coverage and cost. Heck my daughter bought one of their smart phones for $60-$70 and there is not much difference between that phone and my galaxy S8. Plus she only pays $45 a month for data and unlimited call and text.
when our contract comes up in march we are all switching to that. Great service all through out I-80 all the way to Denver with it.
when our contract comes up in march we are all switching to that. Great service all through out I-80 all the way to Denver with it.
US Cellular. Every time I have checked, they're around$10 per line cheaper than Verizon. Very decent coverage in rural areas
Sprint coverage is not good, I live near 128th and Harrison and frequently drop calls in my house, when I go to Denver I don't have a signal for at least a third of the time or more, while my friends have it the entire way with Verizon...
I pay the cell bill for 4 people, and if our hardware wasn't so old and didn't require a switch, I'd do the Walmart straight talk as well, in fact I used that plan as bait to get Sprint to knock a few bucks off my bill.
I pay the cell bill for 4 people, and if our hardware wasn't so old and didn't require a switch, I'd do the Walmart straight talk as well, in fact I used that plan as bait to get Sprint to knock a few bucks off my bill.
For 4 people? Should qualify for the unlimited from Verizon for $40 a line.
Need to upgrade your hardware and dont want to pay the ridiculous monthly cost of a new phone for 2 years or whatever? Now you have to be able to swing however much you can upfront, but Swappa.com is AWESOME. Can find mint and new in box phones for pretty good prices. If you are willing to go a generation or two older than what is current, can save a bundle.
I have very few issues with sprint unless you are going to very rural nebraska. I drove from york to Denver with kids no issues. I've been all over the US, Mexico, puerto Rico, and no issues. A few issues in the mountains of PR when I was touring, but always had service to call just no data
Maybe different phones have better cell reception? I had zero service in downtown Blair, NE this summer.
We have Straight Talk and absolutely love it. For $45 per line you get 10GB data (actually might be 15GB now) and unlimited talk and text. Uses Verizon towers so our coverage has been great. We live in GI. My wife is from Imperial, so we head there quite a bit. And we've also made four trips via Hwy 2 to the Black Hills in the past year. We've been in some pretty remote areas and have had solid coverage except in the most remote areas or occasional low spot.
How the hell are you not on WiFi calling in your house?
Solution to spotty coverage is to have a phone and carrier that supports WiFi calling. You are spending 95%+ of your time at home or at work and you probably have WiFi both places. At home you're paying for that WiFi. Why pay again for a certain carrier to have a certain level of cell signal at home?
If you live someplace rural and there's only one carrier with towers out there, that's your answer.
I'm on Republic Wireless and never, ever going back. My bill is about $24. They have cell bandwidth from Sprint and one other carrier, the signal has been much better than when I was on T-Mobile. Same thing that Straight Talk does. No problems driving to NE and back, never an issue with call quality.
Bought a phone at Best Buy, got a SIM card to put in it, easy peasy. It was like $155 for the phone and the card, it's a Moto G4 that I got a year or two ago.
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I use Republic Wireless and think it's worth it. They recently raised my bill by 50% and I still stuck with them. Went from $10 a month to $15 a month for unlimited calls and text. Do your research and know what you want. This is a great service for people who are a bit DIY and don't mind a few hiccups along the way.
How it works for me: I am on the road a lot for work and cell coverage has been great in rural areas. I bought a Garmin GPS for my car and use saved playlists on Spotify for my music. When not on the road I've found nearly every public place has Wifi. I use a VPN for privacy and haven't had any issues.
If you want a super cheap cell and text setup Republic is hard to beat. If you want Data, Straight Talk might be the way to go.
How it works for me: I am on the road a lot for work and cell coverage has been great in rural areas. I bought a Garmin GPS for my car and use saved playlists on Spotify for my music. When not on the road I've found nearly every public place has Wifi. I use a VPN for privacy and haven't had any issues.
If you want a super cheap cell and text setup Republic is hard to beat. If you want Data, Straight Talk might be the way to go.
I find Republic's data prices to be very competitive. It's basically $5 per GB and you'd have a hard time beating that anywhere else. I do 1GB of data per month, then if we have a road trip and I want to stream music while driving I'll buy a spare gig.
Short version is that if you want to burn through a lot of data on your phone, you're going to pay a lot for it. In most cases it's a waste of time and money. I love having the 1 GB cap because it makes me really think about whether it's worth it to mindlessly scroll through Facebook on my phone and spend my data on that.
I certainly can. I think most carriers and new-ish phones should support it.
Even if you need a new phone, it makes a lot more sense to spend $150 on a mid-grade smartphone one time than it does to overpay by $70 every month.
Try Swappa litespeed. Could upgrade that phone for CHEAP. For instance you could go s7 for around $200 mint.
That is definitely the way the industry is heading (quickly)
Anybody know how's T-Mobile service and reception in Omaha & Lincoln area? Can't be as bad as Sprint and maybe Att.
Rank your carriers from top to bottom for Omaha and Lincoln.
Rank your carriers from top to bottom for Omaha and Lincoln.
1) Verizon - best coverage in NE hands down
2) AT&T - very good but can get spotty in rural parts
3) TMo - middle of the pack
4) Sprint - extremely spotty coverage outside of any towns for data.
Avoid Tracfone.. while they use AT&T or other networks, their service has really deteriorated the last 4 months for me. To be honest, I get the impression that all MVNO's are getting squeezed by the big 4 cellular operators.
Anyone else noticing lack of LTE or data connectivity if you're on a secondary provider?
Anyone else noticing lack of LTE or data connectivity if you're on a secondary provider?
