Hey,
Believe it or not, I still do not have a cell phone.
Can I get a home AND business # on the SAME cell phone?
Can my wife and I carry phones that have BOTH of these #s?
What features do you advise for cell phones?
What companies do you think have BAD service?
Thank you
Cingular is the only cell phone company in the United States with a unionized workforce. I’ve never heard anyone I know who uses them complain about the service.
I have no idea about the price comparisons, though.
I use Verizon because they are my local, long distance, and DSL carrier and I got a package deal by having all my services together. I have no complaints about the service or coverage.
The advantage of Sprint, so it seems, is that you are not charged for minutes used after 7:00 PM, whereas Verizon and Cingular don’t start with the free minutes until after 9:00 PM.
Good luck choosing.
Don’t forget Virgin. It is what my parents use (I thankfully don’t have a cellphone), and it has a great pay as you go service. I think you HAVE to pay $20 a month no matter how much you call, but other than that you just “top up” on your phone using your credit card however much money (minutes) you want.
I like Cingular.
Rollover minutes,
Free mobile to mobile(with any other cingular person)
I believe its 20 cents a minute to call to Canada, not too bad.(im not for sure about that figure though).
Phonewise, (cause im buying a new one one tomorow)
Bluetooth(downloadable songs onto phone for free and free wireless connection to other phones to get their songs onto yours)
Camera (just a must have 
)
Speakerphone(not a must but helps when talking with families)
(CHEAP) hehe.
I like flip phones better than normal ones.
Oh, also on cingular you can add a line and share minutes with the main line for only $10 a month.
I know you could of asked your dog and got better information but thats mine 2 cents.
KH.
they moved it down to $15 a while ago and how have it so you can make your own plan. Virgin mobile is a great phone service if you don’t plan using it a whole lot. If you do or want extra features go with another service provider.
We have three cell phones between the four of us all on Verizon. They seem to have the best reception in our neck of the woods. I am somewhat unhappy with my current phone at the moment though. It doesn’t seem to have the power necessary to have reception inside of certain buildings whereas my office partner (now former office partner) can get reception with his Verizon phone. One of the differences between his and mine is that he has an extendo-antenna and mine has a stubby. Could be other unseen differences as well.
I did learn recently that phone manufacturers make phones for specific services. I had to buy a replacement phone for the boys recently, got it off eBay. I had to make sure that the phone was specifically for Verizon service and had CDMA/GPS capability, something to be aware of when buying phones from other than the service provider.
When Brad reaches high school, we’ll probably add a fourth phone, change over to other than DSL Internet service and possibly drop our landline phone service.
Bruce
I’m in need of a cell phone, and a couple of days I talked to a guy at one of the multi-carrier kiosks.
He said that Verizon has the best coverage, but is generally more expensive. Cingular is good all-around. T-moblie has some of the least coverage, but its cheap. My mom has sprint and thier costomer service is horrible, I wouldnt consider them for that reason.
Go to one of the stores/kiosk things where they have a bunch of carriers, so they aren’t biased, and talk to them.
Good for you! 
If nothing else, you can pay for two #'s and forward one to the other so that both go to the same cell phone. I have no idea how the pricing would work though.
It is technically feasible to have two cell phones that will ring with the same number, however, I don’t know if any of the cell carriers sell such a service currently.
Just the basics, unless you really want to take pictures and send text messages.
I believe Sprint has bad service in general. I believe Verizon Wireless has good service in general. And I believe Cingular and T-mobile have good service in some places.
Unless you’re only going to make a few calls, you should probably avoid the pay as you go services. They’re mostly designed for people with bad credit or no credit. So their prices tend to be less competitive.
Verizon is my favorite. I had been using cingular, and it was okay. But whenever I had a problem and went to their customer service the way they treated me was horrible.
Verizon’s customer service is really good.
Thats just another reason to go with verizon.
In the UK we have phones that can take to sim cards - so you can have two separate numbers. I don’t know about your wife having the same numbers though.
Obviously we have different companies here so I can’t comment on that.
I personally got a phone that I thought looked absolutely gorgeous. I have never been interested in mobile phones before and only had one incase of emergencies (usually one of the daughters wanting to borrow money). But I fell in love with the Motorola V3i. Totally not needed stuff on it like an mp3 player, 1.2 megapixel camera, bluetooth and so on. And I can even put a mini sd card in it and carry around even more junk on that. Oh I am a happy chappy.
Cathy
Wow! So many useful pieces of info so FAST.
THanks!!
Still accepting help. I’m in the USA.
You actually can’t have two phones ring on the same number. If two phones exist on the system with the same number, when someone calls it starts searching all the cells to find your phone. If there are two phones with the same namber when the system finds a phone it stops looking. Whichever one it finds first will ring and he other will be ignored.
There is really no reason to have two phones on the same number though. You couldn’t both be on the same call anyway.
Your best bet would just to have two phones with the different numbers and then set up a call forwarding number that would try one phone and then the other.
not Cingular
I am employed as an engineer in the wireless telecom industry, so I know the technology is available. Whether it is or ever will be sold as a consumer product is another issue.
Id say stay away from Rogers, they have horriable service (customer service, and reception). I dont know if you even have the same companies there tho.
I will NEVER, EVER, use cingular ever again.
Their service is ok until you have a problem. Then prepare to have everyone in customer service waste your time and run you around in circles untiil you get frustrated and give up.
I absolutely detest cingular.
Verizon is better in both their network and customer service.
Tmobile has the best customer service, in my experience, and their network is OK, but not as good as Verizion.
I’ve used all 3, and I’ll stick with T-mobile for their customer service and pricing.
Here’s a letter I snail-mailed (with headset enclosed) to Cingular regarding an issue I had with them. They finally did refund my money, but it was a day late and a dollar short.
Dear Cingular Customer Support Representative,
Last month, I purchased two new Sony Ericsson phones, ported over a number from Verizon wireless and signed up for a new two year agreement with Cingular via your Telesales department, an action I now very much regret.
The reason I regret this action is because of your entire organization’s extremely poor customer service.
You see, with the Sony Ericsson T237 phone, I ordered a Plantronics MX-100 Headset for $24.99. This headset was recommended by the sales agent, but, as we soon discovered, this headset does not work with Sony Ericsson phones!
The solution is simple, exchange the headset for one that works with a Sony Ericsson phone.
My girlfriend, for whom the phone was purchased, called customer service was told that a new headset would be sent. It never came. When she called again, she was told that I would need to call since the account was in my name.
So I called customer service, who I then explained the problem to, but they said they could not help and told me to call Telesales since I bought the phone through them. I then called Telesales who said that they would be unable to help me and told me to call customer service. I was then told by customer service that they were unable to supply me with an appropriate headset and to visit your retail location at 3900 Piedmont Ave. Oakland, CA who would swap the headset for us.
So we visited this retail location and were told by a sales representative that they could not swap the headsets and that we would need to call Telesales. This was not an acceptable answer so we asked to speak to the manager. The manager told us the same thing. After going several rounds with the retail manager I gave up. I am incapable of understanding why the manager of your store is not empowered to exchange a $24.99 item. We left your store fuming.
So far, between my girlfriend and I, we have made at least 5 phone calls and one drive to your store for this $24.99 item. I estimate the total time spent on this one issue to be about 5 hours. I don’t know about you, but my time is valuable. It’s really hard to quantify how valuable, but for my services, I charge $75 per hour. Using this as a measure, this item has cost me $399.99 ($375 for my time + $24.99 for the headset).
Your organization failed at each opportunity to provide decent customer service.
So, I give up. You guys win. Here is the headset back because I have no use for it and do not want it. I also have no energy left to keep pursuing this issue. It is more efficient just to buy a new one. I’m stuck with you for another 1 year and 11 months and not a day more.
Don’t buy a cell phone. What if Raphael calls you? What if John Childs or I called you? You’d feel pretty stupid for owning a cell phone then.
Disadvantages of cell phones:
1.) They ring
2.) People talk on them
3.) They cost money
4.) They make smart people sound stupid and stupid people appear vegatative
5.) You are connected instantly to an infinite resource of…nothing
6.) They are annoying under any and all conditions
7.) They do not cause brain tumors, rather they are indicative of them
8.) They will eventually replace “rude” in the American Heritage Dictionary
9.) Owners consider them more important than real life
10.) They cause distractions and therefore accidents
11.) They are a perfect device for never, ever getting completely away
12.) They are more addictive than nicotine and more obnoxious
Advantages of cell phones:
You may have an emergency in which you absolutely, positively must contact someone immediately. That person already doesn’t like you anyway.
Buy a deck of cards.
You forgot. No bet, no date, no surprise, no takers.
Sob, our knee needs transportation.
Billy I promise to call you but once a year.
Wrong thread, right response. Speaking of wrong threads, I have to sew a seam in my nylon airseat cover on BlueShift. Happy Independence Day, my friend.