Best US cellphone network?

[jbh]

Hi,
Does anyone have any advice for newly arrived stateside Brits as to the best cellular provider? On a short visit earlier in the year we stuck t-mobile voice + data SIMs in our unlocked iphone and nexus one which worked (although the prepaid data allowance seemed expensive). My wife wants to be able to tether her iPad to her iphone like she could on O2 in Britain, and I want to be able to use CSipSimple on my nexus one. Any one know the best Long term option using our existing hardware? I think verizon is no good with a british iphone, though I could be wrong about that.
Thanks!
Jbh

 

[nunya]

Gsm

I think that you are going to be limited to GSM providers only. The two "big names" are going to be AT&T and T-Mobile. There may be regional providers who also offer GSM.
http://osxdaily.com/2011/03/06/iphone-4-pay-go/

I'm not sure about tethering and paygo, as I'm under contract with AT&T. I chose to jailbreak and use a tethering app rather than pay their insane tethering fee. It's bad enough their data plans are so overpriced.

Many US providers are CDMA, which is a shame.

I just realized you were looking for "long term". If you are going to be here for more than a year, a contract with AT&T is probably your best bet. PAYGO would only make sense for a short visit.
From what I understand, you have to jailbreak and unlock an iPhone from O2 to use it in the US.

 

[wardmundy]

No way with existing phones 'cause AT&T has a monopoly on the data side.

Try this instead and tethering is quite easy on a $25 a month plan with 300 minutes, unlimited text msgs, and unlimited data using Sprint's network...

http://nerdvittles.com/?p=722

 

[MrBostn]

No way with existing phones 'cause AT&T has a monopoly on the data side.

Try this instead and tethering is quite easy on a $25 a month plan with 300 minutes, unlimited text msgs, and unlimited data using Sprint's network...

http://nerdvittles.com/?p=722

Virgin raised the price to $35/month. I got this phone while it was $25/month. Very happy with it. Just note it won't work AT ALL if you go to Canada. No phone, no data.

 

[jbh]

Thanks guys. Some really useful intel here. The Optimus V for Virgin Mobile deal does look very interesting, and something I will definitely look into.

So far - and we are not locked into this - the missus signed up for a monthly plan with AT&T. The only networks we can see on our existing European hardware are AT&T and t-mobile, and she needs her phone for business and for it to 'just work' while travelling all over the US, as well as needing to be able to swap SIMs when we are back in the UK for holidays. We were on the verge of signing up for a 'familly' 2-line plan when I noticed that I could only see Edge (not 3G) on my Nexus One with the AT&T SIM. It turned out the original Nexus Ones could not use AT&T's 3G network This turned out to be a blessing in disguise though, when you realise that as a foreign national arriving in the US with (obviously) no established US credit record, AT&T require a $500 deposit PER LINE before they will allow you to sign up on even a non-contract monthly plan We left off the text messaging option (we are not teenagers, and anyway use WhatsApp for messaging) and also left off the tethering for now (an extra $25 per month) which still left her paying $65 per month, plus taxes. Oh yes the taxes - Americans seem to forget about those when they quote a price. Does paying these mean we get to vote here? I seem to recall something about a link between taxation and representation being popular over here ....

Anyway, off to t-mobile I went. No deposit necessary there but some confusion over what their plans meant. Again foreigners seem to be limited as to the options available, and there was some creative misuse of the term 'unlimited', which apparently in US vernacular means 'not-unlimited'. For $50 per month I could get 100MB of data before it throttled down to 2G. For $70 per month I get 2G of 3G before the throttling kicks in, which is what I went for.

So although environmentally, replacing a perfectly functional phone seems wrong, doing the math(s) it does seem like signing up for the Virgin deal would make sense over a very few months instead of keeping my Nexus One/t-mobile setup. If I understand the standards correctly, the Virgin phone would be about as much use as the Metropolitan Police force in a riot when we're back in the UK, but I could hold on to my Nexus One for those trips. In any case the screen on my Nexus One is practically impossible to see in daylight - which does seem to exist over here in Chicago. In London, where the brightest light source is typically a burning police car, this was not quite such an issue.
jbh

 

[hraynor]

I agree with Lorne on that comment.

But back to the subject of the message, "Best US cellphone network?".

I think the correct answer is that there is NO "best" network (or even one could say good). There's just the "less bad" networks...

My company issues my phone and we're on AT&T (iPhone 4) and have the 4 GB/tethering plan which is nice, though I'd never pay the bill for that one myself. AT&T has a nasty habit of showing 5 bars on the phone while you're on a call, dropping you off the call, while still showing 5 bars...

For my wife, we went with Virgin Mobile's $40/mo (1200 min, unlim Internet,unlim texting) plan, though that price of course has now gone up ($45/mo now, and throttling after 2.5GB). I think we're still grandfathered into the older rates though. She has the Samsung Instinct (only Android phone avail at the time) which is ok, not great.

But saved about $80/mo compared to what we were paying with Sprint for the same service (ok yes, unlim calls on Sprint, but she rarely exceeds 1200 minutes anyway).

Virgin Mobile uses Sprint's CDMA network (Sprint owns Virgin Mobile USA), so same quality calls etc (Internet works a bit different with VM though since its double NAT'd, causes issues with PPTP connections). Only drawback is that with Sprint you can roam on Verizon's network when outside a Sprint area, with VM its Sprint's network only - no roaming. Hasn't been a problem for us though.

Also if you're thinking about an iPhone, note that the Verizon iPhone still doesn't support simultaneous calls and data (and I don't think any other CDMA phone or carrier today does, though supposedly Verizon is upgrading their network - don't think the CDMA iPhone is capable of this anyway).

This may not be a big deal for those using an iPhone for personal use. But for business, I LOVE being able to tether my laptop or iPad to the phone while on a conference call, especially when out of town. This for me is a MUST have.

If the next iPhone supports LTE and Verizon's network - then hopefully this would be resolved.

BTW - other thing to note in the USA is that 4G is NOT 4G...

4G could mean a technology ahead of 3G (Sprint (WiMax) or LTE (Verizon)) - though not 4G by the standards bodies definition, or it could mean "slightly faster 3G using 3G technologies" (TMobile with HSPA+, and AT&T to some degree with HSPA+) or it could mean "plain old 3G" for cases where the vendor doesn't have any other advanced technology (AT&T in areas where there is no HSPA+).

So 4G is strictly a marketing term in the USA that has NO meaning (while Sprint and Verizon blurred the lines (WiMax and LTE meet most of the 4G qualifications but currently don't offer 100M speeds)), TMobile was the first to blast it away by deeming HSPA+ (a "3G" technology) as 4G. AT&T then took this an ran with it deeming the standard 3G to be 4G on phones they want to market at 4G.

As the British would say "Brilliant!".

Oh, and if'n one thinks that LTE in the US at least is closest to true 4G (which with Verizon I would tend to agree), consider MetroPCS's recent announcement of a full 4G LTE network that reportedly:

"The wireless carrier's average speed is about the one of a moderately fast 3G network"

And one wonders why there is so much consumer confusion in the US??

 

[crobusa]

Just a warning about Verizon LTE and firewalls.

They NATed LTE devices to 10.x.x.x, so none of our managers can use the 4g dongles to connect to the VPN.

http://community.vzw.com/t5/Broadba...-LTE-Modem-VPN-Not-Working/td-p/349846/page/4

Copied from a VZ tech support email:
[FONT=&quot]>> Enable Network Address Translation (NAT) Traversal on your VPN client. We
>> provide 4G LTE customers with a NAT IP address that is internal to the
>> Verizon Wireless network. A NAT IP address is not addressable from the
>> Internet. Some VPN clients must be configured to support NAT Traversal in
>> order to connect to their corporate network. For assistance with your VPN
>> client, please contact your IT administrator.[/FONT]

Had fun explaining to management why they can't have the latest toys.
Also calling dibs as one of the first people actually affected by IPv4 drought.


Charles

 

[tbrummell]

Sounds like you need a better VPN setup, something that works behind NAT.
I manage a Secure Computing/SafeNet solution at work, it works awesome from cellular NAT connections. We even run VoIP over the VPN.
Here at home I use OpenVPN Server/Client, and it too works from cellular NAT. Time for a change?

Just a warning about Verizon LTE and firewalls.

They NATed LTE devices to 10.x.x.x, so none of our managers can use the 4g dongles to connect to the VPN.

http://community.vzw.com/t5/Broadba...-LTE-Modem-VPN-Not-Working/td-p/349846/page/4

Copied from a VZ tech support email:
[FONT=&quot]>> Enable Network Address Translation (NAT) Traversal on your VPN client. We
>> provide 4G LTE customers with a NAT IP address that is internal to the
>> Verizon Wireless network. A NAT IP address is not addressable from the
>> Internet. Some VPN clients must be configured to support NAT Traversal in
>> order to connect to their corporate network. For assistance with your VPN
>> client, please contact your IT administrator.[/FONT]

Had fun explaining to management why they can't have the latest toys.
Also calling dibs as one of the first people actually affected by IPv4 drought.


Charles

 

[EndeavorPBX]

The best cellular network is the one that works where you plan to go. For example, in Oregon there's a state park called "Silver Falls State Park" where the only provider that works is AT&T.

Generally speaking, Verizon is regarded as having the best coverage nationwide. They are also the most expensive.

Sprint uses the same technology as Verizon, but their network footprint is much smaller. If you're a true Sprint customer (not Virgin Mobile or Boost), Sprint lets you roam on Verizon when you're out of range of Spring at no additional charge.

Virgin Mobile (US) and Boost are prepaid providers that use the Sprint network, but don't get the benefit of the Verizon roaming agreement.

AT&T and T-mobile use GSM. They started out as 1900 Mhz, GSM, but AT&T also now uses 850 Mhz in some locations (850 Mhz was originally used for analog cellular).

AT&T's and T-mobile's coverage varies and has changed over time. As an example, when Cingular purchased AT&T (and kept the AT&T name), it sold Cingular's network of towers in California to T-mobile, and leased them back for several years while they expanded the AT&T TDMA network and converted them. As a result, T-mobile got a well-built GSM network and AT&T lost one. Their coverage in Califonia is now built on top of an older, crummy TDMA network that was designed for more powerful cells, so AT&T in California was getting a lot of complaints about dropped calls, even though it used to be very good.

Even if you have a GSM phone, don't use it in the U.S. Both AT&T and T-mobile use different bands in the U.S., and your phone might support one, both, or neither of them. Your coverage could be substantially limited by that fact.

So, in short, I agree with Ward. Buy a prepaid phone that has coverage where you want to go and use it until you leave. Before you leave, sell it on Craigslist, or keep it and sell it when you get home to someone else who is coming to 'Merica.

 

[EndeavorPBX]

Also, you should know that the LG phones (including the one Ward referred to) have trouble with CSipSimple. You'll hear some popping and audio distortions when using it. Nothing so bad that it prevents you from making the call - but it's annoying.

I've also tried other VOIP programs, and they don't have the popping, but they generate a comfort noise that is annoyingly loud...