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Colorado Cellular Reviews General Colorado Observations: Verizon Wireless dominates the state with native service in the largest number of counties. For rural residents, Alltel is a great choice in the southern half of the state, Viaero in the northeast, and Union Wireless for the northwest. Sprint gives you good coverage and features in urban areas, and roaming on the best rural systems since most of state has CDMA service. AT&T and T-Mobile depend on Alltel for rural service and while coverage is OK, it is a notch below their CDMA coverage. Cricket's Unlimited is good for in-town use and now works at most ski areas, but not between. ALLTEL AT&T
BLANCA TELEPHONE WIRELESS
CRICKET
NEXTEL NNTC WIRELESS |
SPRINT WIRELESS
Sprint has a national, feature-rich digital
network. Their coverage is a little "fragile",
but where it's good, it's very good. You
can roam over more territory than any other
single carrier. Sprint has a good selection
of phones. Their plans include roaming over
most of the country, and work about as well
as any National plan. They offer an inexpensive
"basic" plan for only $30 per month.
They also offer a few Unlimited plans with
lots of features included. Sprint has added
service by taking over parts of some carriers'
networks, and "sharing" spectrum
with others. Sprint merged with Nextel which has created some beneficial network
configurations, including sharing of cell
sites. Sprint phones normally prefer the
network which, where available, gives Sprint
customers the best data throughput. Many
Sprint phones have the ability to force the
phone to "Roam Only", helping you
use the strongest network, however there
is a limit to how much roaming you can do,
generally 50%. Pros: Sprint gives you good value for your
money, but is not necessarily the cheapest.
Sprint covers every urban area in the US,
maintains local service stores, good roaming
capabilities, their digital and data network
work very well, good selection of phones.
Sprint has excellent roaming agreements,
while some other carriers are restricting
theirs. Cons: You might find a weak area
right where you want coverage, some of their
plans are not very competitive, customer service is a notch below average.
Click here for more Sprint Pros & Cons
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T-MOBILE
T-Mobile works very well within their service
area. While they have a slight disadvantage
with their higher PCS frequency, they make
up for it with strategically-located sites.
T-Mobile doesn't serve many rural areas,
but provides coverage along many interstates.
They offer roaming in rural areas, and the
network is still growing, although often
they're just 'filling in'. They offer some
handy features like "My-Favs" which
includes Unlimited calling to your choice
of five numbers, regardless of network, "Kid
Connect" which helps you limit the amount
of charges your kids can rack up, and an
Unlimited "Hot Spot" plan using
your home wi-fi connection. They have plans
that include unlimited voice and messaging.
Pros: Generous included-minute plans, National
and Regional plans, "Unlimited" calling plan available, good urban coverage, good choice of phones,
good pre-paid plans, good roaming capabilities,
including internationally. Good customer
service. Cons: Some weak spots, limited data
bandwidth, high international roaming charges.
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UBET WIRELESS
This division of the Uintah Basin Telephone
Association covers a small part of the northeastern
part of Utah around Vernal and surrounding
areas of Wyoming and Colorado. They also offer additional coverage in an
"Extended" area. Their own cellular
system has good coverage and offers free
Long Distance. Their PCS plans have more
features and coverage. They have many plans
including a $20 "Security" plan,
National plans with no roaming charges, and
a Local "Unlimited" plan. Some
plans are fairly generous with some helpful
add-ons. They offer a good selection of phones
including smart phones and air cards.
UBET Coverage Map
Click Here for UBET's Extended Local Coverage
Map.
UNION WIRELESS
Serving Wyoming and Northwest Colorado, Union
has a good network in most areas. In some
they are the only game in town. They are
using GSM technology and are one of the few
companies still offering "Telular"
service, a wireless service connected to
home wiring. They offer reasonable plans
starting at $30 with Unlimited Text and Internet
as reasonable add-ons. Unlimited plans are
available as well as a Calling Circle plan
allowing free calls to up to 10 numbers on
any network. Bundles are available. Pros: It is a small company with generally
good coverage and has a personal touch, they
are the only carrier available in some areas
of Wyoming, they offer most digital features
included in the monthly plans. They have
reasonably-priced plans. Cons: While their
western WY and northwestern Colorado coverage
is very good, coverage in the eastern half
of Wyoming is limited to in-town and interstate
highways only.
VERIZON WIRELESS
Verizon is the largest cellular carrier in
the US. They have taken over a large portion
of the Alltel network and are now dominant in rural America.
Cellular service in a few of Alltel's local markets are being sold to other companies, but no
coverage will be lost. Their claim to fame
is superior coverage, especially in the west.
They use PCS frequencies only in a few areas,
but they have constructed those networks
well. In the few places where they don't have their
own coverage, they have roaming agreements
with other carriers, normally one with superior
coverage. Therefore, their "National"
plans, which include almost all of the country,
are about as close to "wall-to-wall"
as you can get. Their reasonably-priced plans
have no roaming or long distance charges,
and they also throw in Unlimited Night and
Weekend minutes as well as Unlimited calls
among Verizon Wireless users both on and
off their own network (there are a few exceptions).
They offer fairly competitive prices, and
often have promotions. They also offer plans
that include Unlimited Voice and other features
at various fixed price levels. Data service
is excellent with various price plans. Verizon
forces their phone manufacturers to offer
a "standardized" user interface,
limiting menu and font variations. This could
mean the screen appearance may not be to
your liking or the fonts may be too small.
Smart and data-type phones require a per-Mb
plan. They have the largest area of 3G coverage in the US.
Pros: Verizon has reasonably-priced plans,
"Unlimited" calling plans available,
extensive coverage, wide-ranging National
plans, excellent customer service and 'customer-friendly'
policies. With such a large coverage area
of their own little roaming is necessary,
but their roaming partners normally have
superior coverage. Cons: Some Verizon plans
are a little more expensive, Customer Service
closes at 11pm, but technical assistance
is available 24/7, there are some billing
transition concerns as they take over other
carriers, they don't offer as many "cute"
phones, they 'cripple' some User Interface
functions like larger fonts: make sure you
can read their submenus before buying. Some
of their data services are not available
while roaming.
Click here for additional Verizon Pros & Cons
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VIAERO WIRELESS
Viaero is a GSM carrier that uses 800 MHz
Cellular channels in northeast Colorado,
and 1900 MHz PCS channels in Nebraska. Colorado
coverage is excellent, but the Nebraska part
of the network is still being expanded, although
it is very good along most roads an towns.
You can request to have them build a tower
near you, and if you can come up with enough
neighbor's signatures, they'll build it!
They offer a very reasonable on-network "Unlimited"
plan intended for fixed location (home) use.
They have discounts for people on various
support programs. They're a good substitute
for a wireline in areas where they are too
expensive or non-existent. They have a large
number of reasonable plans including a National
Unlimited plan. Pros: They offer lots of price points in
their plans, including Local, Regional and
National plans, excellent coverage in northeast
Colorado, good customer service, many local
stores. Cons: The Nebraska part of the network
is still in the building stages and may have
some areas of poor signal, but you can ask
them to add a tower!
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