Minnesota Cellular Reviews

Mountain Wireless presents an opinionated review of wireless and cellular phone services in Minnesota. This is information gained from personal experience, user interviews, press releases, advertising material, newsgroups and wireless web sites.For Ratings of these carriers, Click Here.

ALLTEL
Alltel has agreed to be purchased by Verizon Wireless. This transaction is not expected to be completed until 2009. While we feel this is not a good deal for the cellular consumer, there is no reason to avoid signing up with Alltel for now. Most plans will be honored and the changeover will be relatively painless. We are following developments on the Mountain Wireless Blog. In the meantime, Alltel covers more real estate in the US than any other carrier. Most of that territory is rural and in those areas they are often the best carrier available. Both in the rural and areas and the large cities they serve they have very good coverage, good customer service and utilize a fairly advanced network. You can take your Alltel phone into most urban areas and still get excellent coverage and reliable data service. To achieve this goal, Alltel phones will roam on Sprint more often than other carriers. Sprint has good broadband services, but after the ownership change you will be roaming on Verizon's huge network, which covers more territory that Sprint. Alltel offers "Local" and "No-Roaming-Charges-Anywhere" plans, and is the only large carrier that offers a "North American" plan which includes roaming calls from Mexico and Canada. Expect this to go away under Verizon, but may be 'grandfathered.' With Alltel's domination of rural coverage, they are the king of roaming carriers, serving roamers from most of the other carriers, primarily in the western half of the US. They offer CDMA service to their own customers and roamers, and GSM service for roamers, but not in all areas. They have been aggressive in pricing their plans and features, and also offer a basic, Unlimited plan. Pros: Good coverage, very good prices, a variety of plans, good customer service, good broadband services including while roaming. Cons: Roaming may be a problem when favoring Sprint, fewer phone choices, Alltel isn't aggressively adding new towers.
Get Online Discounts on Alltel Phones

AT&T
AT&T is what was once Cingular, part of which once was AT&T Wireless. Try not be confused. Today's AT&T has a large network, but in the west, has a lot less spectrum available than in the rest of the country. They continue to expand, but outside of urban areas and off interstate highways they depend on other carriers to provide coverage. Fortunately, the 'roaming' coverage is as good as being on the AT&T network, and most of the coverage is included within your plan minutes. With GSM, AT&T will roam more readily, internationally.

Much of the AT&T network in the interior west is made up of the old AT&T Wireless network which was not among the best. They still suffer from some coverage 'holes', but they are updating these areas. Notable is their "Corridor" project which provides excellent service along several stretches of interstate highways. AT&T's current plans include only the GSM network, thus have some areas of the country with no service due to a lack of GSM coverage, or the inability to access existing analog networks, even for 911 service. In several markets where AT&T operates at 1900 MHz only, we have been very disappointed. The biggest surprise is where Cingular combined with the old AT&T Wireless. We would have expected coverage to improve dramatically, but that is not the case. Not all AT&T 1900 MHz-only markets are equal, though. In Arizona AT&T is generally as good as the others, but in northern Ohio it is disappointing, to the point of being unusable, although they have covered the major roads adequately in those areas. This map shows AT&T 1900 MHz-only areas. AT&T offers a variety of plans including unlimited minutes and services.

Pros: AT&T has a very large network and covers much of the nation, usage is transparent whether on- or off-network, good digital and data services, good national plans, "Rollover" for those who can use it, "Unlimited" calling plan available, a good selection of phones. In some areas, like California, there have been big improvements in coverage. Excellent international roaming capabilities. Cons: AT&T plans aren't as generous as some, customers can only access GSM networks which is not quite as universally available as CDMA, customer service is sometimes below average.
Get Online Discounts on Wireless from AT&T.

NEXTEL
Nextel is a part Sprint and in some offerings, Sprint hides Nextel's features. The combo has allowed the two networks to start sharing cell sites to improve coverage. Nextel's spectrum is made up from a bunch of 2-way radio channels, and they suffer from marginal audio in some markets. Their coverage is more robust in certain areas than others. They cover urban areas and some interstates, but there is little roaming elsewhere in the state. They have an efficient '2-way' radio feature which is handy for a business or a family. Some of their plans aren't very competitive, but they do offer free incoming calls. They use 850 MHz so they have a strong signal in most areas. There are rumors that Sprint wants to sell off the Nextel network, which may or may not include Nextel customers. Pros: The Direct Connect is a handy 'walkie-talkie' service, they are still improving coverage, good digital features. Cons: Some markets have poor audio, they also have coverage limits and very limited roaming, most of their phones are big and lack variety, Sprint has not treated Nextel customers as well as those using the Sprint network.