South Dakota Cellular Reviews

Mountain Wireless presents an opinionated review of wireless and cellular phone services in South Dakota. 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.
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COMMNET WIRELESS
Commnet has been building cell sites in locations that have been overlooked by other carriers. You can't sign up for service with them. Their sole existence relies on roaming by other carriers' customers. Some carriers include Commnet in their Roaming Lists, others allow roaming if their phones access Commnet's sites, and some forbid roaming on them. So if the closest, or only, cell site near you is owned by Commnet, you need to find out if you can sign up with a different carrier, making sure their service will allow roaming on that Commnet site. They are also known by other names, and their sites offer a different combination of CDMA and GSM technology. Commnet has been searching out areas with little or no coverage and is credited for adding new coverage there. In most cases, you'll have no idea you're using a Commnet site.
Commnet Coverage Maps

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.

SPRINT
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 PCS merged with Nextel which has created some beneficial network configurations, including sharing of cell sites. Sprint roaming often prefers the Alltel network which, where available, gives Sprint customers excellent 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 U.S., maintains local service stores, very 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.
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