Good bye (and good ridance) to Verizon

[retiredhappy]

As you know I dumped my Verizon phone last December for Cricket - no contract, $23 a month cheaper and unlimited minutes as opposed to Verizon's 450 minutes and their service if 4 bars here at the KOA (Verizon had NO BARS). I turned off my aircard as I don't get any signal here at the KOA with verizon and they have good free wifi. Well, Verizon turned the aircard back on, which I knew they would after 90 days but I did expect an email reminding me of it since they send me zillions of emails trying to sell me something. NO NOTIFICATION of any kind. Ticked me off!!!! Then found out I can only suspend service for a total of 180 days in a 12 month period. That did it!! Ordered Cricket's aircard - $40 a month for what I use. Called Verizon and after much transferring FINALLY got them to cancel my aircard. Yes, it did cost me but since I can't suspend it anymore I would have been paying $60 a month for something I couldn't use. When I mentioned to the person at verizon that I was switching to Cricket, she said, "Yeah, we're losing a lot of people." Part of that could be because of their lousy customer service and the two year contracts. So far I've really happy with Crickets phone service. At least on their aircard I can stop paying for it if I don't need it.

[AlmostThere]

Karen, glad you got that straightened out!
I just heard from my Comcast guy that T-Mobile was bought out by ATT. Also said that TMobile's phones will not work with ATT so allot of TMobile users will be royally ticked off!!
I do not know allot about Cricket, only that a year or so ago my girlfriend had their phone and found that she couldn't even dial 911 from it! Also very limited coverage area. I know nothing about their aircard so hope that's exactly what you need now and when traveling. Always something, huh?

[Bethers]

Karen, glad you got that straightened out!
I just heard from my Comcast guy that T-Mobile was bought out by ATT. Also said that TMobile's phones will not work with ATT so allot of TMobile users will be royally ticked off!!
I do not know allot about Cricket, only that a year or so ago my girlfriend had their phone and found that she couldn't even dial 911 from it! Also very limited coverage area. I know nothing about their aircard so hope that's exactly what you need now and when traveling. Always something, huh?

Friends of mine in CO just were caught up in that. No one told them their phone wouldn't work and they spent a ton of time on the phone with customer service before someone figured out they had come from TMobile. That should have been part of the info mailed and emailed, you'd think.

Hope that'll work where you need it to, Karen. I'll probably eventually go with the AARP phone service and who knows what for an aircard. Most likely I'll be turning off my air card this summer. Will have to watch for that 90 days thing. Thanks for mentioning it.

[retiredhappy]

Beth, go to the cricket site and check their coverage maps. They bounce off all towers at different places; Verizon, Sprint and AT&T so their coverage is pretty good now. When they first started they had lousy coverage but things have changed. I have a friend who works in corporate for Cricket in California.

[Bethers]

Beth, go to the cricket site and check their coverage maps. They bounce off all towers at different places; Verizon, Sprint and AT&T so their coverage is pretty good now. When they first started they had lousy coverage but things have changed. I have a friend who works in corporate for Cricket in California.

I checked. It's good for the phone and terrible for the data plan (for me, anyway). Traveling they don't cover nearly enough for me to use them for an aircard.

[khenrie]

Cricket does not work for me here in CO.

I am on T-mobile and had not heard about the AT&T deal. Guess I'd better check into that.

[bluepinecones]

Kim
According to this, you should have no problem due to the proposed merger of AT T and T-Mobile - and the deal is at least a year from approval by FCC
http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/articles/more-information-att-acquires-tmobile

[rvgrammy1953]

We've had Verizon cell service for over 9 years....very few times we have not been able to get out with it....have had Verizon data card for over 5 years and find that it is dependable almost everywhere, too...(Even in our summer campground as I have talked about every year....the data card get a signal there when the cell phone can't...go figure.. ) and have always had great customer service with Verizon. We rarely use all our plan minutes with the phone...and both laptops are on the router with the data card connected and never go over the data units....fits our budget with $48 for the phone and $51 for the data card per month (Ernie gets $10 off military discount for the card. the phone is in my name, no discount there, but we just keep upgrading an old plan with a new phone every 2 years.).....so would recommend it for those who travel alot while full-timing....it works for us.....just my 2 cents here....

[Bethers]

Kim
According to this, you should have no problem due to the proposed merger of AT T and T-Mobile - and the deal is at least a year from approval by FCC
http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/articles/more-information-att-acquires-tmobile

My friends who had to get a new phone are in Colorado. So, something is amiss - as it's already effecting them. I would check, Kim. They are in Durango - and T-Mobile told them the problem with the one phone is because of the merger - so they had to get a new one.

[khenrie]

We are checking into changing our phone service anyway..... so we'll see what happens.

We use the Verizon WiFi and it works great for us. Though, if I Skype or watch too many videos we do tend to run through our allotted data usage (5GB plan.)

[pattyk]

I agree with Lori. I've had no problems with Verizon. I use the broadband here at home. I've traveled 22,000 miles over the west and had only a couple of times when I didn't have service. I have been very pleased with it.

[retiredhappy]

I have had Verizon for years and mostly when traveling it worked great. Just doesn't get any signal here at the KOA I stay at as my homebase now. I just don't want to be tied into a contract anymore with anyone on anything. Since I'm not doing a whole lot of traveling right now its more important that I have service where I'm staying.

Beth is right, Cricket's data plan isn't the greatest right now but they are growing all the time. Its sufficient for what I need now and if I don't get a signal I can turn it off.

[retiredhappy]

UPDATE: Got my Cricket aircard and have three out of four bars. Works great here at the KOA where I actually won't be using it as they have great wifi. I'll let you know how it does on the trip to Port Lavaca.The good thing is that if it doesn't work I'm not locked into a two year contract. I'm not too fond of contracts - probably why I'm not married.