National 3G Maps

[Cheapfone]

Guess better late than never but you can make a little bit of that red blue now here in the boonies of PA.

[ggore]

Wow..... I remember anticipating and waiting around for 3G in my area. Except that was in 2004......

Believe it. 8 years and they still have not finished their 3G network.

[Guest 214]

Believe it. 8 years and they still have not finished their 3G network.

It's not really fair, living in a rural area doesn't mean you should pay full service money and receive half service. Especially to LTE

[fraydog]

It's not really fair, living in a rural area doesn't mean you should pay full service money and receive half service. Especially to LTE

The only option that I can find for a rural area in that regard is Verizon. See Sprint charging $10 for "premium data" when their network isn't that premium and won't have LTE until Network Vision has caught steam. Don't start on WhyMax. Likewise, T-Mobile isn't doing a lot to light up the rural areas with either 3G or 4G. It's not like AT&T is the only party pulling this. Most of the industry is. Let's also not forget the 3G areas Verizon is serving with single T1's. When those areas get any traffic at all, you may as well be on EDGE.

[Cheapfone]

Are there any other carriers than verizon and at&t when it comes to rural coverage anyhow? In my opinion you would be kind of foolish to pay for a 2 gig data plan when you are mostly in a 1x or edge coverage area. Verizon has had 3g in my area but it just constantly switches from evdo to 1x as soon as you get a little ways from a tower(I'd blame this mostly on the terrain). So far so good with the upgrade to umts here. One more tower up the road from here and I should have it at home.

[ilvla2]

Are there any other carriers than verizon and at&t when it comes to rural coverage anyhow? In my opinion you would be kind of foolish to pay for a 2 gig data plan when you are mostly in a 1x or edge coverage area. Verizon has had 3g in my area but it just constantly switches from evdo to 1x as soon as you get a little ways from a tower(I'd blame this mostly on the terrain). So far so good with the upgrade to umts here. One more tower up the road from here and I should have it at home.

Yep, U.S. Cellular is one, we have them here in Northern California (they cover my county of Mendocino, for example). You don't say where you are though. USCC has 3G across their network and is rolling out LTE as we speak, though we won't see LTE from USCC here in NorCal until 2013. In addition, you have 3G Roaming on Verizon, Sprint, etc. with USCC.

[Cheapfone]

Clarion is the closest town of size to me located in the northwest part of Pennsylvania. Sprint is pretty much all roaming on verizon here. Much the same for T-mobile roaming on at&t.

[ilvla2]

Clarion is the closest town of size to me located in the northwest part of Pennsylvania. Sprint is pretty much all roaming on verizon here. Much the same for T-mobile roaming on at&t.

The only native service USCC has in PA is south of Johnstown towards Morgantown, WV and Cumberland, MD, the rest is all roaming with them. This is a very rural area as well, so I know how that goes. In Redwood Valley (unincorporated, as are all but 4 towns in Mendocino County) we have service from Verizon, U.S. Cellular, AT&T and T-Mobile, and Ukiah, 8 miles to our south and the largest town in the county also has Metro PCS. No Sprint at all in our county either, they roam on USCC in our area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendocino_County

http://www.visitmendocino.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redwood_Valley,_California My humble abode.

[Cheapfone]

Well if they upgrade the tower just up the road from home and it performs like the ones in Clarion I'll be happy.

[ilvla2]

Well if they upgrade the tower just up the road from home and it performs like the ones in Clarion I'll be happy.

I hope they do come through for you! Hey, you're not too far from where my brother in law is from, Clearfield, his mom and step dad live there.

[ggore]

Are there any other carriers than verizon and at&t when it comes to rural coverage anyhow? In my opinion you would be kind of foolish to pay for a 2 gig data plan when you are mostly in a 1x or edge coverage area. Verizon has had 3g in my area but it just constantly switches from evdo to 1x as soon as you get a little ways from a tower(I'd blame this mostly on the terrain). So far so good with the upgrade to umts here. One more tower up the road from here and I should have it at home.

There are dozens of small or regional carriers all across the country, and most areas have at least one or two choices available. They rarely have 3G though, at least on the GSM side of things. And forget HSPA+/EB-ish type coverage, there just isn't any. CDMA carriers pretty much all offer 3G service. Some are toying with LTE, but are running into interoperability problems with phones makers not wanting to make their cool phones support the frequencies the regional carriers have to use, or not make phones that support those frequencies at all. This is a BIG problem.

I understand the problems with the 2 gig data plan. One of our local carriers, GSM CellularOne, has a 2 GB plan, but it is totally laughable that you would EVER use up that much data since all they offer is GPRS 1X data. Completely non-functional most of the time even though their system is only 3 years old and all their towers are connected to fiber optic. They promised 3G a year ago but never delivered. This is probably part of the reason they have been bought out by the local CDMA provider, Pioneer.

[ilvla2]

There are dozens of small or regional carriers all across the country, and most areas have at least one or two choices available. They rarely have 3G though, at least on the GSM side of things. And forget HSPA+/EB-ish type coverage, there just isn't any.

That doesn't describe every rural area. AT&T has HSPA+ w/EB in Ukiah, Redwood Valley, Willits, Fort Bragg and Boonville in Mendocino County, and Lakeport, Lower Lake, Clearlake Oaks and Clearlake in Lake County. That said, T-Mobile is still GPRS and EDGE here.

As far as coverage, it goes like this in our area-

1.U.S. Cellular
2.Verizon
3.AT&T
4.T-Mobile
5.Metro PCS

For speeds, AT&T has the fastest network here, though that will change once Verizon gets LTE here this year, and USCC next year. AT&T has been very aggressive in rolling out HSPA+ and 3G here over the past 1-2 years, so hopefully LTE won't be too far behind.

[formercanuck]

There are dozens of small or regional carriers all across the country, and most areas have at least one or two choices available.

http://maps.mobileworldlive.com/netw...nited%20States
There are a lot of small, rural carriers.

[ilvla2]

http://maps.mobileworldlive.com/netw...=United States
There are a lot of small, rural carriers.

Not too many left in CA anymore though, all have been gobbled up by Verizon or AT&T EXCEPT for U.S. Cellular up here in NorCal and Golden State Cellular in the Sonora, Jackson, and Yosemite areas. I remember when I sold phones for USCC here in Ukiah back in the late 90's, CA had several, including U.S. Cellular, Cal North Wireless, Mountain Cellular, Golden State Cellular, Cellular One of SLO, Cellular One West, Contel Wireless of CA and Dobson. Speaking of USCC, at that time USCC's native coverage area in the west included Hawaii and Southeastern Idaho.

[Jordan T]

One of our local carriers, GSM CellularOne, has a 2 GB plan, but it is totally laughable that you would EVER use up that much data since all they offer is GPRS 1X data. Completely non-functional most of the time even though their system is only 3 years old and all their towers are connected to fiber optic. They promised 3G a year ago but never delivered. This is probably part of the reason they have been bought out by the local CDMA provider, Pioneer.

Umm, they don't have 1X. 1X is CDMA. Two, is it GPRS there? Here they're EDGE and promising UMTS HSPA (3GSM) coming later this year... but they've been saying that a long time.