OK guys, I need your honest opinion. I am a current Rogers GSM subscriber, however I have an Ericsson R520M phone which provides better reception in my opinion than any of the Rogers phones that are currently out there.

Honestly I am quite happy with my phone except it's sort of broken...charger is a gonner and volume switch is missing. Kind of irritating. I just resigned with rogers for another year, however I'm early enough that I may be able to break that contract if I think other carriers might be able to provide better service.

Basically, my travelling takes me from the Toronto area East to Belleville, Kingston and perhaps Montreal. West to Sarnia and Windsor and North to Bancroft and perhaps Kapuscasing.

I need to know if anyone has a done a comparisson on reception in these areas between different carriers. Particularly Bellmobility.

If I were to go with bell, I would probably get the new A500.

If I were to go with Telus, I would probably get the A520

Any opinions are greatly appreciated.

can't comment on the coverage issues, but as far as phones go for Telus i would opt for either the SonyEricsson T206 or the Motorola v60 over the Samsung a520...i bought it when it first came out because of the hype of the colour screen and what not, but i soon found out that it wasn't the phone i had hoped for...i had several dropped calls and choppiness with it in my area of use...since then i made the switch to the v60 and have been happy ever since...very good signal in all the areas i use it, and the same can be said for my girlfriend's T206...

good luck with your decision...

Since Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility share the same network in these areas the reception will be the same with either company, which is to say excellent. I have compared Rogers vs Telus/Bell in those areas that you talked about and Mobility is almost always the stronger signal. This is compared against Rogers TDMA/AMPS. They have more towers then Rogers in rural areas and better cell placement so thus less wholes. Especially if you're comparing against Rogers TDMA, Telus/Bell has much more 800MHZ Digital coverage. In Bancroft for example, Mobility is digital which Rogers is AMPS only. I have also had a solid call on HWY 7 from Peterborough for a hour + at a time without a dropped call.

I've also never had a problem with Samsung either. I like their phones and think they are an excellent product. If you buy a phone from a Telus corp store on a no contract term you can try the phone out for 30 days and make sure you're happy with the coverage etc and if not exchange or return it. Bell does not do this. Once you buy it, it's your phone.

From my own personal experience, with tri-mode handsets and the latest PRL...

I live in Ottawa, and have travelled south and west to the Toronto/Hamilton area a couple of times over the last year - solid digital all the way, no problems whatsoever.

I have also travelled north and west, into the Bancroft area (and up to Haliburton, specifically). Although coverage along the way was spotty (and mostly analog), in Bancroft itself there was full digital. Travelling further north to Haliburton, I lost coverage for a good while, but had it again in Haliburton (and even ten minutes outside of the town, at the cottage, woo.)

There's nothing quite like surfing the web on your phone, on the dock at the lake.

I personally have not travelled east to Montreal, or west past Brantford. My customers with older, dual-mode phones tell me that Ottawa-Montreal is terrible, but customers with the new tri-mode phones have full digital all the way.

dan

So I take it then that Belleville should have total digital coverage then. I think that is the place that I would spend the most amount of time

Absolutely. I've spent a little bit of time there myself, on the main strip off the highway (I can't recall the street name) and in the downtown area, and had no problems whatsoever.

dan

Thanks Dan I really appreciate it :-)

Service along the 401 from Toronto to about Brockville is pretty good, mainly digital except in a few spots.(sometimes got an american provider jumping over the river) Service north of the 401 in between Kingston and Brockville is not the greatest. And as for going north to Kapuskasing, the service up to New Liskeard was spotty but i was still able to hold onto a couple calls for a good distance up HWY 11.

j_binkley

You still have the V120 with dual PRL right? I think what he's looking for is the difference between Mobility coverage and analog. Is Mobility 5121 PRL better then Rogers 42011 PRL in those same areas?

I'm sorry, but now I'm going to sound totally inept, but whats a PRL and how does is tie in with my original question regarding reception. (I'm such a newb)

RedVelocity,

PRL - Preferred Roaming List PRL is an important thing to a CDMA handset. Imagine, we have more than one CDMA carriers offering service in majority areas. How can we get the serivce with our carriers of choice? What about when we are travelling to other places that do not have our own carriers? Basically, it is a "list" containing many carriers' SID (System ID), NID (Network ID), Band, Channel, Roaming/Home Indicator, Acquistion Priority, Geographical Group, etc. Without it, you cannot access the right network at the right place and have the right service. To learn more about PRL, please visit Justa Luker.com:

http://www.justalurker.com/howto.html

Also, read my post for other frequently asked terms:

http://www.howardforums.com/showthr...+PRL#post639364

PRL stands for Preferred Roaming List - in layman's terms, it's the phone's list of towers to use.

Old, dual-mode Telus/Clearnet phones probably have PRL 42011, which uses Telus digital signal and Rogers analog. The Rogers analog service is spectacularly bad and completely unreliable.

Newer, tri-mode Telus phones have PRL 5121, which uses Telus digital, Bell digital and Bell analog.

dan

dan,

Don't forget those older PRLs too:

- For Telus (without ClearNET): 28003 / 38003 / 16311... And, a couple of 800MHz only ones.

- For ClearNET (before acquisition): 02 / 03 / 04 / 99 (a blank PRL)

Just go with Telus so that you get access to both the Telus and Bell networks vs going with Bell and only get their network.

Telus also generally has more towers then Bell in areas where they both have service.