Central IL / IL Chasers - data plan?

[Mark Sefried]

Verizon is outstanding for coverage in IL. I rarely loose a signal, even in the middle of BFE, lol.

 

[John Farley]

Maybe I should switch to Verizon when my 2-year contract with Sprint ends. Sprint is excellent along the freeways in IL (though there are places, even urban areas, in some other states, where it sucks), and overall I found it to be better than ATT. (I also quit that within the 30-day cancellation period and switched to Sprint, which, despite its problems, I found to be better than ATT.) HOWEVER - I can get virtually no signal from Sprint in the "big hole" roughly bounded by I-72, I-55, and the Mississippi River, and using an amp and antenna did not help me much in this area. Get more than 8 or 10 miles from I-55 or I-72 in this area and you're toast. Have others had good luck with Verizon in this area?

 

[Jesse Risley]

Maybe I should switch to Verizon when my 2-year contract with Sprint ends. Sprint is excellent along the freeways in IL (though there are places, even urban areas, in some other states, where it sucks), and overall I found it to be better than ATT. (I also quit that within the 30-day cancellation period and switched to Sprint, which, despite its problems, I found to be better than ATT.) HOWEVER - I can get virtually no signal from Sprint in the "big hole" roughly bounded by I-72, I-55, and the Mississippi River, and using an amp and antenna did not help me much in this area. Get more than 8 or 10 miles from I-55 or I-72 in this area and you're toast. Have others had good luck with Verizon in this area?

I oftentimes travel U.S. 67 down to Alton and I've never had a problem with service. I've chased areas south of I-72 between the Illinois River and I-55 and I've never had a problem, nor have I ever lost service traveling down to catfish Fridays at the Kampsville Inn, and parts of rural Pike and Calhoun County near the Illinois River are fairly "backwaterish."

When traveling to Godfrey or Collinsville, I've also taken the Eldred-Hillview blacktop that travels through the Illinois River bottoms between I-72 and IL 100 near Pere Marquette State Park in Jersey County. I don't believe that I've ever actually lost signal anywhere betwixt those two points while using the external antenna and the amp, but stretches of that scenic route are 1xRTT land in profusion. When we were traversing the IL Route 4 corridor in the Carlinville area this past May on a chase, there were no data issues.

 

[Jarrod Cook]

Verizon is hands down the best in IL. While ATT may have coverage in many areas, most of it is not high speed, and the rural areas will be flaky. Verizon has 3g coverage almost everywhere. I don't even run an amp and many times go without an external antenna and don't even have problems.

 

[Joe beier]

Like I said in our PM's Chris ... verizon is pretty damn good. I have an ATT phone as a backup and a verizon datacard now that I need to activate.

Like skip I have an AT&T phone and a Verizon card. So far Verizon has far outshined AT&T around here. That coupled with the fact that Verizon has a no contract plan you can shut down in the off months makes them a winner for me

Hmm ... prepaid? The only prepaid I'm seeing is $60 a month for around 500MB unless you get a contract THEN it's 5GB. I must be overlooking something awesome

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Joe they don't advertise it, but you can activate Verizon month to month when purchasing an air card off eBay. There's a one time $35 activation fee.

 

[John Farley]

Thanks for the info, everyone. I am thinking I might switch to Verizon when my Sprint contract expires in June.


John

 

[Johnathan Brouwer]

they will try to get you to pay while deactivating too, be ready for that....

 

[Ben Holcomb]

You can deactivate for free, or suspend for $15. I chose to suspend my service in October, and had to unsuspend it earlier this month for a couple days. There was no charge to unsuspend, just the data charges for the 4 days or so it was unsuspended, then I paid another $15 to re-suspend it until storm season.

 

[Nathan Truninger]

So if I have a Verizon data card, I can just call them up and do month to month then? Is it the same $60 a month for 5GB plan?