Preferred Cellphone Network Used By Storm Chasers

[RWilbanks]

I have a few friends from Japan, who will out storm chasing in the Plains States and maybe into the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley areas in May - July. They asked me what cellular provider offers the best voice and data coverage in these areas. Apparently, they want the ability to use cell phones and also plug a separate wireless card into their laptops. Any suggestions?

 

[Richard Dickson]

There is a never ending debate about cell phone and data coverage in the Great Plains. You won't find a "perfect" provider that has coverage everywhere you want to go. Sprint and Verizon seem to be the two most frequently offered as good choices. A.T. & T. gets mentioned also.

For your entertainment, a good place to form your opinion after reading the thoughts others have had would be to look at the Blue Bar at the top of this page. The third listing from the right is labeled "Search". Click on that and enter Cell Providers or Data Providers and start looking through the threads. It will keep you occupied for a while.

 

[Gordon Spencer]

Stay away from AT&T especially for data . Only about 30% of their network has 3G for data . They are especially weak in Rural areas where most chasing takes place. If just using phone service then they are a bit better

I have a few friends from Japan, who will out storm chasing in the Plains States and maybe into the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley areas in May - July. They asked me what cellular provider offers the best voice and data coverage in these areas. Apparently, they want the ability to use cell phones and also plug a separate wireless card into their laptops. Any suggestions?

 

[Chris Campbell]

Stay away from AT&T especially for data . Only about 30% of their network has 3G for data . They are especially weak in Rural areas where most chasing takes place. If just using phone service then they are a bit better

It really depends on what you're doing. If you're downloading big JPEG images, yes, 3G is a big plus. It certainly makes a difference, but if you're downloading raw radar data with something like RadarScope, EDGE really isn't bad at all. Software that processes the radar data on your computer rather than downloading an image needs to download a much smaller file. Heck, I've been on GPRS using RadarScope before (I've used i-wireless for data in rural Iowa; some areas are GPRS still) and it was considerably faster than I expected.

 

[Scott Sims]

Im in one of the few areas that still sells Alltel, so I am still on the unlimited tethering plan, but I can't vouch for all coverage areas. I can't even get a straight answer from the alltel site on what exactly the data coverage is, but I have seldom been more than temporarily dropped anywhere in IL, MO, AR, IA, NE, OK and KS. Just look at the difference on the same areas in these maps below depending on if you click North or South Dakota or Texas or Colorado on the coverage site.

I'm assuming the wider EVDO A coverage on the N Dakota and Colorado maps is probably right, since why report way better than the nothing without expecting screams from customers.

I would like to know what coverage in the panhandles(and OK and TX proper for that matter) is like for Monday and beyond All I can guess is that it is probably better than the Texas map, because the Amarillo-Dumas area has good coverage on the Colorado map, but not even 1xrtt in the Texas map. Anyone know of a better source for Alltel data coverage?


Green EVDO A
Dk Blue EVDO O
Lt Blue 1xrtt

South Dakota

North Dakota

Texas

Colorado