AT&T for us and connected everywhere in west Texas (maybe Edge sometimes) but the worst areas of valleys and such. The one thing unrelated to your purpose but part of a cell service is that my only dropped call in 2 years was yesterday. And during rush hour in the DFW area. We use Gmaps heavily on trips.
Use to drop calls a lot with ATT, thus the reason I'm now with Verizon, never had a dropped call...even picking up 4G in out in the middle of nowhere, Pence Springs WV...and cell phone service...
Jim & Kathy
2013 Dodge 3500DRW Longhorn 4X4/CC/LB/Aisin tranny/4:10/Cummins: 385HP/850TQ
06 HR Presidential Suite 37RLQ/ 4 slide/ dual pane windows/Winegard SK3005 Satellite/Splendide XC2100 W/D
Boxers;Buddy& Sheba II
USAF 71-75 Nam Vet
My vote is Verizon. No one I know who has ATT actually likes it, and the only ones who stick with it stay as they have been there awhile and built up savings or don't want to have to pay a break contract fee, etc.
I don't know of one person personally who has ATT who has used Verizon before who actually like ATT better.
as for your question I'd prefer to stick with ATT as that is the cell phone company we have been using for years. Can you turn the service on for a month or two, then turn it off (not pay) for the rest of the year? I am not sure what you mean, or why? Are you saying you want to get a new phone and use it a couple of months, then cancel for the remainder of the year, and start using it again at the beginning of next year? I'm not sure why you would be doing this, but if this is the question,no, because you would still be in contract if you mean a new phone with a new service provider. If you mean with your current ATT phone and account, you can do this if you are not in the contract period, but I am not sure they will hold that phone number for you all that time in either scenario without charging you a monthly bill. In fact, I am pretty certain they won't. They won't hold the phone number on a non active account.
Once when my daughter was still on my account and then she got her own in her own name, I wanted to cut off that number. I was told that since that number still had eight months left in contract, I would have to pay the break contract fee which I think was about 250 dollars. It was cheaper for me to just leave the phone on, and pay the extra line fee for eight months than it was to cut it off, so that is what I did. It was only ten dollars a month for her line, so that was a total of $80 in the long run vs $250.
Why do you want to turn one on a couple of months then off the remainder of the year? Just curious.
Check the AT&T and Verizonwireless coverage maps and you will find that in rural areas the best coverage is with Verizon. For things like google maps you do not need a lot of speed and high performance 4G exists only in large cities. Only two cities in Arizona for example, Phoenix and Tuscon have high speed 4G. Not only the towers need to be upgraded but also the landline backbone from the towers to the hubs need to be as well and at least in the western USA this has not begun to happen.
Two basic ways to go with Verizonwireless for data. Get a smartphone and pay the extra $30 a month for data and have cell phone use for another $50 a month or for data only go with a service like Millenicom.com which resells Verizon wireless access but is month to month with no contracts and they provide the USB modem that works with a tablet or laptop.
We use Millenicom with the modem for Verizon as we can share the modem with both our computers and use the internet connection at the same time and use it while we drive down the road. I much prefer doing any kind of googlemaps or Yelp.com search on a netbook with an 11" screen over the screen on my smartphone.
With a USB modem I can also use an external antenna and it alone doubles my signal strength. I also use an RF boosting amplifier but this is optional though it again doubles the signal strength. With the external amplifier and antenna I go from 1 bar to 3 bars which makes all the difference in the world when traveling on the open road.
Millenicom also offers a $70 a month plan with 10GB of data and they provide the Novatel hotspot device which is the same one used by Verizon. It provides WiFi output to up to 5 devices (smartphones or WiFi capable laptops, tablets, etc.) and this small device also accepts an external antenna. With Millenicom they send you the modem and to discontinue the service at any time you simply send it back.
We have decided to use the cheapest phone plan we can and make use of cheap flip phones for voice and use the Millenicom service for data. We pay less and get more (data connections for all of our computers to use simultaneously). It still costs us more than $300 a month for our phone/data service and that is without broadband service of any kind as not even DSL is available in our small community of 21,000. Gotta love free enterprise in America - free to exploit anyway.
I WAS with AT&T for 20 years and finally switched to Verizon because of so many dropped calls and dead spots with AT&T. When I started dropping calls in my own back yard and all AT&T could tell me was, "we are working on it". It was time to leave. It's been 9 months without a dropped call and the 4G is fantastic.
Chuck
02 Travel Supreme, 2 street side slides
09 Toyota Tacoma 2WD
I have ATT iPhone and a Verizon iPad and monitor connectivity while driving. Verizon used to be the no-brainer choice but I seriously doubt that now. AT&T has been the clear winner this past year after 31,000 miles driving from Palm Springs, CA to Key West, FL to Washinton, DC to Fairbanks, AK. In fact Verizon is non-existent in Alaska and AT&T 4G is almost everywhere in Alaska. AT&T 4G wipes A with Verizon 3G and LTE is not a player yet for RVers. AT&T 4G has generally been faster than most campground wifi networks.
Davydd
2011 Great West Van Legend Sprinter B Camper Van
Visited states in an RV
From my experience with both, if you are in more populated areas, carrier doesn't make much difference. If you spend more time in rural areas, in most cases, Verizon will have better coverage.
Davydd wrote: I have ATT iPhone and a Verizon iPad and monitor connectivity while driving. Verizon used to be the no-brainer choice but I seriously doubt that now. AT&T has been the clear winner this past year after 31,000 miles driving from Palm Springs, CA to Key West, FL to Washinton, DC to Fairbanks, AK. In fact Verizon is non-existent in Alaska and AT&T 4G is almost everywhere in Alaska. AT&T 4G wipes A with Verizon 3G and LTE is not a player yet for RVers. AT&T 4G has generally been faster than most campground wifi networks.
I spent 5 weeks traveling around Alaska and had Verizon air card connection all but 5 nights - 3 of those were in the same location.
If you mean that Verizon doesn't have its own towers, you could be right, but most of the time, I had a 3G connection; sometimes it was a 1X connection.
We just switched from AT&T to Verizon. And sincerely deeply regret it. Both have pockets they get coverage, but even where Verizon does get coverage, the through-put and, on voice calls, the audio, are much worse. Verizon has a better selection of devices, but the signal quality is terrible.
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