cell phone coverage

I live (73521) 50 miles away from another city (73501) that has a lot of cell phone providers. Here we only have three, US Cellular, Sprint, and CellularOne (quality in that order). In the other city, there is Cingular, T-Mobile, Verizon, and more. The phones with US Cellular, are subpar for me. I have done some researching and have come down to T-Mobile (top pick) and Cingular. I called both the 800 numbers and the reps there say, we haven't made it there yet, and the whole spill. I could'nt get a hold of the local Tmo rep, but visited the cingular store and they said I would be able to get GSM coverage. I am wanting a nice phone, with a national plan. Would coverage matter? The tmobile map online shows my zip being in the tmobile roaming, and cingular has orange at least 100 miles around me. Am I just screw-ed, or can I actually have coverage? Can any cell phone people help me out on this? I want to make sure I get my info straight.

-Nate

nau1977, although it pains me to say this, I would not recommend that you get T-Mobile at this point.

I used the coverage check tool http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/?class=coverage

Grant it, a T-Mobile phone will work there because we have roaming agreements...
Grant it, we have plans that include FREE roaming

However, since it is not a T-Mobile market you would not get the full benefits of being a T-Mobile customer. If a tower was to go down in that area, there would be nothing that T-Mobile could do about it since it is not T-Mobile's tower. If your phone was to start losing signal, there would be no way of knowing if the problem was being caused by your phone or by the area you live in, you'd have a more difficult time than most others before getting a resolution. You would also have to check your voicemail from any phone other than your own mobile phone (or you'd have to wait to check your voicemail from home).

Another thing:
When you are on the T-Mobile network, it takes only a few hours for your minute usage to update into our own system.
The minute messanger feature, #646#, would be terribly inaccurate because T-Mobile would not know your minute usage until the roaming partner tells us. Therefore, it would be very hard for you to track your minutes usage.

I'm sorry if this is disappointing, but I'm here to help you.

The companies you mentioned all have 2 year contracts. So hopefully we'll have coverage in your area 2 years from now. I saw on the coverage map that T-Mobile has towers in the 73527 zip code, so I hope we expand out to your area.

Good Luck

That sucks. I really would like another provider, because the phones uscc has are not what I really want. But Cache, OK (73527) is a little closer. I can tell you though, if tmobile, or some other major carrier, moved in, people will sign up fast. i guess whoever gets here first will hit the jackpot. Well, thanks.

I know, I'm sorry. We have US Cellular over here in Chicago. There is a US Cellular dealer right across the street from where I work. They offer very competitve rate plans but our store is always busier than theirs.

Thanks for the info. I will give your scouting report to our planning department and our engineering department.

Yes thats reason that FCC regulated T-Mobile can only sell to new customer where T-Mobile Network and not the roaming agreement area. I do show Western Wireless Corporation at your home zipcode. I believe it not a problem at all since my area is WWC also, and Sidekick II works just like charm, but I can't guarantee you that you'll to have good signal strenght at 100% of time in your area, but my was average 70-80% of time. It can be use exist tri-band or quad-band GSM phone with new activation with T-Mobile SIM card or buy T-Mobile To Go product anywhere store that you can find.. It will still work with post pay. Remember To Go isnt available in your area.