Chuck wrote:

> Since I have a newer car with a built in cellphone (Locked to Verizon) I'm
> seriously considering forgetting about Cingular and switching.
>
> Any pros and cons concerning Verizon service?

The big pro is that you can still get a handset with AMPS service on
Verizon. As you realize, continuing with GAIT on Cingular is not going
to be viable.

Having AMPS can be a big advantage if you travel outside the urban
areas. Even though probably every Verizon AMPS tower also has CDMA, the
AMPS has greater range so the coverage is better than with CDMA-only. In
rural areas, having AMPS capability is the difference between service
and no service.

Some people are confused regarding the Verizon coverage maps, which will
not show AMPS if the area is also covered by digital. What the maps
don't show is that the concurrent AMPS coverage reaches a wider area
than the CDMA coverage. It can make a huge difference in coverage. As
pointed out earlier, the AMPS coverage in rural areas is often all
that's available, i.e. on one of the routes I take up to Lake Tahoe,
there is no GSM service for much of the way, but you can usually pick up
an AMPS signal from the rural carrier.

In all areas of the country Verizon coverage was better than Cingular
service in the most extensive independent surveys. In some areas the
difference was small, in some it was very large. In the area I live in,
the San Francisco Bay Area, Verizon is far superior to Cingular in terms
of coverage according to every independent survey. Besides having less
dropped calls and better coverage, it has a another advantage that feeds
on itself, in that a large majority of people in the area have Verizon,
which results in less need for peak minutes as most calls are mobile to
mobile.

As to the cons, I guess if you travel to GSM-only countries it means
that you won't be able to have Cingular coverage with your GSM phone,
you'd need to take a GSM quad-band phone and buy prepaid SIM cards.