Really Detailed Coverage Maps?

Several years ago, I recall finding (somewhere) a really nice website
that had very detailed interactive regional maps that plotted out
virtually every cellphone tower and reported the signal strengths
proverbially along every mile of each local highway, etc.

Unfortunately, I can't find that website anymore.

Hopefully, someone here can recall what I was referring to and suggest
an appropriate research tool.

What I'm specifically trying to find is what the signal strength is
like for a non-VZW network cellphone when on "West Orange Mountain".
This is a stretch of I-280 in West Orange, NJ, roughly at the
intersection of I-280 and 636 and is a hilly section that is locally
notorious for very bad winter conditions and it used to be a very bad
dead spot on everyone's cell networks except Verizon.

I'm trying to find out without personally driving over there with a
non-VZW cellphone if this is still a dead spot, or if real-world
coverage has materially improved, as it is a key Go/NoGo to
potentially changing providers.

Suggestions?


-hh

At 05 Dec 2007 06:24:19 -0800 -hh wrote:

> Hopefully, someone here can recall what I was referring to and suggest
> an appropriate research tool.


I can't help you as to a site that gives all carriers' info, but I've found
the interactive street-level coverage map at T-Mobile to be dead-accurate.
AT&T's seems to be a little generous to AT&T, but if their map says no
service, you can believe it. If it says "poor" (or whatever the lowest
grade is) I'd take it with a gran of salt.

Sprint has a similar street-level map on their site, but I can't vouch for
it's accuracy since I don't have and Sprint phones to compare it's results
with.


> What I'm specifically trying to find is what the signal strength is
> like for a non-VZW network cellphone when on "West Orange Mountain".
> This is a stretch of I-280 in West Orange, NJ, roughly at the
> intersection of I-280 and 636 and is a hilly section that is locally
> notorious for very bad winter conditions and it used to be a very bad
> dead spot on everyone's cell networks except Verizon.
>
> I'm trying to find out without personally driving over there with a
> non-VZW cellphone if this is still a dead spot, or if real-world
> coverage has materially improved, as it is a key Go/NoGo to
> potentially changing providers.
>
> Suggestions?


An odd one perhaps. If you have an otherwise compelling reason to ditch
Verizon, (that shiny new iPhone calling you, perhaps?) you can leverage
prepaid to get the best of both worlds.

PagePlus Wireless (http://www.pagepluscellular.com) is a Verizon reseller-
they offer Verizon's coverage at a significant discount vs. Verizon's
regular prepaid rates. You can activate any deactivated Verizon phone on
their service, and they sell refill cards good for 120 days for $10. I use
them as a backup for my T-Mobile service. T-Mo works in 99% of the places
I go, but I have issues up in the mountains and ski resorts of Colorado
where Verizon has excellent coverage, and I REALLY don't want to be without
a working phone in inclement weather!

A comparable Verizon service plan would cost me over $80/month more than T-
Mo charges me (2-phone 1000-minute family plan with unlimited data on two
WinMo phones costs me $72 on T-Mo- the two data add-ons alone would $90 on
Verizon, plus $70 for voice.)

A YEAR of PagePlus costs me $30 for the little I use it, plus a little
hassle (remembering to buy a $10 card online and refill the account every
120 days, but that's easily managed in the calendar function of my everyday
phone.)

I keep the PP phone and car charger in the glovebox, and it's there if/when
I need it. It also makes a convenient temporary phone for situations like
selling something in a classified ad- carry the PP phone around in the back
pocket for a few days until the item sells, then off and back in the
glovebox it goes so you don't get another week of "do you still have that
Toyota?" calls.

Good luck!

Todd Allcock <eleccon...@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote:
> -hh wrote:
>
> > Hopefully, someone here can recall what I was referring to and suggest
> > an appropriate research tool.
>
> I can't help you as to a site that gives all carriers' info, but I've found
> the interactive street-level coverage map at T-Mobile to be dead-accurate.
> AT&T's seems to be a little generous to AT&T, but if their map says no
> service, you can believe it. If it says "poor" (or whatever the lowest
> grade is) I'd take it with a gran of salt.

Thanks. In taking a look at T-Mobile's, it appears to have a lot more
resolution/gradation than AT&T's. Plus, it also appears that a new
tower has also been installed right on top of the old 'dead spot'.


> If you have an otherwise compelling reason to ditch Verizon,
> (that shiny new iPhone calling you, perhaps?) ...

I am thinking about AT&T because maybe the "iPhone v2.5" eventually,
but my main motivation is a GSM carrier because CDMA doesn't work in
Europe.


> ... you can leverage prepaid to get the best of both worlds.

I already have a couple of international prepaid phones laying
around. They're tolerable for the very occasional trip, but I spent
2-3 months in Europe just within the past year, which makes them too
much of a hassle for my tastes. To have a phone with 'unlimited' time
at short notice and just one phone# where I can be reached at is worth
the relative expenses IMO (YMMV, naturally).


-hh

At 06 Dec 2007 09:55:58 -0800 -hh wrote:

> I already have a couple of international prepaid phones laying
> around. They're tolerable for the very occasional trip, but I spent
> 2-3 months in Europe just within the past year, which makes them too
> much of a hassle for my tastes. To have a phone with 'unlimited' time
> at short notice and just one phone# where I can be reached at is worth
> the relative expenses IMO (YMMV, naturally).

You can always "cheat" with a VoIP provider that offers forwarding (like
Skype or Voicestick.) Set your VoIP provider to forward all calls to your
European prepaid phone, then set your American cellphone to forward to your
VoIP number.

It might cost you $3-5/month for the incoming VoIP number, and $0.20/min.
or so for the VoIP-to-Europhone call, but that's much cheaper than the $1-
2/minute you'll be bled by roaming charges.

Where they really "getcha" is local calls in Europe- those might be a few
cents/min. on the prepaid (and free for incoming) but they're the same
$1.xx/min. on your roaming American phone.

Plus, the locals can then reach you on a local cell number, rather than
having to call 4500 miles back to the US to reach you on the next block!
;-)


For short trips, roaming is economical, since you are spared the expense of
the prepaid SIM and the VoIP forwarding, but two or three months probably
justifies a little hassle on your end setting up a system like I described
that's seamless to your friends family and associates, while potentially
saving you a bucket of money...

Todd Allcock <eleccon...@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote:
>
> For short trips, roaming is economical, since you are spared the expense of
> the prepaid SIM and the VoIP forwarding, but two or three months probably
> justifies a little hassle on your end setting up a system like I described...

Agreed, although I should have clarified/disclosed better: my "2-3
months" was the aggregate sum of multiple 'short' trips, so there
would have been repeated setup/teardown. Plus they weren't all to the
same country either, which makes buying a prepaid SIM for each country
a nuisance (and a few had had multiple countries in the same week) and
on the home front, every time that I'd get home, I'd promptly lose
another weekend flying down to the Florida panhandle (home of no
direct flights) for a sick family member. As such, I've probably only
had around 20-25 weekends at home this calendar year.


-hh

On 2007-12-07, -hh <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> wrote:
> Todd Allcock <eleccon...@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote:
>>
>> For short trips, roaming is economical, since you are spared the expense of
>> the prepaid SIM and the VoIP forwarding, but two or three months probably
>> justifies a little hassle on your end setting up a system like I described...
>
> Agreed, although I should have clarified/disclosed better: my "2-3
> months" was the aggregate sum of multiple 'short' trips, so there
> would have been repeated setup/teardown. Plus they weren't all to the
> same country either, which makes buying a prepaid SIM for each country
> a nuisance

I can sympathize with all of this, I also travel a fair bit and
have had months with some big AT&T cellphone bills. It is the case,
however, that doing what Tod suggests when it is convenient seems to
work pretty well. To keep the US number alive I have a VoIP forwarding
service, but when I can't get to an Internet connection to redirect it
I'll sometimes just forward the AT&T phone itself to the overseas number;
AT&T's international long distance rates aren't terrible if you pay the
monthly fee for World Connect and you can forward GSM phones while
overseas. I also find the effort to get a local SIM worth it if I'm
going to be spending more than 3 or 4 days in the country (maybe a
little longer if I don't speak the language and don't have a local
friend to help buy it), or if I know I'll be back fairly frequently;
I now have a small collection of SIM cards for countries I often
visit, so I can set up the call forwarding just before I leave the US
and slip the local SIM into the phone when I get there. I also have
a global roaming SIM with a US number, from CelTrek, which is a lot
cheaper than AT&T roaming in many countries, though I usually reserve
this for countries where the price advantage over AT&T roaming is large
since the CelTrek service, while reliable, has a big, annoying delay.
If none of this is convenient, however, I just use the AT&T SIM.

And, actually, AT&T isn't too bad for this if you travel enough to
justify the extra monthly fees (about $100/year) to get the cheaper
roaming and long distance rates (if I travelled internationally only
occasionally I'd use T-Mobile instead). I also have Verizon service
for use in Mexico, but I'd drop this and just live with AT&T if I
went to Mexico less frequently. I won't buy an iPhone, however,
as much as I like the look of it, until you can get them unlocked by
the carrier to use non-AT&T SIM cards.

Dennis Ferguson

Todd Allcock wrote:

> For short trips, roaming is economical, since you are spared the expense of
> the prepaid SIM and the VoIP forwarding, but two or three months probably
> justifies a little hassle on your end setting up a system like I described
> that's seamless to your friends family and associates, while potentially
> saving you a bucket of money...

I used "http://maxroam.com/" for my wife's last trip to Europe. They
give you a U.S. number. You can also get local numbers in a bunch of
countries at an extra charge. It's not terrible cheap, but a lot less
than doing international roaming on any U.S. carrier.

"http://celtrek.com/" is similar and less expensive than MaxRoam (but a
higher start-up cost).

If you're often going to be at a landline, or if you want to use prepaid
SIMs for a single country, then setting up a Voicestick account makes
sense, as you can keep changing the forwarding number to follow you around.

The other thing you can do is set up a OneSuite account, and give your
trusted friends and family access to it. You can set up a two digit
rapid dial entry that you change remotely as you move from country to
country. At least One Suite doesn't charge a monthly fee like Voicestick.