"No Cellular Roaming Charges"

[Mark Sedenquist]

One rate plans promise "roaming free" coverage. Such service is dependent upon existence of digital towers. Please post your experiences with this advertising gimick.

[Craig]

I have been using AT&T's One Rate plan for two years now and it has been great for me, and I have traveled all over the country. There are very few places that the phone won't work. There are no roaming charges with AT& T. I think that if you look at some of the other companies "no roaming " claims though, I noticed that they say no roaming or long distance anywhere in the contry that "they have their own service". At&T picks up the roaming charges themselves on the few places in the contry that they don't own the service. This service has been greet for me for two yeas and I would highly recommend it.

[Mark Sedenquist]

Craig,

Thanks for the posting. Your experience is exactly the type of information this Forum was forumlated upon. A couple of questions:

1. What phone equipment are you using with AT&T's One Rate plan?

2. Is your use primarily voice (or do you log-on too)?

3. What places in the US do you go? Rural or urban?

4. What is your "home" city for billing purposes?

5. Have any of your recent bills included "long distance surcharges" or any other unexplained billings?

> This service has been great for me for
two years and I would highly recommend it.

Thanks for the recommendation!

[Craig]

Mark,

1) I have a Nokia 6160

2) Voice only, I would like to go online on the road with my cell phone, but don't know if Nokia has the attachments.

3) I travel a good portion of the U.S. 9 months of the year. Entire east coast, midwest, and southwest. Urban, Rural and desolate. The services is digital if there is digital service available, and switches to analog if not. There have been only a very few small pockets of the country where my phone doesn't work. For the most part, if there is cell phone service, it works.

4) My billing goes to my home in the Chicago area. The entire U.S. is considered my "home" area for long distance and roaming charges.

5) No extra charges in the last 2 years. You pick a plan with a set number of minutes for a flat fee and if you don't go over the minutes, there is no additional fee.

Good luck.

Craig

[Mark Sedenquist]

Craig,

I have posted a query about what you will need to connect to the internet using your 6160. But I know from our own experience, that the two most significant problems are the size of the "pipeline" (capacity of the wireless network to transport internet files) and the power ability of your handset to secure a clean channel to allow the transfer.

Your 6160 without the addition of a booster kit is transceiving at about .6 watts, such a power level is nearly impossible to "surf" the web. What many companies are doing to overcome these problems is providing "stripped-down" versions of webpages in data formats that your phone can handle.

RW