s2kdriver80

What is a good GSM cell phone service provider for the Long Island region? When I say good, I mean good reception quality and good coverage first. Customer service and rates while important are secondary for me. And also would this phone I get with this service be readily operable in Europe? I guess the USA carrier would have to be in partnership with the European GSM carrier or is this not necessarily true? Like T-Mobile operates in both USA and Europe but what if I decide to go with At&T - would I still be able to use that GSM phone overseas? I live on Long Island, NY if that is of any consequence and I hear GSM coverage is far more superior in Europe than in the USA so I'm just concerned about Long Island's reception. Thanks.

turbo_pwr

I use AT&T and it's horrible. I heard they share the same system as T-Mobile so you might be out of luck with both those companies.

DaveOnLI

I use AT&T GSM too. They were horrible and have gotten better, but still not good. The AT&T GSM does work over in Europe. I haven't tried it, but they did send me an e-mail recently letting me know that the service was in place. Everyone I've talked with says Verizon has best signal coverage. I dont know if they are GSM though......

nibble

cingular just bought ATT GSM so they "supposed to" share the antenna. GSM is still limited in US.

turbo_pwr

Paul, thanks, so Cingular shares it's service with AT&T. It has gotten better lately but there are a lot of places on LI where I get horrible reception/coverage.

I do know that my friend has T-Mobile and says it sucks just as much on Long Island. Verizon is not GSM.

TriaXenginE

I have T-Mobile and it's not bad. It could be better, but it's okay.

turbo_pwr

have you tried it much in Long Island? I hear it's bad anywhere in the North and South shore, but decent in the middle.

nibble

I wish t-mobile & at&t shares their service. usually, where att works t-mobile doesn't and vice-versa...

nibble

also, from my recent experience,

I couldn't find any phone that I liked in at&t but this one from cigular was pretty good. altough cingular "supposed to" share as same service as at&t, I know for fact that cigular does not work in my apartment. where at&t does. so I had to get att service and this one store had both at&t and cigular. what they did for me was took that cigular phone and inserted the sim chip from att phone and the phone worked!! that was good news but the bad news is, I cannot use GPRS(internet) service to download ringtone or any... directly to my phone.. ...there were other ways...

TriaXenginE

My service is actually better in LI. When I was in the Hamptons, i had full bars on the phone.