Sarah

Any ideas? Going for longer than a vacation want to know which service is the best in terms of price and signals.

Thanks,

Sarah

MikeT

Are you going to be near Honolulu or somewhere else. Rates shouldn't matter since it is the USA, after all, assuming you have nationwide long-dstance that includes Hawaii.

MikeT

Oops, I assume you are from the US. If not, any US provider should be fine.

Andrew

I used my T-Mobile phone all over Oahu when I was there in December. I didn't check constantly to see if I had cell service, but I did check it in many places and was surprised at how good my service was when I used it.

TMWeddle

We were in Maui in February and Verizon worked great. I have a friend who lives on Oahu who loves Verizon.

MelissaHI

Which island? I live on Oahu and have both TMobile and Verizon. TMobile's prices are much better, but Verizon is clearer. As Mike says, rates shouldn't matter since it's the USA, so whatever phone service you currently have should work. Not all phones work on Lanai.

fdecarlo

This chart compares Sprint PCS, Verizon and Cingular:

http://www.mountainwireless.com/3netmap.htm

Looks like Sprint PCS is the one to stay away from on Oahu.

anaheimwoman

my cingular cell phone worked most everywhere in oahu and in kauai, including princeville area. used it there last january.

Sarah

Thanks everyone. I am already a verizon customer but not a cell phone owner, if you can believe that. Yes I will be in Hawaii Kai on Oahu. My nephew actually lives in Kailua (when he is not out at sea w/navy and tells me it depends on where you live. I found that so odd.

Thanks everyone.

Sarah

tiggrntaz

We were on Oahu, Maui and BI and loved our Verizon phones. They worked great-plus, having VZNavigator on our phone helped us to never get lost!

sunshine

Another vote for Verizon after changing over from Cingular.

Sarah

Thanks....never bought a cell phone and I will be far away from family and friends. How do I establish no roaming charges?

mark99

Just check to see if your plan is Nation wide and includes the Island that you are travelling to.

Roaming only kicks in when your carrier does not provide coverage.

It is very possible that some/plans carriers do not cover certain islands or parts of islands...so call first to ask the carrier or pull up the map.

If in doubt LEAVE YOUR PHONE turned off.

Some carriers consider you roaming JUST by having your phone on and "talking" to a tower, or getting calls and going to voice mail.

Roaming can easily add up to hundreds of dollars in a weeks time, and once your billed, it is hard to talk your way out of it without leverage!

Andrew

<<Some carriers consider you roaming JUST by having your phone on and "talking" to a tower, or getting calls and going to voice mail.>>

Sorry, that sounds like an urban legend or something that happened when cell phones were carried with two hands 15 years ago. I challenge you to find a REPUTABLE cell phone company (I mean, one of the majors - Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint-Nextel) who would consider you roaming just for having your phone turned on. Because I've been with three of those companies and they never had policies like that.

mark99

Cingular ! Cant speak for the rest...and voice mail counts as a call. If you get 20 voicemails a day it is going to add up.

And it does not matter about the main carrier...it is the carrier you get stuck with while roaming...and that could be Ozark Tel.

Not an urban legend....and incendently I had one of the first cell phones ever produced...it got very hot, and it was great as a weapon if needed!

Andrew

I'm sorry, I simply don't believe you would get charged a roaming charge with a Cingular phone if you had it on in a roaming area but were not using it. If you had such charges on your bill, they were a mistake and you should have called Cingular to have them removed. You also don't get charged for RECEIVING unanswered calls or voicemails - only for the airtime for listening to them should you do so in a roaming area. If someone leaves you a 5 minute voicemail message, they are not using actual airtime, because by that time your phone is out of it, the caller is talking to a digital recording device somewhere in the bowels of a Cingular data center.

karameli

I loathe Verizon as far as customer service goes, but you can't beat 'em for clarity. (Grrr.) When my husband and I were in Hawaii last summer, we had a signal almost everywhere on Oahu and BI. Only lost the signal when we hiked the lava fields in HVNP, but we had a full signal everywhere on Oahu, including Hawaii Kai and Kailua.

MelissaHI

Karameli, I feel the same way!! I keep Verizon, but verrrry begrudgingly.

bear900

LOL I first read this as "Best Call Service in Oahu"!

whew...! \/

karameli

OMG, that would be a totally different thread!