# Alltel to ATT - How Does the Coverage Compare



## drjongy (Oct 13, 2003)

My Alltel phone just switched to ATT yesterday. Don't really notice any big difference here in town, but wondering what the coverage is like out of town in the lakes area. Are you finding it the same, better, or worse than Alltel. Looking for info on Devils Lake area, Lake of the Woods, Bemidji, and Detroit Lakes area. Thanks.


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## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

The way the person at Altell/AT&T made it sound, it shouldn't make a difference. But pervious experince with AT&T, I won't ever go back to them. But that was when they had zero service in North Dakota, 3 or 4 years ago.


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## sierra03 (Jan 27, 2005)

the company i work for does all the heating/ cooling for the cell towers in the state of ND. Most of the time in the country, where you see a verizon tower, there is an ATT/Alltel tower nearby. And Towers continue to go up around the state. Not sure about other states coverage, but north Dakota should be covered very well.

Also, the future of cellphone tower technology will improve. More power, less tower.


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## southdakbearfan (Oct 11, 2004)

It is going to be hard to tell for a while. Here in South Dakota Alltel and Verizon were able to broker a deal for their customers to bounce off each other's towers.

So far from what I have heard, this is not the case with AT&T and Verizon, plus AT&T has not coverted all the towers as some of the old phones will still be in service through May, also from my understanding.

Alltel had better service in rural NE SD before they and Verizon brokered their deal, hopefully AT&T will broker a deal with verizon also, when and if they run on the same technology.


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## Chaws (Oct 12, 2007)

Until AT&T fully gets off the ground in Nodak or other rural areas, I'm sure you'll see a major drop in coverage. Regarding the sharing of towers that Alltel and Verizon used to have, that's not possible with the change to AT&T due to the entirely different type of service they use. The original Alltel and Verizon are a CDMA service and AT&T is GSM, two totally different technologies and frequencies in the mobile world.


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## Andy Weber (Nov 18, 2009)

southdakbearfan said:


> Alltel had better service in rural NE SD before they and Verizon brokered their deal,


Did you type that wrong and mean they had better service after the deal? Because when the deal was made altel didn't lose anything, they gained a bunch of towers, so service did nothing but improve 10x.


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

As I understand it the "towers" are not the problem right now. My ex spent about 5 hours on the phone with their tech service trying to get everthing to work yesterday.It started by dropping calls after about 30 seconds. They got it 95% fixed and when she called back to fix the last thing the tech screwed things up so bad the next one had to start all over. She is still having problems today...........


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## zogman (Mar 20, 2002)

Its all George W Bush's fault. oke:


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

Nope it's that darn Pakistan tech center........................... It's begining to sounds like Osama might have been behind the AT&T/Alltel merge. :sniper:


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## Ron Gilmore (Jan 7, 2003)

Service coverage has not changed from my experience in the areas I have traveled. Dead spots are the same as before. I have not been impressed with the phones however which is a different issue and they are working on this issue with me. Given that it has been a bit over a week since we changed I give coverage a A for not degrading, service techs a B as like any company get a good one no issue get a bad one and well!

Transition phone quality C-, support help to resolve these issues C- as well.

Cost of new plans compared to old Alltel and other competitors a A if we decide to stay. I run five phones on my account with family and ATT will save me $80.00 a month and that was after we added another smart phone to our list of phones.

There are other companies that offer better deals but have very limited coverage in ND. So will ride out the change and see what shakes out. Since I am not under contract coming over from Alltel I can wait this out a bit and see!


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## dogdonthunt (Nov 10, 2005)

i have verizon but from reading what ppl have been posting on facebook it seems that they are very disatisfied... and lately when I try call friends with ATT it is usually busy, I get an error msg, or it goes to VM before I finally get thru... My parent also switched to verizon because they were at Island lake in MN and didnt get coverage... and were told itll be 8 months before there is coverage there... same with most of the lakes areas in northern MN... and if you talk to the reps at verizon and best buy they have had a huge influx of new customers...


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## ac700wildcat (Oct 30, 2006)

I was switched over to att last tuesday and had a ton of reception problems where even a text message wouldn't send. I haven't been up there, but I've been told that the corporate store here in town has had big lines to wait in and they actually have security guards there since the changeover. Thursday I decided to just go to Verizon and save the headache of dealing with customer service and I couldn't be happier. My brother is also having troubles and will probably be switching four phones over and my sister is looking at changing two phones over too.


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## the professor (Oct 13, 2006)

Just switched over from an Alltel plan that was out of minnesota (in the coverage area that would switch to Verizon) to Verizon here in Sioux Falls. The store was crowded and I would say 75% of the customers were trying to drop their AT&T plans and get on Verizon. Heard a lot of people around here were having troubles getting AT&T reception anytime they were inside a building. I carried Verizon for a work phone for 7 years here in SD and the only areas I had issues was some of the reservation areas. Same with Alltel before the merger/swap took place. Anywhere that had good Verizon coverage I was good to go on my Alltel personal phone.

AT&T is losing out big time in this area, but they probably don't care, as the money now is in the 4G urban markets.


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