[pct-l] Pct-l Digest, Vol 14, Issue 61

[Colby Gutierrez-Kraybill]

>
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 16:24:38 -0800
> From: Brian Lewis <brianle8 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [pct-l] Verizon coverage on trail/towns/etc
> To: pct-l at backcountry.net
> Message-ID:
> 	<bd5c16ca0902091624p4f65f0adodee581d30616d238 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Ralph wrote: "I'm a verizon user, and my experience on the trail is  
> that I
> do not get reception as well as ATT users."
>
> I suspect there's a little "grass is greener on the other side of  
> the fence"
> aspect at work here.   As an ATT user last year, I was pretty  
> conscious of
> places where Verizon worked better.   My suggestion would be to use  
> either
> of those two carriers based on whatever other dynamics drive such a
> decision, such as phone offerings from each, contractual details,  
> maybe what
> friends or family have, etc.
>
> Then hope that people you walk long stretches with have the other  
> service!
> :-)


If you're willing to carry the weight of an extra SIM card (or two),  
you could attempt to get coverage from all potential providers along  
the entire trail.

You can avoid monthly plans by using pre-paid services.  Expect to pay  
$20-30 for each sim.  For ATT it's more economical to buy a full pre- 
paid phone and remove its sim card for later use ($20 for the phone 
+card, ~$35 for just the card direct from ATT).  Another caveat is  
that many (all?) pre-paid card plans limit the amount of time that  
calling minutes are available after you've paid for them to ~1-3  
months, e.g. if you don't use them within 3 months of activating them,  
they're lost.

I'm not sure how much each card will weigh, but it's probably less  
than 1gram.

- Colby