Cellular phones rely on the carriers strength. The signal makes the phone. This can mean the difference to a phone being a good phone or a great phone. You can easily take as much time to find the best calling plans and area reception as you would to finding the best cellular telephone. The problem is, locating information about calling plans is tough because this involves comparing oh so many variables. That is why a lot of online review sites avoid this subject.

According to J.D. Power and Associates, the quality of cell phone services has reached such a high standard across the board that there was no longer a reason to own a traditional phone line anymore. Yet nothing can be more confusing than statistics. According to comScore Networks, a whopping one in four cell phone customers are not satisfied with their wireless carrier. With such an astonishingly large statistic, its clear that cell phone signal technology is still in its adolescence. Ask any of your friends about cell phone reception horror stories and theyll have plenty of fireside tales to tell you. J.D. Power and Associates also asserts that call carrier customers who did not have their complaints resolved by customer service were six times more likely to switch carriers. But heres the rub: If one isnt satisfied with ones cell phone, its easy enough to get another one. But dropping a cell phone carrier is another matter. The advent of phone carrier contracts with cancellation penalty fees has largely come about to combat cell phone carrier dissatisfaction . Even the advent of 3G Networks, which was announced with great fanfare, still hasnt quelled a considerable percentage of cell phone customers that are not happy with their carriers. The following is brief rundown of which carriers rank best.

According to comScore, Verizon Wireless has consistently been rated the best carrier in terms of coverage and service. Overall, only six percent of customers break their service contract.

AT&T (formerly Cingular) comes in at number 2. Alltel has about a 9% contract breaking ratio, while Sprint/Nextel have an even greater 11%. To top them all, T-Mobile, appears to have a high number of customer running for the door at 15%.

Please note that the comScore survey above is not location specific. It is also using the percentage of people that are breaking the contract as the main factor for determining carrier popularity. However J.D. Power and Associates survey does indeed verify Verizon Wireless as the leader, but also goes on to add that this is true more so in the Northeast, as Verizons coverage is the strongest there. And T-Mobile, scoring the lowest with the comScore survey, actually ranked number 1 in the Southwest if you go by the J.D. Power and Associates survey. Also Verizon ranks lower when it comes to the phones that run its service in CDMA technology rather than GSM. As a result, Verizon cell phones do not normally accept SIM cards. This prevents them from being used when traveling overseas. As well the cost of Verizon wireless service also ranked as more expensive. So while Verizon’s customer service did get top marks, its bills tend to be confusing to read.

J.D. Powers and Associates also says that in the Southwest, Sprint is very popular. But at the same time concedes that in terms of call quality Sprint rank very low. A PC Magazine survey also confirmed the latter statistic. However PC Magazine also ranked T-Mobile as the best carrier in terms of pricing, second only to Alltel. As well T-Mobile has a wide range of cell phone in which you can use its service and since T-Mobile uses GSM you can use a SIM card enabling international use.

In terms of Prepaid cellular service. The winner is Virgin Mobile with the highest marks. After them is TracFone and then T-Mobile respectively. Verizon and AT&T follow in order of decreasing popularity. And then Sprint/Nextel comes in last.

The call carrier landscape is a complicated one. Which carrier you choose may depend not only on how many phone calls one makes, but what part of the county youre in, whether or not you travel internationally, and even what type of phone hardware best suits your purposes. It pays to research this so you can avoid being trapped in a contract you want to break out of.

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