RE: Watch pagers and Nextel coverage in Connecticut: I'd agree with the comment regarding Skytel -- we (Interpage) offer the Timex Watch/Pagers to all employees (so we can keep a tight leash on them! :) ) for free. SkyTel's Timex deal offers pre-pay for a year, unlimited use, regional or nationwide service, toll-free access (payphone blocked of course; you may be able to pay extra to get payphone access on a per-use basis), voicemai, a very useful admin menu, and more, all for about $10 a month or less. Not a bad deal! As to: " Have settled on Nextel as my main carrier because they have been most reliable in Connecticut" HUH? With all due respect, WHERE do you live in CT? In my experiences in CT Nextel stinks more than it normally does elsewhere. Drops at: [] I-95 at Branford Rest [] I-95 Old Greenwich [] I-84 after Storrs [] I-84 at CT-74 (old US-44?) (just did this today! 3/26/2002) [] CT-20 at JCT CT-10 [] I-691 on hill west of Meriden [] I-84 at hill N or Waterbury right S of JCT I-691 [] I-84 Trout Brook (rush hour drop only) [] CT-9 at CT-151 (just S. of Middletown, connects with CT-17) [] CT-9 at CT-80 (better than it used to be, only drops sometimes, mainly southbound) [] I-395 (where doesn't it drop?) [] CT-2 at JCT CT-66 [] I-84 at Super 7 (US-7) north JCT [] I-84 at CT/NY line [] CT-15 (Meritt) at Redding [] CT-15 at Sikorsky Br. [] CT-15 at NH tubes [] CT-15 in Wallingford CT-150 [] CT-15 High Ridge Rd./Stamford [] CT-15 Westport CT-33 ...and these are just drops on MAJOR roads! Can you imagine how many drops I get with Nextel (all three of out phones) on the secondary ones? [] No decent service north of the Merit Ridgefield/New Canaan/Norwalk [] No usable service in Litchfield County north of US-202; spotty south [] No usable service north of I-84 in Tolland County Nextel has some of the worst handoff and drop problems of ANY carrier -- I have never seen a carrier so pathetic in the northeast (which is admittedly challenging coverage-wise). You can call them up and at least they now listen to you but do nothing. I have reported most of the above to them a number of times, gone on the phone and drive tested for them, and they just don't care (ie, likely lack the resources, financial and otherwise, to quickly or even at some future m id-term point resolve these coverage drops. And I am NOT expecting miracles from them -- I do expect that if BAMS/Verizon, AT&T, and even Sprint (I ignore Voicestream, they are totally worthless for anything except metro area coverage) can provide decent urban AND corridor coverage (let alone suburban and semi-rural/exurban coverage like BAMS/Verizon is getting better at), then Nextel, the "business solution" (yeah, whatever...) would want to as well since business travelers are amongst the most highly traveled. But I always travel with my BAMS/Verizon phone since I simply can't trust Nextel not to drop me while driving or while I'm on the train. Nextel even drops calls on I-495/LIE in Queens at Lefrak City -- about , I dunno, 300,000 people pass by there a day or more, on the LIE and the LIRR and you'd think that after a year they'd fix it, but nope, still regularly drops westbound there (right at the construction over the Queens Blvd/Woodhaven overpass). Nextel still of course drops on the Queenboro Bridge (inbound less than outbound); BAMS/Verizon fixed that years ago for both digital and analog customers. There are even major dead spots (no signal, the phone LED is solid red) right on 2nd Ave between 65th to 61st streets. (And this is just one example; there are tons of drop areas/dead spots NYC alone which were fixed years ago with most of the other carriers.) Using Nextel in NYC is like using Metro One (now ATTWS) or NYNEX Mobile (before BAMS took them over and made them respectable) in NYC in like 1991 or so -- calls drop all the time for no rhyme or reason. But with Nextel, it never gets better; with AT&T and BAMS, they made significant improvements in the NY market and it got much much better over the years. And Nextel has been around for a bit, so they can't say that they are "just starting out". So although I don't question the poster's good experiences with Nextel in CT where he travels, in my and my colleague's experiences with them in the Northeast (NYC and north; Mid Atlantic is a different story and they are *somewhat* better there), they have dreadful handoff problems and are so unrealiable as to be unusable if you do not stay in the same area (ie, if you want continue (Also, recently, when I place a long distance call in the Northeast to anywhere in the country callers tell me I sound horrible, like some really bad voice over IP or something. When they call back, using their own long distance carrier, the problem goes away. This does NOT happen on local calls. Is Nextel using some cheap LD carrier or voice over IP to nickel and dime us even more??) Basically, the only reason we have Nextel is that they are nationwide (that is, in somewhat limited areas where they do cover it is a nationwide plan) and we get unlimited incoming, which is useful. Otherwise, I'd toss them in 2 seconds based on coverage, drops, and voice quality. Sad, since they do hold some promise, but their pathetic service implementation in the Northeast (I'm tired of being embarrassed on Amtrak to see everyone else making long, uninterrupted calls while my Nextel is dropping every 4 minutes and I'm yelling out loud "DAMN STUPID Nextel!") leaves so much to be desired they are otherwise not worth it. (This post and SID list are also available at http://www.wirelessnotes.org) Regards, Doug Interpage(TM) Network Services Inc. / http://www.interpage.net d1@interpage.net +1 (510) 315-2750 "Wayne Schulz" <mas90@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:3c938777.308745557@news.snet.sbcglobal.net... > I used skytel PF1500 which was a 1.5 way (guaranteed receipt but no > sending except for short pre-arranged yes/no type answers). > > I *loved* the service. > > Ultimately I was paying about $60/mo for the full boat of voice mail, > pager, additional VM storage. > > It all came down to being able to duplicate this service much more > efficiently with a cell phone. > I went with virtually cell company (Sprint, Verizon, Cingular, > Nextel). -- Have settled on Nextel as my main carrier because they > have been most reliable in Connecticut. > > Wayne > > http://www.s-consult.com > MAS90 , MAS200 and Accounting Software Consulting > > >