Cell phone advice.. Alltel?

[Tim Hancock]

Sixteen year old daughter just has to have a cell phone now that she is making "big money" at the local ice cream shop. We live in a rural area where basically Alltel is all that works real well.

I think I will purchase one myself (I held otu as long as I could ha ha) as they have a $9.99 per extra line plan for any plan $59.99 and over. Any recommendations on which plan is best as well as which basic phones are best?

(my wife allready has a phone thru work that is Alltel)

[onewhippedpuppy]

Just a FWIW, when we lived in Great Bend (central KS), Alltell was the only choice for phone service. Despite their claims, we often were on analog roaming, or had no service at all. Their customer service is the WORST that I have ever experienced in any area of business, they love to transfer you from person to person, none of which "has the authority" to help you, and that went for the national customer service center as well. At times in the small lumberyard that I was managing, we would literally have four or five people, all standing around complaining about how awful Alltell is. My inlaws have five phones on a business plan, pay around $250 a month, Alltell is just as indifferent towards them. The local office was staffed with lazy, incompetent people, and you had to wait in line behind the other people complaining about their sub-par service. Anyway, now that we live in Wichita we have Verizon, we pay less for two phones with nationwide service than we did for one phone on a regional plan with Alltell. The really funny thing is, Verizon doesn't even offer service in central KS, but we get FAR better reception when we go back to visit family than we did with the Alltell phone.

[bryanthompson]

Alltel represents all that is soulless and evil. I don't think I've ever had a good experience with them, except that my local alltel store chick is an über-hottie. Service all throughout NE sucks, and even in Lincoln or Omaha I've had dropouts consistantly. Customer service sucks, but at least I can pay my bill online so I don't have to deal with anyone If I wasn't tricked into extending my contract a year ago, I'd be on another service.

[onewhippedpuppy]

I like the Office Space quote, very appropriate. No doubt they have a few Lumberghs in that evil organization.