Cell Phones?

[greatam]

I just got off the phone with cingular. They said that there is no charge other than the standard minute deduction while in Alaska. That is for those with a no roaming charge plan. From Vancouver the total long distance charge to call back to the USA is 79 cents a minute.

 

You are correct, up to a certain point. Cingular/ATT has no roaming charges when you are in their COVERED area. That is the catch. They do not have agreements with a lot of the off the wall cell companies in Alaska and along the Canadian coast. Those companies are mostly repeater stations, designed for local use, by residents in remote areas. They are NOT tied into the roaming agreements with ATT. As our neighbors discovered, after switching their service to ATT/Cingular, you roam a LOT in the remote areas. You will have service, but you are roaming into a local cell company.

 

One of the biggies on their bill ($387.00 roaming for 14 calls) was a company called US Cell. I have Verizon and where I live in Arizona (close to the Colorado River), some times I get a message to either input a credit card number or press 1 to continue call. I have pressed 1 twice and the calls resulted in $43.00 in roaming charges for a total of 8 minutes, billed through Verizon. I have researched that company extensively. They have pay per call service in a lot of remote areas.

 

I was livid, (not only at the company, but at my stupidity), but if you REALLY look at most cell company maps, there are SMALL areas where they have no service or service agreements and if you happen to be in one of those areas when you start your call, you WILL be billed the roaming charges. May only be a 10 mile radius of coverage on these small companies, but they are NOT part of cell phone reciprocal agreements. You may not be given the option of press 1, as US Cell does. As I stated in my previous post, be aware of cell phones in Alaska, except in the cities.

[Kay C]

Does anyone with Alltel nationwide service know if the cell phones work in Alaska? I have called to Vancouver several times from Florida without any problems but I wonder once you are sailing if there is reception?

 

I have Alltel nationwide and yes the phone does work in Alaska. We have used it in Anchorage, Juneau,Ketichkan, along the inside passage, and of course in Vancouver. Never tried it in Skagway, but with all the mountains around, I don't think it would have any reception.

[CruiseIsGood]

Cingular worked in all of the ports, and did not work in open water.

[Bsan1221]

My Sprint only worked in Juneau, in Skagway and Ketchikan I had to put it on Analog Roaming to work in the ports.

 

Of course in the open water it didnt work

[KenP]

May 2005: Cingular had excellent coverage in Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan.