Verizon in the Gorge

[johnl]

I've had Verizon for some time now and I have been quite happy with the voice reception in the gorge. That being said, the standard Verizon based Web MUST go through their proprietary connections. Which means it doesn't work in the gorge. I've asked them about this, and I didn't really get a good answer as to when or if they will be putting their own towers in the Gorge.

However if you have a Verizon PDA data based account, then you can access the internet and from there access the wind. Of course you pay per KB of usage (unless you have an unlimted account). This is what I changed to this year after not being able to contact the web last year.

Here in the Bay area you pay $5 per month for the web access on a regular phone. For a PDA you pay $0.02 per KB (I think this is the rate). So if I'm checking the wind a lot, it comes out to about $5 - $15 a month. I can get unlimted for about $25 a month, but so far I'm using way less than that.....

[rigatoni]

John,

Does it mean I need a PDA type phone?

[bjamin]

>>and I didn't really get a good answer as to when or if they will be putting their own towers in the Gorge

Just to be clear, Verizon can't put up any towers in the gorge because they don't own any celluoar spectrum, nor is any available. In most ares only four cellular operators can provide service. In the gorge these four are Sprint, ATT, TMobile and USC. In Oregon and Washington, USC got the east/rural areas and Verizon got the west/populated ares. Until Verizon buys Sprint or USC or more cellular spectrum becomes available (none of these likely anytime soon), there will be no native Verizon coverage in the gorge. OTOH - Verizon may have data roaming enabled on Sprint or USC networks by now which in theory would allow you to access web sites (iWindsurf) with a Verizon phone.

[dclopez]

Yep I've had the same problem with Verizon digital ... luckily I have a Sprint phone supplied for work that gets web data just fine.