Ugh.. cell phones, and someone actually recommended nextel?! Eep!
Nextel SUCKS ASS for anything other than in like, very central city locations of the areas they serve (i.e. you're fucked on the outer suburbs). If you stay in this area, you're fine. Otherwise you may as well have a paperwieght in-hand. Direct connect sounds nice, but in practice it really doesn't save much money (hell, in this area they started to charge per-minute for that shit. But when I had it in a different area it was free) and is a pain in the ass to get working if you have phones coming in/out of service regularly (would be nice to be able to have the thing download a contact list from a central location every so often).
Sprint PCS is ugh too, IMO. Poor quality out of city, although they seem to have fairly decent coverage in metro/outlying regions. I do get more than enough dropped calls though. Their roaming sucks balls. Period.
Qwest is the best I've seen for in metro, GREAT coverage in the city, virtually nowhere you can go w/o getting a very strong signal and call clarity rocks. But, they suffer from the "oops, you drove to a different state, we're gonna charge you $.95/min" syndrome like a lot do.. So fuck 'em. Too bad they don't have some decent roaming plans, I really liked their metro coverage a LOT.
Voicestream sucks as well, spotty coverage and insane roaming, although not as bad as qwest's. Just expensive for very little in return. Bitchy customer service people that don't want to help you out. ever. Fuck them too. Contract on the womans phone expires this month! yay!
Verizon national one rate is what I have eventually settled on. Okay coverage in-city (you'll always get a signal, just not always that good) and not any dropped calls unless it's just a poor tower connection. But, for roaming they simply cannot be beat. Period. I drive a *lot* in rual areas in all the surrounding states (up to 800 miles away from here) and I have never lost coverage once, other than from switching from digital to analog mode. No roaming charges. this is the phone you want for emergency use, people will always be able to get ahold of you, it just may be hard to hear them at times.
and uh, all CDMA phones (US non-GSM) will only achieve 14.4k, it's not a provider limitation.
Although it is strange that sprint is charging that above your normal plan rate though.. Fucked up. I figure 14.4 is better than nothing.. hopefully someday universal wireless broadband is available cheaply.
Anyways, those are the providers I have had personal experience with for at least 6 months, most 1year+
peace,
-Phil