Hello Mustachians, I would like to dump my expensive AT&T phone plan in favor of Airvoice. I have searched and researched extensively, but I have a couple of questions I can't find the answer to.
1) Will an Airvoice sim card connect to my AT&T microcell? I live in a rural area and don't have any cell towers near enough for consistent, strong service. AT&T coverage is the best. The microcell was given to us by AT&T and currently works great to provide great service for us.
2) I've read that AT&T post-paid and pre-paid coverage maps differ, with the post-paid being much larger. Does Airvoice utilize the post-paid map or the pre-paid map? Also, will Airvoice work off other providers' cell towers like AT&T does?
And finally, would it be better to port my current number to Google Voice or to Airvoice? Could someone go over the pros / cons of each porting scenario?
Thank you so much. I have found loads of info in the Superguide, but I'm nervous about possibly messing this up.
KWH
1) AT&T femtocells require active AT&T accounts attached in order to work. People have had some limited luck adding AT&T MVNO numbers to the access list, but the solution is simply no go for 100% MVNO as a primary AT&T account has to be active and associated with the device.
2) Post-paid is bigger because of network peering agreements with other GSM network providers (T-Mobile, Cincinnati Bell, Plateau Wireless, CTC, i wireless, etc.). All MVNOs will utilize the prepaid map unless they specifically state that roaming is possible. Airvoice's coverage map is
here.
You're talking to a guy who's been with Google Voice since the Grand Central days, and the only thing keeping me from porting my numbers
out of GV is inertia and having to give Google a credit card number. Other folks love the service, but there's folk who will always eat up anything "free" and sing praises about it, no matter how cruddy. Take that for what it's worth, but remember that you always get what you pay for, and a poor man can't afford to buy garbage. If someone else want to address the pros/cons of the service, go for it. For me, it's only cons, and my thoughts on the subject as to why are numerous throughout the guide follow-up posts.