my friend pays over $100 a month to get the same thing, how am i bragging. I
know people that have the $199.99 unlimited everything plan and they use
over 4000 daytime minutes a month and about 1500 direct connect. What other
cellular provider can handle a customer like that????

Verizon and Nextel have 2 distince groups of users.

Nextel is used mainly by: People who are in business, like couriers,
dispatchers of taxi's and places where you have to be in touch all the time
without paying a lot.
It is also very good for people who receive a lot of calls thanks to the
National Free Incoming.

It is not good becasue it is iDEN. Also the 800MHz has less bandwidth. So
very reliable service is a question. But if you are not in those kind of
services it does not matter. Also Nextel's service is very limited when
compared to Verizon and Sprint. AT&T's TDMA is available in a very large
geographoc area but paying and power users don't live in those remote areas.
Also in Nextel is very annoying "Please wait while we locate the Nextel
subscriber".

Verizon is for people who want reliable service. CDMA is theoretically able
to handel unlimited calls but a restriction has to be put as after a limit
is reached the calls are near to useless garble as CDMA is a data technology
to transport data and not voice in it's primary implementation. But the
restriction is very high for the 1900 MHz band, somewhere in the order of
25000. The 900 MHz has a lower cap. The 900 (850) MHz CDMA is as penetrating
as the 800 MHz Nextel as has the same amount of coverage. As CDMA evolves
into the 1xEV-DO and so forth the newer devices will promote very high
limits in voice calls as more and more voice packets are caried on the air.
The CDMA 450 MHz is very penetrating (I double if it will be ever
implementted in USA) even into forests where 800/900 MHz don't do that well
as the foliage absorbs it.
Verizon has a very powerful natinoal network and calls go thru nearly all
the time and works in dual band digital and analog(that part sucks). Also
the emmision of CDMA is very less as compared to iDEN/GSM thus is the SAR
(Specific Absorbtion Rate). But them Verizon is EXPENSIVE as hauling fiber
everywhere and state of the art telecom equipment cost$$$.

If you are in metro NYC during the time 9PM-10PM you will understand when
you call someone on T-mobile/Cingular to hear "All circuits are busy now.
Try call later". You don't even get to voice mail as the underlying network
is unable to handle calls.

Let me explain.

1. Lets us say you have number 917-xxx-yyyy
2. You have enabled call Forwarding when busy.

You get a call from Person A and have person B on hold. When person C calls
you your call is being forwarded to a number and the answering machine comes
on. This time person D also calls you. He should hit the voice mail. So
practically the system is responding to 4 calls for the same user.

With Verizon this happens. Try this with other providers and post the
results here.

Coming back to the main discussion:

Nextel is for user who wants to use the phone as a primary communications
tools and uses a lot of peak/daytime minutes (range of 3000, which is
considersed as landline replacement)especially incoming, but does not travel
a lot into shady coverage areas.

Verizon is for those who want top notch service and are willing to pay for
it "thru their nose" and do not want to use more than 700-900 daytime
minutes in any given month.

IF YOU CAN AFFORD BOTH, buy a Nextel with Free incoming and Verizon with 400
minute plan. Forward on Nextel "if unavailable" to your Verizon. That way
you are very well covered.