Hello everyone,

My story is this: I live in Charlottesville, Virginia. It's the kind of place where if you are right in town, all carriers work OK, but if you head out into the country at all, coverage can get really bad. I had Sprint for many many years and it actually works *OK* in rural areas around here, but I don't think their national coverage is so hot overall, so I wanted to try something else. The other day I signed up for cingular and I got a 7130c. I am in LOVE with this phone, I think it's so great. However...coverage is horrible. I literally get no service at all in places where my Sprint phone worked OK. So, I think I have to return it. I mean I LOVE it, but it's not very useful if it only works in town.

I know that T-Mobile has the same problem that Cingular has. No coverage at all outside of town. So, those two are out.

So my question is, is the new 7130 line, that is, the 7130c/g going to appear on any carriers besides Cingular and T-Mobile? I don't know enough about how this all works and the different kind of networks to be able to speculate on an answer myself.

I see that Sprint and Verizon and Alltel have the 7130e, but it does not look as nice as the 7130c/g. IS Ev-DO analagous to EDGE? Do the 7130c and 7130e access data with the same speed?

Thanks for any help!

Sprint only offers phones that doesn't use SIM cards, and they/I have the 7130e. I agree about coverage but the phone itself is better with reception than any that I've had so far. Either that or their service is hopefully getting there in NYC.