NEXTEL and Snowplowing

[MDsnowPRO]

I did a search and couldnt fine to much about other peoples thoughts about nextel cellular service.I think they are great I don't know how I ran my business without them. I wanted to know who else was using them and what there feelings were. ALSO, I wanted to point out some of the improvements they are making for MY business. Over the winter I have alot of down time due to the landscaping business being slow. So this winter I upgraded our phones and in doing so I set up a GPS system for our crews/trucks. The GPS lets me know where my trucks/subs are at all times. I can see what lot they are on and I can also see if they are at McDonald's eatting. I can also monitor the sidewalk crew. Now I havent used the system too much so far this year, as i will really put it to use in the spring with my landscape operations. Next year i plan on adding a few pieces' of equipment/trucks and I think the system well help me tremendosly as we grow larger. Also this spring and next winter, the landscape and snow removal route sheets will be viewed on the phones allowing my office manager or myself to add or delete stops on the route. Also it will allow us to track the amount of time the crew spent at each account.
During storms my direct connect is in constant use.
Again feel free to post your thoughts on nextel.

Im gonna post my user ID and encourage others to do the same, as I value all of your thoughts and that extra opinon during a storm is always a great help.

165*132895*1

-Nick Borneman

[Lawngodfather]

GPS threw the phones? Explain how you go tit set up please.

I switched to Nextel 6 years ago, I cut several $400 a month cell phone bills down on cellular phones and the free bookkeeping service I had to run cause the idots paychecks when the bill came in couldn;t cover their bill.

Now I am under $300 for all my phones, and I have the nationwide direct connect.

I have used groupe private many times, but it can be costlly.

I don't want to post my number cause I have many people who I chat with often on the nationwide, and I gatta draw the line somewhere.

For doing snow, they are great, but one thing that has become bothersome is "user busy in private" and sometimes bad cells.

This needs to be addressed by Nextel soemhow. Either the groupe private, ot a "butt in" feture is needed. Most of the time it's my phone, but at times I need to butt in others' conversations.

[REED384]

you need to get the new gps enabled nextel phones and get the soft ware. check with dealer

[Pelican]

When I first switched to Nextel, service was very spotty. That's changed now, there are many more towers and new ones being added all the time. The coverage is now better than some of the smaller companies, but they haven't reached the level of Verizon yet.

Where you get service, you can't beat the 2 way feature.

[gvlawncare]

This has nothing to do with Nextel, but I thought it was Kind of cool, and thought I'd share it with you. You know the stupid "can you hear me now" commercials from Verizon?

Well I was at our local Ambulance dealer, getting our rig repaired, and got the chance to see what projects they had going in the shop. One of them was 5 Verizon vehicles. Their sole purpose was to drive around the US and check signal strengths in whatever area. This is how it was accomplished: A box with about 10 different cell phones, a GPS unit and a data logger. They are all linked, and the signal strength of each phone, is recorded, along with the location via GPS, to determine their weak areas.

Now I am not a big fan of Verizon, I use Cingular myself, but thought this was very cool. I wonder if the other companies do something similar?

[Fordhipo]

I use Nextel and so far so good, was spotty in the start but never had a problem to big.

also on the scanning that GV was talking about about a week ago an article ran in the Detroit Free Press about it
http://www.freep.com/money/tech/mwend9_20040209.htm

[snowplowjay]

I got mine in December and I LOVE IT!!!! Minimal dead zones so far and a great phone.



Jay

[76chevyman]

I've had nextel for 3 years and it is a great service and the phones are getting better. Its the best phone to have in any buisness. ANd now i have GPS on the phones so i can tell when my men are working.

Rich :burnout

[urethane dino]

We have demoed the nextell phones in our area, and they simply have to many dead zones as of now. Cingular just isnt an option, their service is the worst. We have 5 verizon based phones, they have coverage in 99% of our serice area, and mobile to mobile is free. Bot quite as fast as direct connect from Nextell, but the that option to me is more flash than function.
Dino

[Matthew Bowman]

I also have nextels and love them. Its much easier to communicate with everyone via the 2way. It realy comes in handy when several pieces of equip. are working at one site.

[labsnducks]

Nextel needs to work on a phone call coming through when Im in direct connect, but they are great when you need to get through to a bunch of different prople at the same time.

My home is only about 500 yards off of I95 and I have the worst service there, my wifes phone can have a full signal and mine has no service?? I guess my house is in the middle of two towers and which ever is stronger is the one i get? Im lost on that one?

I was avg. 4000 min on my AT&T phone and the bills were horrable now with the free incoming and the D.C. im getting by with 400 min. a month and saving alot of $$$.

I havent seen the GPS in use yet, but it sounds like an awsome feature, I just got a flier yesterday about it.

Mike

[BRL]

On the scanning that GV was talking about, I'd say all of the companies are doing this based on the amounts of them running around. Most of them I've seen were set up in mini vans, but I've seen a few in Explorers like the artical mentions, and I've even seen a few set up in sedans.

I didn't know Verizon had their version of Direct Connect out already, I'll have to check that out.

You definitely can't argue with Direct Connect type technology helping any service type business running multiple crews. Lots of time & money is saved by businesses by having the ability to communicate with people in the field immediately.

[landman]

I guess everybody has thier own opinion, we use Nextel and Cingular. We used to have 8 Nextel phones but now only 2 this is due to a particular contract we have which you need Nextel service for to "check-in" if it wasn't for this contract we would get rid of them all together for what nextel was charging and the minutes on thier plans it was not worth it for us especailly due to the fact that several areas we work in don't have nextel service including our shop, if I need to use my nextel at the shop I have to go outside. Cingular works well for us now because more people I deal with have Cingular and with unlimited mobile to mobile and rollover minutes it is much cheaper for us, not to mention that by getting cingular my wife has cut about $30.00 a month off of our home phone bill also because Nextel does not give you a true local # so every time home would call me it was a toll call from home. I need a lot of cell phone minutes and cingular lets you share minutes on the account so If I use more minutes then I should it just comes off the total minutes for the account and not just for 1 phone. Nextel used to charge like $800.00 bucks a month for 7 phones and service with 300 min cell time and unlimited walkie talkie but the most the guys used might have been was 30 mins phone and 100 mins walkie talkie and my phone had 3000mins a month and unlimited walkie talkie. with cingular we have 6 phones on the account and we have 10,000 anytime minutes a month with rollover minutes, unlimited nights and weekends starting at 7pm and unlimited mobil to mobil for $399.00 per month. Our nextel bill is down to $100.00 bucks a month for Dec to Apr and $16.00 a month the rest of the season (we put the units on seasonal standby in the summer). So during the season we save about $300.00 a month on cell service plus my cingular phone works everywhere and still have not found a dead zone yet with it. As for the Vorizion with the walkie talkie we tried them for a week and the cell service was ok but the walkie talkie feature was worse then nextel, they know this and even told me it would be about another year before they perfect thier system.

[cat320]

That was one of things that made us not get them coverage and having to go outside of the building to talk from others that have had them in our area.
Second was the price they charge you top dollar for the service and then for the there phones.
Would having a 2-way be more convinet yes but I can conduct my business fine with my reg. cell phone .
I get Nextell reps calling all the time trying to push me on there service but when I ask if they can match the price of just the phone part of it not the 2-way they say they can't.Now come on now all the phones they have out there and the high prices they are charging they can do it but won't so as far as i'm concerened every one else can get them I'll stick with my service. Then the other thing when you call a nextell phone the message that comes on you can't even hear what it's saying.

[Lawngodfather]

Originally posted by REED384
you need to get the new gps enabled nextel phones and get the soft ware. check with dealer I got some of the newest phones out, and they have GPS in them, but I didn't know you can look them up to see where your phone is.

I guess Dino don't understand Nextel now so he gots to down them too.

The direct connect is better than voice mail if you miss a call, you can "alert" the person you want, the phone will keep "alerting" them till they answer it. However now with the newer phone you can cancelle out the alert. Back several years you had to answer it in order to do anything with the phone. Secondlly there are times when I can't answer the phone and the person calling can say something to me whithout having to answer it. Like when hands are greasey. I guess you would have to use one to understand how much better it is than the phone.

ON the flip side, it would be nice to have the unlimited phone feture, but again your employees can call other numbers and rack up minutes.

All crew phones do not have cell feture. It has been disabled and can only call 911, Nextel, and voicemail, that's it.

[Joey D]

What are you guys paying per month and for how many minutes?
My Nextel is 1000 any time minutes free nights and weekends unlimited 2 way call ID and all that crap and it's 54.99

[cardoctor]

i have the gps feature in my nextel
maybe im a psycho dad but when i give in to my daughter asking
for a cell phone. the phone i give her will have the gps feature
so i can keep track of where she is.

john

[T-Zab]

I have 3 nextels and they are great. I just talked with my salesman about the gps feature and the only draw back is you have to go online too view were that phone is at. Not really an option if your on the road too. As far as the 2 way goes we use them constantly on the sites when plowing. You know- hit the access road Joe, 10/4 boss, you guys get the drift. They do come in handy for this and you spend less time wondering or searching for your other trucks.
Todd

[4evergreenlawns]

The Direct Connect is great for any business where crews are working several different locations or routes. I have been using Nextel for about 5 years and they have only improved. As LGF mentioned you can limit cellular service and still be able to direct connect talk with your crew.

I looked into the GPS oprions very hard. However too many issues involve service. If you are consdiering this be SURE to ask "How does it work". If you think you can just track the phone anywhere it goes you are WRONG. The phone has to have a signal and the GPS mode has to be activated by the user. So if the phone falls under the seat on in the truck with the signal being blocked you get not locations. If the phone is turned off you get no location. The phone MUST have cellular service, so to track your crew you have to give them cell service.

There are current issues of tracking an employee when they are off the clock. So if you give phones to your employee to keep 24/7 you can be risking a wage and hour issue.

I will be going with a GPS locator in each truck. After all what I really want to know is where is my equipment and for how long was it there? What time did it leave the yard, what time did it return? How long was it on the route? Was is stopped for longer than what should have been expected? That is what is important to me. That applied to both snow and grass work.

[cat320]

well real cheap 2 -way would be a cb once you pay for the units that is it. or go with the regular 2-way truck mounted. the only thing is you can't go out of the truck to talk.

[Mark Oomkes]

I voted that I use them, but I hate them. The best thing that can happen is Verizon and the other one that I can't remember get their '2-way' working. Verizon's 2 way is a 'push to record', there is a 8-9 second delay between calling them and them actually hearing you. The other one is supposedly an actual 'live' conversation like Nextel. I would love some competition fro Nextel.

Reasons I hate Nextel:
1) Their customer service, which I hestitate to call customer service, stinks. They are rude, ignorant, and slow. I have never been on the phone for less than a 1/2 hour with them trying to get something straightened out and I usually have to go to a supervisor before I can get anything done.
2) Although their coverage is much better, in our area we are consistently getting user not available when talking to someone on private, even though we were just talking. Then within about 5-10 seconds of trying to 'reconnect' we will get right through.
3) Their billing department is a close second behind customer service. We have had many issues with them, mainly they don't do what they say they are going to do the first time.

In March we will be going on 6 years with them. One of the reasons we stay despite all the BS from them is becasue sop many of our subs use them and this is how we communicate when plowing. I can go into detail about some of the issues, but I don't want to bore everyone. I am hoping that competition will get their customer service turned around and maybe even their prices will be lowered, to compensate for dropped calls and the above problems.

[Pelican]

Although their coverage is much better, in our area we are consistently getting user not available when talking to someone on private, even though we were just talking. Then within about 5-10 seconds of trying to 'reconnect' we will get right through.
That's the nature of the frequency being used. The band width is so narrow that you could be in one spot and move a few steps (just like in the commercial) and be outside the signal. Verizon avoids this with the number of towers they have, they overlap each other. Nextel is not near as old a company, they're still building the system. My reception is improving all the time, I have very few dead zones within my travel area.

I'll agree with you on the customer service, but I found the same problems with Verizon (it was NY Bell when I had it). I really don't have much occasion to call them though, I had problems with billing of my account when I started out. I haven't had to call since, except to add phones, they were pretty helpful with that.

[CPSS]

I'm looking at my NEXTEL bill now. We have 5 phones, all with 500 cellular mins, caller ID, direct connect, a couple have voice mail. Total monthly bill $350.76. Thats complete with all the BS taxes and surcharges.

I have noticed the coverage area improving every year, and plan on staying with them.

[Mark Oomkes]

I've been back and forth with them on their coverage as well. This is one place I will compliment Nextel on, their network engineers and support staff were extremely helpful a couple years ago when we were having a lot of issues.

I am not sure on this, but I think it more likely that they may have oversold again on the user not available issue. After about a year in our market, they had something like 50,000 lines and sold over 100,000 phones. This was just brilliant on their part. During any of the rush hours it was impossible to get an open line or use 2 way. Especially brilliant is the fact that the 2 way uses 3 lines compared to a cell call using only 1. It took over 6 months to get enough lines where this wasn't an issue. They lost a ton of business during this time.

Like I said earlier, I hope competition will straighten them out, because their customers complaining sure didn't help.

[Waterchikn]

I am happy with the service of nextel so far. They are decent compared to anyother customer service I have been dealing with. I had Verizon and they were a PITA. At the rate Nextel is expanding their service area, it won't be long before they are one of the top providers. The 2 way is priceless. Everyone I know has it and it sure makes life alot quicker. People who have had issues with Nextel will have to look into them again. They seem to get better every day.

[MDsnowPRO]

You know what bothers me????????? When a person,who has not experence with a product, chimes in with a negitive replay......that frankly no one cares to read, Dino, Nextels are in no way shape or form more flash than function, if anything they are more function in a flash. Im glad that many posters validated the true pluses of nextel phones effectivly showing how morinic, and based on no facts, some posts are.
-Nick

[SLC1]

We use Nextel and they are good, not great but good. All of our trucks have two-way trunked radios in them also, and I think those are better for working in lots and to just give quick messages, by the time you go through the contact list and then call the person usually it is much quicker to use the two-ways but for longer distances and for when the guys are out of the trucks the Nextels are much better. We have four nextels and I am pretty lucky because most of our employees also have there own Nextels so almost everyone has a Nextel and all the trucks have two-ways so we are covered both ways. Just my two cents.

[D&T Repair]

I chose "Use Nextel and love it", but only because it was the closest option for me. I use Nextel, but only like it....and wish there were more options for me, as nextel cuts out too often, and signal is touchy at best in my area.

[John DiMartino]

I use Nextel,and overall I cant complain too much.The 2 way feature has been real handly,esp at work,and with friends,It doesnt burn up my minutes,I have also made a few friends with it i outherwise wouldnt have called.

[Assured Services]

Originally posted by Mark Oomkes
I voted that I use them, but I hate them. The best thing that can happen is Verizon and the other one that I can't remember get their '2-way' working. Verizon's 2 way is a 'push to record', there is a 8-9 second delay between calling them and them actually hearing you. The other one is supposedly an actual 'live' conversation like Nextel. I would love some competition fro Nextel.

Reasons I hate Nextel:
1) Their customer service, which I hestitate to call customer service, stinks. They are rude, ignorant, and slow. I have never been on the phone for less than a 1/2 hour with them trying to get something straightened out and I usually have to go to a supervisor before I can get anything done.
2) Although their coverage is much better, in our area we are consistently getting user not available when talking to someone on private, even though we were just talking. Then within about 5-10 seconds of trying to 'reconnect' we will get right through.
3) Their billing department is a close second behind customer service. We have had many issues with them, mainly they don't
do what they say they are going to do the first time.

In March we will be going on 6 years with them. One of the reasons we stay despite all the BS from them is becasue sop many of our subs use them and this is how we communicate when plowing. I can go into detail about some of the issues, but I don't want to bore everyone. I am hoping that competition will get their customer service turned around and maybe even their prices will be lowered, to compensate for dropped calls and the above problems.

You hit the nail right on the head about nextel, but only a few have caught on. Drop calls and nill for customer service. But its still the best for 2-way. Just sux for reg. cell calls and voice mail. Nextel won't even work at my home, as I live to far away from the main expressway, and thats where they seem to put all the towers around here. Only cell phone that will work out here near Lake St Clair and Selfridge AGN Base is Verizon and Cingular.:headwall :headwall

[MDsnowPRO]

The service thing is a good point. I personally have never had a bad experence with them and they have been willing to make right and then some on their mess-ups. But I have heard bad things from other local users. But i think this type of stuff happens with any provider, its all dependant on the rep you get when you call.

[Lawngodfather]

I didn't want to commment on the service, but it seems that it's reagon, they have been more than helpful to me.

Lost phones, calling to let us know there are better plans that save me money, back dating stuff to make them fit etc...

[urethane dino]

We now have the Verizon push to talk phones and although it is a neat function, actually calling someone takes less time, and I can hear the person clearly. Now I have tried Nextels and even still today they do not work well in my area. In fact it is a running joke with our crew that every time we call a nextel contact we get voicemail.
The walkie talkie feature is neat, but for us not worth the crappy service that Nextel has in our area.
In fact one of my subs literally broke his Nextel flip phone in half, and switched to verizon yesterday. He was thrilled to be able to make a call from his house.
Dino

[SkykingHD]

We dont use cell phones or Nextel. We have a UHF FM business band radio system with speach incription. We have all the calls come into the office then dispatched out to trucks. We do not want the drivers chatting on phones or radios. This is a distraction and could be a safety issue. All our men listen to radio (FM or AM) and plow. I dont like talking on the radio accept when there is a need.

I had HAM radio in the 60s and it was great for talking on. With CB that would be ok to talk on but I just dont have the extra time to shoot the bull.

Communications make the service company 25% more efficient. Ya cant argue that but once you are organized and coordinated it is time to do the work and not run the mouth.

Dave

[Big Dog D]

Demo'd them and didn't like them. Verizon & two way radios, all the way!!!!!

[precision lawn]

I have 5 nextel phones and I love them. Never had a problem with them and customer services has been great. Plus I have a cingular cell phone and it seems to be ok but I prefer nextel over it.

[JGresko]

I loved the Nextels when we had them.Wehn we moved they could not service us up here,so my dad called up and told them to cancel the service and they said ok but you need to pay $250 per phone(at that point we only had two mine and his).So with the cancellation few and that months bill i would come out to like $700,my dad told them he will send them a check for the bill but not the cancellation fee they said they want it all.Well he sent a check for the $200 bill payment,they would not accept it they want it all.So my dad said to bad you cant service me in my area so i dont need to pay that fee so eother you take the payment for the month or nothing at all.They said they will only take the $700 for everything and my dad said find me i live in the boonies now,they guy said ok but you will never be able to get a contract with them ever again my dad said good and hung up.To this day we still get bills from them that are sent to are old address and the forwared to are new house.

We were pleased with them till we went and moved.They guy also said that it aint nextels fault that we decided to move,he said we should of thought of it before we got the service.We had gotten the service in 2000,but in 2004 we had gto two new phones since are old ones were shot from working in the mud,snow,and around metal cutting.

Jeff:burnout

[SIPLOWGUY]

I used my bosses Nextel when he was on vacation. I found it great to use.

[PSDFordMan]

I'm very unsatisfied with Nextel's billing methods. Especially their methods for those of us without an 800 credit score.

Take, for instance, the spending limit program for people who have no credit. Not only do you pay a $12 per month fee for it, should your total amount due rise over $150, your phone is automatically shut off. Which would be fine. But with all the minutes and such I continually go through for work and such, my bill comes to approximately $180 per month. Which means they shut my phone off every month on the 10th for a bill that they don't even mail out until the 15th. It's absolutely ridiculous. Then they charge you $25 to turn the thing back on. Then they wonder why I'm so angry when their network goes down like it did when they cut the fiber optics out in California.

[4evergreenlawns]

I'm very unsatisfied with Nextel's billing methods. Especially their methods for those of us without an 800 credit score.

Take, for instance, the spending limit program for people who have no credit. Not only do you pay a $12 per month fee for it, should your total amount due rise over $150, your phone is automatically shut off. Which would be fine. But with all the minutes and such I continually go through for work and such, my bill comes to approximately $180 per month. Which means they shut my phone off every month on the 10th for a bill that they don't even mail out until the 15th. It's absolutely ridiculous. Then they charge you $25 to turn the thing back on. Then they wonder why I'm so angry when their network goes down like it did when they cut the fiber optics out in California.

This is all news to me. I have had Nextel serivce for the past five years. I never had any service disconnect, was never asked for anything that you metioned. From day one I just signed my name and had a phone, and as time has gone on I have doen the same with each and every phone I have added not makeing 5 in total.

I know a few Nextel dealer that are not happy about the hostory behind Sprint have the LOWEST requirements for gettign aproved for phone serviec. Now that all these SPRINT CUSTOMERS are switching to Nextel with no Credit checks they are seeing 3-10 people a day wanting to get their phone truned back on due to lack of payment. I only see this resulting in Rates going up due to DEAD BEAT customers who just one year ago would have never ever qualified for Nextel Service.

[PSDFordMan]

If you've been a customer for 5 years, then you'll never have to deal with anything like that. I think it's their way of showing appreciation for new customers... by treating them like common white trash. I've called numerous times trying to get this spending limit raised, and the last supervisor up there that I talked to literally told me "It's not going to happen" and hung up on me. If it weren't for the fact that they have me by the casabas because the two way function is essential to work, especially when it snows, then I would switch to another carrier without blinking.

And don't get me wrong. This is not happening because I haven't paid the bill. I pay it in full every time. But when their clock clicks over to midnight on the end of my billing cycle, my bill automatically goes over the $150 and it gets shut off. The only remedy I've found to keep it from happening is to keep a balance of negative $50, just to make sure. I just don't understand why they would set up a spending limit program, and then allow someone on that program to set themselves up with service that is above the spending limit. I mean.. I do see why.. cause I'm sure they like collecting that $25 fee for doing nothing from as many people as they can.

[Rocket]

Used them for a few years. Our area seems to have coverage problems with all carriers. People in this area do not want towers in their backyard and historical sites cannot "see them" so it gets pretty spotty around here. If there were another technology that came along that wasn't as intrusive on the landscape it would take off I'm sure.


I've been thinking that if there is enough wireless internet service in our area (I'll have to test it) I'll pick up something like skype and use that. Either that or a real good GPS/private 2-way radio. They're expensive but I think worth it.

[Bugthug]

We just let a part time employee go long story short he brought his cel # and we got him a nextel. In order to switch into his name he had to pay the bill for the phone he got for his mom but had not made a payment for over 90 days. they never got their phone service shut off.

[Rgory]

Hello,

We have nextel, I like the service. I am running one of the old i700 pluses. I have never really understood the group feature. Is this to connect to a group of walkie talkies at once? and does it cost per minute or is it like a large conference call? I personally like the service and have found much better area coverage in the midwest but still not 100% sure on this feature. At this point I am scared to call them and find out as I read the customer service is not that great.

Thanks Guys keep on plowing,

Ryan :nodd

[Cliffg]

This has nothing to do with Nextel, but I thought it was Kind of cool, and thought I'd share it with you. You know the stupid "can you hear me now" commercials from Verizon?

Well I was at our local Ambulance dealer, getting our rig repaired, and got the chance to see what projects they had going in the shop. One of them was 5 Verizon vehicles. Their sole purpose was to drive around the US and check signal strengths in whatever area. This is how it was accomplished: A box with about 10 different cell phones, a GPS unit and a data logger. They are all linked, and the signal strength of each phone, is recorded, along with the location via GPS, to determine their weak areas.

Now I am not a big fan of Verizon, I use Cingular myself, but thought this was very cool. I wonder if the other companies do something similar?

Yea, as far as I know everyone of the major companies do the same data collection. These systems test not only their network, but the networks of all the other competitors in the area.
What they look fo on their own network is trouble areas, the data is analyzed and trouble areas are identified, then some one can be sent out to make the needed repairs, or they can identify areas which need to have a new cell site located.
It is really a neat setup for sure. this link has a few pictures of this equipment
http://www.mobiletracker.net/archives/2005/04/04/verizon-wireless-hear-me-now


Cliff

[Spacejunk]

I have 9 nextels and have been with them since they started in buisness. I feel trapped though. My "day" job is in construction and all the subs I work with have them and the two way is hands down a great feature and we are to the point where we would be lost with out them. During snow season they are indispensible, keeping in contact with the drivers, managing time sensitive sites, wouldn't be with out them. Now having said that, NEXTEL SUCKS! Their customer service is terrible, slow, they dont seem to know the answers and send you in circular directions when trying to find the answer. They used to be great before Sprint took over, it has been the pits ever since. God forbid if you ever have to just replace a hand set do to being plain worn out, you get reamed on replacement units. A couple of tips, when I, after about a hour on the phone with them finally threatened to cancel service, was sent to their "retentions department" they offered considerable discounts to remain their customer. (to me I could care less about the cancellation fees it is the principle of the thing) Also, if you have a broken phone or like me phones that get worn out take them to the repair facility, the $35.00 repair fees usually results in a like new phone, it's worth it.
Having said all this I like the features, coverage (in my work area), cost is competitive, as long as you don't need to contact them for any reason it is tolerable. Oh one more tip, don't ever call their customer service, go in to a retail location if possible, face to face contact seems to result in much better customer service. (particularly when you are 6'9" 265) Just some thoughts.

[BurbanPlower]

I had nextel buisness account for 7 Yrs and in the start I loved them until about the time sprint came in and then they went down hill lost service areas dropped calls it finally got fed up and this past october switched to another carrier

[Blackwin]

Didnt realize how old this thread was till I started typing, but.

I plow plow with my brother and needed a way to communicate thruout the storm. We tried using portable radios, same ones we use when hunting, They supposedly had a 20 mile range. But we found that 2 or 3 was acutually all they were capable of.

We then decided to try the Boost Moble phones, they run on Sprint/Nextel and they are working great for our application. We set them as pay-as-you-go. So when we dont use them there is no cost. It cost us $1 per day to use the 2 way feature. If we use it once in a 24hr period it cost us $1. If we use them all day is cost us $1. Durning the week when we dont use them there is no cost.

We cant really use them as our main phone since the coverage up here is non exsistant out of the city.

[synner]

we use the Telus/Mike network, same as Nextel in Canada. Have been using the system since 1999. The coverage has definitely improved 10 fold in Ontario. Our problem now is the quality of the handsets is going down hill 10 fold. Every additional/new handset we get is of less quality then the one it replaces. My latest unit, an i850 is colour, has a camera, fancy screens, net capabilities and all that and the battery won't last 4 hours, the phone its self has been fixed/replaced 3 times under warranty and now it powers up, stays on for 2 minutes and just shuts off - fantastic, oh and out of warranty too.

Grabbed an old i315 out of the office drawer, switched the SIM card and it works great. Funny thing, my neighbour's kid asked me this week why I had my portable home phone in my truck. Okay so its not the smallest of phones.

Love the 2 way service and the coverage, even have good local customer service reps but the phone quality coming out of Motorola has to be addressed.

[HandyHomeMedic]

We just purchased 4 Nextels this week. I needed one for myself, one for my office mgr. and two spares for crews. They ran out of the lesser version phone so they gave me an extra flip phone for the price of the lesser phone. They bypassed a bunch of charges so I walked out activated with three new numbers and ported my business line from Verizon over within a few hours for 117.00.

While I have 700 min. avail. on each phone, there is no need for the spares to have those minutes. Because of the family sharing plan, I actually have 2800 min. available to me as I'm the principal user of the phone.

Having worked in NYC on 9/11, I vividly remember that the Verizon building was heavily damaged so was their service. Nextel stepped up to the plate and equipped many of the 1st responders with their units that helped tremendously.

My EMS service uses Nextel as a backup form of communication and we've had ups / downs with coverage. Overall though, I think that the superior direct connect feature compensates for many of their shortcomings. In the meantime, I still have my Verizon phone for personal use "when I absolutely positively have to have a signal." LOL! :grinz

Happy New Year Brothers