Pros: The walkie-talkie feature is nice.
Cons: Terrible customer service, no roaming, spotty coverage area here, service will refuse to connect at times saying "server is busy, please try call again later."
Summary: First, the "customer service department" lies, and most seem to not know what they are talking about. One example, my husband is a paramedic, and we went with Nextel because they SUPPOSEDLY support emergency responders and have "priority connect" for them. Nextel tells you to contact the state's department of homeland security to have this activated. No one, and I mean no one at Homeland Security knows anything about this. It seems a simple thing they could run in house, such as a letter on company letterhead stating you are a responder, but Nextel makes more red tape, so you finally give up. Then, you might not be able to make a call. This happened to my husband on an emergency, he tried to call the hospital, and got the "system busy, try again later" recording. As a paramedic, this isn't an option. Nextel started selling the service in SE Iowa too soon, they don't have enough towers. We thought it would improve with the Sprint merger, but it hasn't. And don't look for "customer service" to actually provide service, they don't. They would rather have a dissatisfied customer actively advising others not to buy from them, than have a happy customer. That is almost a direct quote from one of their people. We were also supposedly on the Nationwide Walkie-Talkie plan, but every time my husband talked to his brother in Indiana, there was an extra surcharge. Honesty is not Nextel's forte, service isn't, and neither is customer service. It makes you wonder how they got so big, it must be from overcharging. We now have 3 phones instead of the 2 we had with Nextel with more minutes for less money with another carrier. If you live in SE Iowa, don't get a Nextel unless you love torturing yourself for 2 years.
