OT: Cell phone carriers

[B1GEast]

we've had Verison when they were first Bell Atlantic Mobile, 1998, love their service, but the are a bit pricey. T Mobile is running a special, they will pay all early termination fees if the whole family switches, tnat's 2 smart phones and a blu tooth land line.

If anyone has T Mobile, how is their coverage and service?

 

[CTPride]

I have T-mobile but I also live in Texas so I can't say how their coverage and service will be. Verizon has the best coverage in the industry, but are definitely over priced. Honestly, their should be no reason why people pay overage fees for data these days. You can go with T-mobile, Family Mobile, Simple Mobile, Metro, etc etc all for 50 dollars unlimited talk text and data.

 

[B1GEast]

we are at $180 a month, we use about 4 to 6 gb's a month.

 

[Fishy]

All of our phones are on AT&T, but....

T-Mobile has a great promotion where if you simply activate a tablet on their network, you get an account with 200MB of free data for life. No contract, no credit card, no nothing - 200 MB per month.

We're in a "poor" coverage area according to T-Mobile, but I put one of the family iPads on the 200 MB deal from T-Mobile and I'm actually pretty impressed. Download speeds seem fine and the coverage has been wherever we've tried to use it. It's not LTE fast, but more than acceptable. (Especially for free.)

 

[CTPride]

For $70 each line gets you completely unlimited 4g data (no throttled data) with t-mobile. Thats no contract as well.

Or for $60 each line you can each get 2.5GB of 4g data which slows down after you hit 2.5GB's.

But once again, no paying for data overages and no contracts.

 

[huskypantz]

I did the cell investigation about a year ago. My wife's best friend and aunt (two people she calls the most and talks to almost daily) both have t-mobile, they have a good number of dropped calls. I have ATT and Verizon. Verizon has better coverage BUT ATT is better at the Rent in the stadium .We live in the Boston area. I investigated AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and then several discount carriers. If I had a good phone already, I would have gone with one of the discount carriers. The problem I had with T-mobile then was the way they were pricing their phones. They were advertising $100 for an S3/S4/iPh4S, but in small letters that was the upfront cost with a total cost of $300 or $400. Now their price is $26 per month for the phone (S4) for 24 months - $624 for the phone. No contract, but if you change carriers before the 24 months end, they charge you the balance on the phone. Sounds like a contract to me.

What I ended up doing was getting all of the 2 year costs together for each carrier and got the decision down to T-Mobile and Verizon. I called Verizon and told them I was cancelling. They came back and gave me a customer loyalty plan than was $20/month below what was advertised , which beat the T mobile deal plus their coverage is better here. So if T-mobile is your choice, I'd still call Verizon. If the BT phone is a big deal, don't forget about VOIP carriers - I ended up going with ooma, under $4 a month (federal fees) for a landline that's VOIP. Love them, have not had a single issue.

 

[Dove]

I was very happy with T-Mobile up until I moved to a dead zone. Severing ties was painless. The pricing was great for what I got, unlimited everything. I went with Verizon and now fly through the Twittersphere from my remote little estate.

Was sad to leave T-Mobile.

 

[UConnSwag11]

Idk about service since I have Verizon but I just read this article about tmobile. bgr.com/2014/01/08/t-mobile-uncarrier-4-0-announced/ they seem to be more reasonable and cheaper than att and verizon

 

[junglehusky]

My apartment has iffy service for T-mobile and Sprint, but I used a cheapo android phone with T-mobile wi-fi calling which was pretty good for me. Recently I switched to Republic wireless, which has a version of wi-fi calling that can seamlessly hand off to cellular (on the Sprint network), for example if you're on a call and walking to your car away from the wi-fi.

T-mobile has less expensive and more flexible plans than other carriers, but I was using pay-as-you-go, with no 3G/4G data plan. With Republic you get unlimited calls and data on wi-fi and 3G for $25 bucks a month. Hard to beat that. They also have a plan for 4G which is $40/mo, I think. You can sign up and get a MotoX for 300 bucks from RW which I've found to be really good, but if you're married to the iPhone or some other brand you may want to go with T-mobile instead.

 

[3uconn]

I have verizon and I never have problems with my service. If I can get it at the place we go to vacation in Maine I think I can get it anywhere. The houses are very far apart and there's like no center of town in this town. However, I always have great service there and anywhere else.

My friend has tmobile and he's asks to use my phone quite a bit to make calls because he doesn't have service.

 

[Adesmar123]

Check out Ting...it uses the Sprint network locally and Verizon roaming..You need to figure out your use and see if it works for you

 

[sledog]

TM has only data plans? No POTS?

 

[bmayuc]

As a former VZW employee:

Consider a discount carrier(Sprint/TMobile/Republic/Prepay) if:

1. you live in a city and don't travel much
2. you are not someone who uses a lot of mobile data
3. being permanently connected isn't a primary concern
4. your reason for having a cell phone isn't primarily for safety(see: kids/cars/etc)
5. not worried about cellular connectivity during a storm/emergency

The "second-tier" carriers are great values if you have good coverage at your primary places of existence(home, work).

Go with ATT/Verizon if you:

1. Do not live in a city and/or are traveling outside the burbs often
2. You are someone who values consistent/fast data connectivity
3. Are a techie
4. Permanent connectivity is a business need(sales, technician, self-employed)
5. Primary reason for the phone is safety/security
6. Cellular connectivity during a storm/emergency is a priority

Its pretty simple. If you are in group 1, you are probably going to be buying on price rather than any primary service-based factor. If that is the case, those second-tier carriers are perfect options for you. Sure you will have some dead zones when you get outside the burbs and wont be lighting the world on fire with data speed but its not a big deal. During large storms and emergencies the second-tier carriers often will black out because they do not have the same resources(think tower maintenance, personnel, diesel back-up generators) that the larger carriers have but that's the tradeoff you get for lower costs

If you are in group 2, you value the things ATT/Verizon can provide because of their size/financial strength. You will be a consistent, speedy network in many more locations. You will get greater emergency connectivity. Yes it will cost more. Yes it will be slower to adopt customer-friendly pricing. Yes it will have better customer support. You will get network stability.

Basically, If you rely on your phone for your life or livelihood or as a matter of preference/technology, go with a big boy. If not, save some money and go with the small guys.

 

[CTMike]

I'm a techie, use a ton of data (my wife and I share a Verizon 10gb plan), T-Mobile's 4G seems to be very fast in areas with service, and it's a ton cheaper than Verizon. Day to day, I'm going back and forth between Manchester/Newington/Rocky Hill/Hartford area. Occasional trips to Jersey. I'm willing to give up a little coverage for how much cheaper it is, but I'd expect it to work reliably in those areas... anyway I'm curious to hear more takes on this.

 

[bmayuc]

just go to this site.

http://rootmetrics.com/check-coverage/

 

[bmayuc]

As long as you don't go west of west hartford or ever travel near Bristol or down Rt 2 it looks like TMobile will work fine haha. Like I said once you go outside Metro areas they just do not own towers

This site is very helpful for anyone trying to decide. Its non-partisan 3rd party crowdsourced app

 

[bmayuc]

@CTMike I found this too. Rootmetrics did an analysis of the Hartford Market

http://rootmetrics.com/compare-carriers/united-states/hartford/hartford-ct-august-2013/