Anyone else kinda worried about coverage?

[Kaenon]

I left Verizon last Friday for T-Mobile Pre-paid.
I had been with Verizon since 2003 and they offered me a discount but i refused.

In my area, T-Mobile coverage isn't very consistent. At home I get 3G and around town I get HSPA+.
At work, I get voice/text coverage, no data at all.

I retract my statement.

I have great coverage at work, but I had to reboot my phone to pick up the signal :s

What's up with that?

 

[VictoryVision]

This is my concern with the 4. I don't live in a city and I stay in the Black Hills when ride to Sturgis. When in the Hills I get 3 to 4 bars and services don't get a signal. I am hoping the 4 will come out with sim card to work with Verizon. Hopefully I can keep my $15 a month contract.

 

[DC Wuff]

I have an EVO LTE on Sprint. Love the phone and call quality hate the coverage, building penetration, and data speeds. Think Sprint is the "least evil" of the contract carriers.

I haven't received my Straight Talk AT&T SIM yet, so I went on Friday night and impulse-bought a T-Mo prepaid SIM from one of their kiosks. Coverage and data speeds have been very good (20Mbps down) in most cases, but I have ABSOLUTELY ZERO signal in my office. Even my Sprint phone has a little signal and I can force roaming on Verizon. If my Straight Talk AT&T prepaid SIM provides similar coverage in my office to my work AT&T BlackBerry (4-5 bars at all times), I will gladly sacrifice the faster data for the improved coverage.

 

[bobjohnson201]

Reselling on eBay, you'd probably actually turn a profit right now. I was looking at Nexus 4's on eBay today and they are bidding up beyond their selling price. The shortage is driving up the prices. If you've decided to let it go, now is a very good time to do it.

haha i dont have one yet to let go! at the top of the thread i mentioned that all of this waiting could be for nothing if i have bad coverage since this is gonna be the first time trying out a gsm network in my area for me.

 

[bobjohnson201]

This is my concern with the 4. I don't live in a city and I stay in the Black Hills when ride to Sturgis. When in the Hills I get 3 to 4 bars and services don't get a signal. I am hoping the 4 will come out with sim card to work with Verizon. Hopefully I can keep my $15 a month contract.

$15/month contract? and i highly doubt we'll see it on verizon after what happened with the Gnex

 

[bobjohnson201]

I have an EVO LTE on Sprint. Love the phone and call quality hate the coverage, building penetration, and data speeds. Think Sprint is the "least evil" of the contract carriers.

I haven't received my Straight Talk AT&T SIM yet, so I went on Friday night and impulse-bought a T-Mo prepaid SIM from one of their kiosks. Coverage and data speeds have been very good (20Mbps down) in most cases, but I have ABSOLUTELY ZERO signal in my office. Even my Sprint phone has a little signal and I can force roaming on Verizon. If my Straight Talk AT&T prepaid SIM provides similar coverage in my office to my work AT&T BlackBerry (4-5 bars at all times), I will gladly sacrifice the faster data for the improved coverage.

which phone are you testing out the networks?

 

[Andrew Martonik]

So a lot of us that are still waiting on the n4 are leaving our carrier (sprint, verizon) to try out a GSM network (t-mo, att) for the first time. I just think it would be a huge bummer once I finally get the n4, try out the network (t-mo for me), and realize it has terrible reception. I have sprint now, so its not exactly amazing, but it still gets the job done with a decent signal in most places. I think im getting 1.5 down and 0.5 up (slow, I know) but honestly I care more about signal strength than data speed. In other words, i'm not exactly sure if the n4 is going to be my everyday phone because i'm unsure of how the networks will be like. Anyone else concerned about this? Whats your backup plan?

If you're on Sprint and leaving for any other carrier, your coverage isn't going to get any worse .

 

[DC Damien]

I'm going to keep my Verizon account open until I can test out the GSM options. Just to be safe.

 

[dballn247]

My girlfriend has Tmobile and gets 4 bars everywhere in Saint Pete. Tampa too. I have sprint, my service makes me sad.

 

[Citizen Coyote]

If you're on Sprint and leaving for any other carrier, your coverage isn't going to get any worse .

I've actually found Sprint's coverage to be quite excellent. Their speeds however make babies cry.

 

[Ricolando]

I had Sprint for 10 years before I switched to Straight Talk, and it's a huge improvement. I chose an AT&T SIM because they have rock solid coverage in Central and Southern Florida where I live and do business. I did a lot of research before the switch and knew plenty of people with AT&T so I was pretty confident. The general word seems to be that AT&T is generally slower than T-Mo, but has better overall coverage. As far as data limits with Straight Talk, I've never run into any but I'm not a very heavy user since there's wifi most places I go. I average maybe 2-3 GB a month, but have streamed up to 500 MB in a single day using Netflix and SiriusXM without any throttling or cut off. As always YMMW, but for me it's been a great, cost saving experience.

 

[bobjohnson201]

If you're on Sprint and leaving for any other carrier, your coverage isn't going to get any worse .

haha apparently t-mobile and att are in my area

 

[bobjohnson201]

I've actually found Sprint's coverage to be quite excellent. Their speeds however make babies cry.

haha what are speeds are you getting?

 

[bobjohnson201]

I had Sprint for 10 years before I switched to Straight Talk, and it's a huge improvement. I chose an AT&T SIM because they have rock solid coverage in Central and Southern Florida where I live and do business. I did a lot of research before the switch and knew plenty of people with AT&T so I was pretty confident. The general word seems to be that AT&T is generally slower than T-Mo, but has better overall coverage. As far as data limits with Straight Talk, I've never run into any but I'm not a very heavy user since there's wifi most places I go. I average maybe 2-3 GB a month, but have streamed up to 500 MB in a single day using Netflix and SiriusXM without any throttling or cut off. As always YMMW, but for me it's been a great, cost saving experience.

yea maybe i should just go ahead and get a straight talk sim (att) right now so i can be ready to compare when i can get my hands on a n4. quick question- if i get a straight talk att sim and activate the n4 with the tmobile prepaid sim, would i be able to alternate between the 2 sim's? does anyone know how that works?

 

[fredwardnelson]

Yeah, I live up near Cranberry and get to stare at a couple of at&t LTE signs every morning on my way to work out by the old airport. T-Mobile still supposedly has coverage for me up around where I live, but it peters out real quick heading any farther north.
Thanks for mentioning buildings - I'll have to remember that when testing and not just go by signal bars when driving around. I had that problem with Sprint several years ago until they got around to getting some more towers.
The at&t coverage map for Pittsburgh is ridiculous... It claims complete LTE for a about a 30-40 mile radius around downtown with no gaps. I'm having a hard time believing that. Of course that doesn't matter for N4 phone. The map implies that everywhere LTE is, that HPSA+ is supposed to work, too. Wondering how true that is.

Yeah I hear you. The maps aren't really helpful. Yes, definitely test inside coverage. I'm thinking about getting a cheap t-mobile pre paid and testing it out.

This article details some pre-paid carrier options.

Google's Nexus 4: Understanding your carrier options | Computerworld Blogs

 

[Ricolando]

yea maybe i should just go ahead and get a straight talk sim (att) right now so i can be ready to compare when i can get my hands on a n4. quick question- if i get a straight talk att sim and activate the n4 with the tmobile prepaid sim, would i be able to alternate between the 2 sim's? does anyone know how that works?

Shouldn't be an issue since that's what you would do if you went to another country and wanted to buy a prepaid SIM. You can toggle between the two carrier APN's without an issue, but obviously you'd have separate phone numbers for each carrier. The beauty of an unlocked GSM phone =).

 

[EnderTheThird]

I ordered a Straight Talk AT&T MicroSIM and $45 unlimited card online and tried it out with my roommate's old Galaxy Note. Keep in mind that if you use the promo code "SIMSAVE" you get $10 off and free shipping, so you basically get the MicroSIM for free.

I live in Indianapolis, IN, but I tried out ST around Toledo and Sandusky, OH as well as in the suburbs around Detroit, MI while traveling. Excellent signal the whole time (same when I got back to Indy), including inside a huge convention center in Sandusky. Signal was often stronger than my VZW GNex and my mom's Sprint GS3 (not saying much, I know!). Speeds tended to be around 2-7 Mb/s down, 1-3 Mb/s up. Not quite LTE speeds, but I didn't even notice when doing typical web browsing. Like someone else said, you'll probably only notice when downloading large files/apps or when you wait longer for the buffer whle streaming video. Overall I was very impressed by the service.

Only downside is that I activated the service ~2.5 weeks ago and I expected to have my N4 by now so I could cancel VZW and port my number. Now I'm thinking my 1st month of ST service will just about be done with before I get my N4! Kind of a waste of the $45 I spent on the service, but it's better than receiving the N4 and having no idea what my coverage would be like before I ditch VZW! Only thing I'm not sure about is how well the signal will hold up while I'm in the hospital all day at work, but my GNex doesn't do too great with that either so it can't get much worse.

 

[DC Wuff]

which phone are you testing out the networks?

The Nexus 4. Sorry I didn't clarify. I received mine on Friday. I'm keeping my Sprint account open for another month or two while I fully test out AT&T and T-Mobile. I have trips to Vegas, NYC, and NC planned for December, so I'll put them all through their paces.

 

[natehoy]

The Nexus 4. Sorry I didn't clarify. I received mine on Friday. I'm keeping my Sprint account open for another month or two while I fully test out AT&T and T-Mobile. I have trips to Vegas, NYC, and NC planned for December, so I'll put them all through their paces.

Be sure to run Sensorly or a similar project so your test results are useful for others as well!

 

[bobjohnson201]

I ordered a Straight Talk AT&T MicroSIM and $45 unlimited card online and tried it out with my roommate's old Galaxy Note. Keep in mind that if you use the promo code "SIMSAVE" you get $10 off and free shipping, so you basically get the MicroSIM for free.

I live in Indianapolis, IN, but I tried out ST around Toledo and Sandusky, OH as well as in the suburbs around Detroit, MI while traveling. Excellent signal the whole time (same when I got back to Indy), including inside a huge convention center in Sandusky. Signal was often stronger than my VZW GNex and my mom's Sprint GS3 (not saying much, I know!). Speeds tended to be around 2-7 Mb/s down, 1-3 Mb/s up. Not quite LTE speeds, but I didn't even notice when doing typical web browsing. Like someone else said, you'll probably only notice when downloading large files/apps or when you wait longer for the buffer whle streaming video. Overall I was very impressed by the service.

Only downside is that I activated the service ~2.5 weeks ago and I expected to have my N4 by now so I could cancel VZW and port my number. Now I'm thinking my 1st month of ST service will just about be done with before I get my N4! Kind of a waste of the $45 I spent on the service, but it's better than receiving the N4 and having no idea what my coverage would be like before I ditch VZW! Only thing I'm not sure about is how well the signal will hold up while I'm in the hospital all day at work, but my GNex doesn't do too great with that either so it can't get much worse.

yea after looking at the coverage maps for both att and t-mobile it looks like att is more solid. It shows that I have "4G" in my area (which I know is HSPA+21). i do remember my friend used to have an iphone 3GS like a year ago and would always get terrible coverage (couldn't even make calls or receive texts while in buildings). i saw over here (Apple iPhone 3GS - Full phone specifications) that the iphone supports HSDPA 2100. Is this the same thing as HSPA+21, which means that the 3GS used to support att's "4G" network? If so, thats bad news for me... and i ordered the SIM from straight talk last night and I was trying to use that code (SIMSAVE) but it wouldn't work! i tried it when ordering the sim and the $45 card together.