Road Trip Coverage

[Jaramie10]

Right now I'm on a trip from Wilmington, NC to Tampa, Florida. I am about 10 miles out from Tampa and this has been the absolute worst experience with any cell phone provider. In places where I am supposed to have LTE, I get 3g. The data has been unusable for about 95% of this trip. I am very disappointed with the quality of the network as a whole because this is just pathetic. Sprint on this same trip had LTE for over 75% of it. I'm sorry but T-Mobile has failed this part of the country.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[dpham00]

Tmobile doesn't really have lte outside major cities at this time. If lte in rural areas is what need then Verizon may be a better option

dpham00, Android Central Moderator
Sent from my Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note 3

 

[Almeuit]

Tmobile doesn't really have lte outside major cities at this time. If lte in rural areas is what need then Verizon may be a better option

dpham00, Android Central Moderator
Sent from my Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note 3

This. If you were fine with Sprint you should of stayed.. Unless you had other reasons for leaving.

T-Mobile is a city carrier.... If you're in a major city you're good... If you aren't or travel a bunch... Not so great.

Sent from my T-Mobile Note 3 using AC Forums.

 

[Jaramie10]

I'm annoyed because on sensorly, people were getting LTE or 3g for the majority of the trip. But my experience was much different.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Almeuit]

I'm annoyed because on sensorly, people were getting LTE or 3g for the majority of the trip. But my experience was much different.

Posted via Android Central App

Yeah if you travel a bunch I wouldn't recommend T-Mobile... Or even if you don't travel much but hate not having coverage.. I wouldn't recommend them.

I'm able to plan for the times I'm going to have bad data... So I can deal. Where I live, work, and play is fine though and that's what matters most.

Sent from my T-Mobile Note 3 using AC Forums.

 

[weknsmith]

Your experience matches my experience with road trips in the Midwest. Trips between the following cities have resulted in completely unusable data connections even though I used major interstates for the trip: Columbus, Ohio; Dayton, OH; Indianapolis; South Bend, IN; Chicago; St. Louis

During these trips I had a T-Mobile Moto X and a Sprint Moto X. The Sprint phone's data connection was phenomenal by comparison to what I experienced with T-Mobile. I have been working with T-Mobile support over the last 5 months regarding the data issues on the road, and they basically have just admitted to me that their service is unusable outside of major cities. I suspect that this is common knowledge for people that spend a ton of time on the road.

Sent from my XT1056 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[zorak950]

T-Mobile covers some major highways, but even that's spotty. Sensorly is lying to you.

 

[Closingracer]

I have T-Mobile and happy with it but I also don't travel a lot. If I did I would probably get a nexus 5 and use An AT&T go phone Sim and use that month to month since when I have traveled AT&T has been great and almost as good as Verizon in coverage

Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

 

[Jaramie10]

Yeah my experience in Tampa hasn't been great. I called t mobile yesterday and I was told for the next 6 months you will see dropped signal consistently because of them doing network optimization.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Old Stoneface]

Yeah, it's pretty well-known that, outside of major metro areas, and perhaps along a few major rural thruways, T-Mobile coverage is marginal-to-non-existent. Then again: When my wife and I took a trip to northern Michigan last summer: Once we got north of about the Thumb region, and particularly when we got outside cities in the U.P.: Sprint was non-existent, too. (Expecting this is why I activated On Star in the truck for that trip.)

Tho it sucks, truth is this: If you depend upon coverage, and particularly for business, Verizon and "at&t" are the only rational choices.

We're pretty happy with TMO, but they could lose us. Because of the coverage issue, that happiness is kind of marginal-ish. (Which reminds me: They never got back to me about the dead zone in which our home resides, which, according to their own map, should be strong, and a new dead spot in on my daily commute route recently appeared.) If Sprint buys TMO, and particularly if it looks like the combined company is going to look more like Sprint than TMO: We'll likely be gone. If TMO doesn't improve their footprint, as they've been promising: We could be gone. If TMO doesn't give us better options for un-bloatware-infested devices: We could be gone.

We really like TMO, but a non-functional service isn't much use, no matter how much we like the company.

 

[itic]

Using a moto x i activate roaming and it seems to work

 

[weknsmith]

Using a moto x i activate roaming and it seems to work

Are you saying that data roaming eliminates the issues with Edge/2G data? I checked the data roaming setting on my Moto X, and it was disabled.

I am on the $30 5GB "Walmart" plan. I wonder if I am allowed to roam or not?

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[Old Stoneface]

I am on the $30 5GB "Walmart" plan. I wonder if I am allowed to roam or not?

That's a pre-paid plan, no? Last I knew: No data roaming on pre-paid plans.

 

[Almeuit]

Are you saying that data roaming eliminates the issues with Edge/2G data? I checked the data roaming setting on my Moto X, and it was disabled.

I am on the $30 5GB "Walmart" plan. I wonder if I am allowed to roam or not?

Sent from my XT1056 using AC Forums mobile app

From my understanding you can't roam on a prepaid plan. It is for post paid customers.

Sent from my T-Mobile Note 3 using AC Forums.

 

[weknsmith]

From my understanding you can't roam on a prepaid plan. It is for post paid customers.

Sent from my T-Mobile Note 3 using AC Forums.

I can confirm that is the case. I have a 55 mile stretch during my commute where my T-Mobile Moto X has completely unusable data. I enabled data roaming but it didn't make any difference.

The data connection is so bad that GasBuddy can't pull up data & Google Now is unable to pull up any results.

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[itic]

Are you saying that data roaming eliminates the issues with Edge/2G data? I checked the data roaming setting on my Moto X, and it was disabled.

I am on the $30 5GB "Walmart" plan. I wonder if I am allowed to roam or not?

Sent from my XT1056 using AC Forums mobile app

Im on the pre paid and can ..