Going to try T-Mo around Phila. PA.

Chex313

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At&t raised my bill again...Its a $171 for 3 lines 30GB shared(No throttling), Hotspots(Full Speed) unlimited talk and text.

My daughter is in Phila...My wife only needs her phone at our house(Always on Wifi), and I drive all over and need decent coverage. We live 40 miles NW of Phila.

After reading a bunch, here and elsewhere, I am wondering if the folks complaining about coverage in Phila. have old phones without the new bands...

I think it would be a good idea for me to try T-Mo out for a few weeks before I leave At&t. All my phones are unlocked, but I'll be trying the Pixel 3 with its inclusive Bands...Seems to have everyone T-Mo uses...

Wish me luck, if it works I'll save $50 a month.

Any advice or suggestions welcomed...I have had the same phone # with At&t since the Cellular one, Cingular days around 1991. After talking to retention there was nothing they could do for me. Their unlimited plan would have only saved me a dollar. have not been under contract for years...always buy my phones from Google.
 

atlas9171

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I would recommend simply trying a tmobile prepaid plan and try it out for a couple weeks and see how it goes. That's what worked for me. At the time band 71 wasn't an option anywhere so didn't come into play. I walked in to Walmart got a $30 prepaid card and that was it. Not sure if the $30 Walmart plan is an option any longer but never hurts to check.
Good luck.
 

Chex313

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I would recommend simply trying a tmobile prepaid plan and try it out for a couple weeks and see how it goes. That's what worked for me. At the time band 71 wasn't an option anywhere so didn't come into play. I walked in to Walmart got a $30 prepaid card and that was it. Not sure if the $30 Walmart plan is an option any longer but never hurts to check.
Good luck.

That is a great idea, the Walmart is right next to the T-Mo store...Thank you
 

swebb

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Good suggestion from Atlas. Bands 12 and 71 make a big difference. I used to get a very marginal signal at home and work until band 12 became active. Big difference in building penetration. Band 71 is still a work in progress. It's mainly in rural areas because of the need for coverage there plus fewer TV stations that needed to change frequencies. It will really gain traction when most stations make the frequency change in 2019-20.
 

raino

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Use as many coverage maps as possible to try to gauge what TMO's coverage is going to be like for you. Try TMO's official coverage map (which is often incorrect very optimistic, especially whenever it shows "fair" coverage,) opensignal.com, and Mint Mobile's coverage map. Mint is a separate company/an MVNO, but what I like about their map is that 1) it tells you which bands TMO coverage is provided on, and 2) doesn't show any partner coverage that TMO may try to pass as their own (because MVNOs don't usually have the same partnership agreements.)

When looking up coverage using any map, try to zoom in as much as you can--down to your home or street, if you can. At least with TMO's map, pink (great coverage) when zoomed out can become white (no coverage) when you zoom in.

Also something to keep in mind, I think, is off-network roaming coverage. You get unlimited voice and text wherever partner coverage is available, but data may be limited to at most 200mb. TMO doesn't have domestic roaming agreements everywhere.

For TMO, band 12--which is the more widely deployed lower frequency network--provides supplementary coverage to bands 4 and 2. AT&T and Verizon's networks are built primarily around their lower frequency networks (bands 12 and 13, respectively.) Why does this matter? Lower frequency bands are better at penetrating the types of older houses/buildings you'd find in Philadelphia, but the trade-off is lower speeds. Plus it might get congested rather quickly if there are a lot of people jumping on that LF network (slow to begin with,) and not a whole lot of spectrum.
 

Chex313

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Use as many coverage maps as possible to try to gauge what TMO's coverage is going to be like for you. Try TMO's official coverage map (which is often incorrect very optimistic, especially whenever it shows "fair" coverage,) opensignal.com, and Mint Mobile's coverage map. Mint is a separate company/an MVNO, but what I like about their map is that 1) it tells you which bands TMO coverage is provided on, and 2) doesn't show any partner coverage that TMO may try to pass as their own (because MVNOs don't usually have the same partnership agreements.)

When looking up coverage using any map, try to zoom in as much as you can--down to your home or street, if you can. At least with TMO's map, pink (great coverage) when zoomed out can become white (no coverage) when you zoom in.

Also something to keep in mind, I think, is off-network roaming coverage. You get unlimited voice and text wherever partner coverage is available, but data may be limited to at most 200mb. TMO doesn't have domestic roaming agreements everywhere.

For TMO, band 12--which is the more widely deployed lower frequency network--provides supplementary coverage to bands 4 and 2. AT&T and Verizon's networks are built primarily around their lower frequency networks (bands 12 and 13, respectively.) Why does this matter? Lower frequency bands are better at penetrating the types of older houses/buildings you'd find in Philadelphia, but the trade-off is lower speeds. Plus it might get congested rather quickly if there are a lot of people jumping on that LF network (slow to begin with,) and not a whole lot of spectrum.

I'll be trying out the walmart SIM before I switch, according to the Maps T-Mo has coverage everywhere...not going to rely on that. I'll be carrying two phones for a few weeks and will report back on the t-mo coverage in PA..as a trucker I'll be covering a good part of the state, including rural.
 

raino

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I'll be trying out the walmart SIM before I switch, according to the Maps T-Mo has coverage everywhere...not going to rely on that. I'll be carrying two phones for a few weeks and will report back on the t-mo coverage in PA..as a trucker I'll be covering a good part of the state, including rural.

There's no better way to gauge coverage than what you plan to do.
 

anon(20964)

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I trailed Tmobile prior to moving from Verizon. In my discussion with the Tmobile reps, they highly recommended trialing the postpaid Tmobile vs prepaid. Something about coverage and access priorities not being the same. Anyway I did trial the postpaid Tmobile service and found it very good for everywhere I needed it - home, work and local areas. You can trial for 2wks and cancel if not happy with the service. I had an unlocked Note 8 at the time. I bought the military plan and found it very cost effective. Better than even the pricing of prepaid.

Good luck, trialing is an excellent way to get first hand experience with a service.
 

Chex313

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I trailed Tmobile prior to moving from Verizon. In my discussion with the Tmobile reps, they highly recommended trialing the postpaid Tmobile vs prepaid. Something about coverage and access priorities not being the same. Anyway I did trial the postpaid Tmobile service and found it very good for everywhere I needed it - home, work and local areas. You can trial for 2wks and cancel if not happy with the service. I had an unlocked Note 8 at the time. I bought the military plan and found it very cost effective. Better than even the pricing of prepaid.

Good luck, trialing is an excellent way to get first hand experience with a service.

So far so good 71 down and 13 up at my house(That is faster then my At&t signal and not full bars)...I'll be going with the 55 plan at T-Mo similar to the Military plan for 2 of my lines and $15 Mint for my wife who is always on Wifi.

They sent me a text while I was setting it up, for the APN settings for MMS , but I can't seem to Edit the settings??
 

Chex313

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Update...In about 400 miles of driving, have not seen any lack of LTE on T-Mo.

In all my speed tests its doubled At&t, average is 70/23...I have been streaming ESPN for all those miles and have not had it drop...Another driver has had it for year, and he has only noticed a few more dropped calls. I think I have enough evidence that PA has enough coverage for me to switch...I'll be sending the phone down to Phla. tomorrow with my daughter for the final test.
 

swebb

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Good to hear. You can't beat TMo 55+ pricing as long as you get the coverage you need. I got in when it was still $60. Gave up two free months of Sprint service to jump on that price. It ended up saving me $40-$50 a month, and I don't have to worry about data usage.
 

thecaddyman

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At&t raised my bill again...Its a $171 for 3 lines 30GB shared(No throttling), Hotspots(Full Speed) unlimited talk and text.

My daughter is in Phila...My wife only needs her phone at our house(Always on Wifi), and I drive all over and need decent coverage. We live 40 miles NW of Phila.

After reading a bunch, here and elsewhere, I am wondering if the folks complaining about coverage in Phila. have old phones without the new bands...

I think it would be a good idea for me to try T-Mo out for a few weeks before I leave At&t. All my phones are unlocked, but I'll be trying the Pixel 3 with its inclusive Bands...Seems to have everyone T-Mo uses...

Wish me luck, if it works I'll save $50 a month.

Any advice or suggestions welcomed...I have had the same phone # with At&t since the Cellular one, Cingular days around 1991. After talking to retention there was nothing they could do for me. Their unlimited plan would have only saved me a dollar. have not been under contract for years...always buy my phones from Google.

I've used tmobile in PA and Philly with good success. I don't live in the state but used to be a truck driver throughout the east coast. I rarely have signal issues outdoors with TMobile

If any issue pops up it will almost always be indoors but band 12 has helped that quite a bit.
 

Chex313

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Made the switch this morning(Oct 27th 2018). My daughters # ported over right away as did my wifes last week on a Mint prepaid SIM.

Still waiting on mine. I downloaded the T-Mo app and T-Mo Tue app...They warned me it might be 24 hours or so till my # ports and I can sign in to my account. With the temp # they gave me I'll be fine waiting...It was a decent experience, I got there early and I was the only one in the store.

I didn't realize it was 50GB per line not shared...so that was a nice surprise. We only get an hour of hi speed hotspot data and if that is not enough I'll pay the $10 for my daughters line.

T-Mobile wasn't as fast as At&t down near Temple University(Phila,PA) but it becomes a first world problem as the speeds are fast enough and connectivity for calls was good. For some reason the only place At&t as ludicrous speeds is down in Phila.

EDIT: So the port did not go through, either someone tried to port my number from At&t in 2017 and it just hung there causing T-Mo a problem...So I called At&t and they are resolving this in a day or so and then I'll call T-Mo and they will submit the request again...Then it should take 10 minutes or so. Hope to have it done by Tue. but it will not matter much to me as I'll use my At&t SIM till then.
 
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Chex313

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Att fixed their port issue went through within a few minutes of calling TMo...

Does T-MOBILE do visual voicemail natively on the Pixel 2 XL? If so I'll switch to that, been using Google voice for 5 years.
 

Chex313

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I don't believe it will do text without a sub. T-Mobile and others like that to be a paid feature usually.

Back to Google voice then...I actually thought Google did the transcribe on the phone natively, so T-Mobile wasn't involved.
 

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