Will my phone have subpar reception in the whole US?

[anon(10181084)]

Ok, so here's the deal. I'm going to college next year, most likely in the US. I have a European model of the CAT S41 which of course has issues on T-Mobile. I need to know how viable using it long term in the US is, considering the fact that T-Mobile is ditching 2G soon. In Washington DC (where I was at a summer course for 3 weeks), cell reception is usually weak/non-existent inside buildings. Even when there is reception, call quality SUCKS and LTE struggles a bit to load Google. My phone, if I read the band list correctly, has only one T-Mobile compatible LTE band. Things got even worse when I visited family after those 3 weeks and barely survived because I couldn't get ANY LTE reception and had to climb to the top of the house to get 0.5Mbps on WEAK 3G H+ (Potomac, MD is the exact location).

 

[Rukbat]

In the US, the first thing you choose is the carrier, based on coverage where you need coverage. So see whicvh, if any, carrier has coverage where you need coverage and that your phone can operate on. Then use that carrier while you're n the US.

Sticking strictly to one carrier, for whatever reason you have for sticking to TMobile, may guarantee you no coverage whatsoever where you'll be. (There's an entire village near where I live that has absolutely zero signal from AT&T - they won't fix it because they'd get almost no customers even if they did, so it would be a wasted investment for them.)

So either you choose a different carrier, or you stay with poor-to-no coverage. Most carriers cover large college towns solidly, and you're not that far from DC, Silver Spring, Chevy Chase, Bethesda - areas that should have good coverage - from some carrier, at least. The problem is that the European version of the C41 is missing at least 2 bands (4 and 12) that would give you better coverage here.

You may find that, in order to get decent coverage here, you can't find any carrier that will work with your phone and you'll just have to buy another phone for use while you're here. (If it's for 4 years, it would pay to get a good one, because even a flagship phone isn't worth that much after 4 years - a cheap phone would be worth almost nothing. But if you're going to be here for a short time, you may be able to get away with a cheaper phone, and get some of the money back by selling it before you leave.)

(As for ditching 2G, 3G will handle it. My 5 year old Note 3s, that still have the hardware and software for 2G voice and text, run perfectly well on AT&T - that switched to 3G over 2 years ago.)

 

[anon(10181084)]

Well, thanks for the answer. I am not planning on going to college in the area I tested my phone, and that is why I'm worried. Is there a website or something where I can check out local bands once I pick out my college so that I can see if my phone will work well on AT&T or T-Mobile? Getting a new phone (especially) would be next to impossible since my parents will likely be paying my phone bill and my father INSISTS that a pricey $650 phone like mine should be used for at least 3 years since it "works" in the US, although I guess I will have to get one if the existing one fails to get at least reliable 3G...

 

[ManiacJoe]

There are probably multiple sites that track cel coverage, but here is one:
RootMetrics Coverage Map

RootMetrics also has an app you can download.