Carrier Ratings

OK.

Sprint: Phoenix, AZ

Likes - Call quality, coverage, dependability, unlimited data, any mobile, free nights/weekends, no complicated restrictions or tracking of my usage.

Dislikes - Super slow, almost unusable 3G, the worst customer service you can imagine (phone, internet, store), an attitude of the customer is the enemy, warranty issue nightmares, back door fees when you aren't looking, habit of switching you to a different plan that benefits Sprint and not you when you aren't looking, lies, lies, misinformed, undertrained and uninterested in your problem CSRs, lies, incompetent licensing and no supervision of third party, non-corporate Sprint stores.

Star - One out of five.

Why I stay - because LTE is now here and expanding in my area. Sprint's call quality and dependability mean that I do not have to speak with them very much. I pay online so I have limited contact with customer service. You can get by just fine with Sprint if you never have to talk to them.

Carrier: Straight Talk (ATT sim)

Location: Eastern US

No issues or complaints good data speeds and cheap for unlimited everything. Hoping for LTE soon or I may switch to AIO wireless when I get a 5S.

4/5 stars for no LTE and though its never happened to me its rumored they throttle over 2GBS though I've been well over that consequence free.

eyoungren said:

OK.

Sprint: Phoenix, AZ

Likes - Call quality, coverage, dependability, unlimited data, any mobile, free nights/weekends, no complicated restrictions or tracking of my usage.

Dislikes - Super slow, almost unusable 3G, the worst customer service you can imagine (phone, internet, store), an attitude of the customer is the enemy, warranty issue nightmares, back door fees when you aren't looking, habit of switching you to a different plan that benefits Sprint and not you when you aren't looking, lies, lies, misinformed, undertrained and uninterested in your problem CSRs, lies, incompetent licensing and no supervision of third party, non-corporate Sprint stores.

Star - One out of five.

Why I stay - because LTE is now here and expanding in my area. Sprint's call quality and dependability mean that I do not have to speak with them very much. I pay online so I have limited contact with customer service. You can get by just fine with Sprint if you never have to talk to them.

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Hey how's the speed of your lte in your area? I have sprint also but I don't have lte yet because I'm using a 4s

Carrier: T-mobile

Location: Denver Colorado

Likes: Great Call quality, Unlimited data thats not throttled, Get LTE almost everywhere I go normally and drop to a very good HSPA+ backup. Great customer service that are really helpful. Low bill.

Dislike: Nothing much except that if I go to other cities many of them don't have LTE yet but thats changing anyway so nothing really to complain about. Don't get great reception at my school (this can be solved by moving to a window though, No carrier actually gets through the building at all so i guess it wouldn't matter anyway.)

Star: 4.5/5
Only because LTE isn't everywhere, if it were i would say perfect 5/5.

EM2013 said:

Hey how's the speed of your lte in your area? I have sprint also but I don't have lte yet because I'm using a 4s

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I would call it decent. I drove down to and checked out the site around 19th Ave. and Camelback and got about 15Mbps down and about 6Mbps up.

Considering that I am running about .2Mbps down/up on 3G this is serious speed for me. Since I checked (August 15th) there have been about 5-6 more LTE towers that have gone live.

Hopefully they'll hit the towers around my house and work soon. The problem right now is fiber-optic cable backhaul. All the equipment has been replaced and upgraded, but there is nothing to hook it up to yet. Cox and Centurylink have been slow to do their job.

Location: 15 minutes out of NYC

T-mobile is a piece of ****. Dropped calls, no data strength, never full bars. But cheap.

AT&T is amazing. Awesome network, no dropped calls, and almost never low data. But a lot more expensive.

I'd pick AT&T since the data performance is killing me.

A lot of people dump on AT&T, and usually for good reason, but as far as reliability and service go, they've been good to me. I'd give them a 4 out of 5 stars. Minus 1 star because they're still HSPA+ here and not LTE yet.

AT&T ★★★★☆

eyoungren said:

I would call it decent. I drove down to and checked out the site around 19th Ave. and Camelback and got about 15Mbps down and about 6Mbps up.

Considering that I am running about .2Mbps down/up on 3G this is serious speed for me. Since I checked (August 17th) there have been about 5-6 more LTE towers that have gone live.

Click to expand...

Oh yeah I know what you mean 3G is terrible. I'll be getting lte soon and I'm curious to see their speeds

Sprint, Seattle area, I give it a 9 out of 10, I have very few spots here where I have a signal problem and they've added LTE, which has greatly improved things. Their customer service here is also very good.

I used to live on the east coast, where things were much worse in both respects.

Verizon in this same area is about a 4 out of 10 for the areas I've used it or seen it be used, since my roommate has it, he's usually roaming here in out apartment with a very bad signal. Many times his phone doesn't even ring, when someone calls.

Rogers from the west coast to midwest of CA seems to be decent, 8 out of 10, a few trouble spots, but nothing severely off-putting.

AT&T sucks in many areas around here, so a 5 out of 10 for them, they've got a fast network, but in the busy cities it's hard to find a signal to use it on the crowded towers.

Everything you read here is all going to be the opinions/experiences of the posters and I'm sure there are some that will not agree, since they've experienced different things, though they live in the same areas, so take all with a grain or two of salt.

EM2013 said:

Oh yeah I know what you mean 3G is terrible. I'll be getting lte soon and I'm curious to see their speeds

Click to expand...

Here's a speed test from a few months back. The second one is LTE of course.

eyoungren said:

Here's a speed test from a few months back. The second one is LTE of course.

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Nice! If I can get half of that, I'd be happy

Sprint literally just canceled them today: 0 out of 5 stars. LTE was awesome 23 Mbs but soon as I go home it's EVDO basically no data. Then they had the nerve to tell me to just wait it out because new towers are coming. I'm not paying for something that's unusable.

AT&T : 4 out of 5 stars. They get a 4 because of their prices.

Tmobile: 3 out of 5 stars. Good prices good data speeds, just spotty coverage. It works at home and most of the places I visit so I'm not complaining.

Location: near Lansing, MI

I really like Verizon. I only know of one place locally where I may drop a call, but I've had Sprint and AT&T and have dropped calls in the same spot. Other than the cost and not having unlimited anymore, I cannot complain. I have LTE almost everywhere around here. Can't remember the last time I saw 3G. Here is a speed test on LTE at my house (east of Lansing) from just a minute ago.

Vetvito said:

Then they had the nerve to tell me to just wait it out because new towers are coming.

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Yeah that goes back to the awful customer service I mentioned. One person's post I read said that he called customer service about a problem and was eventually put on hold. Only the CSR was apparently unaware that he could still hear her. She then went on to use four letter words in describing the guy to her coworkers. When the poster told her that he could hear her she immediately hung up on him.

Don't know what certified authority it is that's been handing Sprint customer service awards lately, but I don't think those awards are warranted.

Oh yeah, from a CSR that posts on another forum I'm on, Sprint is aware of their awful 3G and figure that since all areas are getting LTE, Sprint can afford to lose customers right now because LTE will bring them back. That's why they aren't trying at all to retain customers with incentives to stay.

eyoungren said:

Yeah that goes back to the awful customer service I mentioned. One person's post I read said that he called customer service about a problem and was eventually put on hold. Only the CSR was apparently unaware that he could still hear her. She then went on to use four letter words in describing the guy to her coworkers. When the poster told her that he could hear her she immediately hung up on him.

Don't know what certified authority it is that's been handing Sprint customer service awards lately, but I don't think those awards are warranted.

Oh yeah, from a CSR that posts on another forum I'm on, Sprint is aware of their awful 3G and figure that since all areas are getting LTE, Sprint can afford to lose customers right now because LTE will bring them back. That's why they aren't trying at all to retain customers with incentives to stay.

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That's terrible man. Shameful.

Their 3G is unbearable, it's EDGE speeds.


They really don't seem to care, especially after you sign that contract.

They asked me if I had wifi at home, when that has nothing to do with my phone service.

Vetvito said:

That's terrible man. Shameful.

Their 3G is unbearable, it's EDGE speeds.


They really don't seem to care, especially after you sign that contract.

They asked me if I had wifi at home, when that has nothing to do with my phone service.

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Yeah, I'm not cool with paying Sprint over $180 a month to be using WiFi that I already pay for.

I've survived so far because of WiFi and an Airave, but I'm still not happy with it. OTOH, I'm usually around WiFi and the 3G speeds while awful have still allowed me to do a few limited things when I'm not. Good thing LTE started showing up because I was thinking of leaving towards the middle of September.

Customer service has always been awful though, even though they say they fixed it. I was on hold in 2002 once for about 3 and a half hours!

Ok...

Lexington, Ky

Carrier: Sprint

My experiences with Sprint varies. First of all I like the fact that I get unlimited everything for a certain price per month. I know exactly how much my bill is every month. There's no surprises. When I has AT&T there were plenty of surprises.

That being said the 3G speeds in my area sucks. On average I'm probably getting .35 Mbps down and .23 Mbps up. That's awful. The LTE is starting to come into my area so I am waiting them out just for convenience. If the LTE doesn't become common soon then I may switch but right now ill give em another chance

eyoungren said:

Yeah, I'm not cool with paying Sprint over $180 a month to be using WiFi that I already pay for.

I've survived so far because of WiFi and an Airave, but I'm still not happy with it. OTOH, I'm usually around WiFi and the 3G speeds while awful have still allowed me to do a few limited things when I'm not. Good thing LTE started showing up because I was thinking of leaving towards the middle of September.

Customer service has always been awful though, even though they say they fixed it. I was on hold in 2002 once for about 3 and a half hours!

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Yeah their LTE speeds are great when you get them. 20+Mbs.

I read their current LTE rollout should be finished by February.

Houston, Texass

Carrier: Verizon

Likes:

The LTE Speeds. Saying that they're awesome would be a complete understatement.

The customer service. Verizon has by far the best customer service out of all the big four IMO. I had a Galaxy Nexus that was botching like crazy. I called up Big Red and they actually let me get a galaxy s3, for free. And no it didn't count towards my actual upgrade. There have been several occasions when VZW went out of there way to help me out.

Coverage: There's been so many time when I'd be on the road with friends or family and their phones wouldn't work, while I still had service. Now mind you, this is just my experience. For others, maybe it's different.

Dislikes:

The Price. Verizon isn't cheap. Hell it's down right expensive AF. I'd love if Big Red lowered the price but yeah..not happening

VZW getting phones way after everybody else. Jeez they're just now getting the HTC One. They did get the Moto X on time. And they also look to be getting the Note 3 fairly soon. Hopefully the streak continues.

Location : Montreal, Canada

Carrier: Rogers

Pros:
Excellent coverage. (never had a drop call)
Good internet speed
good customer support
Nation wide data & voice


Cons:
Expensive

4 stars out of 5