A lot of you people seem to have some really strange stockholm syndrome-esqe attachments to your cell providers
Seriously, this is some creepy ****...
I wouldn't exactly call it Stockholm syndrome. I have an "attachment" to my cell provider (T-Mobile) precisely because they haven't kept me captive. Oh, and, they are cheaper, too. I still have grudges against AT&T and Verizon. Sprint was very good to me, also, in its time, but, not GSM and their coverage hasn't kept pace. I've only seen Stockholm syndrome with AT&T, because of the exclusive contract that Apple and AT&T once had to lock in people who really wanted the iPhone. The rest of us are only suffering from perfectly normal "confirmation bias".
Anyway, I'm all for more competition. So, "yay!" I guess...
Ultimately, that is the point.
Agree. TMobile is great for people who travel frequently overseas....
Yes.
What a bunch of BS. All T-Mobile phones are locked, until you pay it off. Pay it all and they'll unlock it. Or pay the full price at once. Exactly like AT&T.
AT&T users have been swapping SIMs into phones for over a decade. Far more than T-Mobile. In fact, T-Mobile still requires specific phones to work on their network, which HSPA AWS support. AT&T's bands make it much easier to bring any unlocked phone onto their network. You make it seem like swapping SIMs and phones is some new revelation that Legere came up with.
Even VZW users have been swapping SIMs for almost two years between their LTE phones. Spare me the BS the drama.
"Drama?" What "drama"? You seem to remember things differently than I do. Where do you suppose all those hundreds of threads and tens of thousands of posts and websites and blog sites about cell phone unlocking came from during 2008-2010?
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2010/02/23/what-is-unlocking/#disqus_thread
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1238987/
Before you jump on me about people who hadn't fulfilled their contracts, read some of the posts from people who had paid off their contracts and still were constantly getting the run-around.
In my case, by the time AT&T and Apple made it easier to get a fulfilled-contract phone unlocked, I decided to switch to T-Mobile and (mostly) Samsung. A T-Mobile dealer offered to unlock the iPhone for me at that point, since it was off-contract, but, in the meantime, the phone had enough physical problems requiring repair that I decided to abandon it. In 2010, it still made sense to buy higher-end phones on contract, but, it was a much better deal all around with unlimited voice, data, and messaging on multiple phones. In 2012, it made sense just to buy a new compatible phone. T-Mobile has been so easy for me to manage family phones with compared to AT&T. No "drama". Just my personal experience, which also corresponds to a lot of other folks experience. YMMV. Oh, and, in my
neighborhood, T-Mobile has better coverage than AT&T and Sprint. At the moment I'm paying for 4 phones about what the service for one phone cost a few years ago.
And, if I needed better coverage and didn't mind going with a carrier I didn't like, I would go with Verizon, of course. (I had a Verizon phone through work. Coverage was the best, and, as far as I know, it still is.)
I would like like to buy an iPhone 5S for my next phone, because I like iOS better than Android, and, they finally got a decent combination of GSM/3G/LTE, but, the Apple unlocked price is higher than I want to pay. At least it is an option now.
We just did a major trip from Long Beach to Northern Utah, then down to the Grand Canyon, down to Phoenix, AZ, then back. My wife has T-Mobile and I have AT&T through work, to be honest, it was the fact that she had coverage that got us through the trip, as AT&T often didn't have anything. This happened A LOT.
So, really I see AT&T as the one with the lack of coverage.
+1
Sure, and many places (like Iowa/Nebraska/Wisconsin) you'll see the exact opposite, but at the end of the day VZW has the larger coverage footprint. I've never lost signal with VZW, but if I drive 20 minutes from my house, I'll lose AT&T service for hundreds of miles in all directions.
T-Mo is a joke compared to any of the other carriers, but I was referring to ATT vs. VZW. Last time I was in Nebraska with an ATT device, I was roaming on Edge and their coverage map suggests that this is still the case for most of the state.
I have no T-Mo service anywhere near my house (where IA/IL/WI all meet).
AT&T has improved somewhat in my neighborhood, to the point where it is almost as good as T-Mobile. I'm not interested in Verizon and CDMA-accommodated-phones in general, but, their voice coverage certainly was better than anyone else, within the U.S., a few years ago.
I hope that all the carriers have the message now that (a lot of) customers want real competition, better service, and lower TCO.