AT&T/T-Mobile iPhone 4S Dilemma

[scott523]

Another year has passed and I'm still stuck with this dilemma since my parents are pretty picky about spending $100+ on a monthly cell phone bill.

Should I stick to T-Mobile with a $100 bill consisting of:

- 4 lines
- 1000 minutes
- Unlimited family text
- New 2yr contract
- Slow 200MB data for two unlocked iPhone 4S
- Bad coverage?

Or should I switch to AT&T with a $160 bill consisting of:

- 4 lines
- 700 minutes with rollover
- Unlimited family text and mobile to any mobile
- 2yr contract
- 200MB for two locked iPhone 4
- Better coverage?

 

[wordoflife]

All I can say is that you get what you pay for when you get AT&T (or Verizon) since they are generally very good.

If T-Mobile coverage is good, you don't mind the slower speeds, and you don't mind shelling full price for an iPhone, then T-Mobile isn't a bad option. I haven't done the math, but I wonder if paying subsidized price for 2 iPhones are cheaper (in the long run) from AT&T or if it's cheaper to buy two devices at full price and use it on T-mobile.

 

[chuffman15]

aren't iPhones that run on tmobile's network running on 2g?

that would be a big no-go for me. buying a new 4s just to run on a 2g signal? diffenitely not worth it.

 

[scott523]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

The coverage in Philly isn't as good as AT&T but it's doable besides that earthquake from VA (I'm pretty sure AT&T was back up within couple hours vs. 5hrs for T-Mobile). My sister in State College, PA might have weak coverage though.

I don't know how slow that 2G data which concerns me. What I do know is the 2yr monthly savings with T-Mobile is equivalent to two 16GB unlocked iPhone 4S.

But what about if/when AT&T gets to gradually eat up T-Mobile next year? Cheap/fast data with better coverage?

Other option is to stay with my dumb phone that follows my iPod touch everywhere I go and get the 'last phone Steve Jobs dedicated all of his time to' next year.

 

[scousers]

never mind....

 

[shyam09]

idk but you could look into the other carriers too.
sprint and verizon carry the iPhone too now so!!!

 

[amanpatel]

If at&t eats up t-mobile, you can kiss those cheap plans goodbye... It'll mean better coverage, but I guarantee that the cheaper plan options (especially for iPhones) will disappear.

Did you know that if you were using an iPhone on AT&T (off contract) - and lets say you didn't care about data, so you just have a cheap $40/mo voice plan -- IF AT&T finds out that you are using an iPhone on their network without paying for a data plan, they reserve the right (WITHOUT EVER GETTING YOUR APPROVAL) to add the data plan and start charging you monthly for that plan?

That's just plain evil in my book (although I do think that people using iPhones without data plan are going to be very rare).

scott523: To get to your original question, I think at&t is definitely the better option (if costly), so its your call in the end (does the better service make it worth the extra ___$$ to you?).

Also, have you considered a FAN (enterprise) discount ? my company offers 25% discount for at&t (vs 10% for t-mobile), made my decision a little bit easier.

 

[Consultant]

Most of the times when my GF's t-mobile phone didn't had coverage, I was able to surf and talk on the iPhone.

She just switched to the iPhone 4S on AT&T.

Also, T-Mobile is able to be "cheap" because they don't subsidize expensive phones.