Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Carrier If your phone contract ends today, which carrier will you sign with?
- Thread starter EbookReader
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
T-Mobile is treating me well. Good savings, great call quality, great LTE speed... I like basically everything I have with them. A couple dropped calls while driving through rural areas, but nothing major
Unfortunately providers and service are very much location location based decisions. In NJM I travel all over the state and Verizon is the most reliable for me. I have experienced great service for the most part, and I get no dropped calls. AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint are spotty all over the place.
Exactly. I'm up in Northeast PA doing a lot of work in courthouses and places with awful service. T-mobile cut out entirely at all of them and it effectively turned my phone into an iPod because most of the time when I was out of the house I was somewhere without LTE coverage.
AT&T might make me want to cry with how expensive it is, but at least I have service wherever I go.
AT&T for me. Switched to AT&T about 9 months ago after 10+ years with VZW. First priority - terrible signal from VZW in my home, good signal with AT&T. For travel in Mid-Atlantic, NE, SE and upper midwest, I have had very good signal. Also good for trip to Las Vegas, UT and AZ.
I tried to "upgrade" my old grandfathered plan with VZW, but this was not possible unless I bought new device w/ contract or paid a lot more. An irritant was that my old plan did not include text messages. I needed (and now use extensively) texts to communicate with adult kids and grandchild, plus I needed text for 2-factor authentication and security notifications for credit card and bank accounts.
AT&T (in the last year or so) has been quick to make competitive offers. I now have 4 devices (2 iPhones + 2 iPads) sharing a 10-GB data plan (now 20 GB) with NO CONTRACT, unlimited talk & text. I have already taken advantage of 2 competitive offers, $400 in service credits to activate the 4 devices and a "free" upgrade to 20 GB of data per month. VZW? no way, just a bad memory.
I recently bought a new iPhone 6 that was technically placed on the Next plan, but I paid it off after the first billing cycle and went through the relatively easy automated procedure to unlock the phone.
I'm pretty satisfied with ATT - better signal at my home (compared to VZW), much less cost, more data, no contract, GSM network, easy to unlock phone. VZW takes extensive measures to lock in customers through various means - incompatible network, contracts, rate plan structure, not allowing outside-purchased devices on network, etc.
ATT - OK. Verizon - never again. Learned my lesson, won't forget it. Would consider TMobile if their signal was better outside large cities.
I tried to "upgrade" my old grandfathered plan with VZW, but this was not possible unless I bought new device w/ contract or paid a lot more. An irritant was that my old plan did not include text messages. I needed (and now use extensively) texts to communicate with adult kids and grandchild, plus I needed text for 2-factor authentication and security notifications for credit card and bank accounts.
AT&T (in the last year or so) has been quick to make competitive offers. I now have 4 devices (2 iPhones + 2 iPads) sharing a 10-GB data plan (now 20 GB) with NO CONTRACT, unlimited talk & text. I have already taken advantage of 2 competitive offers, $400 in service credits to activate the 4 devices and a "free" upgrade to 20 GB of data per month. VZW? no way, just a bad memory.
I recently bought a new iPhone 6 that was technically placed on the Next plan, but I paid it off after the first billing cycle and went through the relatively easy automated procedure to unlock the phone.
I'm pretty satisfied with ATT - better signal at my home (compared to VZW), much less cost, more data, no contract, GSM network, easy to unlock phone. VZW takes extensive measures to lock in customers through various means - incompatible network, contracts, rate plan structure, not allowing outside-purchased devices on network, etc.
ATT - OK. Verizon - never again. Learned my lesson, won't forget it. Would consider TMobile if their signal was better outside large cities.
My contract did just end, and I re-upped with AT&T. Best coverage in the area around here, good customer service, reasonable rates.
Verizon - Coverage roughly equal, but CDMA - no simultaneous voice/data, at least until they finish their network upgrades. Rates roughly equal to AT&T. I was a VZW customer before and found their customer service to be worse than AT&T's.
Sprint - Considerably cheaper than AT&T or VZW - but very spotty coverage. That alone kills it for me as a possibility.
T-Mobile - Absolutely NO LTE or 4G (or even 3G) anywhere in the area near me. Everything is EDGE. Wouldn't even consider them regardless of how cheap their rates are, they're a non-player in this area.
Verizon - Coverage roughly equal, but CDMA - no simultaneous voice/data, at least until they finish their network upgrades. Rates roughly equal to AT&T. I was a VZW customer before and found their customer service to be worse than AT&T's.
Sprint - Considerably cheaper than AT&T or VZW - but very spotty coverage. That alone kills it for me as a possibility.
T-Mobile - Absolutely NO LTE or 4G (or even 3G) anywhere in the area near me. Everything is EDGE. Wouldn't even consider them regardless of how cheap their rates are, they're a non-player in this area.
I moved to Verizon after many years of being with T-Mobile (since they were Voicestream). I live in a major city, so all of the carriers have good to excellent coverage, but here's my experience and/or anecdotal breakdown:
Sprint - The very few people that I know who have Sprint either don't travel much or travel with people who have another carrier. They have decent coverage in the mid- to top-tier cities (in terms of population), but they always talk about cost over coverage. That tells me what I personally need to know.
AT&T - It will be a cold day in hell before I would ever move to AT&T. Their downright "we don't care about you" business practices over many years just as a simple landline phone service provider and into their wireless division has kept me away from them. The iPhone introduction was not enough to get me to go to Satan's phone company. Over and over from my own experience with them randomly deciding to increase my landline bill (thus sending me to another service) to stories of cell phone service being cut off if you were late paying by 2 days to this fiasco with this year's iPhone orders (I've followed the threads). Typical AT&T. Nope. Hell no. Never.
T-Mobile - I love this company for their customer service. Love them. Coverage is great in my city. BUT of ALL the places not to have coverage, my house simply cannot be one of them - especially when I now work from home 2-3 days a week. I can't be in buildings and have weak to no signal penetration while others on different carriers are just fine. I can't take road trips and have either no coverage or no data coverage on MAJOR interstate highways. I can't be the only one visiting family in more rural towns and I have no coverage. In 2014, this just became no longer acceptable to me, especially when I noticed that anyone who had Verizon never complained about coverage.
Verizon - Coverage any and everywhere. Home. Work. Major Highways. All the buildings and venues where I didn't have signal before. Bill is reasonable with EDGE and my single line plan. Definitely not as cheap as T-Mo, but close enough. Their customer service leaves a lot to be desired. I was specifically told one thing about the EDGE plan only to find out it is different once I switched over. Thing is, I was told the wrong information on multiple occasions prior to making the switch, so that didn't start me off on the right foot with their customer service. Verizon needs to better train their reps.
Sprint - The very few people that I know who have Sprint either don't travel much or travel with people who have another carrier. They have decent coverage in the mid- to top-tier cities (in terms of population), but they always talk about cost over coverage. That tells me what I personally need to know.
AT&T - It will be a cold day in hell before I would ever move to AT&T. Their downright "we don't care about you" business practices over many years just as a simple landline phone service provider and into their wireless division has kept me away from them. The iPhone introduction was not enough to get me to go to Satan's phone company. Over and over from my own experience with them randomly deciding to increase my landline bill (thus sending me to another service) to stories of cell phone service being cut off if you were late paying by 2 days to this fiasco with this year's iPhone orders (I've followed the threads). Typical AT&T. Nope. Hell no. Never.
T-Mobile - I love this company for their customer service. Love them. Coverage is great in my city. BUT of ALL the places not to have coverage, my house simply cannot be one of them - especially when I now work from home 2-3 days a week. I can't be in buildings and have weak to no signal penetration while others on different carriers are just fine. I can't take road trips and have either no coverage or no data coverage on MAJOR interstate highways. I can't be the only one visiting family in more rural towns and I have no coverage. In 2014, this just became no longer acceptable to me, especially when I noticed that anyone who had Verizon never complained about coverage.
Verizon - Coverage any and everywhere. Home. Work. Major Highways. All the buildings and venues where I didn't have signal before. Bill is reasonable with EDGE and my single line plan. Definitely not as cheap as T-Mo, but close enough. Their customer service leaves a lot to be desired. I was specifically told one thing about the EDGE plan only to find out it is different once I switched over. Thing is, I was told the wrong information on multiple occasions prior to making the switch, so that didn't start me off on the right foot with their customer service. Verizon needs to better train their reps.