Looking for input

[a02]

I have been wracking my head today over deciding which carrier to go with. In live in a smaller city in southern WI in which no carrier except US Cel. has good coverage everywhere. I want unlimited data so that leaves T-Mo and Sprint. I have a cousin who works for Sprint in another part of the country who can get me on their eprp plans. With Sprints in market roaming I have voice and text coverage everywhere more or less, just slow data (400k 3G, 2-4m LTE). I also have had issues with them over compressing images not sent over ssl. Where T-Mo works it works very wel,l even hspa reaches 9mbs. However they have enough dead spots to get annoying. At work and in most big box stores here T-Mobile losses signal. That is ameliorated by my Lumia with wifi calling in those areas, but it can't hold signal well outside of wifi. My Galaxy Nexus holds signal well in the areas the Lumia doesn't, but losses it in the dead zones.



I'm planing on getting the iPhone 6 at release. On contract with Sprint eprp it would be 80 after taxes plus the 32gb at $299 = $2220 after 24 mos. No contract with T-Mo it would be $70 (grandfathered) plus $750 would be $2526. Being a big data user part of me is thinking sticking with T-Mo will be a better experience for the money. But the frugal side of me is thinking the cheaper Sprint plan with better coverage is the better deal.

 

[eyoungren]

You might want to check out s4gru.com. That site has been documenting the Sprint Network Vision rollout since late 2011. They can help you make a informed decision as they have information that is not necessarily obtainable through normal channels.

At the very least, for non-donor lurkers you can find the thread for your market and follow the conversation.

 

[nateo200]

I'm from Wisconsin (Milwaukee) but live in NY State, however I go back frequently and watch my smart phone allot. Unfortunetly US Cellular ate up allot of the good wireless spectrum so everyone else had to deal with it, Verizon's indoor coverage suffers throughout Milwaukee, in all of my families homes there my reception inside sucks and in one I have to go outside or pray that the phone switches to roam on US Cellular (then I get 5 bars!). Verizon only has 1900MHz CDMA2000 so voice calls will be iffy until they get VoLTE (voice over LTE) on their 700MHz spectrum. AT&T seams to provide the best coverage, they have both 850 and 1900MHz GSM/3G-UMTS and no one ever had the reception problems of Verizon while indoor as me, I thought it was strange since in the area I live AT&T is not viewed as good as Verizon. However my relatives in Milwaukee all have either AT&T or US Cellular. If I had to pick a carrier for the Milwaukee area and really most of Wisconsin I'd pick AT&T, I've examined the coverage maps and AT&T seams to have the better end of the stick. Sprint is in the same bind as Verizon except much worse (but it can still roam on US Cellular and Verizon of course) and T-Mobile is moderatly good and if you don't get T-Mobile service you can usually roam on AT&T. EDIT: Bottom Line: Its not direct but I'd say AT&T or Verizon, south western Wisconsin I'd go with Verizon, south eastern I'd stick with AT&T.