Let's just say I have the option to get unlimited everything with T-Mobile for $60 per month. I currently have att and pay about the same for unlimited everything with my discount. I live in Orlando and att has not been performing well in crowded areas so I'm so considering making the move to T-Mobile. Would it be worth switching from att?
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Carrier T-Mobile vs att.
- Thread starter monkey28rb
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If you have unlimited data on AT&T and around that price tag you mentioned above I'd stay with AT&T.
I personally think the voice quality on AT&T is much higher. Not sure if that's actually a fact but I do notice a difference when using my girls T-Mobile iPhone vs. my AT&T iPhone. What I mean about voice quality is the quality of the persons voice that you're speaking to.
I was in downtown orlando last Friday and Saturday night. Some parts of the night were slow like you said 1-2 mpbs.
Still I wouldn't switch if u still have unlimited att LTE data. Att coverage is rock solid in most of central Florida. And only few times I experience slow speeds in congested area. We have Disney annual passes and att works great in peak hours (although I have a feeling during Xmas peak season speeds may come to a crawl).
Att LTE works great during orlando Magic games.
Is AT&T usable to you though? Speed tests are great, but people really obsess over them, and for quite a few people, sustained 50-60mbps speeds aren't (yet) a full-on requirement for smartphone use.
The real indicator is how well the networks handle things under load. Have you been in crowded areas with T-Mobile (malls, stadiums)? How does it perform there? Also, have you travelled where you usually travel with T-Mobile? They've done a great job expanding coverage, but AT&T still outpaces them in rural areas.
If you're not experiencing any actual usability problems with AT&T (web pages loading too slowly, too much video/audio buffering), then it might be worth sticking around for as long as you can get that $60 price and unlimited data, unless/until you can for-sure get a better deal with T-Mobile. No sense in rocking the boat right now.
If you *are* seeing usability problems with AT&T, or the day comes when they jack up the price on you, then it might be worth trying T-Mobile out.
Disclosure: I'm a T-Mobile customer, love their service, and am also getting a really good deal ($60 for unlimited on my iPhone 6S Plus and 5GB data on my iPad Air 2), but also realize that T-Mobile isn't for everyone.
I personally have T-mobile, and love it. Great price, blazing speeds, and great coverage where I am at (small city, lots of rural area...tmobile has improved drastically lately). I even got full on LTE at a recent college football game, surrounded by concrete walls, with 80,000 people. No one else around me (including my Dad, AT&T) did. d
I have had all four carriers in recent history and I find T-Mobile to be the best for price, promotions, and customer service.
That being said....you have unlimited everything for about the same price as T-mobile, on AT&T? That a pretty good deal.
Answer these questions:
1. How important is customer service (T-mobile wins, IMO)?
2. How important is promotions (discounted iPhone at launch, etc....T-Mobile wins)?
3. Is T-mobile rock solid where you live, all the time, everywhere?
4. Is it reliable else where, in the case that you travel often, or at least often enough?
5. Assuming the answer to 4 & 5 are yes, are you staying there for the foreseeable future? If there is change you get moved to middle of now-where Montana...you t-mobile might not be your best bet, yet.
6. Finally, is the speed difference that big? If you are undecided still, this might be the deciding factor.
I love T-mobile, but I am not blind. AT&T has coverage in places T-mobile doesn't. I think T-mobile will continue to improve, but that doesn't help someone, like I said, in the middle of Montana.
**EDIT: Yeah, the test drive thing. Great idea. Look at the coverage map too. Areas where my family lives used to be completely uncovered, with T-mobile, and now its all high speed LTE.
I have had all four carriers in recent history and I find T-Mobile to be the best for price, promotions, and customer service.
That being said....you have unlimited everything for about the same price as T-mobile, on AT&T? That a pretty good deal.
Answer these questions:
1. How important is customer service (T-mobile wins, IMO)?
2. How important is promotions (discounted iPhone at launch, etc....T-Mobile wins)?
3. Is T-mobile rock solid where you live, all the time, everywhere?
4. Is it reliable else where, in the case that you travel often, or at least often enough?
5. Assuming the answer to 4 & 5 are yes, are you staying there for the foreseeable future? If there is change you get moved to middle of now-where Montana...you t-mobile might not be your best bet, yet.
6. Finally, is the speed difference that big? If you are undecided still, this might be the deciding factor.
I love T-mobile, but I am not blind. AT&T has coverage in places T-mobile doesn't. I think T-mobile will continue to improve, but that doesn't help someone, like I said, in the middle of Montana.
**EDIT: Yeah, the test drive thing. Great idea. Look at the coverage map too. Areas where my family lives used to be completely uncovered, with T-mobile, and now its all high speed LTE.
What I've learned is that every carrier has periods that the network degrades, they monitor it and allocate budget, and eventually correct the problems. AT&T is going to be deploying WCS Band 30 in a lot of these congested areas in the near future and their speeds will be right back up. Verizon had gotten down to those speeds in my town and over this summer they swapped out all of the panels on their towers and activated carrier aggregation, now I rarely see under 40 mbps anywhere other than a couple of known problem areas. My point is, if you play the hopping to be on the fastest network game it will be a never ending circle.
I would go off of which carrier offers better/broader coverage in the areas you frequent and offers more of the phones/features you want. On principal, all other factors being the same, I would go with T-mobile just to vote with your wallet and endorse the guy that's trying to shake up the industry and offer great customer service. The more people that have the option to do this and do it the more it will keep the industry innovative.
I would go off of which carrier offers better/broader coverage in the areas you frequent and offers more of the phones/features you want. On principal, all other factors being the same, I would go with T-mobile just to vote with your wallet and endorse the guy that's trying to shake up the industry and offer great customer service. The more people that have the option to do this and do it the more it will keep the industry innovative.
I just did some testing carrying both an AT&T and T-Mobile iPhone all around Orlando, and never experienced any major issues with either one. The only place that I went where data was completely unusable was Florida Mall, and that was AT&T and TMo both that were unusable. All along I Drive was slow for both, but nothing I couldn't check e-mails and surf the web with. Went to a Solar Bears game at the Amway Center, and was able to pull 40+ on both carriers, and showed full signal the entire time. Beefy King on Friday afternoon gave me mid 20mb speed tests on both carriers.
My experience is that the areas where AT&T works well, TMo also works well. The areas where AT&T struggles, TMo also struggles. In the Orlando market, it seems that the difference between the two is whatever carrier you can get at a lower cost.
Sprint has quite a few areas where service is a little laggier, but overall still very usable. The Orlando market just seems to have good cell coverage in general. There have been people on the forums that have found 100+mb speeds in the Orlando area with TMo, but I have been unable to find any yet (and even so, anything over 10mb constant is a waste unless you are tethering).
I have both Att and T-mo:
Att:
+ Better Coverage
+ Better building penetration.
+ Usable and fast 4G 5-7 Mb (Nowadays I less and less need it)
+ Stable SMS service, never had a problems with regular SMS (there was NumberSync - SMS issue on beta 9.2, but it was a beta version, now it is fine)
+ For me Att has better CS, may be they don't say "thank you" and "welcome" all the time, but they help faster and more efficient.
+ If Att cannot resolve the issue they always give me some credit.
+ you can add/remove some feature effective today
- International long distance rates suck
- International roaming rates the most expensive on the market as of now
- There was a problem with iMessages over LTE, Att fixed it
- 21 GB cap for unlimited internet
- cannot tether internet, give me at least one Gb
T-mobile:
+ CS is polite
+ Great international long distance plans
+ The best international roaming rates
+ Very informative, they open to the public.
+ Nation wide VoLTE
+22 GB soft cap for internet
+ internet teTHering, 7 Gb more than enough
- Coverage is not the greatest
- Bad building penetration
- SMS problems, not all the time, but I cannot rely on it.
- Inaccurate coverage map (source myself)
- 4g is really slow in my area(I need it since LTE is very spotty)
- CS cannot solve issues fast and provides wrong info, (it took more than a month to fix my online account, more than 10 twits and phone calls)
- Never offers a credit for their mistakes
- LTE12 is not everywhere
- You add/remove any feature only effective end of billing cycle
I have UDP family Att plan and 100$x2lines T-mobile. Since Att change the price for UDP +5 dollars Feb.2016 I will have a chance to switch to t-mo without penalty. I don't need to travel a lot these 3 months, I froze my t-mo till the end of Feb 2016 ("Great" t-mo's CS told me that it was only 10 dollars per account, after I realized that it was 10 dollars per line, she was polite, but with no knowledge at all).
With a very high probability I think I won't switch to t-mo.
Att:
+ Better Coverage
+ Better building penetration.
+ Usable and fast 4G 5-7 Mb (Nowadays I less and less need it)
+ Stable SMS service, never had a problems with regular SMS (there was NumberSync - SMS issue on beta 9.2, but it was a beta version, now it is fine)
+ For me Att has better CS, may be they don't say "thank you" and "welcome" all the time, but they help faster and more efficient.
+ If Att cannot resolve the issue they always give me some credit.
+ you can add/remove some feature effective today
- International long distance rates suck
- International roaming rates the most expensive on the market as of now
- There was a problem with iMessages over LTE, Att fixed it
- 21 GB cap for unlimited internet
- cannot tether internet, give me at least one Gb
T-mobile:
+ CS is polite
+ Great international long distance plans
+ The best international roaming rates
+ Very informative, they open to the public.
+ Nation wide VoLTE
+22 GB soft cap for internet
+ internet teTHering, 7 Gb more than enough
- Coverage is not the greatest
- Bad building penetration
- SMS problems, not all the time, but I cannot rely on it.
- Inaccurate coverage map (source myself)
- 4g is really slow in my area(I need it since LTE is very spotty)
- CS cannot solve issues fast and provides wrong info, (it took more than a month to fix my online account, more than 10 twits and phone calls)
- Never offers a credit for their mistakes
- LTE12 is not everywhere
- You add/remove any feature only effective end of billing cycle
I have UDP family Att plan and 100$x2lines T-mobile. Since Att change the price for UDP +5 dollars Feb.2016 I will have a chance to switch to t-mo without penalty. I don't need to travel a lot these 3 months, I froze my t-mo till the end of Feb 2016 ("Great" t-mo's CS told me that it was only 10 dollars per account, after I realized that it was 10 dollars per line, she was polite, but with no knowledge at all).
With a very high probability I think I won't switch to t-mo.
Give T-mobile a shot by doing their test drive option, it's free so you got nothing to lose
Yeah who knows I might keep ATT. But I just hope they get their act together in a lot of areas. Speeds have just slowed down a lot. Noticing more and more buffer on videos. I was in NYC a few weeks ago, speeds there sucked too..
It is your choice but I have few friends who brag about T-Mobile when they get out of the city. If fact they have to borrow my phone on ATT.
I
I feel like in Florida, there is not really any out of town. Idk this is tough.
Don't give up your att unlimited unless you try out and are satisfied with TMO. You can get a new number with TMO to do this.....later you can port your att number over to TMO on top of existing line or create a new one.
Just drive from Jacksonville to Atlanta and you will see there are several areas that still show no service for t-mo.
That is not acceptable to me.
Why you didn't use John Legere's imagination map?
I have couple spots next to my place with no service, it show in building connection on the map. Should I knock somebodies door to allow me in to make a call ? Last time I had been in Orlando it was before LTE12 tiny 5 MHz rollout, May 2015, I tried to kill 3 hours in MCO and t-mo gave me 4G with zero speed, Att also was not the greatest , but I got 1-3 Mb. I heard from my fiends, that T-mo is faster now than before.
Try t-mo first. I have no choice, I've traveled a lot this year and I saved 3-4 hundreds with t-mo. The same moment Att makes same roaming like VZW (2 dollars day Canada/Mexico, 10 dollars rest of the world ) I leave T-mo.
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Why you didn't use John Legere's imagination map?
T-Mo's map is a joke. Just do not knock on my door!
Yeah they've really come a long way. Less and less incentive to overpay for AT&T these days (probably why they're losing so many customers). Recently did a trip from Charlotte to Atlanta and it was all LTE. Very impressed with the data speeds in ATL as well. Some places got close to 100mbps downloads.
I'll vouch for AT&T not being as good as it used to be in NYC, but T-Mobile was also pretty bad for me too - no signal at all in and around work (midtown Manhattan) as of a week ago. It depends on the area.
Verizon is proving the best service for me and that's not saying much.
Mileage may vary for every user.
To answer the OP's question. I wouldn't switch.