Many of you have or are going to switch to Tmobile. I am on my third trial of Tmobile for this year (yes 3rd one). Compared to my prior 2 trials things have improved a bit in the areas where I currently use my phone and I applaud Tmobile for that. However they still have a very long way to go and they have a serious need to adapt to the 21st century! Although they already have LTE in a lot of areas they still have plenty of towers providing EDGE service. I'm not talking about a location in the middle of nowhere either, I'm talking NJ in major cities. They also appear to have serious issues with tower handovers (switching from LTE/4G to EDGE) and basic tower handovers when you are traveling and are on a call causing your call to drop. I don't make many voice calls but I just experienced that yesterday twice, one call after the other dropped. This was on a highway moving at a slow speed with good LTE signal.
Also see major issues with their signal in general, it tends to fluctuate a lot and very quickly. For example with AT&T (I've been a customer for many years) everywhere I have been I either get a 4G signal or an LTE signal and the signal is pretty steady (doesn't fluctuate much at all). I even get service in basements. Tmobile indoor signal in general is very poor. With Tmobile simply going from the 2nd floor to the main floor on my home or placing and removing the phone in your pocket causes major signal fluctuation or switching from different towers.
I hear Tmobile plans to implement MIMO antennas on their towers, this will make a huge difference in signal, service quality and improve their usually poor indoor coverage across the country. This however will likely take a long time to implement on a nationwide basis so it may be a while before we see any real benefit and that is of course if they implement this at all.
Tmobile really needs to develop a quality application for reporting services issues like AT&T has. AT&T has an application called "Mark the Spot" which they've had for several years and is an excellent application that all carriers should have. This application allows me to report any sort of service issues from anywhere at anytime and at my convenience. I can easily report a dropped called issue, no service issue, slow data, etc. Even if my phone has no service, the application gathers all information including using GPS to pinpoint the location and then transmits the report once the phone can access the Internet. The application sends the carrier lots of useful information that then allows the carrier to investigate the issue and resolve it (if they wish). An application like this would benefit Tmobile tremendously and all the customers. Right now you can waste your time calling Tmobile to report an issue, likely they will not do anything about it because you are talking to someone that is simply gathering information, information that can be rather inaccurate because you are not reporting accurate information or the person making the report makes mistakes. The reality is most carriers really have no way or a system to log service issues and investigate them. I recently reported a service issue to Tmobile and have been following up on it, it's been several days and there is no update on the request yet. I understand it takes time and I'm willing to wait as long as it takes but after investing time reporting the issue to them and following up I expect them to do something about (which is very unlikely). This is why Tmobile really needs to invest in some 21st century tools that would greatly benefit them and their customers.
I would like to start a massive petition that we can all sign and send to Tmobile so that perhaps they will consider joining the 21st Century and implement an application like "Mark the Spot" that will allow customers to easily report issues and send Tmobile quality data that they can use and act upon. This would greatly benefit Tmobile as there are many small things they can do to alleviate a lot of the issues that a lot of customers are experiencing across the country right now. It would also allow them to gain more customers and keep their customer happier.
I currently have a situation at my work location where Tmobile has two nearby towers. Outside the office I get a 4G signal (at least two bars), a few hundred feet on the main road I get a strong LTE signal (full or almost full bars) and a very fast data connection. Inside the building the phone will lock onto a low 4G signal (at least 2 bars if the phone is on a desk and is not touched) for a short period then bounce to their lovely EDGE tower which offers a stronger signal (4 bars) and a slow data connection (reminds me of the days of my Commodore 64c with a 1200 Baud modem dialing into BBS over a phone line with noise
. Right now Im using an iPhone5S apple unlocked. In my prior two trials of Tmobile this year I was using an iPhone5 and then the Tmobile version of the Iphone5. All phones produce the same issue at my work location and I have seen no improvement as far as indoor coverage in almost 1 year. It's just a single floor building with very few obstructions (no trees close by, etc). I don't have my phone jail broken so there is no way to disable EDGE. If I turn off LTE or turn airplane mode on/off the phone will lock onto the 4G signal and use it for a few minutes then reverts back to the lovely EDGE tower. Tmobile could do something about this until they upgrade this old tower such as implementing some change in their carrier bundle so the phone will lock onto a 4G signal even if it's weaker than the EDGE signal. Who wants to use EDGE for data these days? Another solution would be to get apple to add a toggle switch to iOS that allows you to turn off certain bands. To get this done we would need to gather many folks and send apple a petition along with requesting Tmobile to do that same. I believe something like this is already possible by jail breaking the phone. I would like to avoid doing this as I like to sell my phones in a factory state when I buy new phones. Also it's a hassle having to revert back each time you want to update iOS. I have an Apple Developer account and always like to install the latest iOS betas.
Those of you who want to see Tmobile succeed and do something for us please join me and sending them a message, lets start a petition. Otherwise we can wine about things all over the Internet and just sit back and wait years before we see anything happen.
-Mike
Also see major issues with their signal in general, it tends to fluctuate a lot and very quickly. For example with AT&T (I've been a customer for many years) everywhere I have been I either get a 4G signal or an LTE signal and the signal is pretty steady (doesn't fluctuate much at all). I even get service in basements. Tmobile indoor signal in general is very poor. With Tmobile simply going from the 2nd floor to the main floor on my home or placing and removing the phone in your pocket causes major signal fluctuation or switching from different towers.
I hear Tmobile plans to implement MIMO antennas on their towers, this will make a huge difference in signal, service quality and improve their usually poor indoor coverage across the country. This however will likely take a long time to implement on a nationwide basis so it may be a while before we see any real benefit and that is of course if they implement this at all.
Tmobile really needs to develop a quality application for reporting services issues like AT&T has. AT&T has an application called "Mark the Spot" which they've had for several years and is an excellent application that all carriers should have. This application allows me to report any sort of service issues from anywhere at anytime and at my convenience. I can easily report a dropped called issue, no service issue, slow data, etc. Even if my phone has no service, the application gathers all information including using GPS to pinpoint the location and then transmits the report once the phone can access the Internet. The application sends the carrier lots of useful information that then allows the carrier to investigate the issue and resolve it (if they wish). An application like this would benefit Tmobile tremendously and all the customers. Right now you can waste your time calling Tmobile to report an issue, likely they will not do anything about it because you are talking to someone that is simply gathering information, information that can be rather inaccurate because you are not reporting accurate information or the person making the report makes mistakes. The reality is most carriers really have no way or a system to log service issues and investigate them. I recently reported a service issue to Tmobile and have been following up on it, it's been several days and there is no update on the request yet. I understand it takes time and I'm willing to wait as long as it takes but after investing time reporting the issue to them and following up I expect them to do something about (which is very unlikely). This is why Tmobile really needs to invest in some 21st century tools that would greatly benefit them and their customers.
I would like to start a massive petition that we can all sign and send to Tmobile so that perhaps they will consider joining the 21st Century and implement an application like "Mark the Spot" that will allow customers to easily report issues and send Tmobile quality data that they can use and act upon. This would greatly benefit Tmobile as there are many small things they can do to alleviate a lot of the issues that a lot of customers are experiencing across the country right now. It would also allow them to gain more customers and keep their customer happier.
I currently have a situation at my work location where Tmobile has two nearby towers. Outside the office I get a 4G signal (at least two bars), a few hundred feet on the main road I get a strong LTE signal (full or almost full bars) and a very fast data connection. Inside the building the phone will lock onto a low 4G signal (at least 2 bars if the phone is on a desk and is not touched) for a short period then bounce to their lovely EDGE tower which offers a stronger signal (4 bars) and a slow data connection (reminds me of the days of my Commodore 64c with a 1200 Baud modem dialing into BBS over a phone line with noise
. Right now Im using an iPhone5S apple unlocked. In my prior two trials of Tmobile this year I was using an iPhone5 and then the Tmobile version of the Iphone5. All phones produce the same issue at my work location and I have seen no improvement as far as indoor coverage in almost 1 year. It's just a single floor building with very few obstructions (no trees close by, etc). I don't have my phone jail broken so there is no way to disable EDGE. If I turn off LTE or turn airplane mode on/off the phone will lock onto the 4G signal and use it for a few minutes then reverts back to the lovely EDGE tower. Tmobile could do something about this until they upgrade this old tower such as implementing some change in their carrier bundle so the phone will lock onto a 4G signal even if it's weaker than the EDGE signal. Who wants to use EDGE for data these days? Another solution would be to get apple to add a toggle switch to iOS that allows you to turn off certain bands. To get this done we would need to gather many folks and send apple a petition along with requesting Tmobile to do that same. I believe something like this is already possible by jail breaking the phone. I would like to avoid doing this as I like to sell my phones in a factory state when I buy new phones. Also it's a hassle having to revert back each time you want to update iOS. I have an Apple Developer account and always like to install the latest iOS betas.Those of you who want to see Tmobile succeed and do something for us please join me and sending them a message, lets start a petition. Otherwise we can wine about things all over the Internet and just sit back and wait years before we see anything happen.
-Mike
