Carrier Want to get the 6s, but not sure which carrier?

[KoolAid-Drink]

So, I'm really wanting the 6s (64gb). Long story short, I'm on AT&T, my 2-year contract won't end until February 2016. I'm grandfathered in a $45 2GB plan, so really cheap monthly payment. I got the 5s, but this summer, dropped the 5s in a lake, so got an unlocked used iPhone 5 for ~$200 from Amazon. The iPhone 5 is crap, but it'll do until the 6s.

I'm tired of 2GB, I'm tired of watching my data usage carefully, and I've noticed AT&T's performance slipping in the DC area. Not sure if it's because I'm on the 5, or if it's an issue with the 5, but when I had the 5s before this summer, I did notice a bit more slowness/4G with AT&T vs. full LTE. Might've been a fluke, though.

So, it looks like my options are:

a) Switch to Verizon and do either the M plan of 3GB for $45/month or L for $60 (plus the line fee and iPhone)
Pros: better service
Cons: ETF with AT&T would have to be paid (~$350); the total cost monthly would be ~$100 vs. $45 now

I'm also confused about the $100 credit for switching/transferring to Verizon. If I were to trade my iPhone 5 in, I'd get $200 with VZW.

b) Switch to T-Mobile and do $60 a month for 3GB, plus the iPhone.
Pros: T-Mobile will pay my AT&T ETF, no more worrying about data, data stash
Cons: service won't be as good as AT&T or VZW (even though T-Mobile is improving), ~$90 a month plus Jump if I elect to get it. Trade-in value of my 5 is shown as $67, too.

c) Stay with AT&T and pay $549 for another 2-year contract (halfway discounted mid-contract pricing).
Pros: keeping the $45/monthly rate
Cons: another 2-year contract lock in, staying with AT&T, still having to worry about 2GB

d) Move to AT&T Next (which I am eligible for now).
Pros: still keeping the $45/monthly rate; no heavy up-front cost for the 6s
Cons: I was told by an AT&T employee that I would be better off keeping a 2-year contract, given my plan, and actually save money.

Sprint isn't something I want to pursue.

Help! I'm definitely confused and unsure of which the best way to go. I guess I've been spoiled by paying only $45 a month (plus Lifeline). I haven't gone over 2GB yet *knock on wood* but I know with the 6s, I'll be tempted to use more data, especially if WiFi at work/home is slow.

Thanks!

 

[Cuniac]

Here is something to be aware of.
Carrier choice is a battle between Cost vs Coverage vs Safety. No one offers any customer service that is better than the other, its all pretty bad. Going down the list from best to worst in terms of coverage:
1) Verizon - Best coverage but also the most expensive.
2) AT&T - Second best coverage, but almost as expensive as Verizon. Honestly so close you're better off going with Verizon for the extended coverage.
3) T-Mobile - Coverage is good in metropolitan areas but not good in rural areas. Cost is pretty good compared to other carries
4) Sprint - Has slightly better coverage than T-Mobile, However the coverage is plagued with reception issues. Slightly more expensive than T-Mobile but sometimes its neck and neck.
Now it all depends on what you need. If you are in the City 90+% of the time T-Mobile is probably your best choice as cost is good. If your going to be in the city a lot but also take occasional trips, you will probably want AT&T or Verizon. If you take a lot of trip or the occasional trip go's though very rural areas or you're like me in Arizona and have to drive long stretches of desert to get out of the greater phoenix area. Verizon is your best bet.
It does come done to how much can you afford, but also does that cost equal your safety. For example I used to be on AT&T. In city it had perfect coverage but I take trips to Flagstaff often. That is a two hour drive with long stretches of desert. There were several points where I would loose service. I never thought much of it until one day I got a flat right in the middle of the longest stretch. I pulled out my iPhone 4s (with bumper lol) and held it to sky. Even when standing on the roof of my SUV it went from 1 bar to no service, back and fourth. I could not get the tire off for some reason and I could not call for help. However, I had my iPad 3 with me that I got Verizon on. Sure enough it had 2 bars of 3G. Shortly after I switched to Verizon.
Now I'm not saying Verizon is the end all be all as everyone will have dead spots when others my not. But please take in to account Cost vs Coverage vs Safety.

 

[rigormortis]

i think the best advice i can come up with is to keep your existing carrier. don't sign any new contracts.

go to the apple store, and buy the Verizon phone full price 6s. but don't switch carriers.


that way you can keep switching it to AT&T , Verizon, or T-mobile , for the rest of your life.

from what i understand the only thing to watch out for on this phone is the lack of channel 30 which is a new
AT&T LTE channel that is in some areas.

or an argument could be made that you can buy a Sprint model full price - without service - and then
make sprint unlock it. that way for the rest of your life you can keep switching from AT&T , T-mobile, Sprint and Verizo , and you will never ever have to trade in your phone ever again. you will never have to take another iPhone contract. as long as you don't feel a need for an if 7,8,9,10, you can keep that 6s forever.

sprint might require you to be a customer for a certain amount of days before they unlock it, so if thats the case then you can return it in the 14 day return period.

there is one thing i do not like about Sprint. , its tethering. they don't include tethering for $60 unlimited , and you must pay $20 for @ 2 GB or $50 for 6 GB, this is in addition to the $60 line charge. they call this "saving money versus T-Mobile", and its B.s. because Tmo is #$80 for unlimited and that includes 7 GB of tethering.

i don't know if its possible to buy these phones for full price without activation at the apple store. i guess we will find out

if you buy these phones for full price at the carrier's stores they will be locked.

T-mobile has announced a new service guarantee.

within 30 days if you are not happy with the coverage, you can return the phone and they will refund you the money you paid for that month.

this is where it is awesome!.. get this.. if its past 30 days, and you are not happy with your coverage, they will make arrangements for you to pay off your device. but they will unlock it before its paid off. and you can take your unlocked 6s /6 + phone to AT&T ( i don't want to say Verizon because i don't think you can use it on Verizon as of today )


http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news/company-news/lifetime-coverage-guarantee.htm

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

I hate to be that guy, but bump. Any other advice?

 

[HippieMagic]

Concerning Cuniac's customer service comment... I have had Verizon for years and have had amazing Customer Service with them. They have always gone above and beyond what they needed to do in order to keep me happy, have added promo data to my account numerous times, and even helped me resolve an issue with a stalker that I had for a bit when it was really not their problem at all.

I won't say they are the cheapest at all... I pay a little over $120 for my bill (Phone Payment of $36(128GB 6s) + $60 for L data + $20 for Phone Line + $10 for iPad Line + insurance on both). It comes out to around $130 right now but my situation is obviously a little different than yours would be. Customer Service has always been amazing for me, though. The call center is also American so it is a lot easier to deal with.

EDIT: Also I got the 64GB 6 with EDGE and it cost $37 to upgrade to the 128GB 6s both on launch day. This is returning the 6 obviously. Roughly $300 left to pay off the 6. $51 tax. Total cost at checkout was $88.

 

[rigormortis]

I hate to be that guy, but bump. Any other advice?

what guy? me? what did i say ?


if you buy the phone from the apple store, but don't tell your carrier, and remove the sim from one phone and put it in your new phone, you will save $45 in a bogus activation fee! works on all phone carriers. they always charge you for upgrading and activating a new sim card, when the old sim card works perfectly fine

 

[rigormortis]

i dunno what i said to get you mad, i honestly believe your best thing to do is to buy the iPhone 6s from apple directly.
that way when you are out of contract you can switch back and forth all you want. I'm not sure what the deal is with
the sprint and verizon iPhones they are selling in 2 weeks. i don't know if sprint is unlocked.

i don't see whats so bad about riding it out with AT&T , buying a phone full price now, and then come January you
can play the field, and you will never have to trade in that iPhone. ( as long as its that cdma + gsm one )

 

[OCGirlie]

4) Sprint - Has slightly better coverage than T-Mobile, However the coverage is plagued with reception issues. Slightly more expensive than T-Mobile but sometimes its neck and neck.
Now it all depends on what you need. If you are in the City 90+% of the time T-Mobile is probably your best choice as cost is good. If your going to be in the city a lot but also take occasional trips, you will probably want AT&T or Verizon. If you take a lot of trip or the occasional trip go's though very rural areas or you're like me in Arizona and have to drive long stretches of desert to get out of the greater phoenix area. Verizon is your best bet.
It does come done to how much can you afford, but also does that cost equal your safety. For example I used to be on AT&T. In city it had perfect coverage but I take trips to Flagstaff often. That is a two hour drive with long stretches of desert. There were several points where I would loose service. I never thought much of it until one day I got a flat right in the middle of the longest stretch. I pulled out my iPhone 4s (with bumper lol) and held it to sky. Even when standing on the roof of my SUV it went from 1 bar to no service, back and fourth. I could not get the tire off for some reason and I could not call for help. However, I had my iPad 3 with me that I got Verizon on. Sure enough it had 2 bars of 3G. Shortly after I switched to Verizon.
Now I'm not saying Verizon is the end all be all as everyone will have dead spots when others my not. But please take in to account Cost vs Coverage vs Safety.

Have T-Mobile and I found out the hard way at how bad the coverage is. Live in SoCal, took a trip out to Flagstaff/Sedona couple months back, had basically no reception as soon as I left California. I felt like I fell off the grid for a couple of days (which can be nice); all my friends with Verizon were happily checking their msgs while I had a paperweight that took pictures.

 

[rigormortis]

Have T-Mobile and I found out the hard way at how bad the coverage is. Live in SoCal, took a trip out to Flagstaff/Sedona couple months back, had basically no reception as soon as I left California. I felt like I fell off the grid for a couple of days (which can be nice); all my friends with Verizon were happily checking their msgs while I had a paperweight that took pictures.

is Flagstaff/Sedona channel 12 now?

I hear AT&T and sprint are also paperweights in Flagstaff/Sedona and not just t-mobile

 

[rigormortis]

t-mobile is the only carrier willing to give your your money back in 30 days for buying an iPhone 6s/6s+
and at the same time unlocking your 6s/6+s when its not even paid off. that alone is worth taking them up on their
offfer, and if it sucks, you can probably go to AT&T. and just keep making handset payments to tmo.

id like to see AT&T and sprint offer to fully unlock your iPhone when its not fully paid for
.

http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news/company-news/lifetime-coverage-guarantee.htm

theres a slight chance that as long as you are in a VOLTE area, verizon will even activate a line on service on your brand new T-mobile GSM iPhone 6s/6s+ but i wouldn't bet on it. because its not CDMA

 

[superevangelist1]

is Flagstaff/Sedona channel 12 now?

I hear AT&T and sprint are also paperweights in Flagstaff/Sedona and not just t-mobile

I have AT&T. Inside the city limits of Sedona and surrounding areas, coverage is just fine. Head up into Oak Creek Canyon and it is non existent. I don't know how Verizon does in the canyon.

 

[Broadus]

I hate to be that guy, but bump. Any other advice?

what guy? me? what did i say ?

if you buy the phone from the apple store, but don't tell your carrier, and remove the sim from one phone and put it in your new phone, you will save $45 in a bogus activation fee! works on all phone carriers. they always charge you for upgrading and activating a new sim card, when the old sim card works perfectly fine

I don't think he was referring to you as "that guy" but to himself as "that guy" who bumps his own thread. It had been some 24 hours without any additional posts.

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

i dunno what i said to get you mad, i honestly believe your best thing to do is to buy the iPhone 6s from apple directly.
that way when you are out of contract you can switch back and forth all you want. I'm not sure what the deal is with
the sprint and verizon iPhones they are selling in 2 weeks. i don't know if sprint is unlocked.

i don't see whats so bad about riding it out with AT&T , buying a phone full price now, and then come January you
can play the field, and you will never have to trade in that iPhone. ( as long as its that cdma + gsm one )

Yeah, it wasn't about you at all. Like broadus said below, it's me, being that "annoying" guy who bumps his threads.

I don't think he was referring to you as "that guy" but to himself as "that guy" who bumps his own thread. It had been some 24 hours without any additional posts.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more likely I'll stick with AT&T.

 

[drober30]

If it still holds true, you can't talk and use the web on a Verizon phone. If that indeed is still the case, thats a deal breaker for me. I use speaker phone and access the web related to the call I'm on or just surfing the web while on hold all the time.

I have been at two large events/concerts where I have had full bars with AT&T but could not send a text or access the web. I would like to find out next time if someone with a different carrier at the same venue can access the web when I can't, very frustrating when your trying to text your friends where to meet up in a large crowd.

Do you get a discount with AT&T? Pretty much everyone can find a way to receive anywhere from 15% - 25% off their service with an affiliation discount through an employer or other group (credit union).

 

[imlynxy]

For me for US Att is the best choice now.

I don't like Verizon sound quality in my area. Verizon also has worse than Att coverage in my area. I know it is the best nationwide.

I wanted to switch t-mo this time , was exited with their guarantee, but ended up with Att discount iPhones.
I have t-mo, but I use only outside of US. I try it domestically, but coverage outside my metro area suck, LTE goes to 4G and 4G is very slow. I go NH and no service pop-up all the time. With t-mo you are in roaming(excluding Alaska) you have only 50MB per month.
I just found t-mobile native coverage map without roaming

https://maps.eng.t-mobile.com/pcc.html?map=mvno-noroam-34l

Sprint never considered it.

Att pays you if you have problems, just call them and you can get 20-100 credit. T-mo gives nothing. (I have no problem with my income, but they give I get).
Also check your employer, may be you are eligible for discount with att.

If you live in the area with LTE12 t-mobile you can switch, service will be better

http://www.spectrumgateway.com/t-mobile-700a-spectrum

 

[ultravisitor]

I hate to be that guy, but bump. Any other advice?

If you don't have a problem, I'd stay with your current carrier. As long as you have good coverage, there's no benefit to being able to hop around from one carrier to the next. Indeed, it often pays instead to stay with the same carrier over time.

Case in point: I've been with Verizon for over ten years now. When they started moving everyone to shared data plans, I was upset with them because there was absolutely no benefit for me to have a shared data plan when I'm the only person on my account and I only have one number and device on the account. I discussed this and the fact that all it did was line Verizon's pockets with more money with the customer service reps, and in order to get me to stay since my contract was up for renewal, they offered me a loyalty plan that wasn't publicly advertised and which was less expensive than plans offered publicly. Over the two years after signing that contract, Verizon service did nothing but become more and more expensive. Meanwhile, I was locked in to the rate I had. Even more, they've dropped contracts for new customers. Because I'm grandfathered in, I get to hang onto my cheapo contract, which is $450 less over two years than the most comparable current plan from Verizon or AT&T or T-Mobile.

Some people are fine with carrier hopping and being out of contract. Given how carriers have raised rates over the past few years, I am not. If you do that, you're at the mercy of the carriers, who have thus far shown that all they're interested in doing is raising the cost of service. Unless I have no choice, I'll be staying until I know I can have both reliable service AND reasonable cost out of contract.

Personally, I would wait until February if I were you, as it's really not that far away.

 

[hutrebug]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but carriers tend to install their crap bloatware onto your phones... because tying you down with a 2-year contract is just not enough monetary compensation for them to subsidize the phones.

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but carriers tend to install their crap bloatware onto your phones... because tying you down with a 2-year contract is just not enough monetary compensation for them to subsidize the phones.

Not true. AT&T doesn't bundle any bloatware on their iPhones they sell in store.

 

[ultravisitor]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but carriers tend to install their crap bloatware onto your phones...

This is the iPhone we're talking about here. Carrier bloatware is for Androids.

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

Well, looks like it's decided. I was able to talk with AT&T - they changed my TAP (text accessibility plan) from 2GB at $45/mo to 3GB ($50/mo); only $5 more! I've just preordered the 6s, 64gb, space grey. Moving to NEXT 18 (a bit ugh, but $32/mo isn't too bad). Preordering is showing as delivery on 9/25, let's hope it sticks! Printed out my order confirmation and the shipment estimate (9/24 - 9/24) just in case.

That was a hard decision, but I realized AT&T would be the best compromise. T-Mobile just seems too sketchy in some areas for my liking, and Verizon was too expensive for my taste ($96-115 per month), so AT&T seemed like a good compromise between the two.

 

[imlynxy]

Good choice. For me Att is also the best choice in the USA

 

[imlynxy]

I've just got SMS from Att. My plan is getting better.

 

[AppleChic76]

If it still holds true, you can't talk and use the web on a Verizon phone. If that indeed is still the case, thats a deal breaker for me. I use speaker phone and access the web related to the call I'm on or just surfing the web while on hold all the time.

I have been at two large events/concerts where I have had full bars with AT&T but could not send a text or access the web. I would like to find out next time if someone with a different carrier at the same venue can access the web when I can't, very frustrating when your trying to text your friends where to meet up in a large crowd.

Do you get a discount with AT&T? Pretty much everyone can find a way to receive anywhere from 15% - 25% off their service with an affiliation discount through an employer or other group (credit union).

I hated that with Verizon. Coverage was awesome. But that + costly + taking away my unlimited data when I wanted to upgrade made me leave them.

Now if Verizon is stellar Sprint is the exact opposite. Service was so awful, even with a mini tower in the house.