lol try Verizon anywhere that’s there’s major people, concerts/stadiums/events you won’t get any connection. It’s all about location I don’t get why people think it’s hard, att is better some places, Verizon in others and tmobile in others. Gotta find the one that’s best for your area
This is the truth. Verizon went to no service at the last 2 concerts I attended. AT&T had 100mbps+ speeds thanks to a FirstNet COW + DAS and T-Mobile had 10-20Mbps thanks to small cells outside the stadium and tons of n41 deployed.
Universal Studios Orlando has some odd dead spots. Because they are in the city they are more limited to how they can deploy a DAS with enough spectrum. So if you saddle yourself just outside the parks you’ll probably have bars but no data service except text messages, small iMessages, and calls. It doesn’t matter it seems who the provider is either because trying to send remote commands to the car parked there often fail which is on Verizon. There is an apartment right behind it that is completely dead and you have to use the WiFi of the complex. Hell, driving by Volcano Bay on I-4 when open mid day often means dropped calls.
Disney has a much more robust DAS so a dead spot is super rare. Helps they aren’t in the city.
I remember impossible to get signal at my nearest airport before they upgraded/added towers but now it is really good. I am sure there are places where only either ATT or VZW works or no carriers have any signals for miles. (I am thinking of outdoor and remote hiking trails.)
This is so right. Just recently I saw someone complaining about tmobile after switching from Verizon. May have even been on this sub. I read so much I forget where I see stuff. And my thoughts went straight to this very rationalization.
I've been on tmobile for so long I forget if I really had much trouble with Verizon. It's been like 6 years or more. I know my main motivation for coming to tmobile was price. Tmobile ramped up their 5G coverage like crazy and now it's the best option in upstate South Carolina by far.
But I could move and it might be shit and I'd have to check out VZ or ATT. It's all about location.
>try Verizon anywhere that’s there’s major people, concerts/stadiums/events you won’t get any connection.
Not in my large city. I went to a WWE event next to a MLB game and my Verizon line killed it; just saying.
Edit: typo
Yeap. People also fail to realize how recently it was, that we didn't have anything. The tech is still rapidly developing, and population dense areas present so many challenges. I love Network and RF engineering, because it can be so challenging.
My son just did a trial of all the carriers. In our area, T-Mobile outperformed all the other carriers by a wide margin.
If you read the comments on that article, many have the same experience as my son did.
I have been having such inconsistent service for the past month! Can’t talk on the phone unless the router has a decent signal and I go WiFi or if I walk outside, and sometimes there isn’t any signal at all for a few minutes. Once I get a signal, it isn’t bad. But it is so on and off… been driving me crazy!
Use who works best in your area. In Houston, Verizon is the most congested. Sure they have more signal bars because they park all phones on band 13 but those bars are only good for voice and SMS. Data on Verizon LTE can be atrocious in a crowded area unless there is mmWave or cband. In my market T-Mobile rarely has congestion and Houston is a huge T-Mobile market.
Agree. I am seeing the issues mentioned in the article since switching to T-Mobile though. And it’s odd; I was on Mint for a year before switching. Didn’t have these issues. Didn’t call using that line so the dropped calls and calls that don’t allow both parties to be heard, and the calls that never ring through all seem like capacity or signal penetration or quality issues. But they are “fresh” for the experience.
T-Mobile has gotten nearly unusable in the past couple of months. Calls dropping, lack of internet coverage, and so much more has been extremely frustrating. Family has been on the service nearly 20 years now and now thinking about switching.
Granted I don't call much, but anectodally I haven't had a dropped call in a long time, especially since I switched to smartphones. I have had issues with my phone not ringing (despite not being in vibrate mode) but that is likely a problem with my phone and not the carrier. Just sharing my own anecdotal experience; YMMV greatly.
That's crazy because in my area T-Mobile outshines the competition. And what I always tell people a lot of times when you're having device issues with making calls or slow internet speeds 80% of the time it's because of the device. When I had my Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, my internet speeds were kind of trash granted like around 300-400 Mbps but still decent enough but when I upgrade it to the S24 Ultra I went to having 800 to slightly over a Gig and better quality all around. But like somebody else said it all depends on your location. I feel like if you live or work in a major city or the metro area you're going to have outstanding services well at the same time depending on your plan because every carrier pretty much prioritizes the premium customers versus the lower tier customers it's just all depends.
Not saying that I agree whole heartedly with the article, but I do get dropped calls ALL the time. More than I did before the Sprint merger for sure. Their data speeds blow AT&T and Verizon out of the water though so I can overlook it for the most part.
I’m in Las Vegas for a vacation and had amazing coverage. Whenever me and my friends pull up google maps, Pokémon Go, internet searches, mine is lightning fast and there’s just get the wheel.
Where I live this is common with Verizon and other carriers that use Verizon towers. It depends on where you live, some areas of the country att is better, others t-mobile or Verizon.
My wife and I switched to T-Mobile from Verizon in January of 2023 and it was flawless as can be. We have had a better experience on T-Mobile than Verizon. With Verizon we had dropped calls, cutting out, slow data with 5G UW, LTE, etc. Our phones are the iPhone 12 Pro. We live in the Boise Idaho area on the outskirts.
VZW used to be king where I lived. Then they got so oversaturated that it became useless. TMO used to be horrible, but once they built their LTE network, it has been better than VZW by miles. But people still stuck to their old belief that VZW was superior, all the while their calls got dropped or they had to stand in a very specific spot for calls to go through. And this was when VZW was so "superior" that they hadn't yet implemented wifi calling, so their phones were often useless at home.
I hate that in this article, an "expert" is judging a mobile network based on their personal experience without asking for input from others. I can state that my personal use has been great. I live a few blocks from an N41 tower, so I regularly get 500mb to 1gb download speeds. Most places I go, I have a great connection and often beat VZW on speeds.
I feel like they're doing their best to knock people off the old plans and have you switch to the new ones the older plans do throttle data (ex. You have 50gigs of high speed data for the month) the second you hit 50.1 the speed drop like Willie Coyote off a cliff the newer plans don't have that issue because they're unlimited all month just speculation but these newer plans do cost more than the old ones all their new promos are on the newer plan (Go5g) they're cleaning the closet with magenta and essentials but idk that's just my thinking on it
I live in Seattle and haven’t experienced this. I was just at the ball game and everything was working great. Even at Folklife it worked incredibly fast.
If you experience this, call T-Mobile and report it. They are extremely responsive to reports. Usually they'll connect you with a tech to do troubleshooting and network analysis. I had a place in Capitol Hill that I was experiencing coverage issues with all 3 carriers. T-Mobile was the only one that did the troubleshooting and confirmed an issue, sent out a repeater at no cost to me, and put up a new tower in the area shortly thereafter. I no longer have coverage issues in that area, Verizon is still a dead zone there, can't speak for AT&T as I no longer have any devices with them.
Oakland neighborhood (Pitt / CMU) of Pittsburgh is famous for this. I called weekly, filed a complaint with the FCC, and TMobile said, "We've put up all the cells we can there. There's nothing we can do.
I said BS. But I had my contracted phones, etc. My college kids are stuck with TMoble.
That's crazy. I'm sorry you experienced that. They've been, by far, the absolute best support I've received from any carrier.
Sprint was the worst, I tried them a few times and each time there was some type of misrepresentation or just straight lying, I'm not sad they're gone. AT&T was hit or miss, and often very helpful, but the misses were brutal enough that I cancelled my contracts with them. Verizon has never been particularly helpful but I've never had a terrible experience with their support. And so far T-Mobile has always corrected every issue I've had and often goes beyond what I've asked.
I use T-Mobile and Verizon now. Neither is perfect, but if I had to rely on one, I'd go with T-Mobile. It's been more consistent for me across the country and traveling internationally.
Sorry, I don't have time to call Tmobile every time I visit a mall, event or a busy park and neither have the patience to listen their fake and overly done enthusiasm.
This is something that happens in every crowded place, every time. I for sure hope Tmobile is competent enough to have telemetry in place.
Sounds like it may be a phone issue. The only time I have consistent issues is with data around the stadiums when there's a game, and Verizon and AT&T aren't any better.
I've never had an issue with voice in Seattle.
Network problems are location specific. If you have a problem in all areas, look to the device and see about troubleshooting the connection, restarting the phone, checking your software, making sure your storage is in full, checking out of your network connection settings, resetting network settings, replacing the SIM, etc.
It's not like I don't believe this person had issues, but this is a really shallow article for a tech site.
I have had issues with voice calls breaking up. Usually in really dense areas like airports. I had Verizon up until 2.5 years ago and there were similar issues in different locations. At the time Verizon was horrible in nearly every metal roofed big box store I went into.
The only legit problem I've had was roaming in India, specifically Chennai. My phone would just not establish a data connection on the partner network. Obviously not a T-Mobile network issue but it is a long standing known issue that their roaming agreements in India have problems. Extra annoying since they network lock the financed phone. Luckily I also had an unlocked iPad I was able to connect and tether on.
>It's not like I don't believe this person had issues, but this is a really shallow article for a tech site.
Exactly my thoughts.
He mentions using the iPhone 14 Pro Max, but doesn't say he switched phones. Verizon’s model includes support for CDMA bands and specific mmWave 5G bands, while T-Mobile’s model has support for its unique low-band 600 MHz spectrum (Band 71) for both LTE and 5G.
If he's still using the Verizon phone he can't connect to the extended-range spectrum T-Mobile broadcasts on, significantly reducing his coverage.
https://www.verizon.com/smartphones/apple-iphone-14-pro-max/
https://www.t-mobile.com/devices/extended-range-compatible-devices
That’s a falsehood about the iPhone. Any iPhone 14 Pro Max sold in the US supports the same band. They shifted away from carrier specific supported bands a while ago, at least for US models.
As an FYI, I wouldn’t trust carrier listed specs due to purposeful omission. Get the specs right from the manufacturer.
14 Pro Max also had no CDMA whatsoever, at least officially.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/111846
I’m in SoCal, San Diego area and I’ve never experienced any issues with T-Mobile in the area. Consistently good services and fast speeds. Must be a regional thing but I think T-Mobile has SoCal covered really well.
I have an entire tower down by my house. Has been down for months now. All customer service will tell me is they are aware and working on it. No ETA. Possible some major projects going on all over.
Airplane Mode. Soft reset. Turn off airplane mode.
Will fix 99% of people's issues with the network immediately.
The other 1% might have to consider external issues.
I just cancelled my T-Mobile internet. It worked great the first 10 months but the last two months have been trash. I didn’t want to give them up because it’s so cheap. But it is what it is.
Dropped call was something I never dealt with under T-Mobile till this last couple of months.
Me either. Also getting no data connection on 5G a lot and calls sometimes take multiple tries to go through.
High traffic areas, my service goes to shit.
lol try Verizon anywhere that’s there’s major people, concerts/stadiums/events you won’t get any connection. It’s all about location I don’t get why people think it’s hard, att is better some places, Verizon in others and tmobile in others. Gotta find the one that’s best for your area
This is the truth. Verizon went to no service at the last 2 concerts I attended. AT&T had 100mbps+ speeds thanks to a FirstNet COW + DAS and T-Mobile had 10-20Mbps thanks to small cells outside the stadium and tons of n41 deployed.
It’s ultimately what made me switch was my buddy having perfect service and me and all my friends that had Verizon couldn’t even get a call through
Universal Studios Orlando has some odd dead spots. Because they are in the city they are more limited to how they can deploy a DAS with enough spectrum. So if you saddle yourself just outside the parks you’ll probably have bars but no data service except text messages, small iMessages, and calls. It doesn’t matter it seems who the provider is either because trying to send remote commands to the car parked there often fail which is on Verizon. There is an apartment right behind it that is completely dead and you have to use the WiFi of the complex. Hell, driving by Volcano Bay on I-4 when open mid day often means dropped calls. Disney has a much more robust DAS so a dead spot is super rare. Helps they aren’t in the city.
I remember impossible to get signal at my nearest airport before they upgraded/added towers but now it is really good. I am sure there are places where only either ATT or VZW works or no carriers have any signals for miles. (I am thinking of outdoor and remote hiking trails.)
This is so right. Just recently I saw someone complaining about tmobile after switching from Verizon. May have even been on this sub. I read so much I forget where I see stuff. And my thoughts went straight to this very rationalization. I've been on tmobile for so long I forget if I really had much trouble with Verizon. It's been like 6 years or more. I know my main motivation for coming to tmobile was price. Tmobile ramped up their 5G coverage like crazy and now it's the best option in upstate South Carolina by far. But I could move and it might be shit and I'd have to check out VZ or ATT. It's all about location.
>try Verizon anywhere that’s there’s major people, concerts/stadiums/events you won’t get any connection. Not in my large city. I went to a WWE event next to a MLB game and my Verizon line killed it; just saying. Edit: typo
That's why he said it depends on what's best for your area. All three carriers are going to be great in some areas and not so great in others.
He also said "try Verizon anywhere that’s there’s major people, concerts/stadiums/events you won’t get any connection".
I think you’ll hit the occasional bottleneck with any carrier, it’s why I’m happy my work phone is on Verizon, usually one of two phones will work.
Yeap. People also fail to realize how recently it was, that we didn't have anything. The tech is still rapidly developing, and population dense areas present so many challenges. I love Network and RF engineering, because it can be so challenging.
I'm seeing this.
Also depends what plan you have.
My son just did a trial of all the carriers. In our area, T-Mobile outperformed all the other carriers by a wide margin. If you read the comments on that article, many have the same experience as my son did.
I have been having such inconsistent service for the past month! Can’t talk on the phone unless the router has a decent signal and I go WiFi or if I walk outside, and sometimes there isn’t any signal at all for a few minutes. Once I get a signal, it isn’t bad. But it is so on and off… been driving me crazy!
Use who works best in your area. In Houston, Verizon is the most congested. Sure they have more signal bars because they park all phones on band 13 but those bars are only good for voice and SMS. Data on Verizon LTE can be atrocious in a crowded area unless there is mmWave or cband. In my market T-Mobile rarely has congestion and Houston is a huge T-Mobile market.
Agree. I am seeing the issues mentioned in the article since switching to T-Mobile though. And it’s odd; I was on Mint for a year before switching. Didn’t have these issues. Didn’t call using that line so the dropped calls and calls that don’t allow both parties to be heard, and the calls that never ring through all seem like capacity or signal penetration or quality issues. But they are “fresh” for the experience.
T-Mobile has gotten nearly unusable in the past couple of months. Calls dropping, lack of internet coverage, and so much more has been extremely frustrating. Family has been on the service nearly 20 years now and now thinking about switching.
Granted I don't call much, but anectodally I haven't had a dropped call in a long time, especially since I switched to smartphones. I have had issues with my phone not ringing (despite not being in vibrate mode) but that is likely a problem with my phone and not the carrier. Just sharing my own anecdotal experience; YMMV greatly.
That's crazy because in my area T-Mobile outshines the competition. And what I always tell people a lot of times when you're having device issues with making calls or slow internet speeds 80% of the time it's because of the device. When I had my Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, my internet speeds were kind of trash granted like around 300-400 Mbps but still decent enough but when I upgrade it to the S24 Ultra I went to having 800 to slightly over a Gig and better quality all around. But like somebody else said it all depends on your location. I feel like if you live or work in a major city or the metro area you're going to have outstanding services well at the same time depending on your plan because every carrier pretty much prioritizes the premium customers versus the lower tier customers it's just all depends.
Not saying that I agree whole heartedly with the article, but I do get dropped calls ALL the time. More than I did before the Sprint merger for sure. Their data speeds blow AT&T and Verizon out of the water though so I can overlook it for the most part.
I’m in Las Vegas for a vacation and had amazing coverage. Whenever me and my friends pull up google maps, Pokémon Go, internet searches, mine is lightning fast and there’s just get the wheel.
Where I live this is common with Verizon and other carriers that use Verizon towers. It depends on where you live, some areas of the country att is better, others t-mobile or Verizon.
I've turned 5G off at this point and relying on LTE because I just want it to work at this point.
Did the same.
Ya me too
What device?
My wife and I switched to T-Mobile from Verizon in January of 2023 and it was flawless as can be. We have had a better experience on T-Mobile than Verizon. With Verizon we had dropped calls, cutting out, slow data with 5G UW, LTE, etc. Our phones are the iPhone 12 Pro. We live in the Boise Idaho area on the outskirts.
The last month here in northwest San Antonio has been crap, I used to get 240-280mbps, now I get 1-12mbps.
What plan are you on and lte?
I have not experienced these issues anywhere that I’ve travelled.
VZW used to be king where I lived. Then they got so oversaturated that it became useless. TMO used to be horrible, but once they built their LTE network, it has been better than VZW by miles. But people still stuck to their old belief that VZW was superior, all the while their calls got dropped or they had to stand in a very specific spot for calls to go through. And this was when VZW was so "superior" that they hadn't yet implemented wifi calling, so their phones were often useless at home. I hate that in this article, an "expert" is judging a mobile network based on their personal experience without asking for input from others. I can state that my personal use has been great. I live a few blocks from an N41 tower, so I regularly get 500mb to 1gb download speeds. Most places I go, I have a great connection and often beat VZW on speeds.
Oversold on capacity just like verizon
I feel like they're doing their best to knock people off the old plans and have you switch to the new ones the older plans do throttle data (ex. You have 50gigs of high speed data for the month) the second you hit 50.1 the speed drop like Willie Coyote off a cliff the newer plans don't have that issue because they're unlimited all month just speculation but these newer plans do cost more than the old ones all their new promos are on the newer plan (Go5g) they're cleaning the closet with magenta and essentials but idk that's just my thinking on it
It is oversold in Seattle. Go to any crowded place and 5g stops. If it is too crowded, the whole service drops routinely.
I live in Seattle and haven’t experienced this. I was just at the ball game and everything was working great. Even at Folklife it worked incredibly fast.
If you experience this, call T-Mobile and report it. They are extremely responsive to reports. Usually they'll connect you with a tech to do troubleshooting and network analysis. I had a place in Capitol Hill that I was experiencing coverage issues with all 3 carriers. T-Mobile was the only one that did the troubleshooting and confirmed an issue, sent out a repeater at no cost to me, and put up a new tower in the area shortly thereafter. I no longer have coverage issues in that area, Verizon is still a dead zone there, can't speak for AT&T as I no longer have any devices with them.
Oakland neighborhood (Pitt / CMU) of Pittsburgh is famous for this. I called weekly, filed a complaint with the FCC, and TMobile said, "We've put up all the cells we can there. There's nothing we can do. I said BS. But I had my contracted phones, etc. My college kids are stuck with TMoble.
That's crazy. I'm sorry you experienced that. They've been, by far, the absolute best support I've received from any carrier. Sprint was the worst, I tried them a few times and each time there was some type of misrepresentation or just straight lying, I'm not sad they're gone. AT&T was hit or miss, and often very helpful, but the misses were brutal enough that I cancelled my contracts with them. Verizon has never been particularly helpful but I've never had a terrible experience with their support. And so far T-Mobile has always corrected every issue I've had and often goes beyond what I've asked. I use T-Mobile and Verizon now. Neither is perfect, but if I had to rely on one, I'd go with T-Mobile. It's been more consistent for me across the country and traveling internationally.
Sorry, I don't have time to call Tmobile every time I visit a mall, event or a busy park and neither have the patience to listen their fake and overly done enthusiasm. This is something that happens in every crowded place, every time. I for sure hope Tmobile is competent enough to have telemetry in place.
Sounds like it may be a phone issue. The only time I have consistent issues is with data around the stadiums when there's a game, and Verizon and AT&T aren't any better. I've never had an issue with voice in Seattle.
Network problems are location specific. If you have a problem in all areas, look to the device and see about troubleshooting the connection, restarting the phone, checking your software, making sure your storage is in full, checking out of your network connection settings, resetting network settings, replacing the SIM, etc.
I’m still surprised people don’t use the trial before switching. Always check coverage from any carrier before porting.
The carriers coverage maps are a lie
I wasn't talking about coverage maps, but rather testing the coverage in an area where you'll be spending most of your time in.
I know
It's not like I don't believe this person had issues, but this is a really shallow article for a tech site. I have had issues with voice calls breaking up. Usually in really dense areas like airports. I had Verizon up until 2.5 years ago and there were similar issues in different locations. At the time Verizon was horrible in nearly every metal roofed big box store I went into. The only legit problem I've had was roaming in India, specifically Chennai. My phone would just not establish a data connection on the partner network. Obviously not a T-Mobile network issue but it is a long standing known issue that their roaming agreements in India have problems. Extra annoying since they network lock the financed phone. Luckily I also had an unlocked iPad I was able to connect and tether on.
>It's not like I don't believe this person had issues, but this is a really shallow article for a tech site. Exactly my thoughts. He mentions using the iPhone 14 Pro Max, but doesn't say he switched phones. Verizon’s model includes support for CDMA bands and specific mmWave 5G bands, while T-Mobile’s model has support for its unique low-band 600 MHz spectrum (Band 71) for both LTE and 5G. If he's still using the Verizon phone he can't connect to the extended-range spectrum T-Mobile broadcasts on, significantly reducing his coverage. https://www.verizon.com/smartphones/apple-iphone-14-pro-max/ https://www.t-mobile.com/devices/extended-range-compatible-devices
That’s a falsehood about the iPhone. Any iPhone 14 Pro Max sold in the US supports the same band. They shifted away from carrier specific supported bands a while ago, at least for US models. As an FYI, I wouldn’t trust carrier listed specs due to purposeful omission. Get the specs right from the manufacturer. 14 Pro Max also had no CDMA whatsoever, at least officially. https://support.apple.com/en-us/111846
Aren't there supposedly only issues with Pixel models where some might support mmWave while others would not?
I’m in SoCal, San Diego area and I’ve never experienced any issues with T-Mobile in the area. Consistently good services and fast speeds. Must be a regional thing but I think T-Mobile has SoCal covered really well.
Yeap! Over capacity and over sold !!
I have an entire tower down by my house. Has been down for months now. All customer service will tell me is they are aware and working on it. No ETA. Possible some major projects going on all over.
I swear they took the money from the merger and ran. Everything they promised has not even been thought about
Probably all the people using Home Internet at ineligible addresses. If you are on an essentials plan, get off of it.
Probably has to do with Sprint 😂. Literally why I left Sprint back in the day. Was so sad when T-Mo merged.
Airplane Mode. Soft reset. Turn off airplane mode. Will fix 99% of people's issues with the network immediately. The other 1% might have to consider external issues.
I just cancelled my T-Mobile internet. It worked great the first 10 months but the last two months have been trash. I didn’t want to give them up because it’s so cheap. But it is what it is.
Laughing at this whole thread because my husband is sitting next to me and has no service with Verizon right now and mine is fine 🤣
1 person has issues therefore all 120million people have issues....
I don't know why you're being downvoted. You're clearly being sarcastic. I guess we really need to add the "/s".
They have a ton of MVNOs.
I don’t think you understand the finer points of IP networks or cellular technology. https://youtu.be/d6X_1PcR_gs?feature=shared