Just ported both of our numbers last night, so there are still some quirks. Also, YMMV due to location. I live in the Seattle-Tacoma area now, so mostly urban. I went from Puyallup to Bellevue today.
On AT&T, we generally had 3G/Faux-G everywhere we went. There were few dropdowns to Edge as in our previous location. However, there were several deadzones, some of which were extended. This was not acceptable. Calls would drop often on either of our phones. Her iPhone would throw up a "call terminated" error whereas my SGS2 would just get a circle with a line through it where the signal bar used to be. Many areas where we'd have full bars on 3G/H+ would yield data speeds in the dial-up range or no data at all due to congestion.
With T-Mobile, there are far more areas where we are on Edge. However, in those areas, service is fine and data is 100-200kb down and up, which is adequate for general usage. In areas where H+ was offered (more than half of where I've been so far), download speeds averaged 3mbps, or more than double the peak speeds I got from AT&T up here. Upload speeds were a tad better with an average of 3.3mbps. AT&T never broke up an upload speed of 500k in this area (and I would know, tethered off them constantly for 4 months).
My bill went from $129.99 before corporate discount and taxes, to $80.00 before corporate discount and taxes. The corporate discount is slightly larger on T-Mobile, percentage-wise, due to the way it's applied. That certainly helps. I'm also no longer doing something "not kosher" with a smartphone on Medianet. That would have brought my bill to $149.99 on AT&T after they caught me or after my next upgrade.
The only issues we have on T-MO right now are that my wife's iPhone hasn't gotten T-Mobile's new update yet that enables proper MMS, Apple VVM, and a few other features. That was supposed to go out this past Friday but will go out before the iPhone 5 TMO launch on the 12th. Our other issue is that reception in the first floor of our house sucks. I've called TMO and they're sending a tech out to our house to see if they can either analyze coverage up here and see if they need to make tower changes, or if they can just install a signal booster in our house. The latter should work fine given that upstairs/outdoor reception is fine, although Edge-only.
Bottom line is that, as in almost any carrier change, it's a case of pick your poison. But, if they can fix the indoor signal issue for us, then TMO would be better than AT&T even at the same price. Saving $50-$70/mo on 2-lines is just a massive bonus. And unlike their previous value plans that these new plans replaced, there is no contract (unless you decide to finance a phone through them). My wife will upgrade to the next iPhone model whenever it launches this year, and I'm still weighting my options on the Android side.
On AT&T, we generally had 3G/Faux-G everywhere we went. There were few dropdowns to Edge as in our previous location. However, there were several deadzones, some of which were extended. This was not acceptable. Calls would drop often on either of our phones. Her iPhone would throw up a "call terminated" error whereas my SGS2 would just get a circle with a line through it where the signal bar used to be. Many areas where we'd have full bars on 3G/H+ would yield data speeds in the dial-up range or no data at all due to congestion.
With T-Mobile, there are far more areas where we are on Edge. However, in those areas, service is fine and data is 100-200kb down and up, which is adequate for general usage. In areas where H+ was offered (more than half of where I've been so far), download speeds averaged 3mbps, or more than double the peak speeds I got from AT&T up here. Upload speeds were a tad better with an average of 3.3mbps. AT&T never broke up an upload speed of 500k in this area (and I would know, tethered off them constantly for 4 months).
My bill went from $129.99 before corporate discount and taxes, to $80.00 before corporate discount and taxes. The corporate discount is slightly larger on T-Mobile, percentage-wise, due to the way it's applied. That certainly helps. I'm also no longer doing something "not kosher" with a smartphone on Medianet. That would have brought my bill to $149.99 on AT&T after they caught me or after my next upgrade.
The only issues we have on T-MO right now are that my wife's iPhone hasn't gotten T-Mobile's new update yet that enables proper MMS, Apple VVM, and a few other features. That was supposed to go out this past Friday but will go out before the iPhone 5 TMO launch on the 12th. Our other issue is that reception in the first floor of our house sucks. I've called TMO and they're sending a tech out to our house to see if they can either analyze coverage up here and see if they need to make tower changes, or if they can just install a signal booster in our house. The latter should work fine given that upstairs/outdoor reception is fine, although Edge-only.
Bottom line is that, as in almost any carrier change, it's a case of pick your poison. But, if they can fix the indoor signal issue for us, then TMO would be better than AT&T even at the same price. Saving $50-$70/mo on 2-lines is just a massive bonus. And unlike their previous value plans that these new plans replaced, there is no contract (unless you decide to finance a phone through them). My wife will upgrade to the next iPhone model whenever it launches this year, and I'm still weighting my options on the Android side.