T-Mobile Winning: What is your experience like?

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biggles

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https://www.droid-life.com/2018/01/22/verizon-vs-tmobile-vs-att-download-speeds/

I have seen similar articles elsewhere. It looks like T-Mobile's network improvements, combined with Verizon's slowdown due to unlimited plans, have improved their services.

Just wondering what people's recent experience with T-Mobile is like (or any of their MVNO's like MetroPCS, Mintsim, etc). I have a LG G6 and wife has iPhone 6s. Both are compatible with the new spectrum T-Mobile recently purchased. We are considering a switch from Verizon to T-Mobile in the future. Bay area residents, low data users.
 
I’ve had TMo for years- their prices are great and the service keeps getting better and better. One all their new 650MHz spectrum comes online they’ll have truly insane coverage. For work I have a Verizon cell phone and I’ve yet to be in an area where Verizon works and TMo doesn’t. The only problem spot I’ve ever encountered with TMo was a few years ago in Montana and north of Portland Maine- Montana now has pretty decent coverage but I believe Maine is still kinda spotty
/slow (EDGE) outside of the Portland metro area.
 
I've had 3 very frustrating incidents with T-Mo regarding phone returns. After my most recent one, which lasted from November to January, I'm resolved never to buy another phone from them. However, I love T-Mo's plans, prices and network performance. I was a Jump On Demand customer for several years, but now am on a prepaid plan of unlimited talk/text/data including 10GB LTE for $50/month.
 
I've never given a shit about speeds, as long as I'm getting a few megabits per second that's more than enough for me (and anyone, really). I've had the T-Mobile unadvertised and now no longer available to new subscribers $30/month plan for oh, coming up on about 7 years now so I'm hoping they don't gut it from their system entirely anytime soon, that would be a problem for me considering nobody else has anything even close to it. I also have the Tuesdays thing but they've been getting really cheap and lame with the freebies the past few months, they keep giving away pretzels and I mean really, who the fuck wants a pretzel? :D

Never had issues with them, never called support for anything, billing works as expected (I don't do auto-pay, I do it manually each month since this plan is prepaid), just nothing to complain about at all really, it works for me.
 
As long as I have 3+ bars of LTE I get great speeds. Usually 20+ down. 5 up. I have no problems watching high def you-tube, Netflix and streams from my home Plex server.
 
It gets better every year. On the 4 lines for 160$. So 40$ per line is decent for unlimited
 
No problems here. I just bought a SIM that I pay monthly on. $50 for 10GB of data which is plenty but since I stream a lot of Spotify when driving, I kinda need it.
 
Check out mint mvno. They really got good prices if you want to try out tmoblie in your area. The more you buy up front more you save. 10gb of data and unlimited calls and text is 25$ if you get a year up front. If I would have seen this before I switch my wife and parents over to the more expensive 4 160$ one plan I would go for this as I don't use that much moblie data
 
I would definitely recommend tmobile.

Got in on a buy 3 get 1 line free deal so I pay 120 for 4 unlimited lines (10gb hotspot included). Tmobile one has its perks, but I use hotspot too much and it’s an extra with that plan.

I have an AT&T line through work that I carry too. Sometimes they trade blows on coverage, but 99% of the time, if one is out, the other is too.
 
Interested in this discussion since I have been considering switching to Sprint. In recent months Verizon has been hitting me with extra administrative charges. Plus a $20 reconnect fee every damn time. Seems like they tack that on to customer's bills because most people are not like me in that I take time & effort to call them out on it.
 
criccio said:
No problems here. I just bought a SIM that I pay monthly on. $50 for 10GB of data which is plenty but since I stream a lot of Spotify when driving, I kinda need it.
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While T-Mobile doesn't offer data free music streaming service (Music Freedom) on their prepaid plans, their MetroPCS MVNO does. Music Unlimited is included on their competivedly priced $40 5GB and $50 unlimited prepaid plans.
 
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And... Binge On allows for lower resolution video streaming from the most popular video streaming sites (YouTube, Google Play Movies, etc etc) without any hit to your data as well. Yes I realize a lot of people will harp over it till the end of time at it not being the full HD more often than not but, since I'm using an older smartphone with 1280x720 resolution I find that when I start up a video using the cellular data circuit if I switch it to 720p after it starts and runs for a minute or two it'll switch to that higher resolution and I still don't get dinged for the bandwidth.

Never cared much for the Music Freedom thing since I have several thousand songs in Opus format on the microSD card in the phone anyway, just not anything I bother with but yes it's part of my plan.

You can see what video streaming sites are offered here:

https://www.t-mobile.com/offer/binge-on-streaming-video-list.html

They've added A LOT of sites since that program first started, that's a whole bunch of 'em.
 
I have been with them since 2006 and they have been great. I have had their unlimited plan since 2007 and it also has been great

things that I like

1. If you have unlimited BINGE ON is not needed
2. Since they do not count streaming services (most of them anyways) against your data, you can tether and stream like a mad man. There have been months in a row were I busted past 100G in streaming to my tablet from my phone and nothing has happened. The downside is if windows decides to download a bunch of updates and you max out your tethering data, streaming no longer works on tethering until your reset date.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
I have been with them since 2006 and they have been great. I have had their unlimited plan since 2007 and it also has been great

things that I like

1. If you have unlimited BINGE ON is not needed
2. Since they do not count streaming services (most of them anyways) against your data, you can tether and stream like a mad man. There have been months in a row were I busted past 100G in streaming to my tablet from my phone and nothing has happened. The downside is if windows decides to download a bunch of updates and you max out your tethering data, streaming no longer works on tethering until your reset date.
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or just get an app that hides the data so it looks like it's coming from your phone :)
 
My experience with T-Mobile was awful, both for reasons within their control and not. Got a SIM from them, was told signal was fine in my area. Calls would sometimes connect from my house and sometimes not, even going outside was marginal. Definitely not an OK signal. Data was a complete no-go. Had service for ~48 hours while I tried a couple of different phones to ensure it wasn't just something with mine. It wasn't. Called to cancel and explained the situation, no big deal. Got a bill for a full month of service, plus new account fees, a couple of weeks later which charged straight to my debit card (I had set up auto-pay for the discount). Fought with CS off an on for another few weeks before they finally took the charges off. I probably had more time spent on the phone with them trying to get them to refund my fees than I had their SIM installed in my phone. I don't blame them (much) for the signal issues, I know how hard figuring out wireless stuff can be, and their coverage map does show that it should be fine. I do blame them for trying to charge me as a normal customer when I placed maybe 3-5 calls of a few minutes each and used 0 data over a 2-day span and then cancelled due to unusable service.
 
Switched from Verizon to T-Mo a couple years ago and have been pretty happy, esp. in the last year where I've seen T-Mo expand coverage to pretty much cover the few spots where I used to drop calls/data that didn't happen on Verizon. But I was willing to accept a bit less coverage when I first switched over because I literally cut my bill in half going to T-Mobile since I was coming from Verizon's legacy Unlimited data plan that they had jacked up prices on a few times since they stopped offering it. I'm in KY and I'm seeing a lot of Band 12 in my state finally, which helps a lot for coverage in rural areas and inside hard buildings where I used to lose signal as well.

I'm still on their 6GB Simple Choice plan for my 3 lines and find it nearly impossible to reach my data cap with their Binge-On feature enabled so pretty much any streaming service doesn't count towards my data. What's nice is that I can even hotspot out my phone to my kids tabs and they can stream Youtube/Netflix as well without it counting either, so several months my phone has reported well over 6GBs of data usage in its settings, but my T-Mo account would only show 1-2 GBs used.

Their current One plans don't seem nearly as cheap as their old SC plans, even considering their < 2GB $10 "kick-back" on each line, I would still be paying more on it than I would be on my current SC plan, so I don't see any incentive to switch for it. But of course they try to force you to them by making most of their phone/discount promotions only apply if you switch to their One plan and/or if you add a new line, which is garbage. Verizon did that same crap to get people onto their crappy tiered data plans as well.

The couple times I've had to call customer service for any issues has been good for me as well, but I haven't had any real problems to call them with either. I've read a few times that T-Mo's twitter support seems to be much faster and more effective than calling or chatting with them for any issues too. I've reported slow network probs on there before any they responded to it pretty quick and said they would investigate, but I'm not sure they actually did anything about it.
 
I live in the only major city in the United States without T-Mobile 700MHz. In-building coverage is bad. What happened is that Sprint fucked T-Mobile over by outbidding and licensing that spectrum here from another mobile company, C-Spire, a member of the CDMA coalition. T-Mobile complained that this makes no sense cause Sprint doesn't use that spectrum, which was proven to be correct. It made sense for C-Spire to deal with Sprint for other cross licensing deals. That spectrum went completely unused, so the license expired early. But T-Mobile will not deal with C-Spire again out of spite. So I'm eagerly awaiting the 600 MHz to start here. I was told that there is at least one tower up, but LG V30 is like the only phone that gets it.
 
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As others have mentioned here, Verizon is expensive, so cost is a good reason to switch. Especially since the T-Mobile MVNO's are cheap (e.g., mintsim). The other problem, and it is a big one, is that there are so many good Android phones that only work on GSM networks. I have been wanting to try out the OnePlus devices for years.
 
Been on T-Mobile for 3-4 years now, in New Jersey. Signal is on par with Verizon, much better service than AT&T/Sprint. I currently have 4 phone lines and 2 tablet lines, 10gb each line (with unlimited music & video) for $130 after taxes per month. I'm not switching for ANYTHING.
 
biggles said:
As others have mentioned here, Verizon is expensive, so cost is a good reason to switch. Especially since the T-Mobile MVNO's are cheap (e.g., mintsim). The other problem, and it is a big one, is that there are so many good Android phones that only work on GSM networks. I have been wanting to try out the OnePlus devices for years.
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My OP 3T and 5 work flawlessly on T-Mo.
 
Service is still spotty as hell in my area. I work with a few people on Tmobile that are mainly on it for the price. They're constantly running into data dead zones.
All of their support is still in India, too. Have a question that isn't covered in their 1 page training manual? Good luck.
 
Neither the G6 not the iPhone 6s are compatible with the spectrum TMobile just purchased (band 71/600mhz).

The ONLY phones that are is the LG v30/v30+ and the Galaxy s8 active. There are no current iPhones that are including the X. That said it's still irrelevant in most parts of the country.

You are compatible with the vast majority of the TMobile signal (including band 12/700mhz) on both of those phones.
 
Domingo said:
Service is still spotty as hell in my area. I work with a few people on Tmobile that are mainly on it for the price. They're constantly running into data dead zones.
All of their support is still in India, too. Have a question that isn't covered in their 1 page training manual? Good luck.
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While dead zones still happen with any carrier your DEAD WRONG about their customer service. Most of it is in the US. There is still some overseas, but definitely not most, much less all.
 
TMo's customer service is what made a huge turn around. It's not just the cheaper plans and decent coverage and speeds. Cause if you want cheap but no service, you could go with an ATT or Verizon mvno. I've called in TMo several times, and I never suspected an Indian on the other side... Not being racist.
 
bastage said:
While dead zones still happen with any carrier your DEAD WRONG about their customer service. Most of it is in the US. There is still some overseas, but definitely not most, much less all.
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I've called them 5 times and all 5 times I've gotten India. That can't possibly be just bad luck.
 
Domingo said:
I've called them 5 times and all 5 times I've gotten India. That can't possibly be just bad luck.
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Except T-Mobiles off shore customer support is in either the Philippines or Ireland..

Don't know what dept your calling but based on above your not an actual customer so you won't get through to the actual customer support.
 
bastage said:
Except T-Mobiles off shore customer support is in either the Philippines or Ireland..

Don't know what dept your calling but based on above your not an actual customer so you won't get through to the actual customer support.
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I was a former customer for all of 36 hours. My home and work were both in data dead zones, so I cancelled almost immediately. I had to keep calling them to get them to cancel my account and stop sending me multiple bills for $0 every week. It took weeks and 5 calls to finally get someone who could take care of it.
It's possible (actual names) Ajay, Preeti, and Raj (could have been "Rodge" I suppose) were somewhere else, but the repeated claims of "surely this will work" are a dead give away of an Indian call center.
 
Domingo said:
I was a former customer for all of 36 hours. My home and work were both in data dead zones, so I cancelled almost immediately. I had to keep calling them to get them to cancel my account and stop sending me multiple bills for $0 every week. It took weeks and 5 calls to finally get someone who could take care of it.
It's possible (actual names) Ajay, Preeti, and Raj (could have been "Rodge" I suppose) were somewhere else, but the repeated claims of "surely this will work" are a dead give away of an Indian call center.
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This was when?
 
I switched from Verizon to T-mobile a couple of months ago after a run-in at the Verizon store. Unfortunately T-mobile coverage around my house in PA was very spotty (despite the so called “coverage maps”) so I ended up switching from T-mobile to AT&T.
 
Domingo said:
Last June and July (2017).
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So... That's definitely not the norm.. I am extremely knowledgeable in TMobile and have not talked to anyone in India in years. Like probably 2013 or 2014..

And if tmo support was all in India as you say.. then they would have a pretty hard time winning the jd power customer service award for wireless every year..
 
They have one department in India, mostly after hours billing and web sales support. Most of it is in the US, with a dedicated team of 10 handling your account. My team is in Maine, they're mostly awesome. If you call after 9 EST, you get the Philippines, and they're dumber than a bag of wet hammers.
 
entropism said:
They have one department in India, mostly after hours billing and web sales support. Most of it is in the US, with a dedicated team of 10 handling your account. My team is in Maine, they're mostly awesome. If you call after 9 EST, you get the Philippines, and they're dumber than a bag of wet hammers.
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That's TMobile's "Team of Experts" your taking about there. There are a few posts about it on /r/TMobile and everyone seems to love it.
 
bastage said:
Neither the G6 not the iPhone 6s are compatible with the spectrum TMobile just purchased (band 71/600mhz).

The ONLY phones that are is the LG v30/v30+ and the Galaxy s8 active. There are no current iPhones that are including the X. That said it's still irrelevant in most parts of the country.

You are compatible with the vast majority of the TMobile signal (including band 12/700mhz) on both of those phones.
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Thanks for the clarification. I meant the band 12 spectrum rollout which is good at penetrating buildings. Anyway, here is a good link for anybody else reading that nicely summarizes our posts:
https://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/coverage-phones-700
 
CHANG3D said:
TMo's customer service is what made a huge turn around. It's not just the cheaper plans and decent coverage and speeds. Cause if you want cheap but no service, you could go with an ATT or Verizon mvno. I've called in TMo several times, and I never suspected an Indian on the other side... Not being racist.
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every single one of them has been a US person.. and they are outstanding at their job...
 
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