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Now that I've had the GN for a couple weeks and am back on Verizon I have some observations about cell coverage. I've had cell phones since 1995 and for most of that time (1995-2008) I was on Verizon. I traveled a good bit so having a carrier with good nation wide coverage was important.
But that was before I had a smart phone and in 2008 I got my first smart phone, the iPhone 3G. Switching to the iPhone meant dropping Verizon and going with ATT -- something I wasn't happy about due to past issues I had with ATT. When I first got the iPhone 3G service was still kind of new and the talk was that you had to turn 3G off to get good battery life out of the iPhone. Within a few months the 3G coverage by ATT was pretty good and I didn't worry about battery life all that much
Move into 2010 and I switched the iPhone for an HTC Evo 4G and, of course, that meant dropping ATT in favor of Sprint. The 4G (WiMax) coverage that Sprint provided was almost nonexistent in Jun 2008 but Sprint was promising a rapid roll out of WiMax so I waited. Turns out that in the 15 months I had the Evo Sprint (Clear) did a sh*ty job of deploying Wimax and as my job puts me on the road 85% of the time I was able to judge there coverage in many parts of the country.
OK, so on 12/23/2011 I picked up the GN and am now on Verizon again. In that time I've been in Salt Lake City, Atlanta and Albany NY and I've had 4G LTE coverage everywhere I've been. SLC got WiMax at the end of Jun 2010 and the WiMax coverage was spotty more than 15 months later. I wasn't able to find a place in the greater SLC are that I couldn't get LTE...
As I said I travel a lot and am at present working at a FAB in Malta NY, about 25 miles north of Albany in a tiny little berg that could pass for Mayberry. My Evo had terrible coverage here with seldom more than a single bar and often times no coverage at all -- you know, the kind of coverage where you step outside to see if that helps. But, in this tiny little berg my GN is getting 5 bars of LTE with over 17Mbps -- consistent. I'm even getting 5 bars inside the FAB.
So, my take on this is that... Sprint has crumby service or no service whereas ATT and Verizon have good coverage. Verizon started rolling out 4G about 6 months after Sprint started rolling out 4G but in less time Verizon has long since passed Sprint by.
Now don't get me wrong, there are thing about the the way Verizon and ATT do business that pisses me off and on paper they cost more but they are light years better than Sprint.
In the time since I've had smart phones I've traveled to: California (all over), Virginia (all over), North Carolina, Texas (Dallas/Richardson mostly), Idaho (Boise), New York (all over), Utah (all over), Nevada, and many other places so I think I can say with some experience that my coverage analysis is based on more than one area. I could never get 4G on my Evo at ANY airport at any time -- I've been able to get LTE at EVERY airport so far!
Brian
I could have sworn I read something somewhere about Sprint or ATT starting to roll out LTE, I guess it's the future standard.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
Sprint WiMax runs at 2.5GHz which is really really crappy spectrum. There's plenty of capacity per MHz but it attenuates really quickly and has terrible in-building penetration. Verizon's 700MHz LTE spectrum attenuates much more slowly and penetrates walls much better. To cover the same area, Sprint has to deploy 3x-5x as many cell sites as Verizon.
aindow said:
I could have sworn I read something somewhere about Sprint or ATT starting to roll out LTE, I guess it's the future standard.
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Click to collapse
Sprint has announced it will start rolling out LTE in 2012. AT&T is already rolling out LTE.
ianwood said:
Sprint WiMax runs at 2.5GHz which is really really crappy spectrum. There's plenty of capacity per MHz but it attenuates really quickly and has terrible in-building penetration. Verizon's 700MHz LTE spectrum attenuates much more slowly and penetrates walls much better. To cover the same area, Sprint has to deploy 3x-5x as many cell sites as Verizon.
Sprint has announced it will start rolling out LTE in 2012. AT&T is already rolling out LTE.
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Click to collapse
Yep, WiMax drops off more significantly inside due to the spectrum. Where I live in SLC the Sprint tower closest to me is just over a mile away and inside my apartment it's maybe one bar and often no bars of WiMax and even outside it seldom rises above one bar. That WiMax may need 2X or more the towers to provide the same coverage is only half the problem -- the other half is that Sprint seems to have less than half as many towers!
I think ATT will be relatively aggressive in rolling out LTE, but Sprint, well, I wouldn't hold my breath!
Brian
Verizon has done a great job of not only getting LTE in many markets, but also completely saturating that market and surrounding areas. I used to work in a suburb just outside of Minneapolis. WiMax was nonexistent at my work. I didn't even bother connecting to wimax most of the time because it would connect to one tower and drop before it picked up the next tower. With Verizon I have yet to leave 4g until I'm surrounded by corn fields. At my old employer the only one with 4g service was Verizon. We had wifi but only a T1 pipe to share with the entire office. Things got a little slow when everyone is streaming Pandora.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
teamgreen02 said:
Verizon has done a great job of not only getting LTE in many markets, but also completely saturating that market and surrounding areas. I used to work in a suburb just outside of Minneapolis. WiMax was nonexistent at my work. I didn't even bother connecting to wimax most of the time because it would connect to one tower and drop before it picked up the next tower. With Verizon I have yet to leave 4g until I'm surrounded by corn fields. At my old employer the only one with 4g service was Verizon. We had wifi but only a T1 pipe to share with the entire office. Things got a little slow when everyone is streaming Pandora.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
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I noticed this as well. When Verizon rolled out LTE in Chicago, they rolled it out as far as my school in Kenosha, Wisconsin which is at least 50 miles away from Chicago. A pleasant surprise.
No doubt Sprint has struggled and will continue to struggle. WiMax was the wrong bet. Sprint has racked up debt, recently cut back unlimited data plans for air cards/hotspots, and will do the same for mobile phones. On top of that, their current broadband network stinks and LTE roll-out will be very slow. I wouldn't sign up with Sprint any time soon.
My AT&T contract is about to expire. I thought I would give a TMO monthly 4g a shot. I've driven 700 miles in the last 2 days along I-40, data coverage is non existent.
GNEX stays on G and sometimes R.
Any secret APN settings I need to know about?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA
My weekly commute between Austin and Houston is same - almost non-existent data coverage. Once in a major population area, then everything's good.
Too bad at&t break-up fees mostly went to DT, otherwise TMo could really use it to shore up the data coverage.
It would help if you stated where you lived or travel to so people within the same city could provide you a basis of comparison.
Oh man this reminds me of the days I was on Tmo. Its best to just sign back on with At&T or get VZW
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Tmo is really good if you're within their HSPA+ areas...but you can't beat $30 a month with unlimited text and Web (1st 5gb @ 4G) and 100 mins.
babymatteo said:
Tmo is really good if you're within their HSPA+ areas...but you can't beat $30 a month with unlimited text and Web (1st 5gb @ 4G) and 100 mins.
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Exactly. You need to be in a decent size city in order to utilize TMobile. Anywhere outside it's a hit or miss, more likely a miss.
Let's see, you're comparing a PREPAID (no roaming) vs a POSTPAID (roaming).
Of course it's not going to go well if you're travelling down highways in middle of nowhere.
I love tmobile - choose your carrier dependent on your needs. Check a coverage map before signing up.
wonshikee said:
Let's see, you're comparing a PREPAID (no roaming) vs a POSTPAID (roaming).
Of course it's not going to go well if you're travelling down highways in middle of nowhere.
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Click to collapse
Bingo. You don't get to roam on AT&T like their Postpaid plans. You kinda had to know what you're getting into with Prepaid.
T-Mo is great in cities, but you're kidding yourself if you think you're gonna get HSPA+ (or even UMTS) on a freeway between cities. Just not how their coverage is.
You could look at Straight Talk, which is an AT&T MVNO. You could probably get a bit better coverage with that. Still doesn't roam but AT&T's footprint is probably better.
It all depends on where you're usually at. For the particular areas in So Cal where I typically travel, live, and work, AT&T is by far the worst of the carriers I've had (T-Mo, Verizon, ATT).
OK, I'll be a little more specific. I took a trip from Little Rock, AR to Knoxville, TN. I traveled along a major Interstate, Interstate 40. I recall seeing "4G", for a reasonable amount of time (maybe 2 minutes worth), in Nashville. I say that's reasonable because I drove through Memphis so quick I guess my phone never had a chance to find "4G" data service.
I spent the entire trip swapping out sim cards, mainly using the TMO. When I would become frustrated with the TMO service, mostly on "G", I would pop in my AT&T sim. Instant "4G" service. One second TMO "G", the next AT&T "4G". Not really sure how this is possible. They both charge about the same for their service, but their service is not the same.
I paid $60 for TMO unlimited talk, text, and data. Only later to find that, with those whopping 46 kilobytes per second download speeds, when I was lucky enough to get data, I would never even get close to my metering limit of 2 gigs. With those speeds I would be lucky to even use up 1 meg of data.
How can they charge so much for their "Nations largest 4G network"?
WHAT A JOKE.
I thought AT&T was ripping me off with their prices. I know feel like I have the greatest network provider on earth.
I did call the StraighTalkSIM folks to ask about data speeds. They were kind enough to let know that the fastest speeds I would see would be equivalent to AT&T's "3G". I can live with that for a cell phone bill that would be about 40% of what I pay now. I'll probably give them a try.
dmappdev said:
OK, I'll be a little more specific. I took a trip from Little Rock, AR to Knoxville, TN. I traveled along a major Interstate, Interstate 40. I recall seeing "4G", for a reasonable amount of time (maybe 2 minutes worth), in Nashville. I say that's reasonable because I drove through Memphis so quick I guess my phone never had a chance to find "4G" data service.
I spent the entire trip swapping out sim cards, mainly using the TMO. When I would become frustrated with the TMO service, mostly on "G", I would pop in my AT&T sim. Instant "4G" service. One second TMO "G", the next AT&T "4G". Not really sure how this is possible. They both charge about the same for their service, but their service is not the same.
I paid $60 for TMO unlimited talk, text, and data. Only later to find that, with those whopping 46 kilobytes per second download speeds, when I was lucky enough to get data, I would never even get close to my metering limit of 2 gigs. With those speeds I would be lucky to even use up 1 meg of data.
How can they charge so much for their "Nations largest 4G network"?
WHAT A JOKE.
I thought AT&T was ripping me off with their prices. I know feel like I have the greatest network provider on earth.
I did call the StraighTalkSIM folks to ask about data speeds. They were kind enough to let know that the fastest speeds I would see would be equivalent to AT&T's "3G". I can live with that for a cell phone bill that would be about 40% of what I pay now. I'll probably give them a try.
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Click to collapse
Sorry that T-Mobile Prepaid doesn't have service in your area (no roaming + leave the city = no service)...
Try Straight Talk because it uses AT&T. You still don't get roaming though, so the footprint is smaller than the actual AT&T coverage map. You'll get full HSPA+ speeds where available with Straight Talk.
I've been with Sprint for 10 years and have always been happy until I moved to Los Angeles where the service is beyond awful. Although some spots were not too bad, there was enough that it made streaming anything unrealistic, etc. Of course "not to bad" for Sprint was like 250kbps in LA. I started complaining a few months ago and they explained that a lot of it has to do with Vision being deployed in LA and so I've been waiting patiently. You can tell where Vision has gone in, but again the inconsistent coverage makes my phone frustrating to use. Even where Vision has gone in, you are only getting about 1mbps and with WiMax being pretty much useless, Sprint is only now implementing what everyone has been paying for over the course of several years.
Anyway, I told them I wanted out and after going back and forth for awhile they said okay. In other words, because their installation of Vision disrupts current service or a prolonged period of time, if you push a little bit they will let you out without ETF. The one condition is that you send them "whatever phone is linked to your number at the time of cancellation." This is interesting because you could switch your line to a cheap phone and send that back in and then sell your Epic Touch.
As has been suggested on several other threads, I am moving to a month-to-month solution off contract for much cheaper.
Google now sells the unlocked Galaxy Nexus for $350 (which you could probably mostly cover by selling your Epic 4g) and then you have a lot of options, but the cheapest solutions are:
1) T-Mobile Month-to-Month: $30 per month for unlimited data (5GB at high speed), unlimited text, but only 100 voice minutes. I'm going with this because I don't make many calls and I can use WiFi calling at school or at home.
2) Straight Talk is a joint venture between Walmart and TracFone Wireless. For $45 a month, you get unlimited everything and you can choose a sim card that works on either T-Mobile or AT&T. The catch here is that the TOS really limits what you can use the unlimited data for. There are several threads dedicated to this in the Galaxy Nexus forum, but if you leave out the proxy information when setting up the APN, they will only throttle your data around 5GB.
Anyway, hope this info helps someone.
So basically you're ditching sprint because they're upgrading LA from unusable sub 200kbps speeds to 1mbps + speeds at last?
Tf? You managed to somewhat live with crappy service for many months and now you that they're upgrading their service... you don't like it?
Bye.
No, I haven't lived with crappy service for many months. I had years of good service at my previous location and since moving to LA (which was not that long ago), the service has been horrible. According to Sprint reps, Vision deployment is just about complete here in LA and the majority of spots still have horrible reception and data transfer speeds. Lastly, 1mbps is not a good speed when T-Mobile and AT&T HSPA+ can offer much better speeds. 1mbps is what everyone should expect from a 3g service. WiMax is a joke and I'm not going to stick with Sprint and buy an LTE capable phone on the off-chance that Sprint's LTE blankets LA with good coverage in a reasonable amount of time.
lilotimz said:
So basically you're ditching sprint because they're upgrading LA from unusable sub 200kbps speeds to 1mbps + speeds at last?
Tf? You managed to somewhat live with crappy service for many months and now you that they're upgrading their service... you don't like it?
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Click to collapse
HSPA+ that ATT and Tmobile uses is 3.5g technology. Theo Max of 21 mbps..
EVDO Rev A is actual 3g technology... Theo max of 3.1 Mbps
Network Vision 3g speeds are 1-2 mbps average and sometimes a tad over 2 but always under 3mbps which are the same or faster than Verizon 3g. ATT and Tmobile HSPA 3g usually is around 2-4 mbps or lower depending on area which is equivalent to Sprint / VZ 3g.
Oh and bye!
Another one that will not end up well. Best of luck on all your ventures.
right now I'm on Sprint, and whenever I go into a building my coverage goes down to almost no bars. I'm thinking of going to T-Mobile, but I wanna know how coverage is, particularly on their Galaxy S3. I have Sprint's Galaxy S3 right now. What kind of download speeds should I expect on a T-Mobile GS3 on HSPA+? On Edge (also to compare to Sprint's "3G")? How about voice coverage, does it drop calls a lot? I'm still in the 14 day period where I can return my Sprint GS3, pay the ETF, and use the rest of the money to buy the T-Mobile version.
DiamondJay20 said:
right now I'm on Sprint, and whenever I go into a building my coverage goes down to almost no bars. I'm thinking of going to T-Mobile, but I wanna know how coverage is, particularly on their Galaxy S3. I have Sprint's Galaxy S3 right now. What kind of download speeds should I expect on a T-Mobile GS3 on HSPA+? On Edge (also to compare to Sprint's "3G")? How about voice coverage, does it drop calls a lot? I'm still in the 14 day period where I can return my Sprint GS3, pay the ETF, and use the rest of the money to buy the T-Mobile version.
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I came from sprint after 9 years and live in the bay area. I average about 10mbps. Inside building penetration is not so great with tmo. When I'm inside target most of the time I lose signal more quickly compared to to my sprint phone. I too have the sprint s3 but deactivated and can still see a bar where on the tmo i lose all bars. Eventually though the sprint s3 also loses all bars but not as quickly. In some areas like inside hospital I lose all tmo bars but my sprint I get 4 bars out of 6 still. Edge on tmo is max at about 80kbps compared to sprint 3g which I can get up to 800kbps at the highest but avg about 400kbps most of the time. Tmo s3 has a tendency to go to edge alot in areas where I get about 2 bars when on 4g usually at home and work. You can force 4g on the phone by dialing *#*#4636#*#* and it locks to 4g for the most part even at zero bars and can still get about 4mbps. Outside I get better 4g signal and get them most everywhere I go so thats a plus. IMO your best bet is to try it yourself as my results may not be the same as yours unless you live in the bay area. Thats what I'm doing right now. If you buy from Costco you get 30 days return and I have till Aug 5th to decided if I wanna keep it. Buy from costco retail is $389 and get the value plan which will save you more $ during the 2 yr contract vs buying it subsidized but you pay more monthly with their classic plans. I had to pay $110 ETF with sprint as I had 1 more year left under contract but if I go back within 45 days they will reinstate my contract and refund my ETF.
I went with the $64.99 value plan and I added unlimited wifi calling which doesnt deduct from my 500 allotted minutes. You can add the feature via online or the mytmobile app.
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk 2
This depends largely on where you live. Where I live in NYC, sprint had a poor signal and sprints LTE is rolling out slowly and not available yet in my area. I didn't feel like paying the extra ten bucks for 4G when I'm not able to use it. They can figure out how to pay for it on their dime, not mine. Inside buildings, I get better coverage with T-mobile in general, for some reason I can even dial inside an elevator, very poor quality but hey if the need arises, it has a better chance of being there. I look at this constantly, it's one of those things I was always curious which carrier would have my back in an elevator emergency. Tmobile won out. Sprint never got a signal but tmobile i get a bar or two. I also have wifi calling so inside buildings I am in frequently, I always switch to wifi and it has beautiful coverage this way. T-mobile's 4G reaches me and it works pretty fast and I'm glad I have it. I keep reading that sprint's LTE will probably roll out in november or december so we'll see.
I'm with aznmode, i jad sprint for over two years,back then there 3g wasn't bad so it work great,now it just plane sucks, I live in Las Vegas and i have been ablw to test this, in the casinos they both suck, there is not way you going to download an app for quick view, walmart target situation, sprint sucks wont load crap, tmobile will load but if you go to electronics section, you signal will get worse and might drop off to edge, having said that i kept tmobile, I dont spent much time in those stores and where i work and live i get between 7-18mbps so the works much better, compare to sprint 500-900kbps, I had att for a while and there network is much better, if you dont care about the price, inside walmart without a hiccup and,no peefect in casinos but much better, hope this helps
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2
Tmo is way better
Sprint coverage really sucks. I am on Tmobile, and I get coverage in remote areas.
I have the S3 with Verizon but am thinking to maybe make the switch to the S4 on T-Mobile, and pay the Verizon etf (8 months into my contract)
While Verizon service has been excellent, the data costs have been getting a little to expensive for me, as sometimes I need to increase my data to 4 or 6gb from my normal of 2gb.
I was looking at the plans and I like getting unlimited everything for $50+$20=$70+$20 per month for 24 months for the S4, if I don't buy it outright.
Right now I'm paying approx. $125/mo. with 2GB data.
I'm also paying $35/mo. to Virgin for there bb2go Unlimited Data 4G Wimax service so I can tether my pc and S3.
Total cost comes to approx $160 now.
Compared to approx. $70 for Tmo service Unlimited.
Not sure of Tmo service in NYC and Florida.
I see that LTE will not fully be implemented until between the summer and the end of the year.
I don't want to get stuck with LTE promises like I did with Sprint LTE promises prior to switching to Verizon.
I'm in the middle of researching and wanted to get some real world feedback on Tmo service in the areas mentioned.
Also, before possibly porting to Tmo from Vz, I'd want to try out the service for the trial period, which means I'd need a new number, but if I liked Tmo, I would eventually want to port my present #. I gotta do some research on that one.
Bump.
Any feedback re NYC voice/data reception is appreciated.
There is Tmobile LTE in NYC, parts of it have yet to be turned on. And I keep reading more and more parts of Florida are seeing better data performance.
I'm in the same boat as you, thinking of leaving version for tmobile and Tmobile keeps looking promising from what I've been reading and seeing.
Sent from my DROID RAZR
I appreciate your feedback.
Thanks
The issue I have is that I don't want to fall into the same carrier promising bs of LTE like I did with sprint.
I'm not saying Tmo is like sprint re this.
I just don't know if the Tmo network is set up in a way that is vastly different than sprint, in that they'll be able to deliver the LTE network as promised.
With that being said, I'd settle for HSPA+ for now.
How is voice reception?
Update:
From my research thus far, it reappears that Tmo is not consistent.
With that being said, it is a shame that only the most expensive, monopolized carriers offer consistent services (Two Carriers to be specific, which is really pathetic)
I'll continue to research, because as long as I get consistent service both data and voice in the areas I'm mostly in, than I don't care about whether there is consistent service in the areas I'm not in.
I am pretty sure Tmobile's LTE rollout will be nothing like Sprint's. And even thought LTE isn't everywhere yet, Tmobile's hspa+ network still offers some pretty good data speeds
Sent from my DROID RAZR
I just switched from Verizon to Tmo for the same reasons (among others). I live in Atlanta and service has been great. I'm actually driving down to south Florida tomorrow, so we'll see how well service is down there. With that said, it's going to greatly vary on your location. I would check out their coverage map as it seems to give a pretty good indication on what to expect from what I've seen. Its not like Verizon's where they just say if you have 3g/4g or not. T-mobile's actually tells you the quality of the signal.
As far as the LTE, I wouldn't worry about it. Their HSPA+ "4G" network are pretty decent in my tests, with download speeds averaging around 5mb/s. A lot of times it's higher than that, but I've never seen anything lower than 1.5mb/s, and that's with 1 bar of service. Again, this will vary based on your exact location. I can't wait for LTE to launch, but until then, I'm content.
As far as wanting to port over your number after the fact, they can do it when you're ready. When I ordered mine online, I didn't do the port then as it could be ported in transit. After I got the phone, I called them up and they had to first activate the phone along with a new number. Once that was fully activated, they processed the port request and that was done within seconds.
@steveo11284
Thanks for that info.
Much appreciated
Regarding HSPA+, I'd be happy with those speeds until LTE comes online, as the S4 would be able to handle those bandwidths.
I didn't want to be in the same boat as when I had Sprint and the S3. The S3 was not backwards compatible with 4G Wimax, so if you were not in an LTE area, you were stuck with 3G. In addition, calls were dropping all day long. This was about 8 months ago, so maybe Sprint has their LTE available in more areas, although I was in a NYC sprint store 2 weeks ago, which had no LTE, and the S4 was connected to Wifi. The tech had no idea when lte would be available.
I mention Sprint because I don't want to be in the same boat if I port to T mobile. But it looks like Sprint and T mobile are comparing Apples & Pears, and I'll have a much better experience with T mobile re data, even though LTE is not available yet, HSPA+ is available in a majority of markets.
For clarification regarding delayed porting:
- I can try Tmo without porting, and just get issued a new number to try their service re coverage, data, dropped calls, etc.
- if Tmo doesn't work out, I can return the device within 14 days and pay a $50 return fee.
- if Tmo works out, I can ask Tmo to port over my Verizon number. If this is accurate, does Tmo just port over my existing Tmo number that I was given when I purchased Tmo service?
Obviously I would not port my Vz number to Tmo initially because I want to make sure I have acceptable service with Tmo before terminating the my Vz service and paying the etf, which would be $350 less $80
(8 mos. service) = $270
Yeah I wouldn't really compare Tmo to Sprint. I actually tried Sprint first and ended up returning everything a few days later. I've had 0 issues with Tmo though.
Your first 2 things regarding delayed porting are correct. I'm not sure I understand your last one though:
"If this is accurate, does Tmo just port over my existing Tmo number that I was given when I purchased Tmo service?"
Once you port over your number from Verizon, the number that Tmo gave you will get deactivated and will just go back into their pool of numbers to get used again by another customer in the future. Your account at Verizon will automatically be terminated and you'll receive a bill with your ETF on it.
For clarification, I meant that after using the number Tmo assigned me and I decided to keep Tmo service, Tmo would port my Vz number over, and my originally assigned Tmo number world drop off my account.
As you said, the answer is yes.
Thanks
I may just try out Tmo and see how it goes. If it doesn't work out, I'll lose $50, but if it does work out, I'll save mucho dinero on data costs.
When I worked at sprint in launch day in Dallas we thought it was going to have a good launch. Then to find out they put towers around Dallas not in the major parts. It was a horrible launch. I got tmobile before LTE was announced in Dallas. I just got LTE at my home near rockwall and im hitting 40Megs down and 15 up everytime. This is great because the only way to get Internet at my house is through a sloe satellite.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using xda premium
Sprint LTE roll out is the worst. T-Mobile was the last to roll out LTE and I get LTE now every where I go in California bay area (San Jose, Santa Clara, Cupertino, mountain view, Campbell, willow Glenn, Sunnyvale, even fremont and Hayward). I had sprint for 9 years and left them last year. They still haven't rolled out lte here. They were supposed to start March and should've had it up and running by now. My gf has s3 and she's still yet to see sprint lte anywhere.
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
It does look like Tmo is on the ball, and getting to where they wanna be.
A while ago it wasn't like that and that's why I was hesitant.
But if it works for me, I can save approx. $50-60 per month, and have HSPA+ and eventually LTE, but I may get LTE now. I gotta give the S4 a test run.
As I said before, I'm paying on average $130-135 with Vz for 4GB average (varies between 2-4gb, and sometimes 6gb) with TEP + $35 for Virgin bb2go for unlimited Wimax data.
I see that Asurion insurance with Tmo is $11+ compared to Vz Asurion plan for $6.99.
But I just got an Asurion replacement that was borked outta the box, so I stuck with my cracked screen S3. Maybe I'll try Squaretrade.
Just got the T-Mobile M919 S4. I didn't port from Verizon yet as I'm taking the S4 for a trial run, and so far I'm very impressed although it's only been a couple of hours.
Obviously the S4 is a premium device and I'm very happy with the brightness and crispness of the display. But I digress, as this thread is about Tmo.
I have gotten 4G LTE in the locations where I have been so far, and have done side by side speedtests with the S3 on Verizon, and so far the S4 has achieved equal and/or higher speeds in the 3 speedtests.
The dl/ul speeds have been:
Tmo - 16/10, 9/7, 14/8
Vz- 9/13, 5/8, 7/12
I know I'm comparing an S4 to an S3, and don't know if that makes a big difference regarding the speedtests. I was comparing the LTE networks
The speeds are not earth shattering, but what I am happy most about is that I'm getting nice 4G LTE speeds with Tmo, and it's Unlimited for $20/mo.
If things go nicely for the next few days, I'll port over from Verizon and save some nice money monthly, and have Unlimited LTE with speeds that will suffice for my needs. I'll be a very happy camper. I'll also save money by not having to pay Virgin for their Wimax Broadband2go service.
The ironic thing is that across the street from Tmo is Sprint, and their in store S4 is working off their in house wifi network, as LTE is not available yet.
For now, I'm paying the $7.49/mo for the insurance with $175 deductible.
I may switch to Square Trade if I keep the S4, but I'll decide later on.
I'm gonna Root and see how things go.
Update:
Ooops
LTE went bye-bye......
I just have the 4G icon in the tray which must be the HSPA+.
The speeds (cough, cough,) are dl/u:
.79Mbps/.04
2.53/.56
And LTE just came back up
While it appears LTE is inconsistent so far, it is up and running, and this in it of itself won't be a negative in whether I port or not.
Afterall, I think the NYC LTE switch was just turned on recently.
Nyc Tmobile. One bar of LTE. Pic below.
Just hit 17.88Mbps/10.30.....dl/ul
I'll know more this week regarding voice/data/reception/coverage capabilities.
criticalchild said:
Nyc Tmobile. One bar of LTE. Pic below.
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If that is only 1 bar of LTE, I can't wait to see those data speeds with more bars
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I was sitting at an intersection this morning near the airport in Palm Beach FL and noticed my phone said 4G LTE.... I did a speed test and WOW. 33mbs down and 17 up! I never got that with Verizon, even before it got congested. Things are looking good!
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Good to hear that about the PBI vicinity
As you can see, things are also looking good in NYC so far.
Considering the 'switches' are just being turned on, and the build out is continuing, I'm impressed with what I've experienced in the past day. Hopefully things will continue to look good and I'll port from Vz in a few days.
Biker1 said:
Good to hear that about the PBI vicinity
As you can see, things are also looking good in NYC so far.
Considering the 'switches' are just being turned on, and the build out is continuing, I'm impressed with what I've experienced in the past day. Hopefully things will continue to look good and I'll port from Vz in a few days.
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I saw the same when they were rolling out lte in my area and it didn't take long before it was completely on. I would say less than a month.
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