Re: T-Mobile Sprint Merger: Say goodbye to scam calls

On 8/1/2020 12:29 PM, badgolferman wrote:

<snip>

US calls & text and 4GB high-speed data)
> 
> I have T-Mobile One Military with four lines. Same things you mentioned
> plus free calls to Canada/Mexico, free SMS to Europe, free 2G data Europe,
> Netflix Basic. $102.00
> 
> I’ve shopped around to the other carriers since T-Mobile sometimes has
> spotty coverage but haven’t found it worth it to switch yet, especially
> considering the excellent customer service T-Mobile provides.

I could also get the military discount on T-Mobile but after trying 
T-Mobile a few years ago, for a European trip, when we returned to 
California my family would have left me if I had stayed with T-Mobile! 
So I confine the military discount usage to Home Depot and Lowe's!

Seriously, the T-Mobile coverage in the Bay Area, and in California, is 
an order of magnitude worse than what is offered on Verizon or AT&T, and 
every independent survey and test has verified this, "T-Mobile sometimes 
has spotty coverage" is the understatement of the year in my area! We do 
a lot of road trips, often traveling through less-populated rural areas, 
where having Verizon or AT&T is essential.

In the Santa Cruz mountains, where we visit often, you can see the vast 
coverage differences, see <https://photos.app.goo.gl/ckTBkvAFZPagCBx18>. 
I like cycling in those areas with no T-Mobile coverage, and really 
would prefer to have coverage! It's the same situation throughout 
California in more rural, sparsely populated, areas.

See <https://www.reviews.org/app/uploads/2020/06/4g-graph.png> which is 
from <https://www.reviews.org/mobile/best-cell-phone-coverage/>. But 
that graph doesn't tell the whole story--yes Sprint has very poor native 
coverage but Sprint had (or has) extensive roaming on Verizon to make up 
for it, while T-Mobile has been reducing AT&T roaming. Lots of 
complaints by T-Mobile customers when roaming agreements with AT&T 
expire and are not renewed.

Someday T-Mobile may have equivalent coverage to the top-tier carriers, 
but it probably won't be in my lifetime unless I live to be 100 years 
old! When people say that "in a few years T-Mobile will catch up" I'm 
reminded of the Grand Canyon Flintstones' episode where Wilma sees the 
tiny stream and says: "So that's the Grand Canyon huh? Hmph, well 
doesn't look like much to me," and Fred replies: "Not now, but they 
expect it to be a big thing someday." 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf4pUZPaz5k>.

The T-Mobile included 2G foreign data (actually it's just throttled to 
2G, it's actually on LTE) was of limited use because of how slow it was. 
Last year I was in Europe twice (Austria, Germany, Italy) and just 
bought prepaid SIM cards. I was in China and did the same. On the 
non-family trips (China and Italy) I was letting other people on the 
trip, that had T-Mobile, hotspot into my phone or iPad to use my 
high-speed data because the 2G data was so slow (probably okay for 
e-mail, but not good for the web or navigation). You can pay T-Mobile 
extra for limited amounts of foreign high-speed data, but if you have a 
recent iPhone with eSIM plus physical SIM you're better off using the 
eSIM for your U.S. carrier and sticking in a prepaid foreign SIM for 
high-speed data.

For my U.S. carrier I have two Total Wireless (Verizon MVNO) three-line 
plans, at about $85 each. One for my wife and two adult kids, and one 
for me with three devices, that is reimbursed by my employer. Each plan 
has 60GB of shared high speed data. TW's 4 line plan has 100GB of shared 
high speed data (a tad under $100 with tax). I get around 100Mb/s. I 
find that the shared data works well because the different users use 
vastly different quantities of data. There is unlimited low-speed data 
if you use of your high-speed data, but I've never come close to doing 
that. Hotspot is included (10GB per line).

I never understood the obsession with customer service. There is almost 
never a need to contact a carrier's customer service department once you 
have established service. Well about ten months ago, on the flight from 
San Francisco to Milan, I was putting my Vodafone SIM card into my phone 
and my Total Wireless SIM card went flying, never to be found. When I 
returned home, a three-minute online chat session had them activate a 
replacement SIM card that I inserted.

Personally I greatly prefer online chat to voice calls because rather 
than reading out an IMEI or SIN card number you can just type it in. 
Also, you can ask very specific, succinct questions, that they can't 
give evasive answers to.

I had Consumer Cellular for a while, and they tout their award winning 
customer service. But I found their customer service frustrating because 
they had no online chat and they could not give a straight answer to a 
simple question, regarding international roaming. They have very 
conflicting information on their web site. Which one is true?:

"Consumer Cellular phone will not work beyond the U.S. borders, thus 
protecting them from any outrageous international roaming fees, which 
are mostly unregulated and can vary widely."

or

"Substantial charges may be incurred if your phone is taken out of the 
U.S. even if no Services are intentionally used."

In any case, IMVAIO, all the stuff T-Mobile throws in like a basic 
Netfliz account, international SMS & low speed data, and free Taco Bell 
tacos (now ended), are not worth it if you have poor coverage.