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CMoore515

macrumors 6502a
Sep 27, 2015
679
788
Des Moines, IA
Ouch. I'm paying around $240 a month, but that's for eight lines. A small, but very real reason I left Sprint in 2015 was they were charging me close to $200 for four lines. And two of those lines had 1GB capped data!

Granted, my current T-Mob plan is grandfathered (I've been on the same Simple Choice plan since I joined in 2015). The era of T-Mob customers with $50 bills for 10+ lines is over though. In the last couple years T-Mobile had stopped offering LOUs (Lines On Us), which are free line promos, and attaching more conditions to the ones they do offer. Lots of long time customers just kept collecting free lines over the years, which is how you get what I mentioned.

And of course the current plans are going to be more expensive - in comparison to older plans. You might get a good deal compared to your current plan, but if I were to move to the plans being offered right now my pricing would be around $350 or so.

Well, prior to buying my phones outright I was paying close to $290 lol

If I were to move I'd cancel our 4th line since no one uses it since my Grandfather passed. That would be T-Mobile down to $150 with BYOP phones.
 

profcutter

macrumors 65816
Mar 28, 2019
1,459
1,169
I had ATT since 2005 when I lived in Seattle. I changed a couple years ago to VZW. A bit cheaper though not much, and a way to get free phone upgrades for the whole family. VZW’s service is a bit worse in the boonies than ATT, which is unfortunate for me as I commute 3 hours each way through rural PA. It’s not dramatically worse, but it’s noticeable. I get 5GUW in a few random places: by the Italian market in South Philly, near Bloomsburg, near Bryn Mawr, but I’m usually stuck at 5G and more often than seems reasonable, LTE. My house is a weak 5G signal. Thought about T-Mobile, but folks tell me that where I work there’s little connectivity.
 

Apple$

macrumors 6502
May 21, 2021
351
650
I'm in Canada and use Koodo Mobile, a cheaper version of Telus. $35 50 GB. More than plenty of data.
 
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anzio

macrumors 6502
Dec 5, 2010
453
665
Innisfil, Ontario, Canada
Freedom Mobile in Canada. 5G coverage seems quite good, and speeds are decent. All their plans treat all of Canada and US as the same, so no roaming worries, which is nice. Been with them since 2017ish. Recently got significantly better with the elimination of separate home and away zones– which was a pretty big pain point
 
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Jumpthesnark

macrumors 65816
Apr 24, 2022
1,047
4,524
California
T-Mob, I've been with them for at least a dozen years. And I got the 5G router when I kicked my cable co. to the curb, it's been doing well for speed and connectivity.
 
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Ean Holdings

macrumors newbie
Jan 23, 2024
6
11
FirstNet for my main line. T-Mobile for my secondary line (since sprint). I also have a Visible line but I don’t use it much. I notice midband with all three carriers pretty frequently, especially in urban areas. T-Mobile has the most midband near me but I’ve noticed their density isn’t as good as the other two which results in T-Mobile being really good or really bad. Verizon seems consistent and reliable. I trust AT&T the most though and that’s what my main line is on. The main thing with AT&T’s reliability is the FirstNet contract.

I have traveled in various areas of the US and found that AT&T and Verizon are about the same for coverage. There have been several areas where my T-Mobile line had no service within the last year.
 

deannnnn

macrumors 68020
Jun 4, 2007
2,090
625
New York City & South Florida
Live in NYC. I switched from AT&T to Verizon in 2016 or so because I was so fed up with AT&T's poor coverage in the city. Loved Verizon at first, and I still believe they have the best LTE network in America, but their 5G rollout has been bad. It's up to my phone to juggle 4 networks at once: LTE, 5G Nationwide, 5G C-Band, and 5G Ultra-Wideband. It does a bad job of this. I can't tell you the number of times my phone can't connect to data because it's trying to connect to a poor 5G signal when LTE would work perfectly. I keep thinking it's going to get better but it really hasn't... pretty disappointing. Verizon does have great customer service though, so I'll give them that.
 

MacCheetah3

macrumors 68020
Nov 14, 2003
2,107
1,079
Central MN
AT&T since it was Cingular.
Same, and I am still using the Cingular issued phone number. Nearly 20 years.. Wow! I did move to AT&T Prepaid for at least a few years.

My most recent cell service provider is Mint — two or three years now. 5G coverage appears good, at least when I pay attention.

P.S. I’ve also been using VZ 5G Home Internet for nearly three years, if I’m recalling correctly. For the most part it’s solid.
P.P.S. When I joined Cingular, I went with the Nokia 6820, a nifty flip phone design with QWERTY keyboard. My first mobile phone was the Nokia 5110, during the college years and still on the parents’ wireless plan.
 

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
28,822
26,931
And I got the 5G router when I kicked my cable co. to the curb, it's been doing well for speed and connectivity.
TMHI?

There's no way I could use that. Connectivity at home is bad natively, the one place I am that T-Mobile does not do well. I already have the Cellspot femtocell which uses my ISP (Cox Communications) for backhaul. On top of that, I have over 20+ computers and devices riding my home internet and I pull down roughly 1.2 to 1.5TB a month on my ISP. Part of my data usage is streaming TV (Amazon Firesticks), but a large part is work from home.

Glad TMHI works for you though.
 

Lee_Bo

Cancelled
Mar 26, 2017
606
876
T-Mob, I've been with them for at least a dozen years. And I got the 5G router when I kicked my cable co. to the curb, it's been doing well for speed and connectivity.

I’ve tried two of their routers but couldn’t get better than 2 bars at any window on the 2nd floor. Was really hoping this would work as I was going to keep Spectrum as primary and Tmo as backup since I work from home.
 
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MacProFCP

Contributor
Jun 14, 2007
1,212
2,782
Michigan
Sprint when they first went digital (PCS) from 1999 - roughly 2001 when I got sick of their service.

Nextel until 2004 when I got sick of their phones.

Verizon currently, though the customer service centers take forever to fix anything. There was a period over two years where I suffered dropped calls and bad service in some areas near by. It seems they finally fixed the problem but they never acknowledged the issue which was upsetting.

I generally have 5G where I live and in most large towns.
 

splitpea

macrumors 65816
Oct 21, 2009
1,134
396
Among the starlings
Verizon. NYC. Over 20 years. Pretty much the only time I don’t have 5G is on the subway between stations, or several rooms deep in the center of an office building. For my use cases (no audio or video streaming or videoconferencing on the go), 3G was plenty, tho.
 

Jackbequickly

macrumors 68020
Aug 6, 2022
2,442
2,496
$25 a month on ATT Prepaid. 8gb data and the rest is unlimited. Data rolls over and I have like 49gb data available.

BUT, my ATT is down in Jacksonville FL today due to the outage.
 

Harthag

macrumors 68000
Jun 20, 2009
1,799
2,188
U.S.
Longtime Verizon customer until about 4 years ago, since then have tried AT&T, T-Mobile, a few prepaid MVNO. T-Mobile has gone from worst to best especially over the last 2 years where I live (Chicago area). Currently with T-Mobile with 20% off for life using insider hookup code.
 
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SuperCachetes

macrumors 65816
Nov 28, 2010
1,235
1,113
Away from you
TMHI?

There's no way I could use that. Connectivity at home is bad natively, the one place I am that T-Mobile does not do well. I already have the Cellspot femtocell which uses my ISP (Cox Communications) for backhaul. On top of that, I have over 20+ computers and devices riding my home internet and I pull down roughly 1.2 to 1.5TB a month on my ISP. Part of my data usage is streaming TV (Amazon Firesticks), but a large part is work from home.

Glad TMHI works for you though.
Same. Have been on TMobile for 3 years, and have 4 lines. I see 5G UC in dense urban areas as expected - but sitting at home I get some of the worst reception anywhere. Luckily I've got gigabit service through my ISP...
 
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TEG

macrumors 604
Jan 21, 2002
6,621
169
Langley, Washington
I've been with at&t Mobility, since it was AT&T Wireless. I see a lot of 5G and 5Ge (which is their multi-band LTE implementation). There are a few spots on my island with 5G+, but I usually see that when I'm driving or in other populated areas. I do see LTE when I'm in the back country, and when driving cross-country in the fall of 2022, long after it was supposed to be shutdown, I even got some 3G/4G indicators in Wyoming and Utah.
 

Jackbequickly

macrumors 68020
Aug 6, 2022
2,442
2,496
Long ago I tried T-Mo and it was horrible. Got no calls inside but when I walked outside I would see missed calls. With ATT no missed calls, no dropped calls ever and now no service today in Jacksonville. I know T-MO has greatly improved today.
 

dmr727

macrumors G4
Dec 29, 2007
10,422
5,167
NYC
I'm on Verizon, which seems to work well in NYC. We have seven phones on this plan, so we spend close to $400/month - sometimes more if I work a bunch and run up several days of international charges.

Overall we've been happy.
 

Jumpthesnark

macrumors 65816
Apr 24, 2022
1,047
4,524
California
I’ve tried two of their routers but couldn’t get better than 2 bars at any window on the 2nd floor. Was really hoping this would work as I was going to keep Spectrum as primary and Tmo as backup since I work from home.
I have line of sight from a nearby T-Mob tower from a window in my house, so I think that's part of what helps. I'm using it for routine connectivity, streaming music and TV/movies, work from home (constant connection to our back end, generally with a VPN, plus Slack and Zoom) and there have been rare occasions when my connection has dropped but it never lasted long and was always fixed with a router reboot. I can't stand the local cable company, Cox, but if I had another option such as ATT&T or Google fiber I'd look into them too but neither are in my neighborhood. I hope you get a better solution!
 

victry1

macrumors regular
Jan 2, 2008
196
129
NJ
AT&T since the first iPhone (2007). Looking to switch right now mainly because of the cost. They’re $$$. For 2 lines I pay about $160. Their service is ok (I’m in north Jersey) except when you’re in a building. That has improved but not enough.
 

RRC

macrumors 65816
Nov 3, 2020
1,486
2,339
I’m with EE (UK) as where I live signal and data speeds were poor with my previous two network providers. No issues since switching…
 
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