T-Mobile Tuesdays

[stevew]

I finally feel like their network is decent enough in my area and I switched several months ago. Each tuesday they give away free stuff, typically a free frostie, but sometimes better stuff like pizza, subs, wings etc.

This week is a free sub to ESPN the magazine.

[jbergey22]

They should spend more money updating their towers and LTE speed and less on gimmicks. It would be a bigger benefit long term.

[General Mike]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

They should spend more money updating their towers and LTE speed and less on gimmicks. It would be a bigger benefit long term.

You think they are actually spending money on free frosties and magazine subscriptions?

[stevew]

The only thing that I've noticed is their tower to tower transition kind of sucks. The network is a million times better than I remember it being. LTE speed doesn't matter to probably 98% of users.

[CraigSca]

Wait, you think network speeds don't matter to users? How many people use their cell phones as phones?

[CrescentMoonie]

I'll just keep spending $25-30/mo with Google Fi.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by General Mike

You think they are actually spending money on free frosties and magazine subscriptions?

You never know with T-Mobile. They are the company that started this entire device payment/lease phone thing which has changed the industry quite a bit. It will likely ruin T-Mobile after a bit. Competing with Verizon/AT&T with financing is not a smart move.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by CraigSca

Wait, you think network speeds don't matter to users? How many people use their cell phones as phones?

the difference between fast enough and ultra super duper fast is mainly marketing. Sure a power user would want the fastest network, but the vast majority of people just want to use their facebook and have it work good enough.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by stevew

the difference between fast enough and ultra super duper fast is mainly marketing. Sure a power user would want the fastest network, but the vast majority of people just want to use their facebook and have it work good enough.

3G is kind of like of like dial up though. At the time we didnt care because we had internet. Trying to go back to dial up after using broadband would drive a person to the brink of insanity. Old phones and slower speeds always work fine until you get something better at that point trying to go back really sucks for most people.

[stevew]

In past reports, T-Mobile has bested all operators in speed, but in the fourth quarter T-Mobile and Verizon were almost evenly matched. T-Mobile's 12.3 Mbps LTE average just barely edged out Verizon's average of 12 Mbps, making it a statistical tie (AT&T and Sprint didn't even come close).

?

[jbergey22]

Ranking the best wireless carriers by the numbers video - CNET

[miked]

Anyone have T-mobile that is happy? I have ATT and the service is good, but we have an old grandfathered plan (unlimited data but limited talk/text) that is not so hot. In order to move to unlimited talk/text, we have to move to a plan with limited data. Especially if we upgrade to the iphone 7 (we have 5s phones). I do like the free gogo and free overseas (we will spend 6 weeks in Ireland this summer), but there are some things that give me pause. I hear that Apple made a separate phone for T-mobile that will not work on other carrier networks, why is this important? I read that it should be good in Europe but will not work in China/Japan. I do stream stuff, but don't really care about the quality and I think T-mobile allows you to use your phone as a hotspot for free (ATT charges for this). Thoughts?

[Butter]

T-Mobile is fine. It's cheap and the network works good enough most of the time. Calls drop for me fairly often thanks to poor tower transitions and dead spots as someone mentioned, which gets frustrating.

I am getting unlimited everything including 4G data for 4 people right now for $150 on their new "T-MOBILE ONE" plan they just rolled out, so that's a big plus having two teenage boys. They don't throttle you unless you use more data than "97% of users" which their literature says it's something like 26 GB per month. And there is no hotspot fee or data limit, which works well for me when I'm on the road for business.

[Easy Mac]

For T-Mobile One, you're video streams are capped at 480p, unless you pay for the HD pass. That's a deal killer for me.

Google Fi is a good idea, but for the amount of data I stream, I'd literally be paying $300-400 a month. Last month I used 50 gb of data.

I'm lucky I got in with unlimited data on Verizon. For 2 phones we're paying $120 a month total. Unlimited data/text and 500 minutes. We don't even come close on the minutes. They'll have to pry the unlimited data from my cold, dead hands.

[miked]

Yeah, I'm on ATT unlimited data and 700 shared minutes with 200 texts each. We had never really run over, but now we are over on minutes and texts (my new position requires some phone conferencing from different places). In order to change the voice plan, they won't let me keep the data.

[stevew]

Can't u use something like Google Voice, mike?

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by miked

Yeah, I'm on ATT unlimited data and 700 shared minutes with 200 texts each. We had never really run over, but now we are over on minutes and texts (my new position requires some phone conferencing from different places). In order to change the voice plan, they won't let me keep the data.

Does your phone have wi-fi calling?

[jbergey22]

The new verizon plans really do have unlimited data. Its called safety mode. Turn it on and once you hit your limit you just get the throttled down speeds which is still 3G speeds. The new verizon plans also have rollover data.

My 24 GB plan and I usually rollover about 15 each month so i end up with about 40 for 6 devices. Where I live Verizon is really the only option. AT&T, T-Mobile, or Sprint dont work well at all in my rural area.

I once tried US Cellular for about 3 months about 12-13 years ago and the experience was just awful.

[jbergey22]

I really hope no one here purchased the Note 7. Going to be recalled again.

Samsung tells users: Turn off your Galaxy Note 7 phone NOW | La Crosse – WKBT News8000.com

[miked]

So what an ordeal. Called T-mobile and ordered some iphones and got the plan. Everything great, right? Well, the UPS tracking kept saying "label created" but never shipped. Called UPS a few times and they have no info. T-mobile tells me I have to wait a week from the shipment date to do anything about it. Fast forward, they tell me it's obviously lost and I need to do an exchange. Here's the rub, I can't get the same deal of $99 down because my credit was used for the original phone and this is a replacement. I remind them that I am not actually replacing anything, I don't have it. They also tell me I need to wait until their claim with UPS is done to get my money back. So not only do I not have phones, I have to wait 10 days for my money back. Of course, they said I could wait until the refunds were issued and the case was cleared, then call back and get the original deal because my phone credit would be reset or something. All this was through like 2 hrs of phone calls just to figure out.

So I went to Verizon today, got a nice plan (and my University discount) and they were even running a promo at $100/bill credit per new line and took our 5s phones at $100/each. So T-mobile being a complete clusterfuck worked out. Lesson learned, T-mobile customer service blows donkey balls.