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I have been with T-Mobile for three years now, having left Verizon after more than six years.
T-Mobile has good coverage in the urban and suburban areas, but I have to admit it can really vary in the rural areas. Their price plans and customer service can't be beat. If you live in a low coverage area, you can also use your Wi-Fi enabled cell phone to make calls over your wireless internet connection, called UMA, at no extra charge. For $10.99 a month, you can add a plan that gives you unlimited Wi-Fi calling, so that anytime you are making calls using UMA they are not deducted from your monthly minutes.
Verizon has a great network with excellent coverage, but their plans are expensive and they tend to disable the features on their phones so that they can charge you an additional monthly fee to take advantage of them.
I guess it really depends on your specific needs and the coverage where you will use your phone the most.
I have verizon and so far its the best in terms of coverage and quality, and second best in choices of cell phones. Ill put ATT first for that. Since Verizon bought altell you get unlimited calling to any phone up to 10 contacts. Of course if other people have Verizon its unlimited calling to them anyway. I do think that Verizon has a chance of beating the others with what they have to offer. Like VCAST Music, Video, and TV, real time 3D gaming, and other apps available in different categories, but maybe. It maybe expensive but you get best cell phone service for that.
I think it depends on where you need it and how you use it. I've got AT&T and generally like the coverage and customer service that they provide but I know that Verizon has more extensive coverage if one is using their cell phone/s in and around the Washington,DC metro and MARC train {Brunswick Line} area. I did hear recently that AT&T is going to have just as much of a coverage as Verizon but when - is the question.
Hands down it's Verizon, ranked number 1 coaost to coast by Consumer Reports. Now what you probably didn't now is that it also subleases its network to TRACFONE, the low cost pre-paid cell phone available at Walmart, Family Dollar, Dollar Store, Target and Radio Shack. Check out the TRACFONE Christmas bundles starting at $10 at Family Dollar and Dollar Store which include a TRACFONE Samsung T101 with Double Minutes and 3 Accessories – Car Charger, Hands-Free Headset and Phone Case. Even if you get the highest priced TRACFONE you're looking at Samsung T301G with Double Minutes and the three accessories for just $29,99. This still-deep-in-financial-crisis Christmas season give a TRACFONE and gift value.
I don't think any US cellular carrier is all that great, but AT&T seems to be the best of what there is. The fees and behavior of Verizon are inexcusable imo, regardless the coverage. Also, GSM offers enough benefits over CDMA that the only real options are AT&T or T Mobile for me.
People in the US need to stop fixating on where they can get free or subsidized phones, buy a decent phone, and get cellular service independent of a contract for the US carriers to really improve imo.
AT&T is known to have the worst service but the best phone (iPhone).
All 4 can (and do) have spontaneous outages although they are rare. It would be cool if they could level the playing field and let all popular phones (iPhone, Droid, etc.) be available on all carriers and let them compete on pricing.
It certainly depends on where you are and how you use the phone, and if you want/need a "family plan" or not.
For me Consumer Cellular works well, no contract, costs about $80 for 3 phones and 1500 minutes between them. Downside is if I call DW or my parents (the 2 other phones) on their cell phones, we burn 2 minutes of air time per minute talked. Outside of this possible "gotcha" they are great, none of us are "filibuster" talkers.
Boost is very much worth a look for someone who just wants one phone. Again, no contract, for Boost $50/month gives you unlimited everything coast to coast, plus a neat "walkie-talkie" feature with other Boost subscribers. Downside is it's $50/phone/month, I wanted 3 phones, so that would be $150/month. And 2 of those phones would not see that much use.
I definitely prefer a GMS (SIM chip) type phone, you have some flexibility to move your data (phone list) to a new phone without using a computer or typing it all in (yes I know there are services that will do this) and you have the chance to get an unlocked phone if you want to do that, plus you can text to Europe if that matters to you...
Sprint is the best value in my opinion, especially if you have an employee-referral plan. T-Mobile is also a good value but I've heard of coverage issues with them. AT&T is costly but everyone who has it seems to be happy with it.
In the prepaid arena, I think Virgin and T-Mobile are the best value.
I don't like Verizon because they disable a lot of features on their phones and then make you pay extra if you want to enable them. They are definitely my least favorite cellphone company.
Disable features? No they don't. Please elaborate. As far as the 4 majors: all work well in major markets.In smaller markets T-Mobile is the worst so if you're travelling your going to have dropped calls. Coverage wise Verizon is the best,Sprint 2nd,AT&T 3rd. AT&T with their annoying commercial about their true coverage with that Wilson guy is a lie.All companies have an extended network so their coverage map is partially from other companies.The other issue with AT&T is their sub par 3 G coverage.If you ask most people who have an I Phone they'll tell you how slow. Sprint has very good prices but for me,I want coverage and fast data and thats why I chose Verizon and they haven't let me down.By the way I just picked up the Droid and you can do multiple apps and even talk on the phone while doing online functions.I guess that means the AT&T commercials are complete lies.
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