which is best in Baltimore?

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

so my friend has T-Mobile and shes headed to Baltimore International for college and she wants to know if T-Mobile will be good in Baltimore or if she should switch

[Matt]

I drive through Baltimore 3 days per week and haven't had any problems, and that school is right in downtown Balto so service should be fine.

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

alright good......ill let her know

what about the quality of the network.......you may get good signal but how's the data speeds and does it get really jampacked and overloaded on holidays......any stats or personal experiences?

[ace41690]

Originally Posted by SmArTeStChIlD421

alright good......ill let her know

what about the quality of the network.......you may get good signal but how's the data speeds and does it get really jampacked and overloaded on holidays......any stats or personal experiences?

I dont think t-mobile has any high speed data yet.

[ansky]

T-mobile is probably fine within the Baltimore city limits. They are not that great in the suburban/rural areas of Maryland. My company uses T-mobile and we often travel to western MD and I have found a lot of dead spots there.

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

okay......shes gonna be spending a lot of time there......here in Reading, PA and a lot of time in NYC where she's from

[Matt]

I don't use data too much in Balto since I am usually just driving through. It's fine in and aroudn the city, and everywhere I've been in Howard, Montgomery, and most of Baltimore County (up near the PA line it gets a bit shaky if you are traveling the back roads).

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

well i think my friend is gonna get the Blackberry 8820 and stay with T-Mobile.......do you happen to know if T-Mobile is going to put 3G in Baltimore.

also......i realize that T-Mobile has been turning off the 3G indicators on most of their phones but have they done this on this particular Blackberry or any WM devices??

[Matt]

Well, Baltimore will be getting 3G, pretty sure it's in the markets for this year but I don't know when. As for the indicators, my BB Pearl says "EDGE" or "GPRS" - whichever is the current data network I am on.

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

but you've never experienced it saying that you were in a 3G area??

[hwertz]

T-Mo is working on some 3G, but last I heard (as of about a month ago) they are not officially announcing any 3G launches, and are telling people not to count on any 3G necessarily staying up (i.e they're testing it, it may be up and down for a bit). That said, it's definitely up in NYC and from what I hear pretty fast. They're running 3G on 1700mhz band though, not 850 or 1900, so a "regular" 3G phone will not pick up any 3G. I have respect for T-Mo but I wouldn't go with them if 3G data speeds were a big factor.

They rolled out EDGE a bit late, so peple used to consider T-Mobile's data slow due to it being GPRS only.. but once they rolled out EDGE, I've never heard anyone says T-Mo's data is slow. You won't get 3G speeds, but I don't think the EDGE will bog down on you.

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

now werent they gonna do the thing where they do uplink on 1700 and downlink on 2100? or are they sticking with one band per network?

[Eric47]

at the rate they are going, i would not expect them to even have half the cities that they wanto launch done before december. they are not only behind but moving slow.

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

its almost like it doesnt matter to them or something??

[Eric47]

yea it seems that way....but part of it is revenues i would guess...they just dont have large enough revenues to be able to throw it up as fast as ATT did.

[Matt]

3G is only in New York right now.

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

well i would think they are looking for a Q4 commercial roll out which means it'll start showing up on handsets as well with indicators

[w1nd0z3]

Originally Posted by Matt

3G is only in New York right now.

its in washington d.c. & many parts of montgomery county maryland as well.

its not ONLY in new york.

[SmArTeStChIlD421]

its just "guaranteed and certified" there because it was the first market i mean they had the New York market half ready before they even had the licensing for it