I wonder when that Carly lady on the motorcycle is going to swing through Eastern VA and Eastern NC? Their coverage is painfully absent along Rts 258 and 35, including Courtland-Boykin-Rich Square-Scotland Neck-Tarboro. Verizon's coverage is far better. Does anyone have any information as to whether or not TMobile is going to fix this and actually get nationwide coverage, 4G or otherwise instead of just covering major cities and the Interstate routes? Thanks
Last time I was down to the outer banks I had done several network searches, and at least on the barrier islands, TMO seemed to have decent coverage.
Thanks Jay (sorry it took so long to say that). I travel from VA, down I95 to just past Petersburg Va where I pick up Rte 35 to the NC line then 158 to Tarboro and 258 on to Rte 17. We have about 150 miles or so where the coverage is basically non existent or very poor. Passengers who have Verizon seem to continue coverage throughout that trip. We end at Topsail Island NC where TMobile does have coverage (Edge) which isn't suitable for much else but voice calls and that is often spotty as well. When I see those ads with that girl Carly going coast to coast hawking their upgrades, I can't help but thinking they are just pulling people's legs and not using the $4 Billion they got from ATT to upgrade anything but someone's pocket. Granted, some of the areas I travel through are pretty sparsely populated but the area between Jacksonville NC and Wilmington, which includes the mega Marine base Camp LeJeune, certainly isn't, besides, Verizon seems to cover those areas pretty well. TMobile does have 4G coverage in Wilmington so it isn't as if they've entirely abandoned the Eastern NC area.
That's surprising. I thought part of the deal with the failed merger was that TMO customers could roam on ATT for free. Maybe you need to call customer service so they can push a new roaming list to your phone?
They don't. That's a Verizon thing. T-Horrible phones can roam on AT&T in certain areas and if your phone has the AT&T bands, which are different. I travel all through NC and T-Horrible's coverage is pathetic. They only have 4G in the big cities and then it's EDGE everywhere else, including along the major interstates in metro areas. They have no 3G and if you go to the rural areas or small towns there is no coverage. Luckily, for the small towns I travel to in the mountains I'm able to roam on AT&T.
Thanks Jay2 - - - Updated - - - Thanks stockscalper. I've pretty much found the solution - switch to Verizon and the iPhone. Verizon because I've seen VZW's coverage in the NC areas I mention and, comparing it to both TMobile and ATT, they had the coverage. The iPhone because I've had this Samsung product (SK4) for 2 years and received not a single update to the Android OS, telling me that, regardless of how "hot" Samsung phones may be when new, you're dropped like a hot coal after you buy one. With IOS that doesn't seem to happen.
You're absolutely right that Apple maintains their devices for a long period of time. iOS 6 is available for iPhone 3GS, which is a 4 year old device. Google seems to update the Nexus line for 2-3 years and Samsung seems to only ever update their flagship devices.
As far as I know T-Mobile is tie up with Verizon so there should not be any issue. You should contact T-Mobile Customer care regarding this.
Actually, I think T-Mobile has been upgrading to LTE fairly quickly. They are just prioritizing the urban centers first and the more rural areas will still have to hang on to their useless 2G coverage. It's a lot of cities and thousands of towers to upgrade. It takes time. You do need a 1700Mhz phone to see the benefits, but if you travel around, you'll notice the patchy 3G and LTE coverage even in unexpected places.
Although currently not using it, I have an LG flip phone for T-Mobile, it's a 2G GPRS (no EDGE) phone. On one of the menus, it lists hundreds of other cellular networks around the world, which I think is updated on the SIM card possibly at each powerup. The European T-Mobile networks are listed after the U.S. T-Mobile networks, then the other carriers. This was the first phone I've seen that displays that information.