Test Drive Disaster

[Markintosh]

Well, not that kind of test drive, the T-Mobile kind. T-Mobile offered a free hotspot and 30 days or 30 gigs of data to test out their new enhanced coverage. I already reported that it turned out that T-Mobile coverage was basically non-existent at home. Last week I had hoped to use the hot spot for taking Square payments for merch sales at a music festival. That was also a "no go" with T-Mobile offering even less of a connection than Verizon, or basically no connection. In the last two weeks I also tested the hot spot at the base area of my local ski area and at my favorite beach in Tahoe.

T-Mobile ended up working in none of the places I frequent. Fortunately, T-Mobile was kind enough to let me discover that at no cost and with minimal hassle. The alternative would have been to pick up a burner phone and do a prepaid plan on their MVNO Mint Mobile.

Although I could have kept the device, I did not as it was locked to T-Mobile. I returned it to the local store, which has been open about 6 months. They giggled when I said it was odd that they opened a store locally when service is so spotty in the area.

It looks like I'll be sticking with Verizon for a while longer while I explore Verizon MVNO options.

[Speedy]

Thanks. Mine still sits in its shipping box.

[Ombligo]

Mine has another 3-4 days, but I'm undecided.

We don't use much data (at least at present), but T-mobile has no signal inside our school (but then neither does ATT or Sprint. Verizon works in a few classes, but not all (I swear that a couple of buildings are faraday cages, 5 bar outside, zero as soon as the door closes).

[WHiiP]

Markintosh wrote:
It looks like I'll be sticking with Verizon for a while longer while I explore Verizon MVNO options.

Look into Visible.com.

[Don C]

I have been with T-Mobile for a LONG time (remember the Motorola phone with the round number pad?). Wasn't happy early on because I pretty much had to stand next to a window or outside to get a signal. Went on a weekend trip determined that when I returned I would switch carriers to something that worked in the house. Low and behold that very weekend a tower was installed a mile away and signal strength was great.

When I moved to this house, my signal was spotty with lots of dropped calls. In fact, when I called tech support we dropped the call three times. Kind of made my point! Guys were not very sympathetic until after they had to call me back a few times. Suddenly they did something and all was well (and has been since). Their two lines unlimited everything for $60 is a pretty good deal (I think, I haven't checked the competition).