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Does anyone like their cellular provider?

bbodb1

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Since we seem to be beating up everything else these days, why not cell carriers too? :D:D:D

I do have a positive story to share (though it starts with a carrier change).

We had been on Verizon (for many years) and while the service was fine, the cost just kept going up and up each year, with more features being offered for another charge (or two, or three). The final straw for us was when one of our kids moved off our plan (married a couple of years ago while in college, now graduated and with a good job so he moved off our plan). We had four lines with Verizon so in the course of dropping a line, I had the expectation of a bill decreasing by (approx) 25%.

The reality turned out to be a drop about 11% due to (yet another) change in Verizon policy with respect to their data plan. I called and asked about this, and received a rather vague explanation. So I shopped our new situation of three lines (with one of kids still on our plan AND in the military) and found T-Mobile.

In our area, T-Mobile had a reputation of lousy reception. Apparently though, with emerging technologies and improved phones, their reception has improved. I walked into a local T-Mobile store and as part of the evaluation of whether their service would work for us, I purchased a phone on a 14 trial basis (refundable if not satisfied) and gave their system a testing. In our case, and in our area, T-Mobile is now a viable option.

With that bit of proof in hand, I went back to the store, cancelled the trial phone (all costs fully refunded) and opened three lines with T-Mobile. All services I had with Verizon are on these lines - and the monthly bill will drop by around $30 per month.

T-Mobile also has a good number of free offers and services - Verizon offers nothing like this to my knowledge.

I am not being paid by T-Mobile for this posting! However, if you are at a point where you can shop for a new cell service and have not considered T-Mobile recently, perhaps you should give them a try once again!
 

Ken555

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I switched my account from ATT (after ~20+ years with them, including LA Cellular which ATT bought) to T-Mobile almost five years ago and it’s been fine. The best part is that I’m paying about the same per month now for five lines as I did with ATT for just one line. My average all in cost per line is ~$27 and that includes everything we need. Why pay more?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

bbodb1

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@Ken555 - I fully agree.
T-Mobile's Tuesday giveaways are a nice touch as well and probably a bit more valuable to you since you live in a more urban area.

Did you notice any changes in the quality of your service?
 

Ken555

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@Ken555 - I fully agree.
T-Mobile's Tuesday giveaways are a nice touch as well and probably a bit more valuable to you since you live in a more urban area.

I don’t know about their giveaways.

Did you notice any changes in the quality of your service?

They have almost an identical coverage as the other majors, at least in LA. As is typical, I know a couple spots that are reliably poor (including one at a major freeway interchange, which is surprising they don’t fix).

My iPad is still on ATT (I have a grandfathered unlimited plan so kept it) and when traveling sometimes I can see a difference between the network but usually they’re about the same.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

bogey21

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I've been with ATT starting when they were Southwestern Bell about 20 years ago. Early in the game they had a lot of dead spots but I haven't lost a call in the last 10 years or so. But I'm easy to please. I have a clam shell with both text messages and voice mail blocked. I get 300 minutes plus free nights and weekends and free calls to and from other ATT phones for roughly $30 per month...

George
 

WinniWoman

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I love mine! Straight Talk from Walmart. $45 per month unlimited everything. Uses whatever cell tower is convenient from where you are, including Verizon.

And I love my "cheap" little $135 IPHONE SE that I bought there as well. Can do practically anything anyone else can do on the more expensive phones. At least everything I want to.
 
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Ken555

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pittle

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Since we seem to be beating up everything else these days, why not cell carriers too? :D:D:D

I do have a positive story to share (though it starts with a carrier change).

We switched to T-Mobile 3 weeks ago!

We had been with AT&T since 1995 when it was Southwestern Bell - then Cingular - then AT&T. We had a pretty good plan, but the costs had risen to $142.50 per month for just the 2 of us and we still have a landline - cells are used mostly when we are out and about. We called in May and asked why the bill keeps going up. They said we could change plans and as we had not been using much data they could offer us a plan that was $80 and we would have 3GB data, but since we were such longtime customers they would double it to 6GB per month with carry-over data that we did not use the previous month. Well, that did not happen! We got the 3GB per month plan for that price and one day Cox was down & I used my hotspot for a lot of computing and a little streaming. I used all 3gB in one day it it was the first day of the plan month - at least I had 3 GB from carry-over still. We called in and were told that the plan they offered us was grandfathered and we were not eligible to have it. (No communication from them!) But, if we would update to the 6GB plan, for $90+ taxes we would have what we thought we did. :( When they asked if we had questions, hubs said no - we would not be calling them again.

So, we checked T-Moblie online and drove to their store - the folks in the store were super nice too! T-Mobile has 55 Plus plans -a regular and premium. We chose the premium. With this plan, the $90 monthly includes unlimited data, calling, texting, hotspots for each line, unlimited usage in Mexico for calling, texts, and data too. And the $90 includes the taxes. We have saved $52.50 per month and have a better plan! We also have better coverage inside our house and area of town than we did with with AT&T. We did not have to change phones - just SIM cards. We are happy with T-Mobile so far. :)

If you are over 55, look into it. It looks like they have some good family plans too.
 
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OldGuy

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We've had ours over 20 years, starting with a couple of those analog bag phones.

So, my answer should be Yes, right?

;)
 

buzglyd

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https://www.t-mobile.com/offers/t-mobile-tuesdays

I wasn't aware of these... and I didn't have their app installed so just did that and will watch. Thanks!

Don't forget fellow Dodger fan. T Mobile also gives MLB access for free for the whole season! I used to spend $130 a year to watch my Dodgers in San Diego and on the road. Now it's part of my service. Also, T Mobile has a great 55 and up plan and it works in Mexico and Canada on full LTE speeds and in other countries at lower speeds.
 

taterhed

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T Mobile
T Mobile
T Mobile

Nuff said

Military or senior.

Finally somebody gets it

Tater on my Note8 tapatalk
 

CalGalTraveler

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Love T Mobile. Had ATT for years and it sucked. Dropped calls, poor service. Never again. Sprint was fine but more expensive than T Mobile.

Never had a problem with T Mobile. I get more dropped calls with my Comcast landline service than T mobile. Customer service good. Great rate. Much cheaper than other plans.

T Mobile Tuesday's have some fantastic deals. We took advantage of the free Orange chicken bowls this week at Panda x 3 = $20 savings on an $80 cell bill. Not bad.

Shell gas discounts are good but liked it better at .25 cents off per gal. vs. .10 cents now. Sometimes Costco is cheaper so load and decide later.
 
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CalGalTraveler

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I love mine! Straight Talk from Walmart. $45 per month unlimited everything. Uses whatever cell tower is convenient from where you are, including Verizon.

And I love my "cheap" little $135 IPHONE SE that I bought there as well. Can do practically anything anyone else can do on the more expensive phones. At least everything I want to.

You can do better than $45/mo at T Mobile. Check out their senior plans and their periodic specials. We are grandfathered into a 4 person unlimited plan for $25 each and get a family discount through my DH work so pay less than that.

Since you are moving, you might want to check out reception quality at your new home first.
 

bbodb1

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For the record, T-Mobile's plan for those of us 55 (and older) is called the Magenta Plan.
 

bbodb1

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You can do better than $45/mo at T Mobile. Check out their senior plans and their periodic specials. We are grandfathered into a 4 person unlimited plan for $25 each and get a family discount through my DH work so pay less than that.

Since you are moving, you might want to check out reception quality at your new home first.

I should also mention that if you are in an area with low T-Mobile cellular reception (as we are), but you have a WiFi network in your house already, T-Mobile can / does support WiFi calling. Our residence gets two bars of T-Mobile on the cellular side but when we get home, we have a Bixby Routine that automatically connects our phones to our WiFi network. Has worked well for us.

BTW: Bixby is Samsung's version of Alexa (we have Samsung S10 phones).
 

bbodb1

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Don't forget fellow Dodger fan. T Mobile also gives MLB access for free for the whole season! I used to spend $130 a year to watch my Dodgers in San Diego and on the road. Now it's part of my service. Also, T Mobile has a great 55 and up plan and it works in Mexico and Canada on full LTE speeds and in other countries at lower speeds.

I am not seeing that promotion in my welcome packet info, BUT I could have easily missed it.

What I did find was T-Mobile picking up Netflix for free though!
 

Ken555

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I am not seeing that promotion in my welcome packet info, BUT I could have easily missed it.

What I did find was T-Mobile picking up Netflix for free though!

Some of their promotions are only valid for certain plans. I have a legacy plan so don’t get Netflix, Canada and Mexico coverage, etc.


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We had Verizon since 2000 but switched to the T-Mobile 55plus plan last summer and have never looked back. The monthly savings have been great (maybe $70/month) plus the international free text and data plan has been wonderful. The international date plan is not the highest speed but it worked fine for using mobile driving apps, etc. It looks like their purchase of Sprint will go through so they will have about the same number of customers as Verizon or AT&T. We kept Verizon while we lived in Wyoming due to its better coverage but T-Mobile has expanded coverage there recently. T-Mobile works fine here in Iowa where we live now and everywhere we have traveled over the past year.

Neil
 

LisaH

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After almost 20 years with AT&T, we switched to T-Mobile and never look back. Granted the signal strength is not as good as AT&T in certain areas, it works well at home and with WiFi calling these days, we don’t worry about dropped calls at least at home. The free roaming when traveling overseas is a great feature for us. The total cost is also significantly lower. We love T-Mobile!
 

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Here's a helpful heads-up. . . .

Do your customer service BS with AT&T by chat. They will lie to you by chat the same as they will lie to you over the phone, but you can save the chat.

Then, when they overcharge you next month, you can contact your CC provider and get it adjusted, and tell them you have it in writing. AT&T will not challenge the chargeback.

Do that every month and eventually AT&T will just take what they said they would. I got ours down from $119 to $77, and got CC credits for each month they overcharged getting to the $77. I think it took from July until November.

They have not jacked with it since.
 

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I have Cricket and absolutely love it. The pricing is incredible and coverage is the same as ATT as they use their lines. Can't recommend it enough.
 

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FI from Google for us. Unlimited voice and text and $10 per gigabyte of data. Data is prorated if you don't use it all. For us another benefit is the service works in some 130 countries automatically without us doing anything to set it up. Voice is .20 a minute for phone calls, text and data is the same as in the US. our average bill for the two of us is on average between $45 and $50 per month. Never going back to Verizon as long as FI is available.
 

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About six months ago we finally ditched our ATT account we had had for over 20 years and went with Consumer Cellular. Been extremely satisfied so far and you can’t beat their pricing.
 

glenmore

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Switched to T-Mobile plan for Seniors after 20+ years with Verizon
Went from paying $124/month for 4gigs with Verizon to unlimited everything w/T-Mobile for $70/month total for both of us
And..didn’t pay anything extra while in Europe compared to Verizon
Very happy!!!
 
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