Do I need band 12?

[norb]

Will I just get slower coverage or no coverage in rural areas with a lack of band 12?

 

[Crashdamage]

You'll have coverage via Band 4. No significant speed difference. The main advantage of Band 12 is better signal penetration into buildings, etc.

 

[norb]

What about rural coverage? Would that be limited? I live in an extremely rural area.

 

[KOLIO]

Will I just get slower coverage or no coverage in rural areas with a lack of band 12?

Your speed on other 4G LTE Bands will be just as fast as Band 12.
What affects it most is your proximity to the towers,overall network congestion & whether or not you're being throttled.
I've got Band4 in my location & it's blazing fast where available,I've clocked 50 mbps at my work.
Band12 has better building penetration.

Exactly how far you can be,under the best of circumstances,I'm not sure,but,I did find this guesstimation on another site:
http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-far-can-a-tmobile-tower-reach.1699287/

 

[kate]

What about rural coverage? Would that be limited? I live in an extremely rural area.

T-Mobile over all doesn't have as good of rural coverage then AT&T and Verizon, have you checked their coverage map?

T-Mobile coverage map:
http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage.html

 

[Sept1967]

Will I just get slower coverage or no coverage in rural areas with a lack of band 12?

More people will eventually need band 12. T-Mobile is converting hspa+ coverage to LTE band 12.
So if your phone doesn't connect to bands 2 or 4...and your phone doesn't handle 12...you are Sol.

But that's the future...get your next phone with band 12 if you stay with Tmobile

 

[norb]

Their cover

T-Mobile over all doesn't have as good of rural coverage then AT&T and Verizon, have you checked their coverage map?

T-Mobile coverage map:
http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage.html

their coverage map does not say what bands I need.

 

[norb]

So, if I have bands 2 and 4, will I need band 12 in extreme rural areas? I am using a band 12 phone on their network right now. It sucks and I want to send it back for something that works. This is a prepaid plan.

 

[kate]

Here is a Band 12 coverage map:
http://www.spectrumgateway.com/t-mobile-700a-spectrum

If you can buy a phone with all three bands (2, 4, 12) I would recommend that for best reception.