Back in 2015 T-Mobile offered a deal so incredible that I was willing to give up our four grandfathered unlimited Verizon lines. After seeing our area blanketed in solid LTE magenta on their coverage map, I bought the phones & SIMs, and cut our lines over.
Immediately I had no signal on three of the devices; and barely enough on the fourth phone to call T-Mobile tech support. After going through Tier Two I was routed to the engineers, who looked at their tower placement and told me that, in my area, calls were possible outdoors; 3G would be "spotty at best" and don't even think about LTE.
It took me two hours, begging Verizon to reactivate our lines. While they were gracious enough to restore our grandfathered accounts, we lost all the active promotions applied... including one that had dropped our plan to just $9.99/line each month. For unlimited everything.
I immediately filed a complaint with the FTC about T-Mobile's deceptive coverage map and absolutely flamed them online. FTC never did a damn thing: and here we are, six years later, T-Mobile is now bragging about their 5G everywhere (that I doubt really exists in most places).
Here's a screenshot of their coverage map, current as of the date of this post - our area appears covered with LTE and 5G. If I bought a T-Mobile phone right now (and the lack of a T-Mobile store here is a good hint), I
guarantee you that it will not connect. No data and extremely sparse cell service. How they get away with flat-out LYING to attract customers, year after year, is beyond me.
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Actually amazed that they reactivated the accounts.
Normally anything grandfathered is long gone.
I had a six month contract with a local carrier that used AT&T towers.
Strong signal almost everywhere.
They got bought by AT&T, and AT&T was obligated to keep my deal going because it was a contract- even though it had expired years ago and I just kept paying the monthly bill.
Eventually, AT&T came out with their cheaper pre-pay and I did finally switch.
Went from $25 a month to $25 every three months.
The whole idea was that I didn't want to be tied to a contract, and I wanted to keep my old number- along with paying the same or less.
Luckily, I was able to do that and that is still the plan I have for an emergency phone.
Now the bitch of it is that AT&T is scheduled to kill off their 3G service, so I will need a SIM from them for a more modern device (the one with the useless T-Mobile SIM now) or yet another new device altogether.
AT&T stores here only have high priced phones, nothing cheap or even reasonable.
I am hoping that my Moto e is compatible.
Anyway, some folks are getting upgrade phones for free, but that seems to be pretty iffy in my case.
Some are getting some Samsung thing and some get something else.
If it works, I don't care.
But I have not been impressed with 4G, considering that my 3G has pulled my ol'lady's and my rumps out of the ringer a couple of times when there is no 4G signal for miles yet my little 3G Blackberry kbockoff works just fine.
Screw 5G!
For Christ's sake, no one has complete coverage with 4G yet!
There are still gaps in 3G, but not like these last two.
So glad these morons did not invent the wheel, or toilet paper.l
As for the FTC, they are as useful as taste buds on a butthole.
Flaming online is all that we have left (which will be destroyed by cancel culture) in an attempt to educate the masses that have been dumbed down by our schools and the powers that be.
The cellular companies exist to make money, not provide service.
They sell whatever people are stupid enough to buy.
It doesn't matter that they are already working on 6G when 5G is a horrible joke.
Some 'gotta have whatever is new' brainwashed robots will buy it whether it works or not.
