T-Mobile and being "SO MUCH better than when we had it last

  • 14 March 2023
  • 7 replies
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Several years ago we had T-Mobile (probably a decade).  And traveled.  And found out it was absolutely useless anywhere in the Southwest, and most of the other places we went.  As in, in 42 days in the Southwest, T-Mobile worked SIX, Verizon worked 42.  So, T-Mobile went away.

In November, we decided to try T-Mobile again because of the constantly yammered statements that it’s not FANTASTIC, and has the WIDEST coverage of anyone, and “it’ll work no matter where you are”……

I’m in Florida.  When west of Tampa - it DIDN’T WORK AT ALL.  Nothing.  Couldn’t even get the mobile hotspot to connect on the Galaxy S22 most of the time, and when it did, it NEVER got close to even 1 Mbps.

Figured that was a fluke, and when I got somewhere like Fort Myers, it would be BLAZING fast and that paultry 40MB of hot spot data would get used to good advantage…  Um…  NO!

Here, in north Fort Myers, within a quarter mile of I-75, there’s almost NO signal, and Speedtest shows at BEST, a whopping 1.05 Mbps for download speed.  It’s so BAD, I get better performance from Visible, which is Verizon’s garbage, bottom-of-the-barrel data that priorities lower than anything else in the universe.  To say I’m unimpressed with T-Mobile’s DRASTIC improvement would be an understatement…

Next I’ll be in Big Cypress and the Everglades, and if this POS doesn’t even work here, I presume there’s NO hope for it there.

Anybody out there have ANY USEFUL ideas for how to get this Galaxy S22 to perform a whole lot better than it has in the last 3 weeks and 2 locations?

 

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anyone else with a TMO phone around you currently? and are they running into the same issues or are their phones working fine?

***I like many others come onto this site for assistance and to help others. Marking a reply as helpful or correct helps others with like issues when they try to search the site for assistance. I do not work for Tmobile and my suggestions and or opinions are my own**.~~~~ The site here is primarily peer to peer with some TMO moderation to keep the site in order..They do not have account access..The prefered method would be to contact TMO through either calling in (tier 1 support) or by contacting them through either Facebook/Twitter (tier 2 support)**~~~~
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Not that I’ve noticed.  There are lots of people walking around with cell phones, but I have no idea what network they’re on.  I know the AT&T hotspot works FINE.  Visible sucks, but Visible sucks most of the time ‘cause it’s Verizon’s left-over garbage.  Even so, at least Visible, on the OLD, cheapest possible ZTE Blade A7, will run the TV on SD, which the T-Mobile phone hotspot won’t do.

I figure it’s either the phone or T-Mobile.  It’s a Samsung Galaxy S22, and we’ve had Samsung devices several times in the past - they’ve all been more than adequate, so I suspect the problem ISN’T the phone.  That leaves T-Mobile.

 I figure it MIGHT be acceptable if the phone doesn’t work in the middle of Monument Valley or the middle of Death Valley, but jeez, I’m in the middle of urban sprawl in Fort Myers, with the most major highway on the Gulf side of Florida nearby, and this thing is a data paperweight.

Give or take 100 feet, the black dot is where the RV is.  The huge, pink road about a quarter mile away is Hwy 75. 

 

Anyhow, I’m just whining…  It made sense to move the phones (except for the data phone) from Visible to T-Mobile for a couple reasons.  I less than half believed the BS about the drastically improved coverage when we went to T-Mobile this time, so I’m disappointed, but not surprised that the marketing hype was BS. 

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just pointing out that unless there is another TMO phone around you to compare with its still unknown if its the device, sim card or network itself.

 

was the phone purchased from TMO or brought over from Visible?

***I like many others come onto this site for assistance and to help others. Marking a reply as helpful or correct helps others with like issues when they try to search the site for assistance. I do not work for Tmobile and my suggestions and or opinions are my own**.~~~~ The site here is primarily peer to peer with some TMO moderation to keep the site in order..They do not have account access..The prefered method would be to contact TMO through either calling in (tier 1 support) or by contacting them through either Facebook/Twitter (tier 2 support)**~~~~
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Bought from T-Mobile.

This whole topic is just anecdotal - of the “this is what I’m using, this is where I’ve been for the last X weeks, this is how well T-Mobile has worked” - variety.  YMMV.

The chances are pretty slim that I’m going to run into someone and have a conversation about how their T-Mobile phone does with data…

Isn’t that what the COVERAGE MAP is for?  To show a detailed view of where you SHOULD be able to expect various levels of performance?  Or is that marketing hype too?  The favorite excuse with Visible has always been that “you’re in a micro-dead spot and that’s why performance is poor”.

And it wouldn’t matter anyhow - if they said it was “great”, it still wouldn’t tell me it actually WAS great - there are people that think Visible is “great”…  If they told me it sucked, it would just further confirm that T-Mobile service doesn’t match what you should be able to expect from their coverage map.

It’ll be interesting once I get into Big Cypress and/or the Everglades to see which, if any of the services still works.

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Now at Midway campground in the middle of Big Cypress swamp…  Visible (Verizon) has 1 bar - it’s functional but low data - less than 1MB - adequate for email.  AT&T hotspot - 26Mbps for the high and it hasn’t been lower than 9.  T-Mobile - dead.  ZERO bars, no 5G, no 4G, no ANY Gs.

 

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so there is a ATT tower nearest that location. next out is V and no TMO towers or theyre just out of range for there.

***I like many others come onto this site for assistance and to help others. Marking a reply as helpful or correct helps others with like issues when they try to search the site for assistance. I do not work for Tmobile and my suggestions and or opinions are my own**.~~~~ The site here is primarily peer to peer with some TMO moderation to keep the site in order..They do not have account access..The prefered method would be to contact TMO through either calling in (tier 1 support) or by contacting them through either Facebook/Twitter (tier 2 support)**~~~~
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Yeah, I presume that’d be the problem.  Lots (LOTS) of noise at sign-up about how T-Mobile has DRASTICALLY improved, AND gained a bunch of <something> from Sprint, and they’re now the absolute BEST for coverage.  Even discounting the usual sales “exaggeration”, it seems odd that it’s worked so consistently poorly .  Apparently, they haven’t done a lot of that “improving” on the Gulf side of Florida… 

BTW:  Here’s where we are at this time.  ON the T-Mobile coverage map.  Looks like a huge RED area with at LEAST 4G all around here.  So far, the “coverage” on the coverage map has been very optimistic (ok, completely inaccurate) in the locations I’ve been in Florida.  So what information can we actually expect to be accurate from the coverage map?

 

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