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Phones?


J-BAR #18287

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Presently using AT&T, bundled with Direct TV.  Rarely using Direct TV with our new smart tv set.  Probably going to drop DTV, may switch carriers at the same time.

 

Looking for recommendations/experiences with TMobile, Verizon, etc.  Thanks for any comments.

 

 

 

 

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I have T-Mobile and my biggest complaint is that unless you have a 5G phone, T-Mobiles coverage is not very good once you leave town.

 

All the discount carriers (Cricket, Mint, etc) will have poor coverage outside the larger cities.

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I’m on a plan with my son and my ex,(his mom) with AT&T and have never had a problem. 

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Before I retired, my company phone was with AT&T. It didn't get coverage in a lot of places. Additionally, it would sometimes NOT take calls, (when I talked to the caller later, he would tell me that he called, but I never received it). Sometimes I would not receive texts or voicemails until several days had passed. 

On the other hand, I haven't had those problems with Verizon, even while on a cross country roadtrip. Not to mention that Verizon has an Old Guy plan which has discounted rates for Seasoned Citizens.

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I've had very few problems with T Mobile over the past 5 years of using them. They seem to screen spam and scam calls very well. Can't speak for coverage other than I've never had a problem with coverage in Florida.

 

My gal has Verizon. I don't know about their coverage but they sure do let A LOT of span and scam through. A friend of mine from Ohio has Verizon, he likes it...when he has service.

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In the US and not traveling outside the country, Verizon.

 

Travel out of the country a lot, especially Europe, then AT&T (but be prepared for minor coverage hiccups like not having a network in the steel racks at Home Depot by your house.

 

All the other carriers... Maybe OK in the bigger cities (Metro PCS, T-Mobile) but fall apart faster on the open road. Verizon is the best choice overall. And get a good and current phone, and refresh it every two to four years.

 

Been carrying (phones) for for about 25 years, this is the advice I have found works for me.

 

Many of the smaller carriers use the same towers and buy bandwidth from the big boys, but with lower priority and lower quality of service.

 

Even with Verizon, there are some coverage problems in remote areas, but then nobody has coverage in those locations. I have several dropouts on the back roads between my house and business, only one dropout if I stick to the main roads. The main road with the dropout is a 2-lane blacktop running through a twisty canyon. I also carry data plans and mobile hotspot service on my Verizon phones, often it is the only (almost) reliable Internet access in the mountains of East Tennessee. The bigger denser communist states generally have better coverage in and near the cities.

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53 minutes ago, Chickasaw Bill SASS #70001 said:

J Bar 

 

  I use Consumer Cellular , use a flip phone , do not use it for anything other than calls , cost is around $32 mo 

 

  CB 


I know you are right, but I like playing with the photos and videos and FaceTime on my iPhone.  The only game I play is Wordle so I’m not completely addicted!   Just a little bit.

 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Chickasaw Bill SASS #70001 said:

J Bar 

 

  I use Consumer Cellular , use a flip phone , do not use it for anything other than calls , cost is around $32 mo 

 

  CB 

I just looked at my bill. My phones are $60 to $80 per month. They are all iPhones and have varying levels of Internet capabilities (as hot spots), and this includes the built-in monthly costs of financing the phones. Service would be less per month if I bought the phones outright, and I would not be tied into a contract if I bought them outright, but since I do not shop carriers... It makes sense for me.

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If you own your phone outright, Verizon has a good deal in the prepaid plans.  There seem to be a lot less fees and taxes using the prepaid plan for some reason.  I still get unlimited phone and text and 5 gigs of data for $25 per phone after you set it up with a credit card auto pay.  No contract.  The only catch is, they won't finance a phone on the prepaid plan.   You can upgrade to more data but I haven't found that I needed it.

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Like I said before I’m on a plan with my son and my ex . We pay 98.00 for unlimited data from ATT. We all own our own IPhones. 

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3 hours ago, J-BAR #18287 said:

... bundled with Direct TV.  Rarely using Direct TV with our new smart tv set.  Probably going to drop DTV ...

I look at what is on "cable" every now and then, usually  when I am in a motel room. Never missed it at home.

 

I watch what I want when I want streaming on the Internet, also have lots of options on Amazon Prime (which I rarely watch but do rent a movie cheap every now and then). I order enough from Amazon to make Prime cost-effective just for shipping, so Prime video really is a free perk for me.

 

I also have a cheap antenna hooked to my TV for a few local channels and local news. Then there is YouTube and a few other free sources. I put up with YouTube ads, the cost of the ad-free service is ridiculous IMO.

 

So that leaves a source for home Internet in my digital landscape. I prefer ComCast basic Internet, AT&T can not compete. Have been using T-Mobile at my new place and it falls flat several times a day (my only option other than Verizon backup), Spectrum just wired the area so I am switching. Install was just pushed back another week.. Also on the waiting list for SkyNet (I mean StarLink :lol:), but might give up my spot in line if Spectrum works. I have no other options where I live. SkyNet was going to provide service here, but Putin Invaded Ukraine and the satellites went to that orbit instead.

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We have been with Verizon for many years and have had good service and coverage with them.

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7 minutes ago, Badlands Bob #61228 said:

If you own your phone outright, Verizon has a good deal in the prepaid plans.  There seem to be a lot less fees and taxes using the prepaid plan for some reason. 

On the non-prepaid plans, phones are taxed not at the "discounted" commit-to-the-plan price, the taxes are on the full retail price. Because too many carriers abused the discounted price and still included full price in the early-cancellation fees.

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In this region, we like Verizon. Coverage is better in rural areas than some other carriers. It’s rare when I’m in place that doesn’t have coverage. 
 

we dropped our land line years ago and haven’t missed it. Our internet service is Google without any TV connection. 

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We have been using Verizon for 10 years. Absolutely great coverage and good signal everywhere we go. We have TravelPass ($10 per day fee) for our international travel as we use the GPS a lot. 
As far as internet my wife and I do not do much surfing and no streaming. We are both photographers and have a terabyte of cloud storage which has been absolutely useless as Verizon throttles your data back after 30 gigabyte down to 200 - 300 Kilobytes until the next billing cycle. (45 megabytes per image) And they sometimes throttle you back when the network gets busy even if you have not reached your data limit. 
we just bought our phones to get out of contract and have Spectrum coming on the 10 th. Their phone service uses the Verizon network and their bundle is $50 cheaper per month for unlimited high speed service at three times the Verizon high speed. 
Guess we will see 

Regards

:FlagAm:  :FlagAm:  :FlagAm:

Gateway Kid

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J-Bar I had Verizon for 25 years. Had great service until I moved to West Virginia. What I did was ask people at random what service they used and how their service was. The consensus for the best service here was AT&T.

I recommend asking around locally. See what service provider people in your area like and who provides the best coverage in places you frequent. 

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I'm with Republic Wireless. $20.00/month and I bought a $250.00 phone. They piggyback on AT&T. Decent service. I even get signal at the cabin now. I may drop them for Verizon so I don't get service.....

I think they are owned by Dish.

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I used to have ATT cellular coverage where I live but they decommissioned the site that served  our house so we went to Verizon and about 5 years ago they decommissioned the site that served our house. Now we have no cellular service and have to drive about 1/2 mile to get cellular service. ATT wants to do away with our landline phone and when it rains we have no landline either because it takes them weeks and weeks to even come out and check it out. So I can’t honestly recommend either of those 2.

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Like others have said I haven't had any complaints about Verizon except for monthly cost when we 1st moved to Fallon NV; because, except for satellite the only option for higher speed than dial up internet service was a Verizon jet pack.  Also, my daughter's AT&T service didn't work here.  The only mobile phone store in town is Verizon.  When the local land line co. put in fiber down the main rd. a 1.5 mile away they but in a box that was close enough to get DSL service we switched ISP) to CCCom.  A couple of years later they ran fiber down my street & offered $50/mo internet service with free hook-up.  They had to run 1,300 feet to get to my house.  At that time we switched from direct TV to CCCom.  Cheaper & no more sever weather dropouts.

P.S. Verizon has been the misses mobile phone provider since the cell phone transceiver was installed in the car's trunk & phone on the hump.  Before I retired I used a co. cell phone.  The co. 1st used Netel (Notel) then Sprint Notel then AT&T*.  With AT&T to get service where I lived I had to go into the window in the living room.

*The co. switched to AT&T when it acquired the CAT franchise in Southern OR.

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12 hours ago, Calamity Kris said:

I have been with Verizon, since before they became Verizon.   Have never had an issue.

Me too. I first had a pager with Pagemart (30+ years ago). It was the most reliable paging service in the area. GTE bought PageMart.

 

My first cell phone was a Motorola flip phone with GTE. It was the most reliable cell service in the area. Verizon bought GTE.

 

Verizon grew by buying the best networks in each area rather than building new wherever possible. This was a long time ago, but it gave the company a solid foundation (and quality customer base) to work from for building out nationally.

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I got the opportunity to compare Verison and AT&T directly before I retired.  My company required me to carry a cell phone, but wouldn’t allow me to do personal business on it.  It was on the Verison system. I was always on call and had to have that phone with me at all times.

 

I carried my AT&T phone everywhere as well, because I had to keep up with bookings for my band and business for my own shop, and to deal with family issues and for a while, the local youth baseball organization for which I was District Director.

 

The Version phone included a pager and walkie talkie functions. It usually worked pretty well when I was near the shop, but on the road, I often wound up calling my boss or the office on my personal phone due to poor reception or repeated drops.  
 

One of the guys in my band also worked with me and also carried one of the company phones.  On the road with the band, we traveled in different vehicles and I often couldn’t reach him because he didn’t have coverage.

 

The only advantage that the Verison phone had was the walkie talkie and it didn’t work if you weren’t in a coverage area that included the repeater system needed to make that work.

 

Anyone who might need me for work had to call the office and have them call me on my AT&T phone so that I could call them back.

 

I’m not all that happy with AT&T, but it works better for me where I am and where I travel.

 

 

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