Free trial of T-Mobile network

[statsman]

YMMV, but I'd highly recommend testing the bajeebus out of your coverage area. Don't make the same mistake I did and trust the online coverage maps or think "hey, it's 2019..OF COURSE every major network is decent (they're not)". The online coverage maps are also questionable - they're total BS (IMHO) or "creative marketing" at best..

I just highlighted this part of your post, but pretty much your entire comments are my worry about leaving AT&T. We used to have spotty AT&T coverage where we lived in California until about 4 years ago when they added a cell tower in a light industrial area about a mile away. 4-5 bars throughout our house. It was wonderful.

Flash forward to a year ago when we moved to Texas and the rental house in the northern part of Leander. Oh my word! Brutal cell reception. Calls would drop out, if you were fortunate to get through. Texts with images could take a minute or more to complete. When we moved to the house we now own back in June, cell reception was a little better, but still not great (closer to the middle of Leander, but still quite north). Coverage maps for everyone look spotty. Hopefully, as the area builds up, more towers will arrive.

That said, our (adult) kid has Google Fi, which piggybacks off the two network systems (AT&T/T-Mobile, Verizon/Sprint). Never had a phone call drop out at the rental or at are current house. Since we use next to no data and Google Fi charges only on data used, we may go that route, although we'll need to upgrade our phones (maybe get the Moto G7).

 

[camfused]

^^^^^ You could also consider installing a signal booster (like the weBoost, or similar), rather than switch carriers and phones.

 

[RunningBum]

I just highlighted this part of your post, but pretty much your entire comments are my worry about leaving AT&T. We used to have spotty AT&T coverage where we lived in California until about 4 years ago when they added a cell tower in a light industrial area about a mile away. 4-5 bars throughout our house. It was wonderful.

Flash forward to a year ago when we moved to Texas and the rental house in the northern part of Leander. Oh my word! Brutal cell reception. Calls would drop out, if you were fortunate to get through. Texts with images could take a minute or more to complete. When we moved to the house we now own back in June, cell reception was a little better, but still not great (closer to the middle of Leander, but still quite north). Coverage maps for everyone look spotty. Hopefully, as the area builds up, more towers will arrive.

That said, our (adult) kid has Google Fi, which piggybacks off the two network systems (AT&T/T-Mobile, Verizon/Sprint). Never had a phone call drop out at the rental or at are current house. Since we use next to no data and Google Fi charges only on data used, we may go that route, although we'll need to upgrade our phones (maybe get the Moto G7).

Surprised things are that bad for you in Leander. I lived in Cedar Park for 5 years, and had no trouble. Of course that's a lot closer to Austin.

Google Fi: it doesn't really use AT&T, does it? And I don't think T-Mobile and AT&T is the same network. I have AT&T in a sketchy mountain area, where the signal is just good enough at my house. I tried the T-Mobile thing and it barely worked at all for me.

 

[NW-Bound]

,

I don't think you're getting my point. Your service provider might operate on 5 different bands at your house. Your phone might only support one of those bands. That might be the lowest signal strength band. It's possible a newer phone might connect on a stronger band and then your issues would be gone.

I saw the above response just now.

No, it's not a question of signal strength, as I can see the tower from my deck, and it's only 1 mile away. The signal is maxed out on the phone, but I cannot connect. Again, I think it's because the single tower is serving the entire area, and as a roaming user I am not high on their priority compared to the local users.

I go on the site you recommended, https://www.cellmapper.net/map, which looks interesting. However, they require signing up, and I pass.

And out of curiosity, I check my phone, and although it is old, the maker claims to support these bands:

2G/3G/4G LTE
GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
CDMA band class: 0/1/10
WCDMA bands: 1/2/4/5/6/8/19
LTE bands: 1/2/4/5/17/19/25/26/41

Man, this phone business is getting more and more complicated. Although I was involved in the deployment of the first GSM service by some US carriers back before 2000, it's been 20 years, and I am so outdated.

 

[statsman]

Google Fi: it doesn't really use AT&T, does it? And I don't think T-Mobile and AT&T is the same network. I have AT&T in a sketchy mountain area, where the signal is just good enough at my house. I tried the T-Mobile thing and it barely worked at all for me.

Yeah, I didn't explain myself clearly. The two cellphone technologies, CDMA and GSM, was what I was referring two. Google Fi utilizes both.

EDIT: More specifically, Google Fi offers coverage across the T-Mobile, Sprint, and U.S. Cellular networks.

 

[braumeister]

No, it's not a question of signal strength, as I can see the tower from my deck, and it's only 1 mile away. The signal is maxed out on the phone, but I cannot connect. Again, I think it's because the single tower is serving the entire area, and as a roaming user I am not high on their priority compared to the local users.

I can see the nearest antenna from my home; it’s about 300 yards away straight line and maybe 20 feet lower in elevation. But it’s somewhat directional and I get only a poor signal here.

Had an interesting conversation with a tech support guy from the carrier a couple of months ago.
Tech: I can see your location is almost on top of our antenna so you ought to be great.
Me: Yes, I can see it clearly. But my I only get one bar, occasionally two.
Tech: Doesn’t seem right.
Me: No.

Fortunately, since WiFi calling has been available this problem has been mostly minimized for many of us.

 

[NW-Bound]

I can see the nearest antenna from my home; it’s about 300 yards away straight line and maybe 20 feet lower in elevation. But it’s somewhat directional and I get only a poor signal here...

It appears that you are at a high spot relative to the tower antennas, which may be tuned to beam down towards the ground, hence miss you. Another problem is with Rayleigh fading, where the direct LOS signal is interfered with by the strong ground-reflected signal.

A lot of this wave propagation is environmentally sensitive. People used to complain about the difference in reception between winter and summer, due to the tree foliage. I don't know if the problem persists and people know to stop complaining in vain, or the carriers have found ways to combat it.

In my case, I occasionally get a display of "No Service" on my phone, along with a strong bar graph of the signal strength. They don't let me in. This happened to me a lot in Alaska with my T-Mobile subscription.

 

[frank]

I just threw my t=mobile box in the drawer and will give it to someone to try if they ask about it, but it dropped the signal a lot around here. I have us cellular and have one dead spot that I know of. this box has lots of weak areas.

 

[ncbill]

Stopped using it after about 3 weeks and went back to my $35/month AT&T unlimited LTE "tablet" plan (move the SIM to a hotspot after setting up in a tablet)

There were simply too many slowdowns (download speed dropping to a few hundred KB) on the test drive hotspot.