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ssavoy
Premium Member
join:2007-08-16
Dallas, PA

ssavoy

Premium Member

Yawn

They need to fix their swiss-cheese reliability before pushing LTE. They had the fastest network before AT&T and VZ started pushing LTE and never expanded it. They could really be in a better position right now if they didn't treat their network as a cost-center.

toby
Troy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13
Seattle, WA

toby

Member

They also need to upgrade their coverage, at least convert their Edge to HSPA.
ssavoy
Premium Member
join:2007-08-16
Dallas, PA

ssavoy

Premium Member

Prepare for the T-Mobile fanboys to tell you how every city under 100,000 people is a cow pasture community that deserves nothing.

MovieLover76
join:2009-09-11
Cherry Hill, NJ
(Software) pfSense
Asus RT-AC68
Asus RT-AC66

MovieLover76 to ssavoy

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to ssavoy
Are you talking about coverage or connection reliability?
It's true T-mobile's coverage isn't as comprehensive as other carriers but in well covered areas like NJ, the wireless experience is comparable to any other carrier. My calls are actually much clearer on T-mobile than they were on Verizon.

In PA, I know they have a lot of edge coverage unfortunately.
ssavoy
Premium Member
join:2007-08-16
Dallas, PA

ssavoy

Premium Member

Kind of both.

Their EDGE network, dare I say it, is boatloads better than AT&T edge. I can actually make a Skype call over it. But it's still edge.

Where they have HSPA+ towers with fiber backhaul, the network is excellent. The problem is, they don't colocate with other providers as much and their coverage suffers. This also means that it's harder for them to get backhaul to some random rooftop space while fiber is already readily available on a tower, say, down the road.

Sometimes I just don't understand their focus. They'll add a site with a range of 1/4 mile in the middle of nowhere and wire it with fiber, but they'll ignore the EDGE site serving a shopping mall or college.
clone (banned)
join:2000-12-11
Portage, IN

clone (banned) to ssavoy

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to ssavoy
Even their CEO says he doesn't care about the "dustbowl" flyover country states. And then they wonder why they're always in dead last place.

MovieLover76
join:2009-09-11
Cherry Hill, NJ
(Software) pfSense
Asus RT-AC68
Asus RT-AC66

MovieLover76 to ssavoy

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to ssavoy
I use t-mobile and like it, but I wouldn't call myself a fanboy, in many areas people are completely right, the coverage is severely lacking. I agree all edge areas should be upgraded to HSPA at least.
T-mobile today isn't an option for everyone, no doubt.

Part of their refarm process involves updating edge sites to HSPA, hopefully t-mobile will continue to upgrade and expand coverage.
It's not that I think smaller cities don't deserve coverage, it's just that I recognize that for smaller carrier's concentrating on heavily populated areas first makes sense.

While realistically with T-mobile's HSPA+ speeds I do question their need for LTE right away, and wonder if focusing on HSPA upgrades would be better, the average t-mobile consumer (who lives in urban areas) doesn't understand it and not having LTE these days is a severe marketing problem.

ArrayList
DevOps
Premium Member
join:2005-03-19
Mullica Hill, NJ

ArrayList to ssavoy

Premium Member

to ssavoy
Yeah, fuck T-Mobile for running a business.
ssavoy
Premium Member
join:2007-08-16
Dallas, PA

ssavoy

Premium Member

Pretty sure I didn't say that. If they were flourishing I'd say I'm wrong, but they're losing customers and revenue pretty badly. I really do want them to succeed.

ArrayList
DevOps
Premium Member
join:2005-03-19
Mullica Hill, NJ

ArrayList

Premium Member

They lose post-paid and make up for it in prepaid, which is in line with the model they are adopting.

»www.androidcentral.com/t ··· and-arpu
tired_runner
Premium Member
join:2000-08-25
CT
·Frontier FiberOp..

tired_runner to MovieLover76

Premium Member

to MovieLover76
Yeah.. In New York City their coverage is overall excellent. There are some dead spots, usually indoors, but otherwise up to par with the others.

I don't talk much on the phone so I can't really comment on consistency of call quality, but when I do talk on the phone, it sounds clear.

NJBoricua75
Born And Raised
join:2000-09-13
Brooklyn, NY

NJBoricua75 to ssavoy

Member

to ssavoy
said by ssavoy:

Prepare for the T-Mobile fanboys to tell you how every city under 100,000 people is a cow pasture community that deserves nothing.

Not a T-Mobile fanboy but when people make the choice to live in a rural community there are certain sacrifices that have to be made. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You want the peace and quiet but then you want amenities that usually come with larger cities. Doesn't work that way.

T-Mobile needs to make money as does every other business. Why should they provide services to areas where few people would utilize it. In the end they'd be losing money just to maintain the infrastructure. I live in New York City and places here still don't have Fios. Even large areas that can be considered profitable.

gigahurtz
Premium Member
join:2001-10-20
USA

gigahurtz

Premium Member

said by NJBoricua75:

said by ssavoy:

Prepare for the T-Mobile fanboys to tell you how every city under 100,000 people is a cow pasture community that deserves nothing.

Not a T-Mobile fanboy but when people make the choice to live in a rural community there are certain sacrifices that have to be made. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You want the peace and quiet but then you want amenities that usually come with larger cities. Doesn't work that way.

I wouldn't consider anything under 100,000 in population "rural". There are many communities in America under 100,000 but far from rural. Not everyone lives in a major metro area.

MovieLover76
join:2009-09-11
Cherry Hill, NJ
(Software) pfSense
Asus RT-AC68
Asus RT-AC66

1 recommendation

MovieLover76 to NJBoricua75

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to NJBoricua75
I don't agree that they shouldn't provide service, but I think as T-mobile tries to turn around it's business it still needs to focus on major metro areas for the time being, and then start to expand into smaller population areas. T-mobile is behind when it comes to coverage, but in order to survive and remain a competitor they have to build out where they will get the most bang for their buck first.
While I think smaller cities and suburbs of those cites deserve wireless and broadband options, the reality is in those areas your not going to have as many options and services will be slower to get to you, so in part it is part of choosing to live in a smaller city or a suburb of a smaller city.

toby
Troy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13
Seattle, WA

toby to NJBoricua75

Member

to NJBoricua75
said by NJBoricua75:

said by ssavoy:

Prepare for the T-Mobile fanboys to tell you how every city under 100,000 people is a cow pasture community that deserves nothing.

Not a T-Mobile fanboy but when people make the choice to live in a rural community there are certain sacrifices that have to be made. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Amusing, really that people consider cities of less than a million residents a 'rural community'.

Those city residents also drive on the freeways, visit the 'rural' cities.

T-Mobile has HSPA in cities that is no faster than 1 Mbps, 24 hrs a day, so upgrading to LTE won't do anything more. Just update the edge to HSPA, they'd win more customers.

whfsdude
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC

1 edit

whfsdude

Premium Member

said by toby:

Amusing, really that people consider cities of less than a million residents a 'rural community'.

It's all about density, not total population. Eg. I wouldn't call Phoenix a city, just a giant suburb.

[Edit: Sorry Phoenix. ..but it's true ]
elefante72
join:2010-12-03
East Amherst, NY

elefante72 to toby

Member

to toby
I agree. In my area they are refarming just now. If I drive 10 miles north it goes into Edge country, but we are talking about farms here. Also, I found the edge to be able to stream Pandora, GPS works, and web was reasonable. It is WAY faster than Sprint 3G (evdo) in my area on a good day when I was w/ VMO.

Now the northeast was a problem for TMO and metropcs will shore that up, in addition as part of the breakup TMO gets 8 years (methinks) of roaming on AT&T until they get their native network up to snuff. TMO and Sprint are probably never going to cover rural like T and VZ, so they may have to have roaming agreements...

Also once they evacuate users to LTE, they will still have the FASTEST (HSPA42) 3G network out there forever, because the others aren't going to upgrade. Verizon and Sprint are screwed because they are slower Evdo, whereas at least T and TMO have faster HSPA, so they can afford to offload those 3G networks to prepaid with faster service.

I think we are going to see a renaissance in prepaid because the move to LTE is going to leave a LOT of spare 3G spectrum laying around, contrary to the end of the world scenarios. Even mighty big red is starting to offload 3G to prepaid now that 50% has moved to LTE... My iphone 4s works like a champ now, except at major airports...

Oh, and TMO "crappy" 3g gets 8-9 Mbps today on Mrs Nexus 4, and even at my house (bad area all together) 2Mpbs on 0.5bar.

MovieLover76
join:2009-09-11
Cherry Hill, NJ
(Software) pfSense
Asus RT-AC68
Asus RT-AC66

MovieLover76

Member

in reference to your last quote about 2mbps on .5bars. I myself am impressed by the speeds I get on t-mobile on my nexus in low signal situations with 0 - 1 bars in my apartment (-103) - (-109) db
normally, I get around 5 - 6 mbps. AT&T in the same apartment is at like -97 db and gets .5 - 1mbps on HSPA
88615298 (banned)
join:2004-07-28
West Tenness

88615298 (banned) to toby

Member

to toby
said by toby:

They also need to upgrade their coverage, at least convert their Edge to HSPA.

At least 1/3 of the nation doesn't even have edge with t-mobile.
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

jjeffeory to whfsdude

Member

to whfsdude
Good point; however not many places in the US are more like Washington, DC ( a smallish city with a bunch of giant suburb surrounding it by your definition) than Phoenix. The fact of the matter is that people want space AND access to services. This is why I'm leaving DC metro for something more "open".

Mark75
Premium Member
join:2001-11-15
Phoenix, AZ

Mark75 to whfsdude

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SimbaSeven
I Void Warranties
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT

SimbaSeven to 88615298

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to 88615298
Ya.. We don't have T-Mobile at all here.
88615298 (banned)
join:2004-07-28
West Tenness

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Click for full size
Mind you this area is about 100 miles wide by 75 miles north and south or 7,500 square miles or about the size of New Jersey.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT

BiggA to ssavoy

Premium Member

to ssavoy
Yup. Meanwhile Verizon's LTE network is close to being bigger than T-Mobile's whole network if it isn't already, and AT&T has been rolling out LTE AND HSPA+ like crazy.
TBBroadband
join:2012-10-26
Fremont, OH

TBBroadband to ssavoy

Member

to ssavoy
and yet you have CDMA carriers that can't even operate a solid network that has their own coverage issues. If Sprint was the only CDMA carrier in the country or if VZW didn't have to allow roaming; Spent would be just that- SPENT. Which is sad for a company that used to claim; a network built from the ground UP.
DarnellP
join:2004-10-12
Las Vegas, NV

DarnellP

Member

said by TBBroadband:

and yet you have CDMA carriers that can't even operate a solid network that has their own coverage issues. If Sprint was the only CDMA carrier in the country or if VZW didn't have to allow roaming; Spent would be just that- SPENT. Which is sad for a company that used to claim; a network built from the ground UP.

And yet again, the thread is about t-mobile, not Sprint. Jeez dude, get help.