Phone Service Provider

With the mobile phone companies trying to out do each other, are any of the major carriers providing better service than the other. Currently on AT&T but thinking about switching to T-Mobile ($30 for 10gigs is hard to ignore). Only spotty service I got from current service is through certain parts of Wyoming, Nebraska, Idaho, etc. we all know the common problem areas. I know this question has been asked before but technology changes constantly and any updates you folks may have will be appreciated. SORRY but opinions on Sprint are not needed :-). Just kidding. Thanks

Unlimited talk, text, data, and 6 gigabytes as a hotspot for $60 a month with MetroPCS. I gave up my phone to the shop and they took $50 off the initial price. If you don't want to keep paying that much, here's a tip: wait a little bit until you've been with your company for a while, call them up and tell them you're going to drop them for another carrier. With so much competition, they should very quickly be scrambling to send you promotions and offer you better deals. They try to hang on to each and every customer for as long as they can, even if that means giving them a special deal.

I had T-Mobile for 2 years before I began driving and was very happy with them but ended up switching to Verizon last November when I went solo. A few weeks ago I switched back to T-Mobile because I figured I'd be OK with the coverage since I stay in Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky most of the time. Well, I had it for 3 days and went back to Verizon because I missed and dropped too many calls.

I think if you are in a fairly large city T-Mobile is great, but I drive from large city to large city with a lot of corn and soybean fields in between....coverage stinks there....I love the customer service I receive from T-MOBILE but they still have work to do on coverage IMHO.

Unlimited talk, text, data, and 6 gigabytes as a hotspot for $60 a month with MetroPCS. I gave up my phone to the shop and they took $50 off the initial price. If you don't want to keep paying that much, here's a tip: wait a little bit until you've been with your company for a while, call them up and tell them you're going to drop them for another carrier. With so much competition, they should very quickly be scrambling to send you promotions and offer you better deals. They try to hang on to each and every customer for as long as they can, even if that means giving them a special deal.

don't Metropcs only work in the city you buy it in my sister used to live in Naples Fla when she left the area the phone would only work with a credit card...

I use page plus is unlimited for everything but Data Data is 2 gigs and uses verizion 4g towers

You are going to want either Verizon (best choice) or AT&T for coverage in the "in between" cities areas. Now some companies like Straight Talk use Verizon or ATT networks depending on which phone you use. You can even take your current phone over, so if you have a Verizon phone they'll have to put you on that network.

I will agree, Verizon is not the cheapest game in town, but they do have the best coverage. Not to say they don't drop occasionally (because they do), but much less frequently than all other carriers combined.

So when you are an OTR driver, I have found even though Verizon isn't cheap, they are the best. Besides, you can write off all your cell phone bill on your taxes, and you do need write-offs. So in the end, does it really matter? In my humble opinion, no it doesn't.

Ernie

Unlimited talk, text, data, and 6 gigabytes as a hotspot for $60 a month with MetroPCS. I gave up my phone to the shop and they took $50 off the initial price. If you don't want to keep paying that much, here's a tip: wait a little bit until you've been with your company for a while, call them up and tell them you're going to drop them for another carrier. With so much competition, they should very quickly be scrambling to send you promotions and offer you better deals. They try to hang on to each and every customer for as long as they can, even if that means giving them a special deal.

don't Metropcs only work in the city you buy it in my sister used to live in Naples Fla when she left the area the phone would only work with a credit card...

I use page plus is unlimited for everything but Data Data is 2 gigs and uses verizion 4g towers

Nope, there are some dead spots around the country, but it's 4g most of the time. Definitely worth it I think.

Verizon is going to be your best bet for coverage

at&t probably has 2nd place but sprint is not to far behind

tmobile is ok in the cities but in between it will be a problem.

Also tmobile bought metro pcs so they are the same carrier now in terms of coverage but there's still metro's plans... for now.

I don't like tmobile's data option, yeah it's unlimited but only a certain amount is 4g then they throttle you down to edge (2g) speeds and let me tell ya... 2g is slower than snot... I think my dial up in the 90s was faster than 2g. not much use to unlimited data if it's slow to do anything with it.

Verizon just overhauled their plans too. I'm grandfathered into my contract plan right now, I have a tablet (made a post about it a while back) that I'm able to use as a smart phone via google voice / hangouts app using only data. My plan is for 4gb of data per month and I pay about $44 total, $10 is the tablet service charge because at the time verizon charged a $40 fee for smartphones, now with the new plans it's like $20. If you're trying to get the best coverage and have the cheapest plan that's the way to go, tablet plus verizon's data only plans then get a google voice number, then download google hangouts plus the hangouts dialer app. that app works as your phone and text message. Outside of that the tablet can already do anything a smartphone can by default. The new plans are something like 1,3,6, and 10 gb of data and I think the prices are like $30,$40, $60, $80 or something like that. with the now lower device type fees (still $10 for tablets, $20 now instead of $20 for smartphones, etc) it's not a bad deal, but I myself don't need 10gb of data... might use 6 if i was otr but right now I use 1/2 to 2/3 of my 4gb.