Switched over to the $100/mo unlimited everything thing from TMo last night.
Unlimited data means unlimited and no speed limit on TMo's network. 5 GB of tethering a month per phone.
Was fully expecting worse coverage out near and at our rural house, but didn't care. Wifi would cover that. Was expecting crap out there.
Totally shocked to find that "CellOne of NE Colorado" (really that's Viareo, a rural carrier in CO, WY, NE that has God awful customer service reviews), kicked in at the Douglas/Elbert County line, and we have 4-5 bars all the way home, in the driveway, and indoors! Holy crap!
Now it's TMo, so there's a catch, but no biggie. On the partner network, that's "Domestic Data Roaming" so you're down to Edge speeds (useless) and you have a cap of 50 MB (also useless).
But I don't need data while commuting out there. Hit the city, 4G everywhere I've gone so far.
Meanwhile, where we had spotty and usually unusable coverage out there for calls, we now have completely solid calling in the most likely place to find yourself alone in a ditch.
Total shocker to me. I'd never have thought in a million years that TMo would have a roaming agreement that actually covers my house!
To even have VZ coverage at the house I had to have a microcell. TMo both has real cell coverage thru their partner but also does native calling over Wifi direct from the phone. Nice!
If the phone will do it, they're also doing "HD" audio on LTE and Wifi. Even Karen remarked (and she doesn't notice or care about these things) about the audio quality TMo to TMo between us today. It's impressive on a car stereo with Bluetooth. Significantly better sounding than the VZ network.
Other stuff: iPads. I was worried looking at TMos website that I'd need a big data plan for them or leave them on VZ. Nope. $10/iPad/mo and they copy the data plan from the phone to the iPad. That 5GB limit on tethering? That's what you get. An ADDITIONAL 5GB per iPad. For $20! So an aggregate of 20GB of "tether able" data on four devices and unlimited on the two iPhones.
Total monthly savings: $100.
The only bad will be lack of data outside of the TMo network. For $100 less a month, I'll live with it. If I need data and will be in a totally dead TMo area for an extended time, I'll slap one of the VZ SIMs in an iPad and pay as needed. Or get a pay as you go hotspot. I doubt I'll even care.
I'll throw another observation. The "bars" on TMo don't lie. It was common to have "three bars" on VZ and have a call crap out. So far, even "one bar" on TMo means the silly thing really is working and can place/receive calls.
Also haven't seen any hiccups switching from Wifi calling to network. On VZ that was a one way handoff. You could start a call on the microcell and leave the house, but they do not have the ability to hand off the other direction at all. If I was talking on the spotty coverage in my driveway and got out of the car and went inside, call drop guaranteed.
VZ also couldn't do handoffs to whoever they partner with in my home county. We know one hill on the drive home as "cell drop hill". Call drops, phone switches networks (but doesn't show it, like TMo does. VZ hides their partners. Just says "Verizon" still on screen) and instantly four bars. Then multiple drops all the way home from there and tiny signal in the neighborhood.
In all, I'm impressed. TMo looks like they're really getting their tech act together and they've beat the others on customer service for a long time now.
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). But being able to get on my ipad and check the current weather while at the FBO, now that is useful.
looks happy, doesn't she?
