Who is your wireless carrier and how is your signal??

[bee_are_bee]

Greeting fellow Prime-mates. My wife and I are looking to make a move to Los Angeles in the spring (late-April/early-May). We are in the early stages of shopping new phones and are contemplating a shift of wireless carrier. The wife wants to leave AT&T for she experienced almost no reception downtown while visiting a couple weeks ago. I'm leaning toward purchasing a Google Nexus 4 and thus would sign up with T-Mobile and their low cost monthly 4G plan. My wife is looking at either the Galaxy S3 or even waiting for the Galaxy S4 come April and she's leaning toward Verizon. So what say you? What are your individual experiences with your wireless carrier regarding reception and signal strength in your particular area? I've done some research and the consensus seems to be.... no consensus. Every carrier can be really good in one part of town and be bad in another. Any and All replies would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[racer9x]

I have T-Mobile and Verizon, I think they are almost as reliable when it comes to reception T-Mobile 95% vs Verizon 98% in SoCal, so if reception is the bigest deciding factor Verizon is superior but you may want to factor in prices and telephone selection etc; good luck.

 

[LMR]

Can't go wrong with T-Mobile. We been with them for several years and have no complaints ever!!! Great customer service and the best plans for the price. We have their unlimited talk, text and data plan for $50.00 a month. Signal is good in our area but like all carriers there will be spots you lose the signal. Here is one of the many reasons we have been with them so long and will never leave. Called in to ask a question a few years ago and after the person had answered it they asked if they could look at our current plan. I said sure, expecting for them possibly try to upsale us on another plan but to my pleasent suprise they said we had never gone over 1500 minutes combimed on the 3 phones we had and could get a family plan that ended up cutting our bill in half, YES HALF!!! Like I said GREAT customer service.

 

[FF Drifter]

I personally always chose Verizon. It costs more but the consistency of signal was just much better for me, especially in rural areas and up in the mountains.

Here is my story: I used to work for the US Border Patrol, specifically ~ I would handle all the cell phones used by the agents (paying their bills, issuing equipment, getting lines consolidated/closed/opened/etc). What we found was that a lot of our guys were getting unusually expensive monthly bills especially if they spent significant time right on the border. We discovered that everyone on AT&T was sometimes picking up calls from Mexican numbers: if the agent's number was 867-5309 and someone on the other side of the border was also 867-5309, our agents would intercept their calls. Just picking up the call would pin us with international and roaming charges. Eventually we switched all our guys within 20 miles of the border to Verizon because AT&T's network bleeds over and they can't define the edges of their cells. I don't even want to get started on what a hassle it was to sort those charges out.

This actually happened again to me just a few days ago ~ driving through El Paso, TX, I was getting the "welcome to Mexico" text message.

It doesn't really affect you in LA, but I think it is indicative of the quality of the network.

 

[Hapa88]

I've had all 4 carriers in the past 10 years. It's hard to compare because each carrier is constantly upgrading their networks (& plans) but my experience was that Verizon and Sprint had the best coverage for phone service and the fewest dropped calls (not sure about data coverage though). T-Mobile and AT&T would be second from my experience.
Sprint & T-Mobile had the best pricing. Verizon was the most expensive & AT&T was in the middle.

I currently have AT&T and get numerous dropped calls and sometimes extremely slow 3G connections. From an overall cellular experience standpoint, I would not be with AT&T if it weren't for the good monthly rate I'm getting..

 

[Kyras]

I have only had AT&T because that's what my kids have and I get one consolidated bill for my cell phone, landline (house phone) with long-distance, my internet connection and DISH for the TV. It's easy and currently $193/month. If I had to start over, I wouldn't go with AT&T. I volunteer in a hospital and AT&T is the only wireless carrier that doesn't work in the hospital. I've had problems with it in Colorado not connecting even though I have full bars.

 

[KSXNSX]

I live in LA County, and travel all around LA.

Never dropped a call on Verizon. 100% clear voice. Almost always have LTE except for in a few buildings. Data is almost never a problem, although sometimes it drops to 3G and even "o" in some buildings. The signal strength varies from full bars to 3, but is always full bars at my home and around my home area. Even at 3, I have no problems with any service.

I can recommend Verizon 100%, although I believe they are the most expensive. I switched from ATT a few years ago. ATT had signal problems much of the time. Not too many dropped calls, but more than Verizon. Data was 3G back then, so I can't compare with LTE. But I have had a better experience on Verizon overall.

If I had to choose one carrier, it would be Verizon. T-mobile, Sprint, etc. all have better pricing/packages, but I always hear bad stories from my friends.

 

[bee_are_bee]

Thanks to all that replied. I've decided to purchase an unlocked Google Nexus 4 and go with T-Mobile's monthly 4G service. After four years of paying AT&T $100/mo. and averaging about 30 minutes of talk time, monthly, I decided to go for a more budget minded plan. T-Mobile's $30/mo for unlimited web, text and 100 minutes of talk is hard to pass up. We figured by going with T-Mobile the savings would be about $120/mo. between the two of us. Since we're buying the phones unlocked if my wife isn't satisfied with T-Mobile's service I guess she can always switch over to Verizon

 

[GO KRT]

There's a new game in town. www.republicwireless.com I've been on their waiting list for over a year while they went through "beta testing" and finally got one of their phones two weeks ago. THEIR SERVICE PLAN IS $19/MONTH FOR UNLIMITED TEXT/DATA/VOICE. The phone system is "wifi preferred". When you are at home, business, most hospitals.....anyplace where wifi is available the phone seeks and uses the available wifi. They have been doing this in Asia/Europe for over 10 years and republic wireless has finally brought this technology to USA. When you leave wifi the phone uses any/all available Sprint towers. $19/month no hidden charges. no contract 30 day money back guarantee. I presently have an iPhone 5 and have had nothing but iPhone "smartphones" for the past several years. My initial evaluation is that the phone ( motorola defy xt ) is lighter, more durable (gorilla glass and waterproof) and I am blown away at the speed of the processor and the google / android operating system. So far I've mostly used the phone around the house and haven't had much chance to use the "sprint" part of the system so I am using two phones until we make our final decision. 30 day money back guarantee so you might want to give it a test run yourself.

 

[bee_are_bee]

Sounds interesting. I'll keep an eye out for this company for future wireless carrier considerations. Monthly cost is high on my list of priorities