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T-Mobile USA Coverage in your city?

Mxtc

Well-Known Member
Mar 18, 2010
103
9
USA
If you are close to a major city, your coverage should be excellent. Here's what I've experienced:

Good:
San Fran (BUT the hills create deadspots,experienced the same dead spots on a borrowed sprint phone, same with AT&T)

Excellent:
Atlanta, Denver, Washington D.C. (HSPA+ cities)

Great:
Omaha, Co Springs, Albuquerque, Sante Fe (Mostly 3G, sometimes back to EDGE)

Bad:
On the highways between major cities, most of the time roamed on EDGE, and sometimes lost all signal, but i don't care, i don't take many roadtrips :)
 
Im in Cincinnati.

Coverage is pretty far spread throughout the city and very far into the suburbs. LOTS of dead spots all over the city except for heavily trafficked entertainment areas. Worse on west side than anywhere else. Internet radio while taking backroads around the city can get sketchy. Fine while on highways.

Rough Breakdown:
GPRS: 0%
EDGE: 40%
3G: 45%
H: 15%
 
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Oklahoma city here, in the metro (( OKC, Moore, Norman, Del City, Midwest City, Mustang, Edmond )) 3G stays fairly strong. (( cant same the same for sprint and att have some dead zones. not sure about verizon)) head out much further than that and it goes to EDGE. 3g picks up strong again in Tulsa and Lawton metro areas. So basically if you are near the 3 main cities and the smaller ones outlining them you are good.
 
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I am an airline pilot (former corperate pilot) and I have been to every state and every corner of the US. Big cities to small po-dunk towns. I have never had an issue with T-mobile coverage. A few times I have noticed that the signal strength is better with AT&T and on occaision I have forced my phone to use AT&T solely but that is very rare. Many years ago I used Verizon but they had such terrible roaming fees that I had to dump them. I think T-mobile has great coverage. I always chuckle when I get somewhere and the other crew are pissed because their iPhones cant get a data signal while I have 4bar HSPA.
 
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I live in Albuquerque. I think it should include the metro area, i.e., Rio Rancho. ABQ proper is good, but RR is not good at all. Mostly EDGE, with huge dead zones, including my parent's house.

And of course there's ZERO signal from Santa Fe on up to Colorado Springs. I don't travel by car a ton, but gees it would be nice if there was SOME signal on such a huge stretch of interstate.
 
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In SoFla, you'll get island coverages...what that means is you get totally inconsistent EDGE vs 3G coverage.

No matter where you go in South Florida, you could be standing in one spot and get 3G at mid strength, walk 5 feet in almost any direction, and you're instantly on EDGE. This is drawn from experience across 3 different 3G capable phones over the last couple of years. Don't get me wrong, it was the same with the transition from straight GPRS to GPRS/EDGE.

Yes, not every carrier has consistent strength all across the board. But I don't think even AT&T has areas where there's a sea of EDGE coverage with islands of 3G like this.

I literally have a 3G tower that's 5 blocks away, as the crow flies, and I might get 0 3G Bars inside the house ( i.e. Just the 3G icon with the antenna ), but mostly it's EDGE. If I step outside, flip a coin Heads Edge/ Tails 3G. If I walk 50 towards where I know the tower is it'll stick to 3G, it might jump to 1 Bar of 3G. If I walk the same distance, east or south, it'll switch to an EDGE-only antenna that's actually located almost a mile away. It's that inconsistent coverage that after being with TMo 11 years, is seriously making me think of jumping. I can't see paying BigRed or Death Star tariffs, so looks like that might be Sprint. I want to see how the roll-out of HSPA+ is down here. It's supposedly running in Ft. Lauderdale, but when last I was in that area, I didn't notice any improvements in my 3G at all.

Which leads to my point......

You can't go faster if you don't have THE COVERAGE to go faster.

Give me more consistent 3G coverage, THEN worry about going faster. Geez, you'd think someone would get it, given it's a total no-brainer.

On a plus side, for making calls...TMo's marine coverage is by far the best down here. I've made calls when over water where no one's elses had signal.
And in an area surrounded by water, that's not so bad.
 
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In SoFla, you'll get island coverages...what that means is you get totally inconsistent EDGE vs 3G coverage.

No matter where you go in South Florida, you could be standing in one spot and get 3G at mid strength, walk 5 feet in almost any direction, and you're instantly on EDGE. This is drawn from experience across 3 different 3G capable phones over the last couple of years. Don't get me wrong, it was the same with the transition from straight GPRS to GPRS/EDGE.

Yes, not every carrier has consistent strength all across the board. But I don't think even AT&T has areas where there's a sea of EDGE coverage with islands of 3G like this.

I literally have a 3G tower that's 5 blocks away, as the crow flies, and I might get 0 3G Bars inside the house ( i.e. Just the 3G icon with the antenna ), but mostly it's EDGE. If I step outside, flip a coin Heads Edge/ Tails 3G. If I walk 50 towards where I know the tower is it'll stick to 3G, it might jump to 1 Bar of 3G. If I walk the same distance, east or south, it'll switch to an EDGE-only antenna that's actually located almost a mile away. It's that inconsistent coverage that after being with TMo 11 years, is seriously making me think of jumping. I can't see paying BigRed or Death Star tariffs, so looks like that might be Sprint. I want to see how the roll-out of HSPA+ is down here. It's supposedly running in Ft. Lauderdale, but when last I was in that area, I didn't notice any improvements in my 3G at all.

Which leads to my point......

You can't go faster if you don't have THE COVERAGE to go faster.

Give me more consistent 3G coverage, THEN worry about going faster. Geez, you'd think someone would get it, given it's a total no-brainer.

On a plus side, for making calls...TMo's marine coverage is by far the best down here. I've made calls when over water where no one's elses had signal.
And in an area surrounded by water, that's not so bad.



I agree with this statement.Give me more consistent 3G coverage, it will do no good for me to have HSPA+ if 3g is not sufficient.
 
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I just took the dive and decided to move my over to Verizon. I sold me wife's Nexus One and mine will be put up shortly as well. She will have her Droid Incredible tomorrow and I'll have my Droid X today.

Its really sad. I love my Nexus One but Tmobile is just too spotty for me. Like everyone has said. If the 3G coverage isnt reliable whats the point of HSDPA+?
I get AMAZING speeds when its on it (3-4mbps) but its too fragile and tmobile lacks
serious coverage, even with Edge. Ive never seen so much G in my life until I took
a handful of recent road trips.

EDIT: Had to use my friends Droid to stream Pandora pretty much because the Tmobile connection was so unable in between cities.
 
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