T-Mobile Nexus Users...How is the 4G?

Stang68 · Oct 26, 2012

Hey all,

So I'm thinking of leaving Verizon for the Nexus 4 and T-Mo next week. I plan on using their all-unlimited $70 pre-paid plan. What have your experiences been switching from Verizon to T-Mobile? Or even just on T-Mobile in general? Do you like their "4G"? How about voice coverage? I'm going to be using it mainly in the Manhattan area.

Thanks!

Skyroket · Oct 26, 2012

Verizon advertise 4G as lte or 4g lte and tmobile advertise 4g as hspa+

LTE is 4-5 times faster then hspa+. You will probably get 3-6Mbps on tmobile at least thats what i get in Manhattan.

Hspa+ and lte are different technologies and t-mobile currently does not offer lte services

aurora40 · Oct 27, 2012

Skyroket said:
LTE is 4-5 times faster then hspa+. You will probably get 3-6Mbps on tmobile at least thats what i get in Manhattan

HSPA+ gets a lot closer to its theoretical speeds, though, in real-world use.

Regional and National Winners - Fastest Mobile Networks 2012 | PCMag.com

T-Mobile averaged 6.8Mbps vs Verizon's 8.8Mbps.

Personally I find the speeds on T-Mobile to be generally good. Anywhere from 2Mbps to 9Mbps around here. But I came from Sprint, not Verizon, so my "bar" was pretty low...

Stang68 · Oct 27, 2012

I'm well aware of their respective 4G technologies, I was just looking for people's impressions with T-Mo, thanks.

mogelijk · Oct 27, 2012

Mine are pretty good, though not great. In real life (I am in the Houston area) I typically get between 3-5 Mbps. At times it will drop down as low as 1.5 Mbps and will get up to 8 Mbps -- though it is also worth noting that I has a Galaxy Nexus, which is only HSPA+21, which tends to run slower than HSPA+42 devices.

abrahavt · Oct 27, 2012

I live in a suburb of Cleveland and their coverage stinks. I barely get one bar in my house. Went back to ATT after a day of trying them out.

Stang68 · Oct 28, 2012

mogelijk said:
Mine are pretty good, though not great. In real life (I am in the Houston area) I typically get between 3-5 Mbps. At times it will drop down as low as 1.5 Mbps and will get up to 8 Mbps -- though it is also worth noting that I has a Galaxy Nexus, which is only HSPA+21, which tends to run slower than HSPA+42 devices.

I didn't realize the GNex doesn't run on their 42Mbps spectrum. Thanks. I may do a test run before I totally jump ship from Verizon.

Fuzzy13 · Oct 28, 2012

On Metro's LTE I was getting 1.3Mbps.

I am now running my GSM Nexus on Straight Talk and I'm getting 8-10mbps.

Sure LTE is capable of "reaching" much higher speeds, but that doesn't mean ish when the carrier decides what you get.

It all depends on your area and the coverage in your area as to how well your 4G speeds will be. When I got my Gnex, I decided I would try ST first to see if all the bad talk about them was true. I'm not a high data user, about 1.5 gigs a month. If it doesn't work out with ST then my plan is to move to Tmobile's BYOD plans which I KNOW are good.

Long story short, I would assume Tmobile's HSPA+ is just as fast if not faster than what I'm using now which is ST.

mogelijk · Oct 28, 2012

Fuzzy13 said:
On Metro's LTE I was getting 1.3Mbps.

I am now running my GSM Nexus on Straight Talk and I'm getting 8-10mbps.

Sure LTE is capable of "reaching" much higher speeds, but that doesn't mean ish when the carrier decides what you get.

It all depends on your area and the coverage in your area as to how well your 4G speeds will be. When I got my Gnex, I decided I would try ST first to see if all the bad talk about them was true. I'm not a high data user, about 1.5 gigs a month. If it doesn't work out with ST then my plan is to move to Tmobile's BYOD plans which I KNOW are good.

Long story short, I would assume Tmobile's HSPA+ is just as fast if not faster than what I'm using now which is ST.

Out of curiosity, I assume you are using Straight Talk on AT&T? I only ask since some areas you can also get Straight Talk using T-Mobile's network. I believe New York City is one of the areas you can use T-Mobile's network; I seem to recall people complaining AT&T runs slowly in NYC. Looking at PCMag's tests from earlier this year, AT&T's HSPA+ in NYC is much slower than T-Mobile's. This may change as people adopt the iPhone 5.

Fuzzy13 · Oct 28, 2012

mogelijk said:
Out of curiosity, I assume you are using Straight Talk on AT&T? I only ask since some areas you can also get Straight Talk using T-Mobile's network. I believe New York City is one of the areas you can use T-Mobile's network; I seem to recall people complaining AT&T runs slowly in NYC.

IDK. I bought the T mobile SIM card but never chose either or after that.

mogelijk · Oct 28, 2012

Fuzzy13 said:
IDK. I bought the T mobile SIM card but never chose either or after that.

If you bought the T-Mobile Sim then you are on T-Mobile. You would need the AT&T Straight Talk SIM to be on the AT&T network.

Fuzzy13 · Oct 28, 2012

mogelijk said:
If you bought the T-Mobile Sim then you are on T-Mobile. You would need the AT&T Straight Talk SIM to be on the AT&T network.

That's what I figured. Well, I am on Tmobile then

I wonder if service is better with either or........ :thinking:

rainynight250 · Oct 28, 2012

I switched yesterday from AT&T and it's actually faster. In Seattle anyway.

junkbin · Oct 28, 2012

I'm in the Dallas area and TM works much better than StraightTalk ATT for me. I'm on the $30 plan and use Vonage from my outgoing. Never really had an issue with the data speed using Vonage and usage in general.

Do note, for $30 I'm easy to please. For $70 I maybe a more demanding customer.

blarelli · Oct 30, 2012

Stang68 said:
Hey all,

So I'm thinking of leaving Verizon for the Nexus 4 and T-Mo next week. I plan on using their all-unlimited $70 pre-paid plan. What have your experiences been switching from Verizon to T-Mobile? Or even just on T-Mobile in general? Do you like their "4G"? How about voice coverage? I'm going to be using it mainly in the Manhattan area.

Thanks!

I've been on their prepaid 4g for a few months now and it's pretty good. I've done speed tests at all times of day at home, at school and everywhere between and I'd say my average speeds are about 4-5 mb/s down and 3 mb/s up, but it's reached as high as 12 and 8.
Voice has been really good (much better than when I left T-mobile 3 years ago), and customer service has been great.

Just FYI, I'm in Phoenix, AZ

h4x0rj3ff · Oct 30, 2012

Does anyone now how the tmo 4g is around Saginaw mi? I might have to get the gnex4 this February when i Get my taxes. Or should I just stick it out with metro till at least the merger is complete around mid 2013?

runningman3433 · Oct 30, 2012

i've had virgin mobile 4g (sprint), and t-mobile absoultey destroys it in terms of reliability and speed. t-mobile rules!

Fuzzy13 · Oct 30, 2012

h4x0rj3ff said:
Does anyone now how the tmo 4g is around Saginaw mi? I might have to get the gnex4 this February when i Get my taxes. Or should I just stick it out with metro till at least the merger is complete around mid 2013?

Honestly, after jumping the metro ship I've learned that just about anything is better than Metro when it comes to data speeds.

I love Metro. Stayed with them for 5 years but when Straight Talk speeds are 6-7 times faster, there isn't much to dispute.

bob60626 · Nov 2, 2012

Fwiw, in Chicago I average 18-20 up on my S2.

Gorilla* · Nov 2, 2012

well well well. I thought about this also but decided its just not worth it. yea I could save 30 month on straight talk but my service would decline.... If I lived in a major metro I would be fine on T-Mobile but its weak here and att is no walk in the park either .

Tallmike00 · Nov 3, 2012

T-mobile might be really good in the Saginaw area but don't drive up to Traverse City. I was up there with my grandson for the Labor Day weekend and my Nexus went into Roam. It is AT&T territory. As well, I found out that if you are on a prepaid plan, you can't make phone calls while in Roam. It was pretty frustrating. My Nexus is on the $30 plan with T-Mobile which allows up to 5Gig at 3G speeds but only 100 voice minutes. I chose this plan because I have a Nextel cell phone through my work which I use to make nearly 100% of my calls. I wanted a smart phone for myself for data but also to be able to forward my calls if I ended up in a Nextel dead zone. My Nextel phone was fine at Fife Lake and Traverse City but my T-Mobile was barely able to send text messages. Around here in NW Indiana, I generally have 3G service but switching to Straight Talk is somewhat tempting.

aurora40 · Nov 4, 2012

Just FYI, there is a T-Mobile forum. Probably a lot more people that use it that don't have GNex's, so you might get more coverage info there:

T-Mobile - Android Forums

Petrah · Nov 4, 2012

h4x0rj3ff said:
Does anyone now how the tmo 4g is around Saginaw mi? I might have to get the gnex4 this February when i Get my taxes. Or should I just stick it out with metro till at least the merger is complete around mid 2013?

Try the Carrier Coverage app from the Play store. The data submitted is by users, so your mileage may vary. At any rate, after reading the article here and using the Carrier Coverage app, I left Virgin Mobile USA and went to T-Mobile.

Again keep in mind that these are the ratings for my area;

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