State of rural / semi-rural coverage, backup power, and network access

[veri]

I periodically use the network trial options available from the big three to test the carriers in my routine travels and found some surprising results with T-Mobile lately. I was hoping for insight from those who might know more about some specific priorities than I do.

Region: US Midwest
Current carrier: FirstNet
Priorities, in order:
1. Solid coverage in various environs / functional network access, not just big cities, including resiliency re: acts of nature, emergencies, etc
2. Speed
3. Price

I should note that I also have WPS, and both Verizon and T-Mobile prioritize voice and data on their own networks on WPS lines as FirstNet does (with T-Mobile also including preemption), in addition to *272 E2E voice as intended, though I'm uncertain how much of a routine benefit that prioritization will be in practice.

Main issues: AT&T/FirstNet coverage is spotty enough in my own home such that I rely on Wi-Fi calling. Several frequented sites have iffy in-building coverage but VZW DAS setups.

Last year, T-Mobile was crap in my home. Now, it's far and away the best of the three, with VZW being second-best but congested. Best signal strength, best bandwidth, by far. Decent area experience so far but only recently started Network Pass.

Which brings me to: my understanding of the network is rudimentary and goes back to the times where T-Mobile was known to have more dead spots, more coverage gaps, more roaming dependencies, and less reliability in the setting of power outages/natural events/less of a hardened network. For those more up-to-date than I, is this all still an issue now? I have seen press releases talking about various improvements, but I don't really have a good grasp on how much better these things are. This all contrasts to Verizon which has a long reputation of doing the above well, not to mention the mission of FirstNet.

TIA.

[PaulCrawhorne]

It all depends **completely** on the specific local areas you frequent.

TMO is now 10000x better in mine than it was just a few years ago.

ATT is still strongest for T&T reliability up in the hills and woods away from commuter roads, but where TMO does have any reception, data is much stronger, especially with 5G.

I can use TMO for house internet, much faster than wired.

VZW **only** works well along the commuter roads and in towns, but data speeds become unusable frequently due to congestion.

Having Dual SIM hardware or portable hotspot / MiFi devices can really help maximise connectivity.

[formercanuck]

It all depends **completely** on the specific local areas you frequent.

This is the truth. In my travels, T-Mobile does work well. In my area: SoCal/SLOCal

1. Solid coverage in various environs / functional network access, not just big cities, including resiliency re: acts of nature, emergencies, etc

- In urban areas, T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon all have solid coverage. In my suburbia, T-Mobile/AT&T/Verizon are all quite similar, with a nod to T-Mobile. In rural areas, the order is Verizon, AT&T (close 2nd) and T-Mobile. They all have coverage. Resiliency goes to AT&T. In rural areas, especially during fire season, they chain up generators next to pole mounted cell sites. Last outage in small city Cambria, AT&T/Verizon and T-Mobile all colocate, and the power went out ... Only T-Mobile was down.

2. Speed

- I can't speak for Verizon, as I have both AT&T an T-Mobile service only. T-Mobile typically destroys others where they have service. The issue comes down to that last piece. Where AT&T/Verizon have multiple cells in smaller cities, and are good to ~200-300Mbps (AT&T), T-Mobile relies on one tower to cover a LARGE area with ~600Mbps. So .. speed in rural areas are great ... near the towers, but at 5-10 miles away, it will be poor to useless.

3. Price

- T-Mobile (at least with my current plan) is still a price leader. If I'm getting a new plan ... maybe not. Forced bundling of devices are not always a good deal.

For me, T-Mobile is best at home, and around the community I live. Not so much in many rural areas or other states. ~1200' from 5G tower vs +2/3 mile for AT&T/Verizon. 600Mbps is normal here.

[@Class]

So I'm a Rogers customer and can roam on all 3 networks... Honestly it is still area dependent. AT&T has the widest coverage, a bit more compared to Verizon, who like other's have said can be congested. T-Mobile is fast, usually the fastest of the 3 but the coverage is definitely lacking on highways and trails.

[formercanuck]

So I'm a Rogers customer and can roam on all 3 networks... Honestly it is still area dependent. AT&T has the widest coverage, a bit more compared to Verizon, who like other's have said can be congested. T-Mobile is fast, usually the fastest of the 3 but the coverage is definitely lacking on highways and trails.

Good that Rogers let you use any. Typically in Canada with T-Mobile, the only carrier that I can't use (often) is Rogers. On AT&T (work phone), I can use Rogers.
East coast is better (marginally) of Bellus than Rogers. NW Ontario is better on Rogers (TBayTel).

[daisydoo]

On the us east coast I can generally use any of the big 3 and get acceptable voice service. With data things really get crazy. T-Mobile is usually fastest while Verizon seems to struggle the most with slow or no data

In rural spots lately I’m finding Verizon to usually be the best. T-Mobile has gotten a lot better in rural spots but they still need more.

I’ve also had the power go out for 36 hours after a storm and T-Mobile stayed up the entire time so they seem to be taking backup power more serious. I used to lose signal almost immediately when the power went out but now it stays up which is nice

Right now I’m using T-Mobile postpaid along with prepaid on verizon so I usually can make at least a voice call when needed

[Ten Four]

I'm currently on the Visible 15-day trial, so not a really fair test of Verizon, but I have been very surprised by how much better the signal is on my current TMobile service. This is ranging between upstate NY and southeastern Mass., including much of I90. Frankly, TMobile just blows away the Visible signal in every location I have tried. However, one interesting thing is that in my normal, real-world usage of the phone I can't detect any difference in performance. In other words, even though the TMobile signal is stronger and tests much faster, for how I use the phone Visible would be perfectly adequate. I'm not streaming or gaming on the phone. Mainly just calls, texts, email, maps, and social media. I haven't tested the two in places I know that TMobile struggles, but I may have a chance to do so before the Visible trial is over.

[rpz1]

I'm currently on the Visible 15-day trial, so not a really fair test of Verizon, but I have been very surprised by how much better the signal is on my current TMobile service. This is ranging between upstate NY and southeastern Mass., including much of I90. Frankly, TMobile just blows away the Visible signal in every location I have tried. However, one interesting thing is that in my normal, real-world usage of the phone I can't detect any difference in performance. In other words, even though the TMobile signal is stronger and tests much faster, for how I use the phone Visible would be perfectly adequate. I'm not streaming or gaming on the phone. Mainly just calls, texts, email, maps, and social media. I haven't tested the two in places I know that TMobile struggles, but I may have a chance to do so before the Visible trial is over.

Not knowing if by "signal" you mean bars or data speed, I will say that carrier marketing and some comments in these forums lead one to believe you need full bars or 100's of mbps to use a phone.
Where i live (rural), on a Verizon mvno, I rarely see more then 2 bars or more then 5mbps and everything is fine doing like you, an average user, everything I need to do. And that includes streaming.

[Ten Four]

Not knowing if by "signal" you mean bars or data speed, I will say that carrier marketing and some comments in these forums lead one to believe you need full bars or 100's of mbps to use a phone.

Both. Visible gets less bars than TMo and speed tests are much slower. I have not tried the hotspot, but right now at my home I get three bars of 5G at 11.5mbps on Visible (download) while I get 4 bars and 270mbps on 5G with TMo. The upload speeds are similarly much faster on TMo, which I imagine might be noticeable if I was uploading lots of photos or other large files, but I really don't notice any difference in ordinary use on my phone.

[rpz1]

Both. Visible gets less bars than TMo and speed tests are much slower. I have not tried the hotspot, but right now at my home I get three bars of 5G at 11.5mbps on Visible (download) while I get 4 bars and 270mbps on 5G with TMo. The upload speeds are similarly much faster on TMo, which I imagine might be noticeable if I was uploading lots of photos or other large files, but I really don't notice any difference in ordinary use on my phone.

Thanks. Like I said your Visible with three bars and 11.5mbps is tons for what you and most users do. I think Visible throttles to 5mbps on HS so be aware of that.

[mwdewey]

T-Mobile seems to be able to wring more service capability out of a one-bar signal than either AT&T or Verizon are able to do, at least based on my past experience with both of them. I rarely ever see more than one bar of T-Mobile signal on my phone because the site serving the city is 6 miles away out in the country, but that one bar offers 80-100 Mb of 5G that is usable for anything I want to do with my phone. Could it be better with more bars of signal? I guess so, but until they put a site IN town this will have to do, and it is doing quite well.

[PaulCrawhorne]

That whole "how many bars" is analog thinking.

The digital mode is either on or off

"signal strength" has little to do with bandwidth available.

So long as you get RELIABLE data speeds over say 7-10Mbps you can do whatever you like

until you get into hi-res live video streaming.

We get all our huge game files and hi-res shows and films via downloading anyway, 600-800GB/mo so the DL speed doesn't matter

[formercanuck]

While signal bars has less meaning for actual service (i.e. service is usable or not) vs. Analog "noise".of +10 years ago, it still serves a purpose. 5g 1 bar 'can' be usable, and better than 3g 4bars often. Of course 5g bars doesn't mean much if you're comparing 10x10 5g of 1 bar to 2CA LTE of 20x20 each either. Similarly, 5 bars 5g on 15x15 n71 is often worse than LTE at 2 bars or 140MHz 5g n41 of 1 bar.

QoS, RSRP, SINR, BW and backhaul mean something

Sent from my SM-S911U1 using HoFo mobile app

[PaulCrawhorne]

It all depends **completely** on the specific local areas you frequent.


Rely on speed testing rather than signal bars, was my point. During low congestion times in built up areas to set a baseline, then compare during "rush hour" conditions if that is important to you.

Having Dual SIM hardware or portable hotspot / MiFi devices can really help maximise connectivity by being able to switch between different networks..

[mwdewey]

That one bar of signal does indeed indicate that some changes in service quality might occur due to the low signal strength. Such things as dropping from 5G to LTE for long periods of time and the resultant very slow data rates. This happens all the time, but most of the time I do not see severe effects from the switch. There are parts of town where there just is not a 5G signal to be had, only LTE, while other parts of town have a dependable 5G signal. I assume this is due to trees, buildings, etc blocking the 600 Mhz 5G signal while allowing the 2.5 Ghz LTE to pass through. An LTE signal is able to travel quite a bit farther than 5G evidently.