I'm joining the T-Mobile 5G Revolution...

[VirtualLarry]

Ordered a 5G phone, paid for $50/mo unlimited pre-paid upgrade to my T-Mobile Connect plan (which hasn't recieved any non-whitelisted data support for nearly two years !). I should be GtG when my phone gets here, I hope.

 

[Hans Gruber]

Ordered a 5G phone, paid for $50/mo unlimited pre-paid upgrade to my T-Mobile Connect plan (which hasn't recieved any non-whitelisted data support for nearly two years !). I should be GtG when my phone gets here, I hope.

What phone did you order? Which T-mobile connect plan are you on?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I saw a Samsung A14 (2023) 5G for $189 on ebay from a major dealer.

I can't afford those crazy $500-1000 phones.

 

[tcsenter]

Wish we could do T-Mobile but we live in a little corner of some kind of deader spot several hundred feet in all directions. Inside the house we get no bars. You can always tell the T-Mobile people because they are out on the sidewalk or corner with their phones up in the air checking their bars.

It's weird because AT&T owns the towers nearby that T-Mobile accesses in this immediate area but AT&T signal is OK. When I told the T-Mobile escalated support person this years ago, he said "Really....well that is interesting." As though he found it suspicious, not as in he didn't believe me, but that maybe AT&T was somehow sabotaging or diminishing T-Mobiles service through their towers, though he did not say it I could hear it in his voice.

 

[Tech Junky]

towers

Carriers usually just lease space on towers rather than build them. Typically you'll have companies like Crowne castle build them and then stack carriers into different levels of the tower. There could also be microwave being on the same tower or repeaters for tv or anything else a tower would be needed for.

I have a T-Mobile site on my building and it's just the antennas hung over the side of the roof for one site and on the other side of the building is another site with more antennas. A neighbor said he sos saw some VZW equipment up there recently which I've been meaning to take a look at.

There's even a site on an electric pole a across the street.

They don't take up much space and can be found just about anywhere these days. You just have to know what you're looking for.

 

[tcsenter]

Carriers usually just lease space on towers rather than build them. Typically you'll have companies like Crowne castle build them and then stack carriers into different levels of the tower. There could also be microwave being on the same tower or repeaters for tv or anything else a tower would be needed for.

True but they often lease exclusively to a principle carrier. Then any others who want to piggy back or use that infrastructure have to lease or negotiate through that principle lease holding carrier.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Its quite aggravating that there is a 1 block area around my house that's a T-mobile deadzone. One street in any direction, have coverage. On my street, nothing.

 

[tcsenter]

Its quite aggravating that there is a 1 block area around my house that's a T-mobile deadzone. One street in any direction, have coverage. On my street, nothing.

Same thing here!

 

[Tech Junky]

Cell Tower Lease (Rates, Agreements, Buyout, Value)

Cell tower lease rates showcase the multi-decade relationship between the wireless carriers leasing space from the tower companies who rent infrastructure.

dgtlinfra.com

Cell Towers: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know

It's our cell tower guide. Ever wonder who constructs them? How they're made? Who decides what carrier goes where? All these answers and can be found within.

www.wilsonamplifiers.com

In the case of people reporting no signal w/in one block of their location... It could be a dead zone that's not covered or the carrier turned down lower frequencies to make room for LTE/5G which dropped the coverage of prior signals. 2G/3G signals have been turned off for the majority of areas in the US at this point which could be why you're seeing the lack of signal now.

2G / 3G Network Shutdown Status and Challenges

2G and 3G network shutdown update and main challenges.

www.smartviser.com

1. Reuse of frequencies for new technology deployments like 4G and 5G. Most 2G use 850, 900, 1,800 or 1,900 MHz frequency bands. The sub-1 GHz bands, are very valuable due to their propagation characteristics, especially delivering greater coverage and in-building penetration.

So, looking at that for the frequencies you'll see overlap of services in use now that use those bands like FWA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G_NR_frequency_bands - n bands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_frequency_bands - B bands

5G NR Frequency Bands

Wireless infrastructure equipment, 4G/ 5G antennas, site infrastructure, long distance radio links, signal improvement, wireless control

www.rfwel.com

So, the x71 is the 600mhz low band that gives you distance but lacks in bandwidth. In my case and testing of exclusively connecting to this band resulted in mediocre speeds of 50-100mbps. Pulling back and switching to other bands such as n41 though bumps those speeds to 600/100. It all depends on how the carrier sets up the site though and which frequency blocks they have in that market and the allotment of spectrum to use. The allotment could be anywhere from 5-100mhz and each yields X/mbps in terms of bandwidth. This also has to take into account the number of users for a particular site as each chunk of spectrum only supports X users. As you add more users the distance of the RF typically shrinks as well to compensate for the load. If you test your speeds during different times of the day you'll notice that less peak times will come back with better speeds.

With the way that 5G works though currently you need to tether it to a 4G signal and piggy back off that to setup the data link. Using different signal monitoring apps you can pinpoint which ones are surrounding you and figure out which carrier might be the best option for your specific locations.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I just lost data service again after less than 24hr after upgrading my plan from T-Mobile Connect with 3.5GB Data per month, to "TMobile Prepaid unlimited", with unlimited data. All I did was watch a couple of YouTube's using the app, and Browse AT Forums a bit.

Either I'm on a watch list (without due process!), or I've made T-Mobile's internal "shit list" of customers that they screw over until they leave the service, and even upgrading from the $15/mo plan (that I was DENIED my 3.5GB / mo of data) to their UNLIMITED $50/mo plan, wasn't enough to make amends, apparently.

I know this, because I've been through multiple 4G LTE phones, all were technically-compatible with T-Mobile's service. One time, on a whim, I purchase an allotment of 'Domestic Data', for a week, AND I HAD WORKING DATA.

Like this time, I switched to an unlimited data plan, and it was working, until they found out and shut me down.

I'm not even using that much data. I'm not hotspotting, either.

 

[CP5670]

It's common for carriers to artificially disable features on phones that are not their own locked version of the phone, even if the phone supports the feature. I know AT&T has issues like this with 5G.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It's common for carriers to artificially disable features on phones that are not their own locked version of the phone, even if the phone supports the feature. I know AT&T has issues like this with 5G.

So when T-Mobile, bills itself as the "Un-Carrier", and sells bring-your-own-device plans THAT INCLUDE DATA, that it's potentially "normal" that they would go so far as to disable "4G LTE data" altogether, just because the phone is a factory-unlocked international version?

How is this not Federal Fraud?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I went and ordered a separate line for this multi-sim phone, same T-Mobile Connect plan @ $15/mo (as another experiement, last year).

I had data service on the second line for the whole month. I declined to renew that line, actually, somehow the auto-pay failed, and I didn't notice it so that line got cancelled.

But my main number, that's been on T-Mobile for literally probably nearly 20 years now (!), they see that I have data on that line and shut it off intentionally.

 

[Tech Junky]

T-Mobile for literally probably nearly 20 years now

Seems more like the billing system got confused along the way here.

If you simply moved the SIM from one handset to another there's usually not an issue and if there is then it's usually fixed by power cycling the phone. If that doesn't fix it then delete the APN and put the info back in or simply remove the SIM and put it back in.

You mentioned different plans / swapping / signing up / die by default though which might cause some account issues depending on how they might be tied to your name / SSN. If something got flagged as potential fraud that might be an issue with any carrier.

Best case is to port your # to Google for $20 and rest assured it will at least be safe when playing with carriers / sim swaps. For the data not working though that's only 3 things that can cause it. APN / billing / handset. As long as it's provisioned on the billing side it shouldn't be blocked as long as the phone auto configured the APN when you put the SIM in or you manually configured the APN with the correct info.

I've had issues with other carriers when swapping thing around as well and it's frustrating to run into the issues but, they do get resolved eventually. I had one instance with Mint where I got a free trial SIM and went to convert it to a real plan at the end of the trial and got stuck in porting purgatory for a couple of days while they worked it out on the backend. Apparently they normally don't allow converting of their trial sims to normal plans but, didn't provide a secondary sim to use once the trial was up. US Mobile had an issue with something else, Visible has extremely unbearable speeds in certain locations and I'm talking sub 1mbps, and so on.

Switching from post to pre paid though shouldn't be as big of an issue though as some other scenarios. It all depends on the sequence you do things in sometimes with how the backend processes things. Sometimes if you do things too quickly and don't allow them to purge overnight you run into fragmented accounts that don't work properly w/o manual intervention by other teams to purge the old records to make the new account setup script work properly.

 

[Hans Gruber]

I went and ordered a separate line for this multi-sim phone, same T-Mobile Connect plan @ $15/mo (as another experiement, last year).

I had data service on the second line for the whole month. I declined to renew that line, actually, somehow the auto-pay failed, and I didn't notice it so that line got cancelled.

But my main number, that's been on T-Mobile for literally probably nearly 20 years now (!), they see that I have data on that line and shut it off intentionally.

I think their computer system is screwed up. That is probably why your data is gone. Contact customer support.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I think their computer system is screwed up. That is probably why your data is gone. Contact customer support.

But it was working for the day.

 

[manly]

Aren't there better prepaid deals than $50/month, such as Visible?

Too late now, but at that price point, Google Fi might have made sense as well:

8 months Fi Unlimited plus free (after bill credits) when buying Pixel 7a at $499

Spotted a different kind of offer on Google FI; discount on service plan through bill credits if you buy the phone. 24 month instalment option is also available if interested. Essentially - pay lis ...

slickdeals.net

 

[Hans Gruber]

But it was working for the day.

You said you switched your line from the $15 plan 3.5gb to an unlimited prepaid. They need to adjust their system to the change in service. They changed the 3GB plan to 3.5gb around March of this year. Unless a customer called customer care, they would still be at 3gb per month even though their account portal page would show 3.5gb plan.

You would be better off with the AT&T Prepaid $25 per month plan that includes 16GB of data per month plus rollover data. With that plan you prepay $300 for an entire year with that plan.

You would be better off with the Moto 5G Stylus 2022 (Snapdragon + 6GB of vram) rather than the Samsung A14. You need the 20 series Samsung to get a Snapdragon processor and the A50 series has the fancy Samsung processor and is pretty close to an S 20 series phone. You can play the free phone game with metro PCS and a month of service followed by a 6 month wait for unlock. Tmobile owns Metro, so you would be good to go with a Metro phone.

 

[manly]

Hold on, I have to call T-Mo to get the annual data cap increase? If true, I'm still stuck at 2.5GB monthly, but I've yet to exceed that so I wouldn't know!

I picked up the Moto 5G Stylus deal from MetroPCS, and it should be unlock eligible now. I got it solely as a backup phone, but probably wouldn't recommend it as a daily driver. Remember Motorola sucks with updates so you'll need something else in 2024 if you care about that.

 

[Hans Gruber]

Hold on, I have to call T-Mo to get the annual data cap increase? If true, I'm still stuck at 2.5GB monthly, but I've yet to exceed that so I wouldn't know!

I picked up the Moto 5G Stylus deal from MetroPCS, and it should be unlock eligible now. I got it solely as a backup phone, but probably wouldn't recommend it as a daily driver. Remember Motorola sucks with updates so you'll need something else in 2024 if you care about that.

My daily driver is a OnePlus 8. I like to collect phones. Check your T-mobile portal page. It will show how much data you have left. If it shows $15 plan with 3.5gb of data. If the monthly data slider maxes out at 3GB, then you have to contact customer service. Each year you get 500mb more per month. You have to contact customer care for that as well. The new terms mean the plan maxes out at 5GB of monthly data through 2025. The old terms were a maximum of 4.5gb of data before they upgraded the plan to 3.5gb of data from 3GB of data.

Obviously, nobody should have to jump through these hoops. But it's T-mobile.

 

[manly]

I checked my account and the slider maxes out at 3.5GB.
I activated T-Mobile Connect in Feb 2022 with a monthly cap of 2.5GB. It was raised in March to 3GB, and then again in March 2023. I've never had to call them, and I suspect this is standard. Remember they agreed to annually raising the monthly data cap for the two original Connect plans ($15 & $25) as a condition of purchasing Sprint. Oddly enough, they even gave Nevada customers a special deal for the $25 plan to appease their regulators.

I believe these are just the original terms of the Connect plans. I'd be surprised if they never again raise the data caps after March 2025. I don't use a lot of mobile data, but 2GB might have been okay 10 years ago but is pretty stingy now. Just leaving the monthly cap at 4.5GB and/or raising the price will eventually result in customers jumping to another carrier.

No idea what the OP is talking about. If my phone carrier was stiffing me over a core part of the service for nearly two years, I would have jumped ship a long time ago.

 

[tcsenter]

In the case of people reporting no signal w/in one block of their location... It could be a dead zone that's not covered or the carrier turned down lower frequencies to make room for LTE/5G which dropped the coverage of prior signals. 2G/3G signals have been turned off for the majority of areas in the US at this point which could be why you're seeing the lack of signal now

In my case, this was all when we moved here in 2006 and it continued to at least through 2012, well before 5G, judging by the periodic spotting of someone (visitors or newly moved in) trying to get a signal on their phone in front of the house. But I will presume it has long been resolved now and T-Mobile reception is not a problem here anymore, since we haven't noticed any bar-seekers wandering around outside in several years.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Gotta be honest with the new(ish) T-Mobile CEO benefits seem to have disappeared for me and data/coverage is getting smaller every month. Admittedly I haven’t moved to 5G yet, I just feel their rollout has been aggressive at the cost of 4G/LTE

 

[aigomorla]

T-Mobile is very location and situational from my experience.
If your in a high population density, its one of the worst carriers, because they do not seem to know how to handle overflow.
I have friends saying they constantly never got the call, and when i call, it gives me a funny busy signal tone, or says this carrier is not currently on the network.

They have a try before you commit option which i recommend you trying out before deciding.
And at that price, i think going to a smaller company like Mint, or Cricket is possibly a better solution then T-Mobile even tho they may use the same towers.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

^^Mint is T-Mobile however it is far lower cost. I may switch to mint simply to save money if I’m getting reduced data speed & coverage I may as well pay a reduced rate.