TMobile or Sprint for the Bay Area?

[zod96]

I'm about to setup a whole new account with either Sprint or TMobile. I am getting 3 Samsung S4's or 3 HTC ones. Price wise they are about the same. I'm looking at about $180 out the door on either one. Sprint has unlimited Data and 1500 minutes. Or TMobile has unlimited minutes and 2.5GB of data. I could get unlimited data on TMobile but that would bump my price over $200 a month. So in the Bay Area which seems to have the better network? I know both companies are pushing hard their LTE deployment. Which is great. But which say has a better 3G network etc if LTE was around yet? I do like how Sprint doesn't put their LOGO on the phones, the HTC one and S4 that is. But I also like how TMobile is not a contract plan, but rather a month to month thing now. Which one to get that is the question, Then their is the phones, I know the camera on the S4 is better than the Htc one. But I've heard the sound on the HTC one is much better than the S4.

Thanks

 

[Anonemous]

If you are in the SF area, Sprint is currently not as good as Tmobile in terms of Data speeds. HSPA+ is much faster (10-50Mbps) than Sprint's 3G and LTE from Sprint is slowly being built (due to red tape from the community possibly since they are rebuilding all their cell sites to include 4G LTE which will be slated to finish mid 2014).

Southbay area, like PA, SJ, SC I get pretty good LTE (5-15Mbps/5-10Mbps with 30-50ms ping) and 3G (.5-2Mbps, 50-120 ping) from Sprint.

You can check out Sensorly.com if you want a general sense of the data coverage each of the carriers have.

If you can wait around for Sprint (6 months to 1 year), it's going to be very exciting for them since they will have 3 frequencies for their LTE (800/1900/2500) which will boost their speed and coverage. Softbank just about finished their deal with Sprint/Clearwire and will be infusing $$$ into their network to make them competitive vs. Verizon/AT&T.

 

[zod96]

I'm actually in Newark/Fremont area....

 

[Anonemous]

I'm actually in Newark/Fremont area....

*Note that these maps are user generated and are not representative of the carrier's entire coverage, it does give you a good picture of what users are experiencing in that area.

Sprint 4G coverage

Tmo 4G coverage

Sprint 3G Coverage

Tmo 3G Coverage (this 'could' include HSPA+)

 

[mikegg]

DO NOT GET SPRINT. I have an iPhone 5 with Sprint and it's been a pain since day 1. I used to get perfect signal with AT&T anywhere in the Bay Area whether I'm inside or outside. Now I don't even get a good signal at home and have to use Sprint's airwave. It's buggy as hell. Sometimes I don't receive my calls or texts which have contributed to to a damaged relationship with my girlfriend. When I had phone interviews, my calls dropped several times. Luckily I still received the job.

The speeds are a joke too. 4G is very inconsistent and most of the time, you're not going to get any faster than 3mbps on LTE. 3G speed is about as fast as dial up most of the time. I'm not exaggerating. My old AT&T 3G speeds were at least 1mbps most of the time. I'm lucky to have a working connection with Sprint 3G.

 

[Sheep]

I'm a Sprint user and I can attest to what senttoschool noted about Sprint's data speeds being complete and utter shit pretty much everywhere I go (urban and suburban areas probably 90% of the time). Until recently getting 4g, I barely had a 3g signal in my office with speeds of 25 to 100kbps TOPS (that is not a typo). Even with 4g in the office and at home now, I average 2mbps on a good day now with completely horrible building penetration (one side of my small condo has 4g, the other doesn't).

I'm only with them because all the other alternatives suck, only in different ways (AT&T are the biggest douches in telecom that I refuse to do business with, Verizon's ridiculously locked down and only slightly less douchey than AT&T, T-Mobile's coverage is spotty and subpar from what I've seen from my friends who are T-Mo subscribers). Not entirely sure what I'm going to do when my contract expires next April.

 

[mikegg]

I'm a Sprint user and I can attest to what senttoschool noted about Sprint's data speeds being complete and utter shit pretty much everywhere I go (urban and suburban areas probably 90% of the time). Until recently getting 4g, I barely had a 3g signal in my office with speeds of 25 to 100kbps TOPS (that is not a typo). Even with 4g in the office and at home now, I average 2mbps on a good day now with completely horrible building penetration (one side of my small condo has 4g, the other doesn't).

I'm only with them because all the other alternatives suck, only in different ways (AT&T are the biggest douches in telecom that I refuse to do business with, Verizon's ridiculously locked down and only slightly less douchey than AT&T, T-Mobile's coverage is spotty and subpar from what I've seen from my friends who are T-Mo subscribers). Not entirely sure what I'm going to do when my contract expires next April.

I'm switching back to AT&T after my contract. I don't care how much AT&T costs or how douchebaggy they are. It's not worth the damaged relationships and the missed calls and the crap speeds everywhere.