Been with Verizon for years but AT&T is offering me a better deal. Was curious what you are using and if you have ever had any issues dealing with AT&T. Thanks in advance.

TexasAggie_97 said:

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Been with Verizon for years but AT&T is offering me a better deal. Was curious what you are using and if you have ever had any issues dealing with AT&T. Thanks in advance.

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I had AT&T for years (was actually with Cingular prior to AT&T purchasing them). I never had any issues. Although back in the day, Verizon had better coverage in the rural areas of the state. That was 15 years ago, so I don't know about now.

Where are you

I was with verizon for a couple years and went to AT&T for a deal they offered. I work off my phone, especially on VOIP through UCaaS applications, and have not noticed a difference between the two in Houston.

I'm usually inside the beltway.

I don't have very many problems with AT&T. I noticed it does struggle in congested areas and 5G isn't what it seems to be sometimes. But the issues aren't debilitating. I live in Galveston so when the cruise people come, you notice a dip, but I have Xfinity Home Internet so I just connect to any Xfinity Wifi Hotspot.

The reason why I have AT&T goes back to the Cingular days. T-Mobile wouldn't work in rural East Texas but AT&T did. Also Texas is the home state of AT&T. Verizon works well in other rural areas but it's just too damn expensive.

I have thought about switching back to T-Mobile because they've been probably making the most investment in their network since they bought Sprint's spectrum. AT&T pissed away all of their money into Game of Thrones & DirecTV and had to sell all of that when they could've focused on their core product of making the service better.

This is a huge generalization, which means there will be exceptions, but, IMO, both AT&T and Verizon are severely overrated and not sure why people pay their exorbitant prices....

We switched to a "discount" provider 2+ years ago. Haven't noticed any drop-off in coverage and our bill is about 1/3 what it was.

Depends what you are doing on it. If simply looking for basic cellular coverage, I would agree, but there is more to it for some of us.

Lathspell said:

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Depends what you are doing on it. If simply looking for basic cellular coverage, I would agree, but there is more to it for some of us.

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Why I said there are exceptions. There definitely are exceptions, but "basic cellular coverage" would probably cover the vast majority of people's actual needs.

Best advice I can give is find any neighbors close to you that have AT&T and get their opinion on the quality of service. I have people tell me how any of the big 3 are great or suck up here in the DFW area and it's all about where you need primary coverage at (home and/or work). But there are dead zones in every major city for all of the big 3 providers, figuring out if they impact you or not is probably the #1 thing you can do.

Just posting this since we found out after moving to our neighborhood in the northern Dallas burbs 5 years, it is a weird dead zone for Verizon and T-Mobile (and I'm talking barely LTE for either of them dead zone). But our old house 15 miles away had perfect Verizon coverage and AT&T sucked.

Just switched from AT&T to Mint. The last straw was constant rate increases for the last three months. This after they were hacked and gave a $10 credit.

I was only on AT&T from the Cingular purchase, even had a corporate discount with AT&T and I will still be saving money with Mint

AtlAg05 said:

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Just switched from AT&T to Mint. The last straw was constant rate increases for the last three months. This after they were hacked and gave a $10 credit.

I was only on AT&T from the Cingular purchase, even had a corporate discount with AT&T and I will still be saving money with Mint

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Were you under contract when they increased your rates? If so, what were the increases for?

I have a unique set up with AT&T, so I can't beat the price. The service itself is terrible around DFW and getting worse. I used to have one dead spot on my 45 min drive home, and now I have at least 5. If I had to switch, I'd look at one of those carriers that can switch between the big networks

ramblin_ag02 said:

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I have a unique set up with AT&T, so I can't beat the price. The service itself is terrible around DFW and getting worse. I used to have one dead spot on my 45 min drive home, and now I have at least 5. If I had to switch, I'd look at one of those carriers that can switch between the big networks

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Interesting, it has been a significant improvement over Verizon for me in DFW

I also find since AT&T is typically the choice of most corporations, it works better in particular offices. My prior employer a location that was a faraday cage for Verizon. But AT&T worked perfectly because they had extenders in the building.

I do a lot of driving on the outskirts and rural areas around DFW with less time in the middle of the Metroplex, so that might explain the difference

Makes sense

Thanks for all the feedback Ags. I spoke with Verizon's retention department, and they actually upgraded my phones and plan and I will be paying less than I was with them and it will be less than what I was going to be paying with AT&T so I decided to stay with Verizon.

Had AT&T for years and never had dead spots for the last 10 years we had them anywhere in DFW. And then driving from DFW 6-7 hours to the coast through rural backroads never had any issues. A bit baffled how anyone has dead spots with major carriers in urban areas still.

Regardless, we fired them to dramatically cut our phone costs and now use Mint. Mint has some coverage issues on a few stretches of road in rural central Texas but other than that it's good for coverage.

FYI - Almost none of these discount carriers have their own network. They all run on AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile - or some combination of them.

MVNOs in US

When they get congested or a natural disaster hits, they will be restored after the main network.

I feel like everyone knows this…..and I hear a lot about how those users will get throttled in high demand, etc. But I've never experienced it.

Only time I ever have issues, everyone has issues. For example, football games, at the CWS, Beryl, etc.

Not once have I struggled with service due to demand and the people I was with had zero issues….heck I had better cell service of anyone in my hood after beryl despite being with a discount provider.

htxag09 said:

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I feel like everyone knows this…..and I hear a lot about how those users will get throttled in high demand, etc. But I've never experienced it.

Only time I ever have issues, everyone has issues. For example, football games, at the CWS, Beryl, etc.

Not once have I struggled with service due to demand and the people I was with had zero issues….heck I had better cell service of anyone in my hood after beryl despite being with a discount provider.

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I would be curious to see what the throttling numbers look like. I am sure they would never provide that, but I am wonder if its all FOMO marketing for the big 3 to have "priority" plans.

TexasAggie_97 said:

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AtlAg05 said:

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Just switched from AT&T to Mint. The last straw was constant rate increases for the last three months. This after they were hacked and gave a $10 credit.

I was only on AT&T from the Cingular purchase, even had a corporate discount with AT&T and I will still be saving money with Mint

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Were you under contract when they increased your rates? If so, what were the increases for?

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I'd have to find the bills but one increase was because we didn't want to give the bank account info for auto-billing. Especially with the recent hack

It's not great in Houston. For best coverage here, go with t-mobile.

I've had AT&T for 20 years in Houston and have better reception than my wife on Verizon.

There is a big hole on fry road between west road and Miramesa that's gotten worse after the two big storms this year. Between that and them randomly deciding that my plan no longer exists (even though it's on the website) so I don't qualify for any of the discounts I'm supposed to be receiving, I don't recommend AT&T unless no other choice. And yes I did get the discounts resolved, pretty sure my number is on the "do not answer" list after yelling at the supervisor, but I did get it resolved

ATT and VZ are both massively overpriced. Look at the MVNO options.

One thing that might help is to buy a microcell for your carrier and install it in your house.

I don't have direct experience with how well it works, but we have one at the office for AT&T since everyone but me has AT&T cell phones. I have a Trakfone so that is Verizon.

Besides giving better signal in your house, it should still work fine even if the cell towers are down.

How is a microcell in the house any better than using WiFi calling?