Cellular service provider change - regrets?

[David_Stack]

Good Morning all;

Reaching the point where my dissatisfaction with Verizon as my service provider has me seriously considering moving to AT&T.

Has anyone made this change, and what has been your experience if so?

When I travel to my in-laws in rural Ohio (no cable internet service providers) I am reliant on a Verizon MiFi cellular data hotspot and use of my iPhone serving as a hotspot for connectivity of my two work laptops plus my wife’s tablet. Despite having an unlimited data plan on the phone and 30Gb on the MiFi hotspot, it is minutes for pages to render, Outlook mailboxes not delivering mail, garbled MS Teams meetings, etc; likely the result of bandwidth constraints and poor coverage.

As mentioned, considered a change to AT&T, so hoping to hear from folks who’ve done similar. Was it a decision you came to regret; the grass wasn’t greener after all?

Thanks in advance

 

[KC3KNM]

I had AT&T try to charge me for a phone I brought with me when I switched after my contract was over. They sent me to collections and I had to spend a ton of time proving I purchased the phone before transferring it. It was a nightmare and jacked up my credit for a bit.

It was a few years ago, and maybe I was just unlucky, but the experience and how they handled it has ensured I'll never use AT&T again.

 

[Antares JS]

I don't think switching providers is going to help you, based on my experience getting internet in a rural area.

Unlimited data plans are only technically unlimited - they won't charge you extra no matter how much data you use, but they will throttle your speed after you use a certain amount of data in a billing cycle, usually 20-25 GB. If you need to use internet out in a place with no cable service, your best bet is a third-party data reseller like Bix Wireless or SimNet. They will send you a sim card for your hotspot that will get you several hundred GB of data a month at decent speed. That setup, combined with a cell signal booster, is how we get internet at our house.

 

[rharshberger]

Same here with AT&T, they sent us to collections for a "breach of contract" and penalty. We changed to Verizon literally 2 days before the end of our AT&T contract, we had already paid the last bill, so AT&T had gotten all the money they would have made from the contract. A few weeks ago we got a settlement from a class action lawsuit against AT&T. Pick your poison, ATT and Verizon have the two largest/best equipped NATIONWIDE networks, their competitors may beat them in regional areas or urban areas but the big two, have generally the best coverage nationwide.

 

[rfjustin]

If rural coverage is a concern for you, stick with Verizon.

I bailed on Verizon for T-Mobile, which has been solid, but my usage is heavy city/suburban, little to no rural.

 

[cerving]

I've had Verizon since 1996 (it was Airtouch Cellular back then), due to coverage. My old job had me traveling to rural areas (yes, there are some in CA...), the employees that had company-provided AT&T phones couldn't use them. It's better than it used to be, but Verizon is still the best. And they are the most expensive... but you get what you pay for.

 

[neil_w]

Check coverage maps; there are many available online. It really is dependent on where you are, at least as far as coverage goes.

I'm on Verizon right now, if I switched it would probably only be to T-Mobile. Not interested in giving AT&T any of my business, knowing what I know of them.

 

[NateB]

I made the change to AT&T from Verizon a few year ago, for a little over a year.

At first, it was great. I was saving a little money and the service was fine. Then, things started to change. I started to get dropped calls and low/no service bars inside my house. The phone started overheating to the point the battery on the back of the phone would be too hot to touch and the phone would turn itself off.

Customer service replaced the phones, both of them on our account . The problem persisted and got worse. This is when things got really bad. I went into an AT&T store a few miles from my house and didn't have AT&T service in there. They told me the phone was overheating because it wasn't picking up a strong signal and was going into high power mode. As we tried to work through this, different people in the company came up with different stories about local towers being permanently shut down, towers being down for maintenance, still further problems with my phone (that they already replaced and looked over for repairs), and nothing wrong at all.

I ended up canceling the contract because I didn't even have service at home or in my local area which was on the advertisements as a service area and had service when I signed the contract. That was a complete nightmare where I had to battle collections threats with the help of the BBB and some government offices.

I am back on Verizon now. I have some decent discounts for being a first responder and my service is fast and consistent in the places I typically go for work and recreation.

 

[dhbarr]

I came back to Verizon twice now for the rural coverage. It's still terrible, but it's the least terrible.

 

[jd2cylman]

I have a personal Verizon cell phone and had a AT&T work cell phone. When I was on the road in rural areas, I had to use my personal phone to call back into the shop on more than one occasion. YMMV.

 

[tHoagland]

I travel a fair bit and while generally speaking Verizon is by far the best for rural areas, I've found a few places where AT&T has better coverage. Anytime I know I'm going to one of those locations, I go get an AT&T prepaid Sim card with a month's worth of data on it and put it in an old phone. Depending upon what I doing and how long I'm there, I'll set the phone up as a hotspot and enable wifi calling on my main (Verizon) phone so that people can still reach me at my normal number. If, I was going to do this for a while or need a lot of data, this might get pretty expensive but as a rule, I've found it's a pretty simple and cost effective solution. I do the same thing when traveling internationally.

 

[cls]

I canned Verizon for T-Mobile a couple years ago. Monthly cost went down by half! Same crummy coverage in SF Bay Area. T-Mobile has an edge at Black Rock. Verizon used to work the best out there and other remote places, but lately they are the absolute worst. GFs iphone works fine out there, so score one for at&t.

All the telecoms are corrupt monopolists and there will be a complete overhaul when I become Emperor of the Galaxy.

 

[David_Stack]

Just a quick update to express my thanks for the comments / experiences shared.

With some judicious research I discovered that the phone service provider here had available capacity on their switch, and the tech was on-site this morning to extend DSL internet to this residence via copper pairs (though as the tech commented, 'you are really pushing it, it's about a 2 mile run...', and he had to pull copper for part of the path).

Performance is markedly improved from what we were dealing with, so while I am absolutely pulling the plug on my Verizon MiFi cellular hotspot, I may just keep the phones on Verizon for the present (they are less of an issue back home in Williamsburg).

If the day ever comes that we are residing at the Ohio address permanently, may end up migrating to AT&T, as the local telco tech said that their coverage/service at this address is far better than what Verizon is providing.