Submitted by arborgent t3_xvn5ft in massachusetts
Was thinking of switching from verizon to mint mobile (which uses the T-Mobile network) to save some major money. Was hoping to hear what people think of that network's coverage. I live in the Leominster area specifically.
I don't use much data wise, maybe download a podcast here and there on the go. Mostly just txting and calls. For reference I currently have an 8gb/month plan with verizon and I never get close to using all of it.
I had Sprint which is now TMobile… it’s fine. Fast Internet speeds no issues within 495. Less expensive than Verizon and I know you said data isn’t an issue for you it was for me with both AT&T and Verizon where they would throttle my speeds after 5gb per month. sprint/TMobile doesn’t do that which is important in my usage scenario.
It fucking blows whenever I actually need it. No service at home or at work.
I was on Sprint like years ago and it was the same. I would be inside and there would be no cell service at all.
Don't listen to us. Check for yourself. Invest in a Mint eSim and perform comparisons... Drive around with the Mint eSim active and see how it works where you live, work, visit, etc. If you need something and it's not working for you to toggle to your existing Verizon line.
A colleague recently did this in VT. He received conflicting stories on who he should use so he spent a few bucks on a few GB of eSIMs and figured what worked best for him. He's now going to formally port his number to the winning carrier.
Excellent idea
This. T-Mobile will give you a free trial too if you’ve got a modern phone - 3 months to test out their network alongside your existing carrier, with no contracts or whatever required.
Verizon doesn’t offer a free trial directly, but Visible (a prepaid brand of Verizon’s) does.
AT&T doesn’t offer one either, but you can get a cheap SIM for a month from someone like Boost (make sure to use my.boostmobile.com and not www.boostmobile.com or you will get T-Mobile) or H2O.
Given how much these providers ask for every month, it’s worth spending a little time to make sure you’re getting good value for your money, IMO.
Works well, Been a subscriber for 20+ years.
I’m been using mint for 4 years and it’s great. North/south shores, NH, Framingham, NY, NJ. Their 5G is pretty fast in some area. Some place in my town has 600mbps download. U can buy a month or 3 prepaid to try it out. Their price is awesome.
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It varies on how much data you want and how many months you pay in advance. I have 10g of data a month and I pay for a full year. It costs me $240 for the year.
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I have Google Fi works like a charm!
Came here to say this. T-Mobile/Sprint/US Cellular combo for Google Fi is great. Mostly T-Mobile in cities and US Cellular up in NH/VT. Also the pay as you go is pretty cheap too.
Thanks to your recommendation I just signed up for a month of Google Fi @$20 to try it.
Totally dependent on the area you live in
I live in north central Worcester country and I get great LTE in my town and 5G at work. I don't travel a lot around but when i do I've always had great cell service.
Been with them since the day of the Marathon bombings. Fuck those guys.
Never had a problem w/T-Mobile. I have 6 lines and a family who has not complained.
Generally good in urban areas, can be hit or miss in more rural spots. My wife used to be on AT&T and sometimes she had better service. The frequency bands that TMo uses also don’t penetrate buildings as well, so inside a huge office building or when underground you might have weaker service and slower data speeds. Worth testing out in places you go to frequently before you make the jump.
Modernish phones should support wifi calling on their network. At least with actual T-Mobile plans, not sure about Mint. That helps at home or at work.
I used to love T-Mobile and always talk about how awesome they were for a phone company.
Their customer service is still great but they are trash as a service ever since they bought sprint. I couldn’t access the app on my phone to pay my bill for the entire pandemic. I kid you not. Every month I had to call my payment in until I went on auto.
I finally switched to att and I gotta say I’m pretty pleased. The bill is always the same every month and the service is great. It’s a shame I really really liked T-Mobile
Depends where you are. There is a pretty sizable dead zone for me that I have to drive though to get anywhere - not really a big issue since I know where I’m going. My partner is on Verizon and sometimes when they have service I don’t and vice versa. I have service in big parks, they don’t, etc
It's worked fine for me in the two areas I've lived (Boston and the North Shore). It works much better on the Cape than my old carrier did too.
Works everywhere perfectly honestly. From cape (minus sandwich) to Boston I'm covered.
Despite what Rich Shertenlieb is paid to tell you, T-mobile can have pretty bad service... outside of major metropolitan areas. So you might be alright depending upon where you are in the state, it can just be tough out west or further up north in New England.
Sprint sucked but it’s been so much better now. I only stayed w them because international coverage is a priority for me, but now my phone seems to be better than my fiancé’s verizon!
Have had T-Mobile for a decade now. The only dead spots I've ever had to deal with have gone away with the 5G rollout.
T-Mo's 5G network using a much lower frequency band than Verizon and AT&T allowing for much larger coverage areas from the same towers.
I live in Ashburnham and have had T-mobile for about 6 years. The coverage at my home is passable but not great here but in Fitchburg/Leominster down towards Worcester and along route 2 and 495 is good.
I don't know about Mint, but, I have used T-Mobile for over a decade and it does well enough in eastern Mass. I do run into trouble in more rural areas though.
Tmobile had some coverage issues in rural areas and sometimes cutout on highways, but what they did was instead of expanding their 4G towers, they put 5G towers to complement their existing 4G network so if you get a 5G phone, the coverage is absolutely amazing.
Omg I have such bad coverage here in western mass
To offer alternatives….
If you’re looking at going down the budget prepaid route and Verizon has been working well for you, I’d really recommend trying Visible. $30 a month for the base plan with unlimited talk, text and data. They recently added spam call blocking and it seems to work alright.
You could also go with AT&T prepaid. They have an “annual” plan where you pay for the entire year up front and it equates to $25 a month or $300 a year. That’s for unlimited talk and text with 8 gigs of data. Bonus is having access to their spam call and text blocking if that’s an issue for you. AT&T’s spam blocking works better than Visible in my experience.
From 2016 to 2018, I had T-Mobile cell service while living in Boxborough, MA using an iPhone 6S. Whenever I traveled into Harvard, I lost service. There were several areas in central MA where I got no service.
I don’t live in that area anymore, but since 2021 when I finally got a 5G-capable phone (iPhone 12), I’ve always gotten a signal along and inside 495. If you have a 5G-capable phone you should be good to go.
It is not as good as AT&T or Verizon, but for $16/mo with 3GB of data it's hard to beat. Also, they really don't care much about what phone you use, as long as it supports VoLTE, which is what motivated me to switch off AT&T after decades.
I've not had problems with service in Leominster. What I'd suggest is getting a pre-paid SIM and just driving around to your most important locations to check service. That's what I did before switching.
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You really need to ask town-specifically. Everyone has different dead zones.
Thisbymaster t1_ir1vf14 wrote
It works everyplace I need it to. I use their prepaid plans for a family of 4. Which is 10 GB and $100 a month.