Is It True That T-Mobile Sucks?

[michaeloreilley]

Hi, I need some help since I want to change from AT&T to T-Mobile but I read here http://mymodenetwork.blogspot.com/2009/04/tmobile-worst-phone-plan-review.html (http://mymodenetwork.blogspot.com/2009/04/tmobile-worst-phone-plan-review.html) that T-Mobile sucks both in reception and customer service. Is this TRUE?

Thanks a lot.

[tzsm98]

Mike, What I've found is this, if you make calls, send messages and pay your bill you'll find T-Mobile provides more than adequate service. If your equipment starts to act up, you have a question that requires in-depth knowledge or you are more comfortable with e-mail than using 611 to resolve issues you are going to find T-Mobile's customer service weaknesses.

Aside from:

UMA issues with my Nokia devices that took months to straighten out and needed a firmware update to totally resolve and
A reluctance to be nailed down on not putting 3G in Oklahoma City this year
T-Mobile's customer service has always been very friendly and usually helpful.

Their network has provided good coverage for me, their roaming agreements are extensive. I've been with them for over two years and haven't paid a dime in roaming fees. My wife has been with them for over five years and cannot recall the last time we saw a roaming fee on a bill.

T-Zones is $5.99 a month and provides some Internet access. There are messaging bundles, T-Mobile to T-Mobile packages, UMA packages, MyFaves, all sorts of ways to control your per minute issues by getting large chunks of talk time off the meter and into a controlled single payment environment.

I've not read the review you linked to. My experience tells me that, even when sorely provoked back in February by their inability to tell me if 3G was coming to my city this year, other carriers could not offer a plan good enough to draw me away. AT&T had the best chance because I already had GSM devices and they couldn't do it. The CDMA carriers really had an uphill battle because I was used to my Nokia N78 and none of them was willing to cough up a suitable replacement for next to nothing.

Grab a pay as you go for a little while and check out the network. The phones are not all that expensive and if you stick with T-Mobile you have a backup device if your main phone takes a swan dive into a puddle in a rain storm.

Good luck!

[tzsm98]

I took the time to read the review. You can safely discount it. It is a meta-review. That is, it is a review of reviews written by someone who doesn't understand the structure of how pre-pay works well enough to avoid simple errors.

Here are two examples:
1- "When calls come in, they have all the details about the plan used by the caller and from there they cunningly asked few questions to lure the caller to what they actually wanted to tell which is to add more services."As anyone who has prayed for some add-ons to their pre-pay T-Mobile accounts knows - they do not exist. You get messaging and voice. Thank you very much, have a good day!

2- "... If you are not that lucky, you might just end up whining about the service and have to be patient using the crappy plan till the contract ends."
How can they string you along to the end of the contract when there is no contract?

These two examples indicate the rest of the review can not be relied upon. Now I wish I had taken time to read it before my previous answer to your post!

I have AT&T and T-Mobile pre-pay accounts. I find the T-Mobile pre-pay account best for phone calls and the AT&T pre-pay account best for messaging and Internet access. I rarely dial a number other than 611 on the AT&T account. I used to swap SIM cards but now have settled on using my N78-3 with the AT&T account and my Nokia 5610d2-b with the T-Mobile pre-pay.

I hope that this has helped you in your decision. I'm sorry you had to read through that disorganized, rambling bit of bloggership that led to your initial question.

[jaghorse]

Be afraid, be very afraid. I signed up for this service in July, 2008. It appeared to work alright w/ some outages until January, 2009 when it was down for minutes, hours, days. When the problem occurs it requires you to reset your router each and every time. It was so bad I had to set up a surge protector under my desk, so I could simply use my foot to turn the router on and off, on and off, on and off…. When I called to complain, t-mobile told me they were not aware of this problem, well to be frank they are liars. There are postings all over the place, including their own forum on how unreliable this service really is.
They sent me a new router, knowing full well this wouldn’t solve the problem - the problem was I believed them. Why wouldn’t I, I had VOIP for years from other providers with no real problems. Well - same problems. You are on the phone and all of sudden the person on the other end cannot hear you - reset the router. You call them back or they call you and it drops again - reset the router. You do it a few more times - same thing. Like I said it may be minutes but more likely hours and in the end days at a time. It also takes your internet service with it. Linksys forum also has many postings, look up “no blue light”.
So I call again - told my case was closed - really, no one called to see if it was working. Told you have to start at the lower level customer service all over again. Email CEO, get call from executive response team. Now they are angry, combative, abusive and threatening - yes, threatening to “investigate” my phone calls or how I use my phone - I told them - have at it. Their executive response person Beckett spoke over me continually - actually yelling at me. I told her I did not want any more contact with her - find someone else. Oh - did I mention she thought it was funny I had this kind of phone service. Even though the phone continually disconnected while I was speaking with her - she tried to claim it wasn’t their problem and they still expected me to pay the bill. Anyway, Beckett had the audacity to keep calling me and I told her emphatically not to call. She said she would continue to call - oh, really - had to inform her this was harassment in writing. Then someone else called but the call kept dropping and they didn’t call back.
Senior tech Kevin calls and told me he had the same issue, but it wasn’t as bad these days - not as bad - are you kidding me! He was supposed to come to me and bring a new router - well he never showed up. Then a letter from t-mobile they are terminating my service and keeping my activation fees, the money for phones and equipment, but we still want you to pay the balance on your bill or we won’t release your number. Keep in mind I paid all along, believing they were honestly attempting to fix the problem - because they said so - like I said - LIARS. In April when the service became unbearable, leaving me without my internet service - I told them I would pay when they fixed the problem - therefore I was disputing my bill. American consumers have to stop being doormats - we have let this happen. Not me - not anymore. I reported them to the FCC, BBB, AG and small claims. An important fact is that you cannot call 911 should you need to when you have no service or it disconnects every minute. Well at least that would get the cops here, since they would figure we were making prank calls to 911. Totally disgraceful company.