So I’m leaving the hospital after checking on a family member, and I’m trying to call my wife at home to give her an update on what’s going on.
At first I can’t get through at all. I try redialing three times. No dice. I thought there was something wrong with my iPhone 14 Pro Max at first. Then I finally get through to my wife, but she says I’m going in and out as I’m talking. Then I get a Call Failed message seconds later.
I call back once more and quickly say we’ll just talk when I get home. I didn’t want to get cut off again.
Welcome to T-Mobile, where you’ll likely pay less, but you’ll really make up the difference in frustration. I recently switched from Verizon to T-Mobile and so far it’s been a very frustrating experience.
Not so hotspot
To be fair, I’m just reporting about usage in a couple of states in specific locations, but one of them is one of the most crowded and densely populated corridors in the Northeast U.S.
Three days a week. I get on the bus, open my laptop and connect to my iPhone to use as a hotspot. This starts in Freehold, NJ, and goes all the way up to Manhattan. It’s about a 1.5-hour commute, and I travel through several towns on Route 9, then the Garden State Parkway followed by the New Jersey Turnpike.
Yes, it’s a long haul in both directions, but the time goes fast normally because I’m generally connected the whole way on Verizon. Not so with T-Mobile. During my morning commute one day this week, I got disconnected a few times and several other times, the connection was just too slow to load web pages fast enough.
At one point, I couldn’t even send and receive messages in Slack. This does not take much bandwidth. A few times, I took my iPhone out of my pocket just to see the signal strength, and it either showed one bar or that my phone was switching between 5G and 4G LTE.
I can count on one hand how many times I’ve experienced failed calls over the last few years on Verizon. I had more of them on one day on T-Mobile.
Granted, Verizon wasn’t perfect during my time with the network. There were times when I had a slow connection for a few seconds while passing through a dead zone, but it always bounced back to normal quickly. More significantly, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve experienced failed calls over the last few years on Verizon. I had more of them on one day on T-Mobile.
I also experienced situations where my iPhone simply won’t make calls while on the road home from the hospital. I kept trying to call my son only for the call not to connect. So I waited a couple of minutes, and then it went through. Not exactly a confidence boost.
On the plus side, T-Mobile’s network was pretty reliable to and from Virginia Beach. I had my iPhone connected to CarPlay and used it with Waze for navigation, and I didn’t experience many hiccups. I stopped for gas halfway through and it took a little bit for Waze to reconnect.
I also listened to a bunch of episodes of SmartLess on Spotify during my drive and those played without a hitch. Only a couple times while listening to music was my iPhone a bit slow to skip to the next track on T-Mobile. Not terrible.
Bottom line
Overall, I’ve not been satisfied with T-Mobile’s network based on my experience so far. It has simply not been reliable enough for calls. Even while writing this story and talking to my wife on the way home, she cut out every few sentences or so, and I kept having to ask her to repeat herself. That's not sustainable.
Usually after landing at Newark I can connect to Verizon's network within 30 seconds. It took several minutes to get a signal on T-Mobile under similar circumstances.
And while I can get work done on this T-Mobile 5G connection, it’s simply not as consistent as what I’ve experienced on Verizon on the same route.
Even on the way home from my recent trip from Apple's WWDC event I noticed a very stark difference between T-Mobile and Verizon. Usually after landing at Newark I can connect to Verizon's network within 30 seconds. It took several minutes to get a signal on T-Mobile under similar circumstances.
The bottom line is that I’m willing to give T-Mobile a bit more time before I switch back. But I may be heading back to Verizon.
Tell us what you think: Have you switched from Verizon to T-Mobile or do you use T-Mobile and want to share your experience? Please leave your feedback in the comments.
