Which Mobile Carrier Has the Best Signal? - Comments Page 1

How does the weather app correct or ignore bad data due to someone just having pulled a phone out of a warm pocket or being inside a heated or cooled building or vehicle?

Last fall I drove the interstates from Vancouver BC to Phoeniix AZ roaming with my Canadian phone. In the cities it worked great but it was near useless in the countryside with dead spots for miles, yet I was driving past cell towers every few miles. Checked and it was auto connected to T-mobile. Changed to AT&T and got great coverage.

This reminds me of how pathetic most reviews of smartphones are. They usually waffle on about the camera & other features but rarely if ever, discuss the phones ability to receive a usable signal in a poorly covered area. My first iPhone (a 4) was useless in my own house so I changed to a 4s which was substantially better but not brilliant. I'm now on the SE version which is as good (but no better) than the 4s

I live in the boonies. Verizon works out here on the farm. The only way my son could get his AAT&T phone to work was to go near the highway. Apparently AT&T does very well on major highways and cities, but is useless everywhere else. That's probably what helped the Canadian in his travels. I wonder if cellphone companies will give you a loaner to try out their signal for a couple of days where you will most often need to use it?

This is so easy.

Leading national magazine reporting for and by millions of subscribers nationwide shows best carrier coverage is by Consumer Cellular) with 89 overall rating (VG: voice and text); T-Mobile gets only a 76 (Very Poor coverage for voice and text); and AT&T and Sprint eke out 70s with Very Poor voice and Poor text. The magazine show stats for 31 major metropolitan areas.

So which report do you want to believe?

I live in rural (and I mean rural) Arizona, about 40 miles from Prescott, which is itself considered a rural community. Since moving to the Prescott area, my family has either been with Verizon directly or used Straight-Talk, which relies upon Verizon towers. None of the other carriers show even one bar reception from our home, while Verizon shows full bar reception. Of course, on the way to Prescott, there are several "dead" zones where nobody, except maybe a satellite phone can be used. All-in-all, Verizon wins out here. And Ask Bob wins everywhere!!

I don't know. I think I am losing faith in you. This is the biggest bunch of bull crap I have read in a long time. I live in the sticks yet this app says both Verizon and ATT have a good signal there.Well,I have two phones. One is ATT and the other is Verizon. The Att phone at my house NO signal at all and the mighty Verizon has 1x. What a bunch of crap. And why would I have to install an app called wifi mapper to find wifi hot spots? My phone does that all by itself if I turn on wi/fi and the same goes for that weather signal app. You have had some pretty insipid articles lately.And a while back you advertised a back up drive called I-Drive. I bought on your recommendation , What a joke. How much did they pay you to write this?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Let's see... I think the check was for 600 million dollars. I love being insipid!

And in my long experience with AT&T I consistently get a better signal than friends with Verizon or Sprint (we travel a fair bit and the rest are pretty much useless outside the cities), with very few exceptions both in the City where we lived until 10 years ago and here in the wilds of Washington State. When we first moved here I looked at At&T's own coverage map which showed no coverage, but lo and behold we get better coverage than anyone with Verizon despite Open Signal's "definitive" map that shows just the opposite. We were also getting 3G when many cities weren't yet.
I think it's high time these phone companies stopped comparing themselves to each other and tried to match the signal strength in other countries. We get a better signal in a little dog and chicken village in Mexico than we get here. But I suppose that is a discussion for another time.

Open Signal "looks" like it works in rural areas. It will point to "nearby" towers whether they exist or not. Probably because app users reported some signal at some time in the past and poorly defined triangulation of signal strength pointed to an erroneous location.
I have no doubt it would be much more accurate in a urban/suburban situation. But for me it pinpointed towers out to sea or in other highly unlikely locations, and displayed information that was clearly out of date in all respects. Not a useful tool for truly fringe areas.

@John
Consumer Cellular is a reseller using AT&T and T-Mobile service. So not sure how you compare Consumer Seller to a primary provider.

I spend winters in a very small southern town and frequently we drive deep, deep into the woods. I can almost always get reception with my Verizon phone; the few times when I cannot get reception on my smart phone, I can use Onstar, which is through Verizon.

Hey Silberman!

It does not matter whether Consumer Cellular, as a reseller, uses one or 200 primary carriers. This is transparent to the user (you). You are paying them for total service and their use of variable primary carriers gives the edge to you because you get the best carrier regardless of where you are. You get an advantage - the best of all worlds. Got it?

I switched to Project Fi on my Nexus 6P based primarily on Bob's recommendation, despite some trepidation at leaving Verizon. So far it works fine in the suburbs of Charlotte. For my ventures into the woods I can connect to the wi-fi on my Silverado truck through Onstar. All good.

Re: Open Signal. I installed the app., then read the Terms info. which mentioned a fee for gaining access to the World Wide Web. I uninstalled the app. because, on the front page it stated, "Free." Do you know if the app. is free or not. I don't understand why they would state that I would be responsible for any fees, if the app is free. I would like to have the app., especially if it helps with securing a stronger mobile signal. Are there fees associated with this app.?

I had been a T-Mobile customer for about 7 years and about 3 months ago switched to AT&T. The voice coverage has been very comparable. Each has there own bad spots where AT&T may edge out T-Mobile a bit in the rural areas. However, the internet is night and day. T-Mobile's internet is far superior. There are a bunch of areas around me that AT&T does not have LTE, and even when it does it seems to be half the speed at best. This was not the case a few years back. T-Mobile has come a long way. I will be going back to T-Mobile soon.

This web site offers some insight on the signal strength in various areas

http://www.rootmetrics.com/en-US/home

I drive all over Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Northern Indiana and have no problem getting a Verizon signal anywhere except Southeastern Ohio in spots. Some carriers only provide good signal along highway routes and cities.

You're doing great work, and performing a great service, at no charge to the viewer. So, don't let a grump here and there, distract, though not wanting to take your part can be trying at times. Just keep on being focused ahead, and don't look back, because you're really not going that way. Keep up the good work. Let the drunks, misfits have their day, then breeze right on by. You're doing a great job. Remember: We all miss the ball once in a while.

Why is it that no one mentions boost mobile? I have had them for well over a decade now, their prices have the cheapest around for years, though there are some companies that are catching up, and they get signal everywhere the big names do and some places that they don't. I think they should get at least an honorable mention.

Carriers only give you "up to speeds", when what we need is minimum speed guarantees and network availability guarantees.