I've had it with Verizon Wireless - has anyone w/iphone 6 switched from Verizon to another provider they would recommend?

We are in West Orange. Will skip the reasons I have come to completely loathe Verizon Wireless. Two new iphone 6's are on the Edge payment plan, so I owe a bundle to leave Verizon.

It seems that TMobile, for one, would credit me that expense if I turn in my Verizon iphones, so perhaps this won't be such a financially stupid move. Now I'm wondering which carrier to switch to.

A friend with Sprint says her signal strength is always fine when in my house, so I may look into that, too.

Rather than spend a few hours trying to figure out which company would work, at least "on paper", I thought it would be helpful to hear from others in the area regarding their own experience with an iphone 6.

We primarily need excellent signal in the West Orange/Montclair area, but really everywhere in NJ that sports teams travel. We also are sometimes in NYC and would want great signal there as well.

When traveling, we'd be be pretty happy relying on wifi apps to communicate.

My goal is to be emotionally neutral about our future wireless phone service provider. That is the opposite of my feelings for Verizon after over a decade of dealing with them.

Thanks for any help!

As far as coverage is concerned, T-Mobile and AT&T have gotten very good in recent years, so I would expect you will be satisfied with either of them. I don't know if Sprint is catching up, but I wouldn't trust them. I really like T-Mobile as a company, and their customer service was really good when we had them. The coverage wasn't great, but we lived with it. For other reasons, we switched to AT&T, and been surprised beyond expectations, with both coverage and customer service. As far as I know, T-Mobile is still the only cellular carrier that lets you make and receive calls over wifi, so if that's important, there's your answer. AT&T's rates are better than Verizon's, and they may still seem high if you shop for lowest rates, but I tried those little alternative companies (known in the industry as MVNOs), and they ended up being a poor value. Customer service was only available 9-5 Monday through Friday.

Appreciate you sharing your experience, Tom!

I have ATT with an iPhone and it's terrible in Maplewood and in NYC. I wish I had my verizon back.

Sprint service is spotty and random.

ArchBroad said:
I have ATT with an iPhone and it's terrible in Maplewood and in NYC. I wish I had my verizon back.

Interesting that your perspective is so different. What problems happen for you?

I switched from Verizon to T-Mobile in November of last year.

Thought I would save a bunch of money. And it's 2015, so everyone's got good coverage, right?

My notes:

* I saved about $20 on a $240 bill (3 smartphones + 1 flip phone) when including the payments for the phones. I think my savings will go up a little when I add a 5th phone, as this will be +$10 on T Mobile and would have been +$30 on VZ.

* It was nice when I was in Europe (Dublin and Amsterdam) that my data and wifi calling just worked, with no drama or extra charges

* the T-Mobile service is markedly worse than when I was on Verizon. Dead zones such as when pulling into and walking out of Penn are much longer than with VZ, also when I was in Vermont (Okemo) and Colorado over the winter I barely ever got a signal, as opposed to the prior year on VZ when my phone worked great.

I will be switching back as soon as I have paid down my phones enough to where the Verizon switching bonus will cover my outstanding payments.

T-Mobile's coverage map is similar to the map of the Interstate highway system. That's OK for some of us, but it doesn't work well -- or at all -- in many rural areas.

We have T-Mobile. We were in Woodstock/saugerties and other areas upstate and had absolutely zero coverage. I'm considering switching.

Tom_Reingold said:

As far as coverage is concerned, T-Mobile and AT&T have gotten very good in recent years, so I would expect you will be satisfied with either of them.

I think that really depends. I travel a lot for work and a hobby. What I've seen is that rural areas are frequently poorly served by ATT and T-Mobile. This includes western Virginia (Roanoke area), southern tier of NY, central PA, and the Texas panhandle to name a few. It was so bad that many of my ATT and TMobile companions were using my phone (Verizon) to call home every night.

Locally, I still have this vision of my neighbor standing out on his picnic table with one leg up on the deck railing to get a decent ATT signal right here in Maplewood.

So, I guess the first thing is to figure out where you will be using your phone most often and get some feedback on how that coverage is. For me, reliable service in remote locations was critical, and Verizon won that competition hands-down.

When we first moved out here in 2002 with T-mobile I couldn't make a cell call from inside my house. Have long since switched to Verizon and will probably stick with them even though their customer service is too often a bad joke.

Given some of the places I've traveled for baseball in NJ, there's no chance I'd use TMobile, Sprint or ATT.

It's interesting to see so many bad reports of AT&T. My experience with their coverage has been imperfect but still excellent. In fact, the impetus for us to switch from T-Mobile to AT&T and not to Verizon was that one daughter was attending college in Olympia, WA, and AT&T was the only reliable carrier there. Verizon would have been a loss.

All of these companies have coverage maps on their web sites. Of course, they are sometimes optimistic, but they are a starting point.

My ATT service has always been very good in Maplewood or anywhere, but I feel like we spend a fortune. Was considering other plans to save $, but sounds like maybe I shouldn't mess with something that works...

Tom_Reingold said:

All of these companies have coverage maps on their web sites. Of course, they are sometimes optimistic, but they are a starting point.

I like this one for comparisons. It gets more granular if you navigate into less populated areas and/or zoom in.

http://opensignal.com

To me it looks like Sprint is worst. T-Mobile and ATT are similar but different with a slight edge to ATT overall. And Verizon is in a class by itself. All Subject to local conditions, of course.

The problem for those of us on ATT or T-Mobile switching to Verizon is the need for new phones, even though mine is unlocked. Really adds to the expense if one wants to be off-contract.

Wow, that's a great site. I could play with it for hours.

I'm no longer in the telecomm industry. When I left, Verizon was heading towards compatibility, with their so-called LTE (long term evolution). Have they not reached it yet?

I was always happy with AT&T in NJ for phone and data, but when I moved to San Antonio my data access was non-existent in the poor part of town where I live. (It was fine in the not-poor areas.) I couldn't use maps, couldn't read MOL (!), nada. I called AT&T, who assured me that they offer the same outstanding level of service in every corner of their service area, and it must be the fault of my phone.

After a few months, I got a new phone and switched to Verizon. My data access is now fine, but my phone reception is quite a bit worse. I can hear fine, but nobody can understand me. I have to shout, and repeat, and repeat again. Grumble. Just can't win. But I'm still happy. I need the data (especially maps) more than I need voice.

I've had ATT for a really long time. I remember having spotty service in a bunch of areas around here. I also remember being really frustrated by the poor service. But they added a number of cell sites and upgraded their systems and you know I haven't had a dropped call in a very long time. I think the phones are much better now too. I've also found ATT customer service to be very available and very willing to solve a problem. I don't get that from Verizon, ever. I've been offered land line service from ATT as well but I haven't made that switch, yet.

switched from Verizon $120 monthly to Sprint $50 unlimited data text and phone no problems with iPhone 6 +