T-Mobile "Network Pass" 3 month free trial

[Redneck_Randy]

Done side to T-Mobile Internet, They don't offer email service.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Done side to T-Mobile Internet, They don't offer email service.

I don't believe any of them do anymore for new customers.

 

[comfortably_numb]

As part of the 3-month trial, you get access to T-Mobile Tuesdays. Today's promotion is $160 off a set of 4 Goodyear or Kelly tires plus a $25 mail in rebate.

I priced a set of 4 for my car and it came to an out-the-door price of $452, which is REALLY good.

Worth checking out if you have TMO and need tires.

 

[EarDemon]

As of yesterday AT&T is now officially doing 30 day trials. eSIM only, fruit phone only currently, Android eligibility coming next year.

https://about.att.com/blogs/2024/try-att.html

AT&T was just awarded the 4.9 GHz midband spectrum for FirstNet, once the buildout on that gets going as long as whatever flagship Pixel phone is out then supports it, I'm probably going to say bye-bye to T-Mobile as long as I can qualify for a personal line. That solves my mobile data problem. With T-Mobile's terrible and buggy offering of mobile hotspots, my only option for a data only line for travel and away from home use would be a CradlePoint, Peplink or similar WWAN router, which apparently you need a business account to use a real networking device instead of one of their gimped gateways.

With the higher tower density of AT&T, I'm hoping the shorter range of 4.9 GHz isn't an issue.

 

[EarDemon]

These days I either have 5G UC or no coverage at all. The 5G UC marketing is now more meaningless than it was before since as of earlier this year it now incorporates n25 + whatever magical bonding, instead of it just being the simple concept of 5G UC = n41. Here's some 5G UC goodness near the TN/AL border from yesterday, about 10 - 15 minutes outside of South Pittsburgh.

1500 miles into this road trip and T-Mobile's coverage is about what I expected. Great on the interstates, 1+ Gbps in major metro areas and completely non existant on the backroads of Kentucky, Tennessee and the S. Tenessee/N. Alamaba/N. Gerogia tristate area once you are away from Chattanooga.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Once my TMO trial ends, I'll be primarily using my $25/mo plan from Total (Verizon). I'll also have a 2GB for $10/mo plan from TMO on my 2nd esim as a backup. One added benefit is acess to T-Mobile Tuesdays. So, both networks for $35 a month. The Total Wireless plan has unlimited priority data, so I doubt I'll be using the TMO plan much, but it's nice to have it for certain occasions. I believe it also gives access to WIFI on major airlines.

 

[comfortably_numb]

As of yesterday AT&T is now officially doing 30 day trials

I'm currently trying this out. Getting speeds of about 800mbps on "5G+"

 

[EarDemon]

That's pretty good from what I've seen from AT&T. Do you know if you are connecting to both DoD and C-band when getting those speeds or just one or the other?

Do you know how far away you are from the site and how much speed is lost when you get farther away? Based on my experience with T-Mobile and Verizon, at 3.45 GHz and 3.7 GHz I would expect over a gig when outdoors and very close to a tower, but I don't really know much about how AT&T is configuring their network. With T-Mobile, speed over distance has been improving with a n41 and n25 combo from what I've seen in my travels

Anything of note when on low band n5 at 850 MHz? T-Mobil's n71 is impressive, but and I will repeat this over and over, the tower density kills the service for me.

 

[comfortably_numb]

That's pretty good from what I've seen from AT&T. Do you know if you are connecting to both DoD and C-band when getting those speeds or just one or the other?

Do you know how far away you are from the site and how much speed is lost when you get farther away? Based on my experience with T-Mobile and Verizon, at 3.45 GHz and 3.7 GHz I would expect over a gig when outdoors and very close to a tower, but I don't really know much about how AT&T is configuring their network. With T-Mobile, speed over distance has been improving with a n41 and n25 combo from what I've seen in my travels

Anything of note when on low band n5 at 850 MHz? T-Mobil's n71 is impressive, but and I will repeat this over and over, the tower density kills the service for me.

I'll continue to do tests and post results here. Will be in DC on Friday, then Ohio, then Chicago before I come back to KC on the 27th. I should have lots of opportunities for good tests.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Results from a test at home just now. Note this is "5G" band n5 and not "5G+"

Less than 1000 ft from the tower.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Anything of note when on low band n5 at 850 MHz?

Yep, as noted in my above post, n5 gives speeds topping out around 350/60 which is plenty for phone use, and also fantastic for my ATT Internet Air home broadband. Sure beats the 50/10 DSL we had here until a few months ago.

 

[EarDemon]

Thanks!

That result is what I would hope for on low band 5G at -95 dBm and maxing out at 350 x 60 is very respectable.

My concern is not so much for phone use, but for mobile hot spot use. Having lower latency and decent upload is huge when I'm at a hotel and connecting to my home VPN and uploading photos and such to my NAS. For phone use while driving/en route, just would need enough bandwidth for decent use of Waze and Google Maps and service to make voice calls if I need info on an event or attraction. I don't travel to cities, so mmWave is not a concrearn, decent midband with a stong lowband backbone in rural, semi rural and areas off an interstate is what I care most about the most.

 

[comfortably_numb]

5G+ less than one mile from KCI Airport

 

[comfortably_numb]

ATT n5 in the Southwest terminal at DCA. Not very impressive-

T-Mobile UC

Total (Verizon) UW wins this one by a longshot. Fastest ping, DL and UL speeds.

 

[zippyfrog]

Thanks for posting these so we can see what is going on. I have T-Mobile Home Internet and it greatly exceeds anything AT&T DSL can do (I currently still have my AT&T DSL and it maxes out at 28 Mbps down). This is a little bit lower than normal, and the upload is quite a bit lower than normal, but this is more than enough for what I need to do.

 

[EarDemon]

If that AT&T n5 is inside an airport, that's not bad IMO. The T-Mobile result is pitiful if it really is n41. I wonder if your VZW result is because of an DAS. Verizon is heavily investing in DAS' to improve indoor reception and to boost capacity in extremely high traffic areas like airports, hospitals and sports and entertainment venues.

In my back and forth mind I pulled the trigger and decided on what I'm finally going to do. I'm going to port out to AT&T and use T-Mobile as a secondary carrier with a new number. Went to do it last night at the AT&T store around the corner from where I work, but couldn't pass the credit check since my credit is locked with all of the agencies. Even though DirecTV is split from AT&T I incorrectly thought they could see I had an AT&T account because DirecTV and I wouldn't need a credit check. I temporarily thawed my credit this morning and I'll try again on Monday. Then I'll go down the road to the T-Mobile store and set up another line. I did remember to turn off my port out protection on T-Mobile.

It will be Unlimited Premium PL on AT&T with the intent to migrate to FirstNet and some point and Go5G Plus on T-Mobile.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Using dual e-sims has worked well for me. While I've been enjoying the ATT free 30-day trial, there is no signal where I work, so it's a no-go long term. In my travels I have found that Total (Verizon) provides the most consistent, reliable reception, while T-Mobile provides the most robust speed in cities. So for a total of $35 a month, I get the best of both worlds (and T-Mobile Tuesdays with MLB EI) for a good price.

 

[EarDemon]

While dual SIM would be convenient, I went ahead and bought another Pixel 9 Fold last week when the price went back to the Black Friday price. In the handful of days I've had it, I did find some use cases where having a foldable phone was advantageous and as a non primary device I can live with the things I'm not found of. In many instances I've had a 'why choose, when you can have them both' mentality and this is just another instance of it.

AT&T will be on the Pixel 9 Pro XL, T-Mobile will be on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold.

When I had AT&T for my work phone, I had no service at home, just like T-Mobile. We'll see if that improved any in the past two years