On 2/17/2017 1:12 PM, JF Mezei wrote:
On 2017-02-17 14:44, nospam wrote:

t-mobile's coverage is steadily getting *better*, not worse.

Unfortunately, T-mobile was abandonned for a few years, while waiting to
be absorbed into AT&T, and AT&T didn't want t-mobile to fix areas where
AT&T had existing coverage.

Once the merger was killed, then t-mobile had no choice but to fend for
its survival and start investing to fix its network instead to of
preparing to shutdown every area where AT&T was already covering.

So yes, T-mobile has improved significantly since the merger was killed,
but those years of abandonment are still felt because it hasn't caught
up fully yet.

In the west, there were roaming agreements that T-Mobile had with AT&T
that expired and were not renewed. So coverage that had been available
to T-Mobile customers disappeared. T-Mobile has improved coverage in
urban areas, but they have little interest in building expensive
infrastructure in lightly populated areas, and AT&T demands exorbitant
amounts for roaming and it's not clear what the outcome was of the FCC
ruling
https://arstechnica.com/business/2014/12/t-mobile-wins-fight-against-att-and-verizon-over-data-roaming-charges/.
If it's a rural carrier other than AT&T then there is often T-Mobile
roaming.

For users that never travel outside of urban areas T-Mobile is usable,
but if you like to travel to, or through, rural areas, it's not a good
choice.