[jprincipe]

Ok, im so torn. I have an iphone but need to move to a blackberry. The WiFi Curve seems awesome (especially for overseas use) but T mobile doenst have an unlimited internation data plan, just unlimited email. ATT has unlimited data for international but makes you keep that plan for a year. What are you guys happy with. I live in chicago where t mobile seems superior to ATT as far as call clarity but what are your thoughts. Is the WiFi reliable? see ms like people are having a lot of issues. any opinions would be appreciated.

[Dereck]

I certainly haven't tried AT&T's service as I've been happy with my T-Mobile service for the last four years. With the addition of the Curve and Wi-Fi, it's the icing on the cake for me..atleast.

[Dubdub]

Look at all the places where you use the device. Where you live, work, play, travel. Look at all the places where you need a cell connection and WiFi isn't available. Then decide which carrier works provides the best coverage. Don't trust the coverage maps either. Talk to people using cell phones.

Don't base your decision primarily on cost of the service or the cool phones or features, Base it on which carrier has the best connection where you use the device.

WiFi is nice, but it isn't the end all be all that many seem to think. There are too many places where there is no WiFi. And you still need the voice connection, especially for business use, as VoIP doesn't work well at all on most cell devices and the connections are not always the best.

[greggebhardt]

Coverage is everything. ATT covers everywhere I go while T-Mo would not allow calls unless I walked outside. So make sure that you know you got coverage BEFORE the 30 days are up or ETF will apply.

[cmguerra77]

greggebhardt is right. If you want. Try each one out. You should have 30 days to see if you like the service and be able to switch if it doesn'y work for you. That way you don't get stuck with a servie that doesn't work

[b60boy]

I live in Chicago and just moved from VZW to AT&T. I have had the service for a couple of weeks and have not had any problems. I do have some friends that have T-Mobile in Chicago area and they say it works fine in the major metro area, but get out of that zone the coverage is spotty at best. They also told me that they expereince dropped calls on T-Mobile.

BTW, you will love the curve. Nice to be on the latest Blackberry's. VZW had very good call quality, but there a year to a year and a half behind introducing new BB and PDA's for the matter.

Good luck.

[jcatan]

I live on the north side of the city and TMobile has better coverage there. The sound quality is better on TMobile. AT&T has backbround static most of the time. My wife uses the AT&T phone most of the time as I prefer to use TMobile. I travel around the midwest fairly often and rarely have a coverage problem with TMobile, however AT&T does have more extensive coverage if you get away from heavily traveled areas. I prefer TMobile for customer service and cost, but if the coverage situation was reversed where I live, I'd switch to AT&T as my primary carrier because the most important thing is usability where I spend the most time.

I also spend about a month in Italy each year. I always use my TMobile phone there as calls come in reliably and email works flawlessly. I can turn on and off the foreign email service anytime I wish. When I'm there I use a Blackjack with a prepaid Italian SIM for data and local calls. I hate using two phones but there seems to be no US carrier that offers a reasonably priced combination of voice, email and data for foreign travel.

[Murfunit]

If cost is a factor, AT&T BB Plans are (Minimum) $29/mo, no messaging, no tethering. $39/mo with 1500 messages, $59 (I think) if you need tethering

TMo BB plan is $20/mo, Tethering allowed, No messages. Messaging plans start at as little as $4.99

The biggest factor for you though should be the signal. Side by side here in Metro NY my AT&T 8310 has 4 bars, my TMo 8320 has 1. (Which i why it is now unlocked and will be used on AT&T)

[vinmontRD]

Originally Posted by Murfunit

If cost is a factor, AT&T BB Plans are (Minimum) $29/mo, no messaging, no tethering. $39/mo with 1500 messages, $59 (I think) if you need tethering

TMo BB plan is $20/mo, Tethering allowed, No messages. Messaging plans start at as little as $4.99

The biggest factor for you though should be the signal. Side by side here in Metro NY my AT&T 8310 has 4 bars, my TMo 8320 has 1. (Which i why it is now unlocked and will be used on AT&T)

Got to agree re: price differential - TMo is significantly cheaper across the board. But I am bewildered by your experience re: relative signal level between AT&T and TMo. For the last few years, we used Cingular/AT&T at work, and I used TMo for my personal line. I always carried both devices with me at all times. I live in central NJ, and work in NYC. When out of town, I'm anywhere from DC up through New England, but most of my time is in Manhattan, anywhere from Wall Street up through midtown (east and west) and up to about 186th street on the West Side.

In my experience in NYC (which spans many years), especially in the last couple of years, T-Mobile coverage in Manhattan has been excellent. The *only* place I don't have a good strong signal is in the subway tunnels (rumor is that Verizon has picocells in the NYC subways, but I don't know if that's true). Aside from that, TMo coverage in NYC has been superb for me for several years -- and the service has been far more consistent, with less outages (BB and otherwise) than AT&T. TMo customer service also blows away AT&T customer service.

I was also stunned at how bad AT&T/Cingular has been with billing on our corporate account. For the last 3 years, they have screwed up our corporate bill many times, billing us for accounts that we terminated a full year earlier, pleading ignorance, shifting us from one person to another when we demanded that they reconcile the problems and threatening to shut us off in the meantime. Possible that the problem also had to do with somebody at our end -- I really cannot say for sure, but from what I saw, it seemed that they were only interested in resolving the issues when we raised a huge stink about them.

Anyway - back on topic: I found, for example, that signal at Wall Street and vicinity was superb with TMo -- both on the street and inside office buildings. At 55 Water Street, for example, on floor in the 20's, I have a strong signal even when deep into the center of the office floor away from windows. In contrast, my friends with both AT&T and Verizon often find their signals fade in this spot. In midtown (East and West), I also have superb signal with TMo -- typically 4 or 5 bars.

BTW: I've had this experience with several devices, including phones from Sony Ericsson, Nokia and RIM/Blackberry.

Maybe there's a problem with your Curve? Or perhaps the SIM isn't programmed properly to pick up the right towers? I'm really surprised to see your experience so radically different from mine....

[ruechel]

i must second that notion. i live in manhattan and travel quite frequently in the tri-state area. my coverage with TMO has been excellent. yes, it is spotty sometimes but i hazard a guess that it all evens out throughout the respective TMO and AT&T GSM networks. I have friends who have spotty service in certain areas with their ATT BB's where i have good reception and vice versa. If you travel along the boomdocks and through rural areas, i would suggest VERIZON which IMHO has the best overall nationwide service, period. Their CDMA coverage is still better than everyone else's. The notion that ATT is so much better than TMO and thus justifies the price premium is largely imaginary and brand cult AFAIC - a lot of people belive the hype (more bars...yeah riiight). I personally love the previously mentioned (excellent) international email service that TMO provides and which one can turn on a per-month basis. Whether I am in Jamaica or Germany, the service is super reliable.