I wonder how accurate they really are.
Repeated visits to the AT&T store to complain were met with them pulling up a google maps like coverage map and saying "Nope see you have fine coverage at your house, go away please."
Basically, it's a probability gradient under certain conditions. You can be the 10%.
Nor is this a coverage map -- even carriers with physical infrastructure often have roaming agreements that extend their coverage beyond their own networks. It is expected that coverage maps differ from this map. And it is also expected that different network operators have different provisioning of those network services to different customers.
The first sentence,
"This map shows the 4G LTE mobile _coverage_ areas of the nation’s four largest mobile wireless carriers: AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile, UScellular, and Verizon."
The next sentence further defines what coverage means, a cellular signal with a minimum bandwidth requirement.
I'll listen to you though.
What is missing but would be useful is how many users it can support at that minimum bandwidth.
As the page mentions:
> The coverage maps on these service providers’ websites may be based on different parameters and assumptions, such as roaming, and may therefore differ from the information shown here.
It also mentions that the data is generated from Form 477 data. This form only includes data from operators who own their infrastructure. This means it will not include information about services provided through partnerships.
Seriously -- look at the USCellular map layer. This is not a map of the service area that a USCellular customer would expect, because USCellular makes a significant use of roaming under contract with other carriers (labelled 'partner coverage' on their own maps). https://www.uscellular.com/coverage-map/voice-and-data-maps
Also, my reply was in response to a comment about MVNOs, which may or may not provide services equivalent to the carriers they virtualize their network through.
The provider I have is data only at $120/mo for up to 1TB of 4G data. I'm not certain, but it seems like they'll move my SIM through different accounts on their backend to ensure that I always have full speed transfer within that limit... as when I'm getting close to a transfer threshold, my speeds will slow down, my modem will reboot at some time during that day, and then afterwards I'm back to full speeds.
So far, never had an issue.
Either way it's $25/mo unlimited everything with the tradeoff being that you can be deprioritized. In the bay area though it works fine and that's a great price for no contract.
As a bonus there are no stores and you sign up via the app, I've been happy with it.
I just don't want to deal with a rep, be forced to go to a store, be forced to sign a contract, have to navigate fifty different dark patterns that obscure the true pricing and try to screw me out of what I want.
If Verizon just charged $50/mo I'd pay it, but their current setup is awful.
Of course, this is just anecdata, and maybe I haven't experienced it because I just don't tend to use a lot of data (< 3 GB/month), and rarely go to areas that will have highly-crowded cell towers.