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Comment by jdmitch | Hacker News Reader

* I can tell you we just switched from AT&T to T-Mobile and it’s been flawless.*

That's because you haven't actually had to start using T-Mobile's horrendous service. When I tried to do this (admittedly a couple years ago) they told me with a straight face, after I had gone through all the effort of changing "You can't use data on your smartphone because you didn't get it from us." Why would I have changed over if I couldn't use data!?!? (It would have been edge or something ridiculous as well, as only people on certain contracts could use 3g!)

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I've used T-Mobile for over 13 years. Can you tell me what this horrendous service is? Its worked fine for me in Chicago, Tampa, Miami, Key West, New York, San Francisco, LA, and last but not least, on the playa at Burning Man (in the middle of the desert).

Non-major cities can have terrible coverage. You might only get 2G speeds or have trouble using the phone indoors. It seems the more remote you are, the more you are forced to go with Verizon.

I admit, yes, if you are in the middle of nowhere, you may have a problem. I myself encountered some blackholes between Chicago and middle of nowhere Nevada, and on my way back through Yellowstone to Chicago.

No carrier is going to have perfect coverage. This is something I'm willing to live with for unlimited connectivity @ $50/month.

I mean, seriously! I get coverage in the Virgin Islands! Included! And with their new rates for International travel, I'm willing to let A LOT slide.

Are you sure that they didn't tell you that because your phone's hardware was incompatible with their network? No CDMA phone is going to work with T-Mobile and you might not get the more advanced sorts of data service if the frequencies your phone supports aren't the same as the ones that T-Mobile uses. I certainly haven't had any trouble using 3G with phone's I've bought from Amazon or Google.

No it was a GSM phone (a nexus one) - should have worked on 3G

Ok, Wikipedia tells me that the Nexus One supports 3G on 1900 MHz, but not 1700 or 2100. It looks like T-Mobile had switched 1900 to be a 3G band in some but not all cities as of 2012[1]. So I'd guess that you were in one of those areas that hadn't switched over, and only had Edge available in the frequencies your phone supported.

[1]http://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4988

This highlights a major function of the mobile operators: retail store support.

I know people want to think of the carrier network as a dumb pipe, but the carriers have major investments in customer support. This means creating training for their sales reps only on the devices they're selling

Occasionally you'll find some rockstar in a retail store that can help you troubleshoot your non-carrier phone, but those people tend are the exception. Many of the retail reps do cargo-cult support. They try to stay within the boundaries of their training. This isn't terribly surprising- It's all downside if they try to fix your problem and accidentally break your phone. There isn't going to be much sympathy from either the customer or management if they screw up.

This results in little to no support for off-carrier mobiles.

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