We just learned that AT&T will be phasing our phones out. I'm a dinosaur, and have been entirely happy with our Razr V3xx since 2008, but it appears it's time to move on. It seems that Verizon has the best coverage, followed by AT&T, then T-Mobile. We live in Southwest Michigan and spend the vast majority of our time between here and the Traverse City area. We tend to vacation in Michigan's UP, North Carolina from Asheville to Ocracoke Island and occasionally Southwest Utah.

T-Mobile is offering a deal for Old Folks that is $35/line for 2 phones for pretty much unlimited everything. It sounds very tempting, but I'm not sure about T-Mobile's voice coverage (especially vs AT&T, which I'm familiar with). I've looked at the online maps but am more interested in real world feedback.

I can’t say anything about their coverage there, but their map shows coverage here and there is none. I would find someone who was their service to make sure it works where you spend time.

Like you said Verizon has the best coverage and I have a plan with them for only $35/month/line with 15 GB. You have to look around on their website to find it..

Here is the prepaid plan page. As you’ll notice the monthly price goes down the longer you have it (up to a point of course.)

https://www.verizon.com/prepai...40c1b0d6d70cf0509b0d

Had T-mobil for several years, I had Verizon prior to that. I think the coverage has been pretty close together. Some dead areas for either.
A few years ago I drove up I-75 over the The Big Mac and got on US-2 all the way to White Fish Montana.
If you get of the main roads very far coverage can be iffy. Same as I have seen in the past with Verizon.
There are dead areas even on the main roads up in that part of the country.

I have had T-mobile since about 2002 if I remember correctly.

The only time I have had problems with Tmobile is out here in this dump of a county called Durham where there is no signal and when I was on the reservation outside of Bismarck.

It is spotty everywhere and that goes for Verizon. I know I did not have coverage on parts of Aberdeen Proving Grounds and that goes the same for Fort Irwin.

With the merger between Sprint and T-mobile there is supposed to be twice as much coverage.

The only thing i do not like about T-mobile the last few years is the fact that all of their phones are now outrageously priced.

Terrible out here unless you are in town. Had a trial phone/plan and turned it in 4 days later.

I have been using USCellular for a number of years. It is a Midwest based company and coverage is excellent nationwide. While traveling the only place that was poor was in Western Nebraska but was still far better than others in our group. I went to AT%T for a breif time because of the ex wife having to transfer due to company requirements. She often ended up using my phone for business calls.

I can only really speak to how T-Mobile is in the PacNW, though on our last couple of trips back east they never let us down when it came to coverage. Similarly with my wife's business trips back to Chicago and Boston she never experienced any dropouts, at least that she conveyed back to me.

T-Mo around here is generally good, but penetration into buildings is often a problem with them. Going out into the boonies has always been an issue though since their popularity boom and later the Sprint merger it seems like T-Mo has had a lot more money to restart expanding rural coverage. It's still not anywhere near complete even in their home state (T-Mobile's US operations are headquartered in the area), but it's gotten much better, especially from the early days when I was first with them after leaving the old AT&T Wireless and being an early adopter of this interesting new thing called Android (yes, I shamefully admit I was HTC/T-Mobile G1 guinea pig/beta tester).

Our short time with Verizon in the 2000s showed me how extensive their network coverage was back then (I merged my number with my wife's Verizon plan; she wanted no part of T-Mobile and their then VERY woeful network). But Verizon was rather expensive in comparison; they knew that they were the best and they priced accordingly. However the Samsung Android phone (pre-Galaxy) that they sold us on as being the latest and greatest but as we subsequently learned was pretty much crap, and after a couple of years of phone frustration we began shopping around again. T-Mo had a new CEO that changed the company for the better, and there was a LOT of positive vibe from consumers. Plus their comparable plan to what we had with Verizon was at least 20% cheaper per month. So when we finally bought new phones (she went Samsung Galaxy, me HTC One M7) we made the switch to T-Mo. With my second time around it's definitely been a far better experience; far wider coverage in the sticks, stronger signal in urban zones. Still not what I'd like it to be, but it does seem to be consistently improving. It also doesn't hurt that they subsequently offered a senior plan that effectively cut our bill (before taxes) in half, without any degrading of service.

It's coming time for us to upgrade out of our Galaxy S7 Edges and while we're not sure what directions we want to go with the phones, there's really no question that we'll be sticking with T-Mobile.

despite what the coverage maps show, all carriers will differ area to area. Just because an area shows coverage doesn't mean you'll have 5 bars. Around hear (North Texas) T Mobile is as good and in many cases better than AT&T as far as coverage. I've had T Mobile for over 15 years (grandfathered in on a plan that is $50 for two lines with all the free bells and whistles) My daughter and granddaughter have a much more expensive AT&T service and several times we've been in some remote areas and I had connectivity while they had zero bars. I do have a newer phone than they do but I think it's more about coverage. I'm sure someone can point to just the opposite, but that's been my experience.

you can test their coverage for your location for free for 30 days.

T Mobile Link

Most of them are pretty pricey, but I use a Wilson cell phone booster. I have not found anywhere I cant get out when I use mine. Wilson makes boosters for home and vehicle. YMMV.

Look on the bright side. Motorola has started making the Razr again!

I have T-Mobile and have a generally good experience with them locally and the service has been getting better every time I go to visit my family in North and West Texas. The biggest problem I have with the signal is when I go to our emergency facility, I lose my signal in the center of the building where our work area is. It's a hardened concrete structure designed to withstand a direct hit from a hurricane. They have some kind of signal booster or antenna that works for Verizon phones but not for T-Mobile.

Reception at home should be no issue as you can use WiFi calling.

Bob

Something to keep in mind. T-Mobile bought Sprint. They now have a much larger customer base to keep happy and more paid subscribers to expand their coverage.

all the carriers have plans for 55+

https://www.verizon.com/plans/55plus/

https://www.att.com/plans/unli...lus-senior-discount/

I have had ATT, Spring, and was with Verizon for a long time. I switched to Tmobile, not because of better service, cost, or other reasons, but because I could use them overseas. With my tmobile phone, I have service, albeit poor and 2g, in most countries.

I did notice a significant loss of signal, more dropped calls, fewer bars, etc, after going to Tmobile. It's improved slightly, but is still insufficient.

When I discussed this with tmobile, I was given all kinds of excuses. Perhaps I wasn't in the right locations, and should be in the big cities. I wasn't close enough to their cell towers. The number of bars indicated distance from the towers. All bullshit, and they had no idea what they were talking about, but they floated one excuse after another. I had the same results whether I was in Dallas, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, New York, Atlanta, Denver...where ever. Overseas, 2 g, period, and it's often dropped, low or no data, can't send or receive texts in some places, or it's very slow. Not impossible, but not very satisfactory. Still, better than other services that don't work overseas or aren't on plans for overseas.

Tmobile is a compromise. I'm not impressed, but it's what I have. I keep five phones on my account, so it's not cheap, either.

It looks like the ATT and Verizon Plans for 55+ are only good in Florida (?).

I have T-Mobile. My wife has Verizon. They seem to compliment each other in that when one doesn’t have service the other does. NC west of Asheville is spotty for both carriers with the edge going to Verizon. East of Asheville, we both have good service. One advantage of T mobile is they have a great veterans plan. My service is 55/mo unlimited. Taxes and fees included.

The providers are shutting down the 3G access - which is what the V3xx supports. They need to do it to support the 4G and 5G traffic (they can share frequencies more efficiently).

It is like when the services stopped TDMA and CDMA support, and analog before it.

As a thought - you might want to check out Consumer Cellular - they are an MVNO on the AT&T and T-Mobile systems.