After nearly two years on T-Mobile, I’ve returned to Verizon. T-Mobile offers the best rates (of the major carriers), the most progressive policies, and stellar customer support. Yet, despite network improvements, their coverage continues to lag the competition (in the places I find myself) and we’ve concluded reliability must be our priority. Even in my high density, supposedly well-served area, it’s been kind of ridiculous driving home from work with my phone pinned between my sun visor and roof, while squinting from the glare, in hopes of preventing calls from being disrupted in some way (and rarely succeeding).
Verizon dropping the BS “activation” fee allowed me to contemplate coming back home. And, once in store to review the options, they made an offer we couldn’t refuse. My older iPhone 5s net a lofty $300 trade-in valuation — about double what T-Mobile and Gazelle offered. And, as an existing FiOS customer, $200 was knocked off iPhone 6s hardware pricing via some sort of promotion I wasn’t aware of but gladly took part in. To seal the deal, a few months down the line, I’ll be getting a $100 “port-in” credit as a “new” customer.
Our T-Mobile two-line plan included unlimited everything for $100/month, whereas the new Verizon plan runs $120 for a shared 12GB of LTE data. It’s obviously not as generous and at a higher rate. But, again, we’re willing to pay a premium for the best network. And our long national nightmare is over.