Question: T-Mobile international service and coverage quality

[spankers]

My girlfriend and I are looking to change service providers in the near future and we were looking for some feedback on T-Mobile (or other provider) service in the United States and abroad. After doing some research it would seem that T-Mobile has the best prices for our needs. We are looking at their Family Plans.

The queries:

1. We are located in Dallas/Fort Worth and were wondering if anyone has any feedback as to the quality of service in the DFW metro area.

2. My girlfriend and I go to Germany on a irregular basis to visit. Our stays usually are from one to two weeks in duration. We've heard that if you have a T-Mobile tri-band (the so-called international) GSM phone, one can replace the T-Mobile USA SIM card with a German T-Mobile SIM card and talk to your hearts content. How well has this worked out for you? And what are the prices like in Germany? I've seen the T-Mobile "WorldClass" plan that will cost a dollar/minute in Germany and the rate seems a little high.

Any feedback would be appreciated... and if anyone knows of another carrier that does business in the US and Germany that has competitive pricing, please respond.

Thanks! (Vielen Dank!)
Ed

[Ioman]

My experience traveling around the U.S. is that T-Mobile has good coverage in the larger cities, but poor coverage in the more rural areas. I have ATT and I am pretty happy with their coverage. It seems like T-mobile has better coverages in the cities than ATT, but I can go just about anywhere and get coverage with ATT whereareas I couldn't with T-Mobile.

So if you plan on being in large cities, go with T-Mobile, but if you travel in rural areas, go with ATT GSM or TDMA service.

Also if you plan on going overseas, make sure you get a phone with quad band capabilities, it will ensure the best coverage worldwide.

P.S. Verizon has awesome coverage, but boring phones.

[neuroking]

Gizmodo hates T-Mobile....
http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/tmobile-sidekick-ii-review-best-phone-ill-never-buy-019948.php

[Ioman]

LOL that was funny. I think customer service everywhere is pretty bad. At least ATT Wireless appears to still have customer service reps here in the states. I have been happy with their customer service so far.

[znaps]

As far as point 2 goes, like Ioman says get a tri, or quad band phone. Buy a pre-paid SIM from a provider in Germany while you're over there, don't use your US provider account. For most providers in Europe, you don't pay to receive calls (and some even top-up your credit for receiving calls), so it will definitely work out cheaper than using your T-Mobile account.

[spankers]

Thanks for the feedback... I'm reconsidering carriers now. I also talked to a couple of people and they said you can buy the SIM cards at the Frankfurt airport and any unlocked GSM tri-band handset should work.