T-Mobile vs Visible cell service comparison

[justRich]

While this is not meant to be scientific in nature it is/was my particular finding using two different cell phones services and phones by two different phone manufacturers.  Your milage may vary. 
I have hotspot data service on both phones, both services.

Of course, cost and data usage make a difference, but In my opinion I think that I would stick with T-mobile if I had only one phone, one service.
If no hotspot data was needed, I'd go with Visible because of it's much better cost and basically equal service.

T-Mobile VS Visible - a service comparison; over 3,000 travel miles in the Western US

Summary:
T-Mobile wins by a hair
Both services were either present and functional or not present at all for most of the travel.
There were seven locations where either service was minimal. 
Four of the seven trouble spots revealed which service was successful.
T-Mobile: 4  Visible: 3

Usually, my measure was if I was able to complete secure banking data or not.
In sketchy service areas the measure was "is there any communication available or not".
On one occasion, Visible was (at times) able to send and receive text messages while T-Mobile was completely dead.

Note: On one occasion I found that restarting the phone helped find a cell service signal.

Routes

Northbound: 
Phoenix area north to the Tacoma, Washington area (Gig Harbor, WA)
Northbound out of Arizona on Hwy 191 north to Utah - Capitol Reef 
Westward to Wells, Nevada and north to Jackpot, NV
Northwest to Farewell Bend State Park - Idaho/Oregon border

Southbound:
Gig Harbor, WA to Eastern Oregon (Pelton Park, OR)
South on Hwy 139 to Collier Memorial State Park, OR
Hwy 139 to North Eagle Lake Campground, CA (near Susanville)
Hwy 139 to Hwy 395 to June Lake, CA (Oh Ridge Campground)
Hwy 395 to Lone Pine, CA (Alabama Hills; Tuttle Creek Campground)
Hwy 395 to Red Rock Canyon State Park, CA then hwy split to Hwy 14 to Santa Clarita, CA
Southern California to Arizona has cell coverage most everywhere.

 

[Bill Joyce]

We carry mobile hotspots (Mifi) devices for Verizon (prepaid), AT&T and T-Mobile and most places all three work, but there are definitely places where only one works.  Our experience all over the country is that AT&T is the most likely to have usable service when the others do not, followed by Verizon and with T-Mobile being in last place.  But we find that T-Mobile is often our best choice for speed and does work in most places.  Our phones are postpaid Verizon and we put them on Wifi when Verizon does not have usable service.  

[RV_]

Thanks Bill. If we take a trip I'll get an AT&T prepaid just for the trip to augment our two US Mobile MVNO Verizon tower serviced phones.

[prastaed]

On 6/30/2023 at 10:10 AM, Bill Joyce said:

We carry mobile hotspots (Mifi) devices for Verizon (prepaid), AT&T and T-Mobile and most places all three work, but there are definitely places where only one works.  Our experience all over the country is that AT&T is the most likely to have usable service when the others do not, followed by Verizon and with T-Mobile being in last place.  But we find that T-Mobile is often our best choice for speed and does work in most places.  Our phones are postpaid Verizon and we put them on Wifi when Verizon does not have usable service.  

Sounds like you've noticed that AT&T is usually the one that works when Verizon and T-Mobile don't. But hey, T-Mobile kicks ass when it comes to speed and it works in most places. So even though AT&T is the most reliable in those tricky spots, T-Mobile wins the race in terms of speed and overall performance.

You've got the right idea by using your postpaid Verizon phones on Wi-Fi when their service sucks. That way, you can enjoy the perks of T-Mobile's speedy connection without compromising on coverage.