I've had Verizon Wireless service for nearly four of the five and a half years I've had cell phone service so far. AT&T was great at first, only because they had the iPhone and a special deal that went along with the original iPhone, but it wasn't long before the phone was at the end of its life cycle, the service wasn't where I wanted to be, and the deal was gone.
And so I moved to Verizon Wireless, which has provided me with four years of acceptable service, almost everywhere Iv'e wanted to be, and a middling choice of devices, and until recently, not too much flack if I wanted to buy a new device at full price mid-contract. However, Verizon's policies on sticking with an unlimited data plan have changed, and all of their other data plans are much more expensive now. In general, I've been thinking of leaving Verizon for the reasons I outlined a few weeks ago.
With that in mind, I finally grabbed the Nokia Lumia 521 and some air-time on T-Mobile. The Lumia 521 isn't too surprising. It's a low end Windows Phone 8 device today, which means that in hardware and overall performance, it's a lot like the HTC 7 Trophy I stopped using just before I went to Eurovision earlier this year. It's a solid device and if nothing exciting comes out of Apple in the next day or so, I would be happy to continue using this device until something exciting comes along. When something exciting does come along, I won't be worried about convincing the Verizon Wireless people to sell it to me, T-Mobile seems happy to sell you phones without a contract, and most of the phones I'm excited for I'd be buying directly from a manufacturer anyway.
The fact that I am getting a lot of data and texting capabilities for $30/mo is significant, but as the new Verizon Wireless commercials so aptly point out, their coverage really is better than anybody else's. In the few days since I've had my T-Mobile phone, not only have I not yet ported my number, but I've been working on determining where I do and don't even have service.
So far, the service is excellent at the university campus where I work. Ironically, this is probably the place where I need it the least, because on campus you're likely to be found quickly in an emergency, and because Wi-Fi coverage is significant enough that if T-Mobile's signal didn't exist, I could use the UMA/Wi-Fi Calling functionality of the handset in order to place and receive calls. Service at the house is spotty. I can listen to music on the phone, but connecting to my Linux computer works poorly and has very high latency.
I have already completed a test call with the device and have found out that the important part, which is that phone calls work, is good in the house. There are still some places in town where I may not be able to complete a call, such as in the low-density area immediately surrounding Julie's Daughter's school, but it has been consistent everywhere else. The good thing is that there is always room for improvement, and I can join a Wi-Fi network if I need to make an important call.
Another thing I can do (and will need to investigate) is use my employer's Lync server, Skype, or Google Voice for longer calls, or start advertising that as my number for incoming calls. The plan I have been looking at provides just 100 minutes for your $30, and my existing usage puts me at an average of 200 minutes per month over the past several years. Although, I have yet to actually graph that data and see what the trend is like. My guess is that over the past year, I've used less than 100 minutes each month.
The biggest worry I have is that I'll be somewhere without T-Mobile service, but with Verizon service, and need it for some reason. We'll see, I suppose. The good thing on that front is that I do relatively little globe-trotting on my own, but it remains a concern, because if I have to limit where I go based on my cell phone plan, it makes little sense to even have a cell phone plan when the Nexus 4 will work without a cell connection, and devices like the iPod Touch, iPad mini and Nexus 7 also make good organizers, wifi+skype machines, and cameras, without a monthly fee at all.