Cheapest way to get LTE service from Verizon/AT&T/USCC?

[mirskyc]

Interesting, I missed that too.  That definitely sounds like the best option I've seen so far, since I won't use any calls or texts.  I'll be looking at that one closely.

 

- Trip

only issue is you have to remember to add data after you run out and I think it drops you to HSPA when you run out of data. The data also expires so if you don't use it in a certain 24 hour period you loose it.  But unlike many At&t MVNO it isn't capped at 8mbps

[WiWavelength]

With a VZW prepaid pay per week data only plan at $15 for 500 MB, would a SIM popped into a handset activate?  Or would the authentication system detect the IMEI/MEID as that of a phone and reject it?

 

AJ

[WiWavelength]

only issue is you have to remember to add data after you run out and I think it drops you to HSPA when you run out of data. The data also expires so if you don't use it in a certain 24 hour period you loose it.  But unlike many At&t MVNO it isn't capped at 8mbps

 

Some of us average less than 1 GB of cellular data usage per month, so 100 MB for a day is more than plenty.

 

AJ

[Trip]

Just to follow up...

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4qtSrW2KKDCQWFpMkEzNFc5NGs/view?usp=sharing

 

I got my Nexus 5 yesterday.  My wife brought home an AT&T SIM from work which didn't do much of anything for me.  I had also already ordered an H2O Wireless SIM because I saw their pay as you go plan.  Sure enough, that plan supports LTE.  So I'm keeping all background data shut off and as long as everything is good on that front, I should be good for $10 every three months.  Not bad for what I'm trying to do.  Already managed to log a bunch of AT&T sites immediately around me, so it works well.

 

I also ordered a new US Cellular SIM which has arrived.  I've decided to wait on trying to factory reset/change SIM on it until I visit my parents again and am in the US Cellular coverage area to try to minimize the number of things that could go wrong.  I'm hoping it lets me on the LTE without activation like T-Mobile does, but not holding out much hope.  There may not be much I can do with US Cellular, unfortunately.

 

And I'm talking to a member here about getting a phone for Verizon which has been tested to work with the unactivated SIM. 

 

So here's hoping I'll soon be done getting everything together!    Thanks to everyone for all your help and advice.  I'll update this again once I have Verizon and US Cellular going or worked on.

 

- Trip

[Trip]

Oh, and I checked this morning.  In the day and a half or so that I've been using it, I've apparently only used 8 cents worth of data, according to H2O's web interface.  At 10 cents per day for 30 days is $3, so that $10 for 90 days seems to be about right.

 

- Trip

[Trip]

Just following up here.  I got a Verizon phone from a member here (he can chime in if he wants; thanks again!) which supports B13/B4/B2 and SCP in full.  No service required; I get LTE GCI and related data without service.  The phone keeps bugging me to activate it, but as long as I keep saying no, all is well.

 

In summary, here is where I stand. 

 

T-Mobile:  LG Leon LTE (supports B2/B4/B12).  Cost was about $110.  No activation required.

Sprint:  Samsung Galaxy S5 (supports B25/B26/B41).  This is my actual phone with my phone number and whatnot on it.  Cost was effectively 0 since I would have had it anyway.

AT&T:  Google Nexus 5 (supports B2/B4/B5/B17).  Cost was about $115, plus I have to put $10 on a pay-as-you-go H2O Wireless account every 3 months and keep background data disabled.  Not bad.

Verizon:  Motorola Moto E (supports B2/B4/B13).  Cost was much lower than others thanks to member here, as mentioned previously.  No activation required.

 

On Martin Luther King Day weekend I will be visiting my parents and thus entering US Cellular territory again.  When I do so, I will factory reset my Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini and put a new SIM in it to see if I can make it work for US Cellular without activation.

 

I will also direct Premier Sponsors here:  http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/6784-trips-cell-tower-map-work-in-progress/?p=463440

 

A few interesting notes about the carriers, and thoughts from others are appreciated.  I find it very interesting how Verizon and AT&T have been deploying things.  My AT&T phone tends to camp on B2, while my Verizon phone tends to camp on B4.  But then, each carrier seems to have a handful of sporadically upgraded towers on B2 (Verizon) or B4 (AT&T) that is preferred and clung to even when sitting under a closer tower with the other band available.  For example, I was in the Target parking lot the other day, next to the Beacon Hill Verizon site right behind the Target building, but was connected to B2 from Huntington.  Makes it hard to track down GCI values in some cases.

 

I've also noticed that T-Mobile and AT&T, at least, seem to use different GCIs on the same tower sometimes, but not always.  I actually asked about this over on T4GRU and it seems like this is acknowledged as a thing that happens.  Not sure what the pattern is, if any, between the two numbers.  It doesn't seem like there is one, like Sprint has with B41.

 

Verizon doesn't seem to have built out all its permits yet.  I know some of the permits I've found for small cells are very new and thus it makes sense, but I drove by a church steeple today which was supposed to have T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon in it, and while the first two were present, Verizon was connected to a much more distant site on B13.  I suspect I'll be seeing a lot of changes from Verizon in the coming months.

 

Finally, I found a drive by Mount Vernon to be very interesting on Saturday.  While we already knew Sprint wasn't upgraded there, it turns out T-Mobile and AT&T also have no LTE there.  Only Verizon does, and even that is B13 only.  I wonder what the story is that virtually no upgrades have been done there, given that I would imagine it's probably a decent tourist attraction.

 

Hope everyone has had a great holiday!

 

- Trip

[Trip]

Just another update here, centered primarily on US Cellular.  Unfortunately for me, and I had already suspected this but hoped I was wrong, is that US Cellular behaves more like AT&T than like Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile.  As long as my phone isn't activated, not only can I not connect to LTE, I can't even update the PRL (which is so old it favors Verizon for roaming).  And without a pay-as-you-go service option (I didn't overlook it, did I?) I don't see an affordable way to keep US Cellular service on it.

 

Yesterday, I drove down to visit my parents (hello, from rural Virginia) and my phones were interesting.  I came down 29 instead of 15.

 

First of all, Verizon held LTE the ENTIRE trip, until I got here.  Here, it showed a lot of "no service" but in the upstairs of my parents' house, it tries valiantly to find a usable 1X signal, jumping between 10 or 12 different very distant -95 dBm 1X sites.  Since this is former Alltel territory, the 1X actually has usable coordinates in it, so I know which ones, too; one is more than 40 miles away.

 

Second, I was surprised how little LTE AT&T actually has in the rural areas.  South of Charlottesville, AT&T goes to HSPA and stays there until Amherst.  Then, most of 460 east of Lynchburg had no LTE, except for Appomattox itself.

 

Third, I was similarly surprised by T-Mobile.  I thought their LTE rollout was further along, but except for Amherst itself, there was no service at all south of Charlottesville until I emerged from the mountains, and there it was on HSPA until Lynchburg (except for Amherst itself).  Then there was LTE all the way across 460 where AT&T had only had HSPA!  Go figure.

 

Finally, my regular Sprint phone jumped right onto nTelos LTE as soon as it came across it.

 

So now, at my parents' house, for those who are interested, my phones show:

 

Verizon:  1X jumping around wildly, probably not usable.

AT&T:  Mostly "no service" but occasionally jumps on EDGE at -111 dBm before dropping off again.

T-Mobile:  No service.

Sprint:  Roams gracefully on US Cellular 1X.  No EV-DO still.

 

- Trip

[S4GRU]

Second, I was surprised how little LTE AT&T actually has in the rural areas. South of Charlottesville, AT&T goes to HSPA and stays there until Amherst. Then, most of 460 east of Lynchburg had no LTE, except for Appomattox itself.

This is an under reported fact. The same is true in the Dakotas/Wyoming/Nebraska. AT&T has only deployed LTE on 53% of their sites in my state. And they did almost all of that in 2014. Haven't really been back since to add anymore. Yet, if you look at an AT&T map, you'd think you'd get LTE in nearly the entire state.

 

 

 

Using Tapatalk on Note 8.0

[gusherb]

This is an under reported fact. The same is true in the Dakotas/Wyoming/Nebraska. AT&T has only deployed LTE on 53% of their sites in my state. And they did almost all of that in 2014. Haven't really been back since to add anymore. Yet, if you look at an AT&T map, you'd think you'd get LTE in nearly the entire state.

 

 

 

Using Tapatalk on Note 8.0

And there's people out there that think that AT&T hasn't lost focus on its US network just because they've been doing small upgrades in their own cities, adding bandwidth and a site here and there, and buying a couple of spectrum licenses in very specific areas. I call it doing the bare minimum to just barely get by. They really should kick it into high gear and continue on with their LTE build out before they get too far behind again, though if it's anything like their 3G build out was with all those vast EDGE only areas for the longest time, it may be awhile.

[mhammett]

You might want to bite the bullet and just pay $300 for the Nexus 5X. In one fell swoop, that would cover all of your bases -- except for AT&T band 30. It might not be as cost effective as buying individual handsets on the cheap, but it could be close. And you would gain the advantage of carrying around only separate SIMs, not juggling several different handsets while out and about.

 

AJ

I've been wanting to do something similar for a while, but haven't found the good options yet. I'd have mine in my truck running nearly 24/7. One handset for each provider so that I'm sure to map them all everywhere.

 

I prefer multiple phones over a shared phone.

 

I'll keep reading this thread to see what pops up.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[mhammett]

 

 

Just following up here. I got a Verizon phone from a member here (he can chime in if he wants; thanks again!) which supports B13/B4/B2 and SCP in full. No service required; I get LTE GCI and related data without service. The phone keeps bugging me to activate it, but as long as I keep saying no, all is well.

 

In summary, here is where I stand.

 

T-Mobile: LG Leon LTE (supports B2/B4/B12). Cost was about $110. No activation required.

Sprint: Samsung Galaxy S5 (supports B25/B26/B41). This is my actual phone with my phone number and whatnot on it. Cost was effectively 0 since I would have had it anyway.

AT&T: Google Nexus 5 (supports B2/B4/B5/B17). Cost was about $115, plus I have to put $10 on a pay-as-you-go H2O Wireless account every 3 months and keep background data disabled. Not bad.

Verizon: Motorola Moto E (supports B2/B4/B13). Cost was much lower than others thanks to member here, as mentioned previously. No activation required.

 

- Trip

Is this still the lowest cost way to track all four with CellMapper?

 

Did anyone come up with any USCC ideas?

 

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[Trip]

Is this still the lowest cost way to track all four with CellMapper?

 

Did anyone come up with any USCC ideas?

 

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

 

Not sure you're going to get much cheaper on Verizon than the Moto E.  You may have to reboot it now and then due to the bug with SCP (depending whether or not it impacts Cell Mapper).  I had to reboot it twice on my drive back to northern Virginia on Sunday, both times after brief drops to 1X, which were exceedingly rare, and didn't cause the bug every time.  On the trip down, I didn't have to reboot at all.

 

The LG Leon LTE, at the time, was one of the only cheap MetroPCS phones with B12.  That may have changed as that was during the summer.

 

You could probably do something cheaper than the Nexus 5 on AT&T, but I wanted to be sure that SCP would work.

 

I still have no solution for US Cellular.

 

- Trip

[mhammett]

Yeah, CellMapper is what I'm concerned with. I have no one to share other carriers' SCP logs with and they don't map as nicely as CellMapper.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[JWMaloney]

What's the consensus on good devices for band 30 tracking?

[red_dog007]

Isn't it just the Apple iPhone 6s version and the Samsung S6 + Note 5 series?

[JWMaloney]

Nexus 6P as well.

[mhammett]

Not sure you're going to get much cheaper on Verizon than the Moto E. You may have to reboot it now and then due to the bug with SCP (depending whether or not it impacts Cell Mapper). I had to reboot it twice on my drive back to northern Virginia on Sunday, both times after brief drops to 1X, which were exceedingly rare, and didn't cause the bug every time. On the trip down, I didn't have to reboot at all.

 

The LG Leon LTE, at the time, was one of the only cheap MetroPCS phones with B12. That may have changed as that was during the summer.

 

You could probably do something cheaper than the Nexus 5 on AT&T, but I wanted to be sure that SCP would work.

 

I still have no solution for US Cellular.

 

- Trip

Source of the cheap SIMs?

 

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[Trip]

The Verizon phone and the MetroPCS phone both came with SIMs.  The H2O Wireless SIM I bought on Amazon I think for a few bucks.

 

- Trip

[mhammett]

Thanks.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[Trip]

Very quick note about Verizon.  Two weeks ago, I suddenly noticed my Verizon phone would no longer connect to LTE.  It would only connect to 1X and EV-DO (note, not eHRPD).  That was approximately three months from the time my Verizon phone was first turned on.  I tried rebooting and other things (other than putting money on it) and didn't get a satisfactory result.

 

On a hunch, this week I bought a new Verizon SIM for it.  It came in the mail today.  I turned off the phone, popped out the old SIM, put the new one in, and it jumped right onto Verizon LTE when I turned it on.

 

So it seems that Verizon may deactivate LTE access on SIMs that aren't activated for three months.  But, again, having to throw a few dollars at it every few months to be able to record where Verizon cell sites are seems like a good deal, much like the AT&T deal.

 

- Trip

[EmeraldReporter]

I have a Nexus 5 on the way for use with AT&T as well as an AT&T SIM in hand and an H2O SIM on the way. The AT&T SIM is for testing and came from my wife's employer, and the H2O SIM is for their $10/90 days plan, but now I'm getting nervous that maybe that particular H2O plan isn't LTE compatible. (It doesn't actually say on the website, that I can find.) Any thoughts?

 

Thanks.

 

- Trip

For the AT&T network, I recommend:

 

PureTalkUSA

 

They'll offer AT&T LTE service with Nationwide roaming included.

[EmeraldReporter]

For $29 dollars per month.

 

PureTalkUSA. LTE access included.

[WiWavelength]

So it seems that Verizon may deactivate LTE access on SIMs that aren't activated for three months.  But, again, having to throw a few dollars at it every few months to be able to record where Verizon cell sites are seems like a good deal, much like the AT&T deal.

 

Back when T-Mobile was hellbent on surpassing Sprint to become #3, I recall that John Legere caused some kerfuffle about Sprint keeping inactive accounts still in its numbers for 180 days.  Anyway, the 90 days sounds about right.  I have prepaid accounts with both T-Mobile and AT&T that I basically never use.  After 90 days, I get the notice that a refill is required.  I have not tried using the SIMs after 90 days.  And I am not at all worried about losing phone numbers that, honestly, I cannot recite to you off the top of my head.  But I still do try to refill around every 90 days.

 

AJ

[Trip]

Quick update; since I'm planning to visit US Cellular territory twice in a month (this coming weekend, then Mother's Day), I decided I would bite the bullet and put a month of prepaid service on my old S4 Mini.  As I was going through the screens, I found that US Cellular actually does have a pay-go plan which is otherwise not listed on the website.  $10/month plus fees for calls, texts, and data ($0.03/MB, which comes out to about $30/GB).  As long as I don't actually use it, that seems very reasonable if I can put $10 on it only when I need it.

 

Bigger problem is that now that the online process is done, I can't actually activate it until I'm in US Cellular territory.  This phone activates by dialing *228 and that goes to Verizon activation at the moment.  The PRL hasn't updated since I left US Cellular nearly two years ago, so it still talks to Verizon and not Sprint.

 

- Trip

[jreuschl]

 

Bigger problem is that now that the online process is done, I can't actually activate it until I'm in US Cellular territory.  This phone activates by dialing *228 and that goes to Verizon activation at the moment.  The PRL hasn't updated since I left US Cellular nearly two years ago, so it still talks to Verizon and not Sprint.

 

- Trip

 

Try dialing *22800  *22801 *22802 etc if you can't get on to USCC (if you are in a USCC area)...  At least in the past that forced the phone to jump onto a different CDMA carrier. (Granted I haven't tried that since I had a dual mode analog/digital phone )