T-Mobile Service with CAN-US Plan is HORRIBLE

[JeffGWpg]

I was just in USA on a road trip for 8 days. I have to say that whatever coverage we are getting with T-Mobile in USA is absolutely horrible. I was there with 2 other family members. We had an iPhone 14 Pro Max, a Galaxy S23 Ultra and a Pixel 6 Pro. The Galaxy seemed to fair the best as far as signal but the Pixel and iPhone basically had no signal when inside any sort of structure and even when outside in the open it was pretty spotty. I specifically bought CAN-US plans so that I would have piece of mind coverage when in the US but this did not do that in the least.

Curious if anyone else has similar experience when roaming with T-Mobile?

[Syaoran]

That's shocking! As a T-Mobile USA customer with an S23 Ultra purchased from T-Mobile running the U1 non-carrier specific firmware of Android 14 beta 2 as of this morning. I haven't had any coverage issues. I regularly travel up and down the east coast.

Most of T-Mobile's 4G LTE coverage is on bands 12, 41, 66, and 71 with some areas still using band 2 and band 4.  For 5G, bands 41 and 66 are probably the most likely because Canadian devices do not support mmWave.  

Are your devices purchased from Telus? When I was a Telus customer. I got lots of text messages stating that because my device was not model sold by Canadian carriers, Telus would block my device from roaming, even if that device was purchased from their roaming partner.

[JeffGWpg]

Hey thanks for the reply. Yes my devices were all purchased from Telus. I just found that whenever I was inside a building (Costco for example) it was basically dead. When I would try to send messages on Signal it would just spin and spin and maybe eventually go through. At one point I tried to send a picture and it would not send at all until I left the building. When I was in Chicaco at Northerly Island (where the Bears stadium is) mine and my daughter's (iPhone) were super slow and spotty at best. I just find it frustrating that I have these CAN-US plans with tons of data and no roaming fees but I still need wifi to compensate.

[Syaoran]

Chicago usually has great service. The last time I was up there, I had a OnePlus 8T from T-Mobile, which has one of the better radios in carrier sold devices. We have a Sam's membership so I can't speak for what the experience would be in a Costco. However, US Costco's do sell T-Mobile service and devices so one would think there should be a good network experience inside of their stores.

The only thing ai can think of is maybe just a lot of interference because of how dense the city is but I have never had an experience sounding like yours when I was with Telus and roaming in the US. If they hadn't switched to not being BYOD friendly and blocking features like WiFi Calling and VoLTE on my T-Mobile purchased devices. I wouldn't have left and taken my 6 lines back to Rogers.

Have you tried powering your devices off for at least 5 minutes to allow them to refresh on the network? Have you tried a network reset, which will delete all of your saved WiFi networks and paired Bluetooth devices? If neither or those troubleshooting methods work Try giving Telus Support a call to see if they can see any issues on their end.

[xray]

Yes, I had terrible connection issues when I was in Houston and San Francisco. My OnePlus 6T wouldn't hold a data connection for more than a few seconds at a time. I thought it might be phone related as my wife's OnePlus 7T had no issues using my SIM in Houston. However I bought a prepaid AT&T SIM for my trip to Maui and it worked just fine in my phone so I really don't know if it's phone related.

[Syaoran]

How old are your Telus SIM's? If they are more than a couple of years old, they might be fine in Canada as the Telus network primarily being band 66 hasn't really changed much over the past few years. However, the network of T-Mobile has with their acquision of Sprint and move to mid-band 41 in a lot of cities. Older SIM's would not be provisioned for this. If you are using eSIM's, they should be fine because they work very differently but I wasn't impressed with the Telus eSIM implementation when I had to do a SIM replacement while roaming because no one seemed to know what they were doing when it came to activating them.

[xray]

I got a new SIM card from TELUS a month before going to Houston. It didn't make any difference. My 6T is a T-Moble version that I modified to use dual SIM which allowed me to use both my TELUS and AT&T SIMs when I was in Maui so I'm pretty sure the issue isn't my phone.

[JeffGWpg]

The SIM idea might be a possibility. My SIM and my daughter's SIM are older. The wife's SIM for her S23 Ultra was replaced when she got the phone. Her phone seemed to have the least issues. I will keep this in mind for next time I cross.

[Syaoran]

I have an S23 Ultra as well but mine is from T-Mobile USA. I spend half of the year in the US and I never had any issues with roaming until Telus started sending me texts stating that my T-Mobile USA s23 Ultra was considered a grey market device and would be blocked from roaming in the US, which includes access to 911, and blocked from using WiFi Calling and VoLTE in Canada.

T-Mobile's band coverage has changed a lot with the cometion of the Sprint merger. 5G has moved to 71 and 41 in a lot of areas where 4G LTE still heavily favour's bands 2, 4, 66, and 71.

[LoVo]

You're not alone. It's a nightmare for me too with Telus vs T-Mobile and a friend on Koodo too. We are in Florida.

[JeffGWpg]

I have since upgraded my phone to a Pixel 8 Pro and replaced my SIM. I am heading to Seattle tomorrow so we'll see how this goes. I was actually in Seattle last year in October and don't recall having any issues but at that time I was using the daily roam plan and not the Can-US plan. Fingers crossed...

[JeffGWpg]

Update...service was fine, except that I was roaming on Verizon the entire time so no idea if there was any improvement.