Deciding on a Wireless Provider in 90 Seconds or Less

TMCNet CEO Rich Tehrani and I went through an interesting exercise last week - pick a wireless carrier in 90 seconds or less. We both came up with the same one, but for different reasons.

It wasn't by any means a planned exercise. Rich and I had been invited to GENBAND Perspectives 13 in Orlando Florida and we had no idea that GENBAND and Samsung had teamed up to give the Galaxy Note II to all event attendees on Tuesday after Samsung's keynote. 

After lunch, Rich and I were standing in line to pick up our phones when we realized GENBAND and Samsung had phones from all four major U.S. wireless carriers -- AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. (Yes, I know some will argue that there are only two major carriers, but all four were available, so please play along for the purposes of this exercise).

"Which one should I get?," Rich asks. "I've got Verizon at home. Maybe I should get another carrier."

Since the phones were effectively "free," we had a unique opportunity to pick a new carrier without having to lock into a two year plan or shelling out upfront for a new phone. But we couldn't spend a lot of time deciding because we both had sessions to attend and stories to file.

"Any problems with wireless coverage? Any cities you travel to that don't have good coverage with your Verizon service," I asked Rich.

"No," Rich said. "I could get T-Mobile's plan, I'd love to try their service."

Rich ultimately decided upon Verizon Wireless because he could add on the Samsung Galaxy Note II to his existing Share Everything plan. He could keep all of his devices on one bill, rather than managing two separate carriers.

Because I've hung out with the professionally paranoid too often, I had a more complicated decision tree. I wanted a different provider than AT&T because we already had one member of my household on its network, so I was looking for diversity.

This left Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. I didn't even give Sprint two seconds, based upon my long-standing relationship with the company as a customer. As an early WiMax customer with the HTC Evo, I was disappointed in WiMax coverage and rollouts. There was a lot of confusion between Clear, Clearwire and Sprint. 

The pattern of failed technology and confusion has only repeated itself. Sprint promised HD voice and an upgraded network in 2012 -- shades of WiMax. The latest word from Sprint is that HD voice will appear on a market-by-market basis starting sometime in this quarter. Confusion today is who will own Sprint: Softbank or DISH Networks, not to mention if Sprint will actually clear up the mess with its Clearwire relationship.

T-Mobile got some consideration, but I need connectivity wherever I'm at. When I was down at the Orbital Antares launch at Wallops Island, Virginia few weeks ago, one of the reporters had to bum a Verizon phone to call his office because he had no T-Mobile service.   As much as I would have liked to try the "Un-carrier," I need to have coverage in out-of-the-way places (Sorry John Legere).

This left one carrier standing: Verizon. The carrier shouldn't consider this an unqualified endorsement by any stretch of the imagination. AT&T is a valid alternative in most cities, even if its data plans are not unlimited. Verizon's data pricing is higher than both Sprint and T-Mobile and I have issues with its corporate attitude (A subject for a future column).