Colleague Joe Maring recently chronicled his switch from T-Mobile to Visible after ten years as a T-Mobile customer. He also revealed a few things he learned after a month with his new carrier , and it sounds like this was a long-overdue move.
We were curious to find out the last time our readers switched carriers, so we posted a poll. Almost 6,000 votes have been tallied, and here’s what you told us!
A massive ~42.6% of respondents said they last switched carriers 10+ years ago. This was by far the most popular pick out of all poll options.
Reader tracy.d.reynolds outlined their reasons for sticking with T-Mobile since the 1990s:
I have been a T-Mobile customer since 1997 back when they started out as Powertel and it would take a lot to get me to move. I’m under a very old government plan that I don’t believe can be beat. I have 5 phones, one watch, 5G gateway for Internet and all the freebies T-Mobile gives away as Netflix, Apple TV and others from time to time and pay less than $200 per month with the go5G plus plan. I have never had an issue with T-Mobile customer service. They have always been there and fixed any issues I’ve encountered which have been very few over the past 25+ years. The reception may not be the best across the country, but it’s always been great wherever I am and wonderful when I travel abroad to Europe. I’ll be hanging on with T-Mobile a while longer!
Meanwhile, user jjbudzinski didn’t reveal if or when they switched carriers, but explained why they’ve stayed:
We’ve stuck with T-Mobile becuase they have free international data & texting around the world and my wife gets unlimited international calling for $15/month. This allows her to call family and friends, at $3/minute for most countries she needs to speak for just 5 minutes per month to pay for itself. She often talks for over an hour per month on a regular phone call – no data usage needed.
Almost 18% of respondents said they last switched carriers five or more years ago, while 17.2% said they switched networks one to three years ago. Even if you combine these two figures, it’s still clear that more surveyed readers last switched carriers 10+ years ago.