Overview
Carriers are often believed to be the villains that stand between you and your phone's true powers. These evil carriers nickel and dime you until you're paying extravagant rates for a service that barely works in your area. But is it possible you're just on the wrong one?
There's just no denying that all carriers were definitely not created equal. Depending on what you're looking for in a service, you could be seriously swayed to a new carrier.
But remember, the United States is a big place, so it's important to check out your carrier's coverage maps and any location-specific intel that might help you make the right choice. What works in Hawaii may not work in New York.
Carrier criteria
Thankfully, certain mileage is invariable - things like a service's price, their selection, and their general call quality and coverage. These things can make or break a service provider, and to no surprise, are not mastered by any one carrier.
Increasingly, it's Verizon vs AT&T in the ring for the heavyweight championship. They have the best phones and the best service, but it comes at a price (and that price is an actual monetary one).
Meanwhile in the lightweight ring, T-Mobile and Sprint have some compelling offers, a handful of good-to-great phones, but neither have LTE or the best coverage.
If it all sounds a bit confusing, that's because it is. But rest assured, we'll answer the hard questions and make sure you have choose the best carrier in the US for the best phone in the US.
Best for Data
We'll go ahead and pretend that price is literally no object for your data needs, and just weigh the quality of a carrier's data by its features, plans, and speed.
Verizon might have faster data speeds than everyone else - but it earns the first strike as the only network that can't talk and surf at the same time. It's a limitation of the CDMA network, and though Sprint is also CDMA their 4G phones utilize WiMAX, which allows for the talk and surf, so long as you're connected to 4G or LTE.
The dark spots are areas with 4G coverage, while the red is 3G.
Not being able to talk and surf might not appear to be a huge setback - and for many it's not. However, the first time you're looking for a pizza chain's phone number, or asked for a flight confirmation number, or driving directions - or any number of things, you'll realize the features is far more than worthwhile.
But Verizon was also the first to adopt LTE-compatible phones, starting the first quarter of 2011. They have by far the widest variety of LTE phones (we'll talk about selection in more detail later).
AT&T's LTE cities are few and far between... for now.
AT&T, on the other hand, has only recently announced their adoption of LTE. They have a very limited (but growing) number of LTE devices: the HTC Vivid, Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket, LG Nitro HD, and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 Tablet.
AT&T has instead supported building out their HSPA+ service, which is almost always faster than Verizon's 3G network and, of course, allows you to talk and surf at the same time.
T-Mobile's map looks impressive, but there are no true 4G cities in site.
T-Mobile has adopted the same strategy, which basically boils down to utilizing an HSPA+ network and branding 4G all over each of their phones and service.
Sprint's 4G is WiMAX, which is faster than 3G, but no replacement for LTE.
Sprint has an entirely different way to play. Instead of posting about being the fastest, or cheapest, Sprint promises that they offer the only truly unlimited data. It's true, and it's compelling.
Sprint is in the process of rolling out LTE (by mid 2012), but are targeting different cities than AT&T and Verizon. Sprint is expecting users in Baltimore, Kansas City, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, and San Antonio to have LTE by 2012, which makes it a smart option for users in that area.
A short word on pricing
For most users, pricing of data will matter, just as much as coverage and speeds.
Sprint Hot Spots cost $29.99 a month for 5GB a month, and a whopping $0.05/MB overage rate.
T-Mobile offers a cheap unlimited plan, but only promises your first 100MB will be at 4G speeds before throttling.
AT&T offers 5GB for $50 with $10GB for each additional GB, and become throttled if they're in the top 5 percent of data users.
Verizon recently replaced their Unlimited Data plan in favor of a tiered plan. These range from a $30 a month 2GB plan (with $10/1GB overage), up to 10GB for $80 a month. For an additional $20 a month, you can make your phone a digital hotspot, allowing you to use up to 2GBs of data connected through your phone.
Verdict
While surfing and talking might be a deal-breaker for some, we have to give this round to Verizon, who adopted the LTE standard early on.
Their 3G lags behind T-Mobile and AT&T's, but Verizon has true 4G, LTE, accessible in way more cities than their competitors.
Best Price
If you think iPhones are expensive wait until you see the price of their plans.
When it comes to plan prices, Americans definitely get the short end of the stick. Take, for instance, text messaging which is charged to both the sender and the recipient and cannot be rejected. Prices have increased for individual texts over the years (they now $.20 per message, which, Wikipedia tells us, is over $1,300 per megabyte. Sweet).
Regardless of SMS woes, Verizon and AT&T are the most expensive carriers. Offering 450 minutes for $39.99 (45 cents a minute for overage) up to Unlimited minutes for $69.99.
Tack on to that price, unlimited messaging costs $20. As mentioned earlier, data ranges from pay as you go, to 10GB for $80 a month.
Fast internet speeds will necessitate Hot Spot connectivity, for those who can afford it.
Of course, if you're spending that much on data, you'll probably want a Hot Spot as well. That'll cost you an additional $20, per 2GBs of data.
That makes an average unlimited plan with no Hot Spot will set you back around $100 or more.
Unlimited data for an unlimited bank account
Sprint's talk plans are dependent on the data plan you choose. They have an unlimited "Simply Everything" plan, that runs $99.99 a month, to a 200 minute talk plan for $29.99 a month (45 cents a minute overage).
If you're keeping track, that means Sprint's "Simply Everything" plan is the only plan that actually offers you everything, and does so for much lower than AT&T and Verizon.
But, while Sprint's terms are tempting, they aren't the best. That lovely award goes to T-Mobile, which offers an unlimited plan for just $69.99 for unlimited data (throttled at 2GBs), talk and text.
If you're not satisfied with just 2GB of high speed, you can opt for a 5GB option for $79.99, which also includes unlimited everything and Mobile HotSpot service.
Family First?
While T-Mobile is the clear winner in individual plans, it's unlimited data plan is limited to two lines. That means it's perfectly possible to Frankenstein a family plan together from any carrier that might suit your needs better.
We're not going to try and analyze the pro's and con's of each, so make sure you check out the options, at the respective sites if you're interested in Family Plans.
Verdict
While T-Mobile's plan won't work for everyone, it's simply the cheapest individual everything plan you're going to find.
Best selection
Verizon and AT&T clearly have a leg up on their slightly smaller competition. As Verizon was the first to adopt LTE, it also has the widest variety of LTE phones.
And it all started with the HTC Thunderbolt, Verizon's first 4G LTE smartphone
AT&T might be in second place for LTE phones, but it's a very distant second place. It's aggressively rolling out LTE phones, but there's still just not that much being offered.
Fortunately, AT&T's has a vast variety of non-LTE exclusives and partnerships, like the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket (a redesigned, LTE version of our pick for the best phone in the US). And the exclusives just keep coming - take Nokia, which recently announced a partnership to exclusively release the Lumia 900 on AT&T.
We've been pining for this phone since we had our first Lumia 900 hands on with it at CES.
Sprint has plenty of WiMAX-ified exclusives, but unfortunately many of these phones aren't much to write home about (though they do come at refreshingly low prices). In fact, Sprint's best phone is probably the iPhone 4S, which doesn't even include Sprint's current 4G standard.
For Android fans, there's the obnoxiously-named Samsung Galaxy SII Epic 4G Touch (another alternative to the Samsung Galaxy SII). Windows Phone fans will have to settle with the HTC Arrive - their only Windows option.
The iPhone 4S: available on Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint
T-Mobile is the only carrier without the iPhone on its roster - which (love it or hate it) will obviously be a deal-breaker for some. They have several exclusives, like the Nokia Lumia 710 (a bigger deal before this week's announcement of the AT&T-exclusive Lumia 900).
Verdict
Which carrier has the best selection is a bit of a toss-up, depending on what you're looking for. If you're looking for LTE phones, Verizon's a no-brainer. But, if you fashion yourself a traveller, you'll probably want a GSM phone, and AT&T has plenty of top-line exclusives.
Verdict
We're not going to pretend that there's a hard and fast rule about which carrier is best; in fact, this is the ultimate mileage-may-vary verdict.
As mentioned earlier, if you're a traveller, you pretty much wouldn't be caught dead with a CDMA phone. That leaves AT&T and T-Mobile - one has price on its side while the other has selection and coverage.
But AT&T has been notoriously slow on the uptake of new technologies - from tethering, to hot spots, to LTE, - and its deceptive use of "4G" is just plain frustrating.
Victorious Verizon
Verizon won't allow you to talk and surf at the same time, it's on the expensive end, and it doesn't do that well in foreign countries. But you'll get better LTE coverage, better LTE selection, and a carrier that's, historically, the quickest to adopt new technologies.
There's not a service that you won't make sacrifices for, but ultimately we recommend Verizon. It's consistent, with a huge number of exclusive LTE phones, and stateside call and data coverage that is unparalleled.
Do you agree? How has your service provider lived up to expectations?
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