The map is only a piece of the story too. Depriotitization is a thing you will encounter, mostly on MVNO's. I call it four bars of no data. Just moved from Mint back to AT&T Prepaid because of this situation. Your results will vary wildly regionally, and time of day.
I find the map to be inaccurate for Verizons network where I live. There are places with known dead areas that they say has coverage. I don't mean recent dead zones... I mean they have been around for over a decade.
The description at the top says "Voice: 90% cell edge probability, 50% cell loading factor, maximum resolution of 100 meters. Data: 5/1 Mbps, 90% cell edge probability, 50% cell loading factor, maximum resolution of 100 meters."
Basically, it's a probability gradient under certain conditions. You can be the 10%.
This wouldn't surprise me at all. I ran into the same issue with AT&T during the switch from 3G to 4G. Suddenly, signal at my house went to absolute crap. Couldn't make or get calls. Texts would never send, texts would arrive in a random burst overnight.
Repeated visits to the AT&T store to complain were met with them pulling up a google maps like coverage map and saying "Nope see you have fine coverage at your house, go away please."
Which, I'm reading your comment from a device which is capable of connecting to all four carriers represented, and it's connected to the Internet through wifi and one of those four carriers. Why doesn't this map have any user submitted data, eg from the FCC speed test app. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fcc-speed-test/id794322383
This map doesn't really have anything to do with MVNOs. These maps are just about the deployment of physical infrastructure.
Nor is this a coverage map -- even carriers with physical infrastructure often have roaming agreements that extend their coverage beyond their own networks. It is expected that coverage maps differ from this map. And it is also expected that different network operators have different provisioning of those network services to different customers.
"This map shows the 4G LTE mobile _coverage_ areas of the nation’s four largest mobile wireless carriers: AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile, UScellular, and Verizon."
The next sentence further defines what coverage means, a cellular signal with a minimum bandwidth requirement.
I'll listen to you though.
What is missing but would be useful is how many users it can support at that minimum bandwidth.
I'm not saying anything in conflict with the words on this page. This page maps the coverage of services provided by infrastructure that the carriers own. That is not (necessarily) the same as the coverage map of where subscribers can get connectivity.
As the page mentions:
> The coverage maps on these service providers’ websites may be based on different parameters and assumptions, such as roaming, and may therefore differ from the information shown here.
It also mentions that the data is generated from Form 477 data. This form only includes data from operators who own their infrastructure. This means it will not include information about services provided through partnerships.
Seriously -- look at the USCellular map layer. This is not a map of the service area that a USCellular customer would expect, because USCellular makes a significant use of roaming under contract with other carriers (labelled 'partner coverage' on their own maps). https://www.uscellular.com/coverage-map/voice-and-data-maps
Also, my reply was in response to a comment about MVNOs, which may or may not provide services equivalent to the carriers they virtualize their network through.
If you're on a budget MVNO, sure. There are higher quality providers in the space, but you will pay significantly more for them.
The provider I have is data only at $120/mo for up to 1TB of 4G data. I'm not certain, but it seems like they'll move my SIM through different accounts on their backend to ensure that I always have full speed transfer within that limit... as when I'm getting close to a transfer threshold, my speeds will slow down, my modem will reboot at some time during that day, and then afterwards I'm back to full speeds.
I use Visible which is a Verizon subsidiary (MVNO-like, but not an MVNO) - I think they used it to test out stuff or something?
Either way it's $25/mo unlimited everything with the tradeoff being that you can be deprioritized. In the bay area though it works fine and that's a great price for no contract.
As a bonus there are no stores and you sign up via the app, I've been happy with it.
The funny thing to me is if Verizon's plans and website weren't such a disaster I'd be happy to pay more for better service.
I just don't want to deal with a rep, be forced to go to a store, be forced to sign a contract, have to navigate fifty different dark patterns that obscure the true pricing and try to screw me out of what I want.
If Verizon just charged $50/mo I'd pay it, but their current setup is awful.
I'm on Google Fi and I don't think I've ever experienced this.
Of course, this is just anecdata, and maybe I haven't experienced it because I just don't tend to use a lot of data (< 3 GB/month), and rarely go to areas that will have highly-crowded cell towers.
I'm on Google Fi and also don't use much data. I've recently had some significant struggles with Google Fi support over persistent issues with having a full strength connection and no data. This only ever happened when Sprint was the data carrier.
I'm on a MVNO provider and frequently experience issues where I have full signal like you mention, but nothing "works". Are you aware of any tools that can test the signal strength in comparison to... I guess download speed? Would be interesting to plot it out!
