1. Price:
Pros: T-Mobile is often a price leader and is a very good value. They offer a 'balance' of minutes and features to help customers save money by tailoring plans to their exact usage. Cons: In some cases, T-mobile loses their price advantage by matching the other major carriers by raising some rates, just because they can.

2. Coverage:
Pros: T-Mobile has made an effort to provide excellent urban coverage. They focus on serving customers at the 'neighborhood' level and quite often supplies the best signal in difficult sites. We find in-town locations where T-Mobile has the only usable signal. Their own rural coverage is limited to major highways and populated areas, but they fill in adequately with good roaming agreements. Cons: Their own network is limited to the 1900 MHz band which has some inherent distance limitations. Fortunately, they have negated these effects by strategic locations of their cell sites.

3. Customer Service:
Pros: T-Mobile consistently get raves from JD Power and similar organizations for their excellent customer service. Our experience agrees with that assessment and they have deftly handled every difficult situation we handed them. Cons: T-Mobile's customer service is sometimes hard to access. Their menus and call-processing systems are a bit awkward. We admit, though, finding something really wrong with their customer service is difficult.

4. Phone Selection:
Pros: T-Mobile offers a good selection of GSM phones. They have offered some exclusive phone models which were nice but not really traffic-stoppers. Cons: There's nothing wrong with T-Mobile's phones other than they could offer a few more models.

5. Roaming:
Pros: T-Mobile has done a commendable job of establishing favorable roaming agreements. They offer excellent roaming coverage and still maintain competitive rates. All T-Mobile plans include nationwide roaming on both 1900 and 850 MHz systems. They are the only major carrier that allows their prepaid customers to roam. Fortunately, the takeover of parts of Alltel's GSM network by AT&T will not be a near term problem for existing T-Mobile roaming. The FCC has required AT&T to continue to support existing GSM roaming through 2016. Cons: T-Mobile finds the most economical roaming partner in some areas, and that may mean accessing a weaker network. Some roaming partners do not have as well-established networks as T-Mobile, so there are places where a T-Mobile roamer will not necessarily find the strongest roaming signal. With the Verizon takeover of most of Alltel's GSM network, there will be no further upgrading of that network, maintenance may be slow, and it could go away in 2013. Even though T-Mobile phones roam on GSM networks internationally, the roaming charges are expensive.

6. Features:
Pros: T-Mobile offers the usual digital features, and they all work very well both on and off their own network. Cons: Some features are limited by T-Mobile's lack of bandwidth in some markets. See Data, below.

7. Audio Quality:
Pros: T-Mobile is limited to the general quality of GSM networks. In some areas there is some odd-sounding audio artifacts, but T-Mobile's robust urban coverage prevents that from occurring other than at the edge of coverage. Cons: T-Mobile suffers just a little when roaming where they must depend on networks that are not as well designed. Some are as good as T-mobile or better.

8. Data:
Pros: T-Mobile has a good data network and their broadband features work well. Cons: They do not have an extensive 3G network and, unfortunately, do not have enough frequency spectrum to offer much bandwidth in many markets. There are plans for expansion in their new AWS allocations in the future.

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