I have T-Mobile. What cell phone or service is best for hunters. I know some phones work better than others. Trying to find good phone for reception in the woods

I guess it depends on your area but At&t works best around here.

As much as it pains me to say it, because I hate them, but AT&T has the best coverage. Been using it for 35+ years, all over the USA, and it works best. Can't tell you how many times I've loaned my phone to a guy standing beside me with a phone getting no signal on another carrier.

Cast is probably right about this. I have Sprint and hunt in Mills County, and it's okay but I'm betting AT&T has better coverage. Might also take a look at Verizon.

ATT

Verizon has the best Customer Service by a long shot, but AT&T has better coverage.

Cell reception all depends on your location, period. What is good for one may or may not be for the other. If your carrier doesn't have a tower nearby then your service will suck. I originally had Verizon when cell phones came out. Their horrible customer service (back then) made me switch to what was then Cingulair, now ATT. It didn't matter about coverage then cause I was in the metroplex and rarely traveled out of town. Fast forward 10-15 yrs and it totally matters. I live and hunt in West Texas and my lease has some descent elevation changes/plateaus. ATT has ZERO service where I hunt and within the confines of my home, in town mind you, I get dropped calls, missed calls and at best have 1-2 bars. If I go 1 mile away form my home I have full bars. At my lease its a 30 min drive to the main road before I get service and even then it's spotty. My buddy has Sprint and gets reception all day long. Other buddy has verizon, and has service all day long. If I drive from Roswell NM to Albuquerque, on HWY 285, there is an hour stretch where I get no service and my friend who has Verizon and Sprint do. It all depends on where you live or are currently at and which provider has a tower or not in your area. There are several phone apps (root metrics is one that come to mind but there are others) that you can download which will give you a reasonable diagnostics of which providers have towers in your location and what the strength of signal is. This may help you.

Very good info here ^^^

Yes Sir...That Pipeline coming thru our place helped out big time

Hearing stories like this makes me wonder if Verizon is deliberately adding cells where AT&T has none. Yet they don't always cover where AT&T does. Is that a good bidness model?

At my lease in Throck, AT&T is it. Works plenty good enuff to run my covert cams.

If it weren't for my unlimited everything plan from 10-15 yrs ago that I wisely purchased when I signed up I would dump ATT in a heart beat. However, you can't beat the plan I am on and because of that I'll likely never switch. This being said, I can hike all day long in the Wilderness outside of Telluride,CO at 8-12,000 feet and have 4-5 bars the entire time. It's all about carrier and carrier tower locations. Best thing is ask the other guys on your lease who their carrier is and what kind of reception they get at the lease.

From what I have been told by my friend who is a regional manager for one of the major carriers, as these carriers are increasing their wifi speeds it actually shrinks their coverage area because of the bandwidth it requires to do so (I could be talking out of my backside about the specifics here so don't quote me). The long story short is however that the coverage map is actually shrinking as speeds increase at least until they can get more towers built. Its all above my pay grade, but it makes since....I guess.

You are correct. In digital radio, the faster you go (baud rate), the smaller your coverage area per cell. I saw this exact same thing in building digital paging systems. Don't know squat about cellular tech, just an educated guess.

Used to have T-Mobile and did not have service at our deer lease. Got Verizon now, not the cheapest service you can get but I have service in areas nobody with me else has.

Verizon is the only carrier that gets reception in my area.

In Unit 30 in New Mexico, I have no reception at camp and I'm on ATT. When I get to the water point, if I stand on the cow pie under the pine tree at the Ranger station, then I get 3 to 4 bars until the wind gets out of the south and the call is dropped. My buddy, who has Verizon, can text and talk just about anywhere in Unit 30. This year, I plan on buying a Verizon trac phone to use in camp.

Sprint was great at home, but sucked at the lease. I asked different leasers and the neighbors what was working best before I switched to AT&T.
Oddly Sprint showed that I should have coverage at the lease and I never got a single bar. I learned not to trust them silly maps that they put out.

I've been on AT&T for years and have found only a few dead spots for the places I go. Out in the middle of nowhere SW of Ozona I even have pretty good service on top, but little to none down in the bottom of the canyons but I can still send/receive text and email, but no phone. Dead spot between Junction and Mason and a couple dead spots between Guthrie & Childress. The type of phone also makes a difference on reception. My old blackberry Torch (business) had full phone service when my iPhone 5s (personal) was blank and upgraded the BB to a Samsung s5 and it doesn't seem to have near as good as the old BB but beats the heck out of the iPhone most of the time out in the boonies.

Verizon gives us better coverage going west.

For me Verizon is terrible on my lease but by far the best where I live. Where I hunt in NM for deer and elk, it doesn't matter who you have. You won't be making any calls. It was a 30 minute drive down the mountain one way to get bad reception.

I got tired of doing that to call my wife to let her know I was alive so I picked up a SPOT device that uses the Iridium satellites. Works great but only sends a canned text message and alerts authorities if you send a distress signal. Wish I had picked up the Delorme product though, it does more.

You should look into the Iridium Go. It's a satellite mobile hotspot that enables your cell phone to work like a satellite phone. It's pricey, but does away with lack of coverage from cell towers.

Spot on with your dead spots Amigo..Ozona can be BAD

Overall I think AT&T is best. I hate having the phone on the lease but it's nice to know you can reach out in emergency.

T Mobile sucks.

In north east Texas it seems that Verzion has the best coverage.