Originally Posted by Orbitalzone:
“Just been to New England and found that on a couple of occasions I couldn't make voice calls when on Tmobile, I would get an error message saying the service wasn't available (and sometimes no voice message to say there was an error) - changing to AT&T seemed to correct that.
Data speeds were pretty lousy, in Boston city centre I'd get 5mbps on 3G (AT&T or Tmobile) but actually using the data was another matter, clearly it's very restricted on everything, web pages were slow as dialup but usable more or less.
However it was invaluable for Google maps as a sat nav, driving through the city.
Out in the sticks in Maine, New Hampshire there are vast swathes of no voice coverage at all and really makes me appreciated what fairly decent coverage we have in the UK. When in a small town, data was usually on Edge but it did work and was usable. Rarely saw 3G unless a large built up town.”
Interesting, I've just returned from three weeks in New England too (Nice isn't it

?)
I was on EE, my wife on Three. We both had solid T-Mobile in Boston (I had 4G she had 3G, presumably Three have no roaming agreement for 4G, because at no point did I notice her on 4G). Away from Boston, both phones predominately locked to AT&T, 4G for me, 3G for her). You're right about Maine and NH, large patches of no coverage, though for both of us it was with 3 or 4G or nothing at all. I don't recall ever seeing Edge or GPRS. I had my phone Bluetooth linked to the hire car's audio system, which gave a useful signal strength read out on its display.
As for speed, I don't know, we both only really used data for Whatsapp, and it was fine. Though one evening the Wifi in our b&b was so dire, I tethered her ipad to my phone and used AT&T 4G. In total we each used about 400 megs. 'Free' for her, and 25 quid for a 1GB/30 day allowance for me. I don't use Google Maps abroad, I use maps.me, you can download in advance maps and routing on a state by state level, so zero data usage when navigating.
(If you want really fast free WiFi there, go to a laundrette, I backed up all our photos taken so far to Dropbox in less time than the wash took !)