US roaming Madison wisconsin

[guillow]

Hi, trying to US roam in Madison Wisconsin and I keep dropping carriers and getting no signal.

Is there some trick to make the provider stick? Hate to buy a US sim since I've already paid for US roaming...

[guillow]

Suddenly the signal binding to towers got better. Not sure what happened, but guess will have to see.

Initially I thought it was because I was inside the airport..then I thought it was because I was in Verona (more outside the main city), but then I was right downtown and having the same trouble.

Better now so will see...

[JL9]

It seems that the US roaming add ons are getting worse and worse when it comes to reliability...to the point that people should avoid them and use some of the other alternatives.

[hairbag1]

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@will13am wrote:

@guillow , are you having problems connecting within city limits or outside of city limits?  I was not too pleased with coverage outside of major centers in WA State.  I could not manually connect to AT&T.  Manual connection to T-Mobile was possible.  Strange the US cellular network seems so weak in 2022.

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We had the same issue this weekend while on a day trip to eastern Wa state. In the past, I could get AT&T to work just fine. This weekend, only manually selected T-Mobile would connect and signal was weak and unstable. We just had the texting feature, so can't comment on talk or data.

It was only $8 but feel that it wasn't worth what I paid. Next time...I'll just use voip and free wifi at various locations.

[will13am]

@guillow , are you having problems connecting within city limits or outside of city limits?  I was not too pleased with coverage outside of major centers in WA State.  I could not manually connect to AT&T.  Manual connection to T-Mobile was possible.  Strange the US cellular network seems so weak in 2022.

[Timer]

@guillow 

it's showing at your account for Add-ons is there?

if yes then manually connect to T-Mobile..and rebooting device.

[softech]

@guillow   check if you have your preferred network set to 3G , you can change it to "4G" 

and you tried AT&T?  you can test the AT&T first if you are willing to give up voice for now... at least see if it can connect.  If so, you can use Data and Text, but very likely voice won't work

[guillow]

Super weird. I've roamed with public mobile to the US before and major cities seem fine (LA, New York, Orlando, San Diego).

Started to get EDGE only connection when I arrive in Madison Wisconsin. I tried connected manually to T-Mobile and it would give me and error saying I can't connect, and do the same dropping behaviour. At&t was even less reliable.

I have a pixel5 (unlocked), android 12, voice+text+data roaming in the US...

I have restarted my phone 3 times, and turn on/off airplane mode to force it to reconnect. But then it just sticks for a few minutes before dropping down to EDGE and then no connection at all...

Any other suggestions?

[softech]

@guillow   do you have just Roaming data or does that include roaming voice as well?

I would try to manually connect to the proper network instead of relying on Automatic

If your roaming has ONLY data and text, you can manually connect to either AT&T or T-Mobile.  Try them both to see which one is more stable

If your roaming has Voice involved, you need to connect to T-Mobile only as voice needs 3G or 2G, only T-Mobile has the 2G network for the voice 

let us know how it goes

Update:  Madison definitely have T-Mobile 2G network for voice (as well as LTE for data and text) , so you should be good to use T-Mobile

https://www.gsma.com/coverage/#466

AT&T also have solid LTE network for Data and text there:

https://www.gsma.com/coverage/#107