Best cellular carrier in the PNW

[Portage_Bay]

No doubt Garmin will have to up their game but for now with Starlink and T-mobile onboard I'm keeping my inreach. Garmin offers hardened handsets with very long battery life and a dedicated response center prepared to initiate and coordinate search and rescue. A cell phone cannot compare to a Garmin handset. If I drop my cell phone, step on it or get it wet it may no longer work. I'm lucky to get 18 hrs out of my cell phone battery. My inreach battery lasts for days. A single button press on the ineach calls for help. No trying to find an icon with wet cold fingers when the cell phone touch screen is reluctant to respond. The Garmin "keyboard" awkward as it is works with wet cold fingers and won't fail with a cracked screen. And in some important ways inreach cannot compare to EPIRB. Not ready to give up the inreach or EPIRB yet.

Well I think technically they did do it at least once according to that release. Ha. And to standard LTE. No special phones. No special app etc. Really incredible.

Obsoletes things like Garmin’s InReach pretty quickly.

 

[twistedtree]

Depending on your cruising plans, I think you have to simultaneously solve at least three problems, if not four. The assumptions are that you live in the US, not Canada, and that you plan to cruise into Canada and on to Alaska.

So for cellular service, you need good coverage in the US and more particularly in the San Juan islands, good roaming service through Canada, and good coverage in Alaska. Here is what we have experienced for each of these:

US and San Juan Islands: We have used ATT & Verizon side by side. Each is better is some locations, and worse in others. But that's just like anywhere. So if there is a particular location where you absolutely have to have service, and only one carrier works, that will drive your decision. Otherwise I don't think it matters. I have not used T-Mobile, but my take is that where they are good, they are good, but that the coverage is not as broad as the other two.

Roaming in Canada: This has gotten a lot better with more lenient roaming plans. Our current ATT plan extends into Canada, however by all observations our data access is deprioritized. For casual data use it's not a problem, but if you depend on cellular for your primary data, it might be an issue.

Alaska: We used both ATT and Verizon in SE AK and ATT is hands down superior. Verizon will only work in the few major cities.

The outcome of all this is that we now have all our phones with ATT.

The fourth question is data, and I agree with others that Starlink has significantly improved this. You can now have internet access uninterrupted across the whole area. And as others have pointed out, with good internet access, you can use your phone's wifi-calling feature to make calls and text via it's wifi internet connection (via starlink) even when there is no cellular service. So for many people this completely eliminates all the roaming concerns above. But keep in mind that it will only work when you are on the boat and when starlink is working. If you leave the boat, then you are back to needing cellular, so I think for most people the above cellular concerns still apply.

 

[MichaelD]

Certainly in the San Juans and southern Gulf Islands it's T-Mobile. Coverage is free of additional costs across the border. The rumor is that one of the corporate officers has a home on San Juan Island and so assures good service.

 

[gc9773]

Verizon...

From my time in the Pacific Northwest, Verizon worked very well. We used to lay our tracks from Everett to San Diego about 50 nm off the coast and had coverage the entire way down and back, save for a few dead spots. We called it the "Cell Phone Track".

I have T-Mobile, but anything that takes me offshore, I would prefer CDMA based connectivity, thus Verizon, GSM (T-Mobile, AT&T, etc.) just does not have ability to cover the same distances. Actually, it would have to be satellite based for any time spent out of sight of land.

I guess this only counts if you go offshore, we spent enough out at sea we selected our carrier based on it. There was no "Starlink", and the Captain did have an Inmarsat phone in his state room, as I recall...

Hope this helps!

 

[Mark Laurnen]

I was satisfied elsewhere with ATT for 35+ years. After fishing Neah Bay and Port Renfrew, I was disappointed when my buddies with Verizon had service and I did not. I’m with Verizon now and not disappointed. I do not know about pricing … I think they all seem high.

 

[TrawlerTed]

T Mobile works very well for us.

I second my next door boat neighbor Bob's statement regarding T-Mobile!

 

[Speedcat]

Hi All, great thread here. Thank you, and I hope you don't mind if I bump it here with my own experience.

I use second tier prepaid service that is contracted by the third party prepaid companies from the major carriers. I've had Simple Mobile forever and while it was backed by T-mobile service, it was pretty great in the San Juans.

Then Simple Mobile switched to Verizon. I've since only had one trip up there, and it seemed to work great on the water (WA State Ferry trip and a trip with a whale watching company), but almost no service on Lopez when on the ground. Really, terrifically bad service on Lopez.

On my boat I have a dedicated Tello pre-paid service. It's backed by T-mobile. I'm not sure I have any San Juans / Puget Sound experience to share regarding Tello but I will report back soon.

Really cool to hear about Starlink experiences. I want to get one but wondering how long it takes to get the equipment and account and everything set up? Any thoughts on this? Also, any thoughts on using the new Starlink Mini on boats?

Best,
Speed

 

[sjisailor]

Starlink is available immediately now, at places like Best Buy and West Marine. The main question there is where and how to mount it, and how to run the power/data cable. Note that it is a power hog (on the order of 60 watts depending on details).

The mini would be a great fit for boats BUT the current offering is a non starter from what I've read-- it is only available as a second dish to supplement a first one, and has 50 GB monthly included data limit as I understand it. Hopefully that will change after they deliver some.

 

[Bob Cofer]

I will be receiving the Mini system today and plan on using it both on Puffin and in our RV. Details forthcoming.

 

[dhays]

I just switched from Verizon (after 25 years) to T-Mobile. I get much better connection at my home in University Place and so far with my limited experience on the water in Puget Sound it has been better as well.

I'm too cheap to give money to Musk for Starling and I don't necessarily trust his company to to not change the plans randomly. It is a lot of work to install something to have it suddenly become unusable.

 

[tiltrider1]

I just switched from Verizon (after 25 years) to T-Mobile. I get much better connection at my home in University Place and so far with my limited experience on the water in Puget Sound it has been better as well.

I'm too cheap to give money to Musk for Starling and I don't necessarily trust his company to to not change the plans randomly. It is a lot of work to install something to have it suddenly become unusable.

I will admit there is always a risk in dealing with Elon.

 

[Bob Cofer]

I will admit there is always a risk in dealing with Elon.

I've had Starlink since 2021, no surprises or issues so far.

 

[tiltrider1]

I've had Starlink since 2021, no surprises or issues so far.

Maybe no surprises but the deal certainly has changed over the last 3 years. I now pay 50% more than I did in 2021.