[flyingfences]

US Cellular has great coverage back home (Maine) but shoddy coverage where I live now (New York) and T-Mobile vice versa. I've been on Google Fi for the past ten years because it is the only option (at least when I last looked) that jumps seamlessly between the two, and at a reasonable enough price (for a guy who doesn't use much data). If this merger makes another carrier that has good service throughout the northeast, that could change the game for a lot of customers.

I'm not optimistic, though; the T-Mobile - Sprint merger was supposed to improve their service but ended up [0] jacking their prices.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40379028

[cognaitiv]

At least as of 10-15 years ago US Cellular owned their rural markets and leased their urban markets. In NYC they are likely reselling Verizon’s network.

[TMWNN]

> US Cellular has great coverage back home (Maine) but shoddy coverage where I live now (New York) and T-Mobile vice versa.

US Cellular as of 2012 no longer operates in its headquarters city of Chicago. <https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-cellular-to-sell...>

[lxgr]

> shoddy coverage where I live now (New York)

Do they have any coverage in New York? I thought they were using national roaming on AT&T there?

[synergy20]

isn't google fi using t-mobile network as the backbone?

[flyingfences]

Google Fi used T-Mobile, Sprint, and US Cellular behind the scenes. At least, they did at the time I signed up, which was why I signed up. Sprint merged into T-Mobile a few years ago; Fi dropped US Cellular last spring.

Since then, I've stayed on from inertia. I'll probably switch to T-Mobile's $15 / 5 GB plan soon, since it's half the price I'm paying for now-no-better service from Fi and I rarely use more than 1 GB per month.

[toomuchtodo]

Yes, Google Fi is an MVNO of T-mobile's network.

[timw4mail]

Basically exclusively at this point.