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I was in NYC last week using T-Mo and noticed this too. Is it due to the GSM frequencies they use?

I was told by a rep in Seattle that "new towers have just gone in for NYC", though YMMV.

As far as I know, the signal strength for voice calls and the data speed are different issues. Many T-mobile towers only support edge (1x) speeds on non-LTE GSM phones. Some towers have been refarmed to support the 3G hspa+ frequencies. Here is an unofficial coverage map: http://www.airportal.de/

In my apartment in the Upper West Side, I was getting a 3G data on an unlocked AT&T iphone 4S with a t-mobile sim, but only 2 bars of voice service. I'm tempted to try t-mobile's $30 / month 5Gig data + 100 minutes plan to use with my iphone 5s.

If their LTE service has decent coverage I may be able to get away with using facetime audio + google voice + talkatone.

Has anyone done this in NYC?

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