I recently switched to T-Mobile for my new cell phone and their T-Vision TV service. Although I'm happy with my cell service, I've had technicians to my home FOUR TIMES to resolve issues with my TV service. First, understand that I have elderly parents living with me, both suffering from Alzheimers. Although I work mostly from home so I can care for them, I frequently have to attend meetings, leaving them alone for several hours at a time. Watching their favorite TV shows normally keeps them calm and mentally stimulated. Since they tend to wander around the house, I keep the TV's on in three rooms. But since my transition to T-Mobile's "T-Vision" service, every time I return home I find them confused, agitated and very upset, for the following reasons:
1. The TV's "time out" at random intervals in the middle of a show. T-Mobile claims these time-outs were intentionally designed into their system to save people from paying excessive charges for going over their data limits. They claim the time-outs are designed to happen automatically after 75 minutes of no activity using the remote, but this is not true. My three TV's time-out completely randomly, anywhere from 20 to 90 minutes, and each TV is different. Imagine trying to train elderly parents with dementia that, in order to resume watching their shows, they have to, first of all, FIND the remote. Then they have to hit three different buttons on the remote (in the proper sequence), to resume watching their show. This is totally unacceptable for a normal person, let alone young children or the elderly!
2. There is a "lag" between each of the 3 TV's as they move from room to room. My previous provider had lags, too, but they were, at most, 2-3 seconds, which was ok. But T-Vision's lags are as long as 6-10 minutes difference! Imagine watching a show in the living room, and then walking into your bedroom, only to find that you're either watching what you just saw 10 minutes ago, or you've missed 10 minutes from the show you were previously watching, just 20 steps away! My 4th T-Mobile technician said this was due to a "defective box," so he exchanged it for a new one. At first, the time lags returned to a normal 2-3 second delay, but a week later, it's the same old story, or even worse!
3. When fast-forwarding a previously-recorded show on the DVR in order to bypass an advertisement, the screen now goes blank so I can't tell when to resume playback. So now I have to navigate blindly, going from fast forward to slow reverse until I find the spot where the show has resumed. This is maddening for me, and totally impossible for my parents to "fix."
4. In addition to the unexpected (and unwanted) "time-outs," the shows frequently "freeze," either with a frozen picture or frozen audio, or sometimes both. These random freezes result in constant error messages saying either "Hang tight!" (I'm not joking here...), or "We apologize for the inconvenience...". After four service visits, the problem continues.
5. Because of the complicated series of button clicks on T-Vision's remote required to watch either live or pre-recorded DVR shows, it's impossible to program a "universal remote" --- even the most advanced remotes like the Harmony 650 or Elite. With my previous provider, I was able to program my Harmony to "Watch TV" or "Watch Netflix," or "Listen to music," with just a single button-press. But T-Mobile's "T-Vision" system makes it impossible to program live or pre-recorded shows on a universal remote. Their standard remote is very "user-unfriendly," and, worse still, they do not offer a back-lit remote for a dark room, the bedroom at night, or the visually impaired. And there are, as yet, no after-market backlighted remotes for T-Vision anywhere on the web... bad planning on T-Mobile's part.
6. I'm both an avid "news freak" and sports fan. During the recent political debates and Mueller hearings, I programmed my "T-Vision" main box to record them while I was away from home. I took the morning off from work to watch the morning session live. It was continually interrupted with those infuriating "We apologize for the interruption" and "Hang Tight" error messages. But then I had to leave for an afternoon appointment, expecting (hoping) to watch the afternoon session when I returned home. When I tried to play the "afternoon" session, I could only retrieve the morning session video --- complete with multiple frozen screens --- but was able to view the last part of the afternoon's sessions, yet only on one of my TV's!
Clearly, T-Mobile and it's "T-Vision" division has not done it's homework and rolled out its TV service prematurely, at our expense. I am beyond frustrated and seriously considering going back to Direct TV, where none of these problems existed. read more