metroPCS Outages

Metro by T-Mobile (formerly MetroPCS) is a prepaid wireless service carrier that operates a selection of smartphones and data plans in the United States. Previously known as MetroPCS, the company merged with T-Mobile USA’s LTE and 4G network in the year 2013 to become the company it is today. The original company, then known as General Wireless Inc., was established back in 1994. The PCS in its name comes from the term Personal Communications Service.

MetroPCS had a subscriber base of about 9 million users, which when merged with T-Mobile’s 32 million, became the fifth-biggest mobile operator in the country. Metro was rebranded as Metro by T-Mobile in 2018 when they introduced brand new unlimited pricing plans, along with several new features such as Amazon Prime bundles and Google One storage options.

Metro by T-Mobile is aiming high at making itself an established provider in the market. They announced their intention of becoming the first prepaid service to offer incredible 5G speeds by the year 2019.

Regional availability

Metro by T-Mobile provides internet service in 5 states of the U.S. Their largest subscriber base spans across Texas, Michigan, and California. The current subscriber count for Metro is at 54.3 million, which places the company sixth on the list of residential mobile internet service providers. Though Metro service is limited to small pockets across the country, the company has several expansion plans in the pipeline.

Errors / network problems

Metro’s LTE network has often met with criticism due to its old infrastructure. Though the network is based on 4G tech, the speeds from the provider were found to be in the range of older 3G services. However, for users that only need basic data usage, the service comes with an attractive no-contract feature that is quite useful.

The current Metro network relies on a combination of LTE services with 3G and 4G, which means that the services are down very often. With the rapid integration of the older MetroPCS network with T-Mobile’s larger coverage, we could soon see an immense improvement in services.

Metro by T-Mobile’s website contains a dedicated page for Support and FAQs, which has a detailed list of problems you can come across while using their service. The top 10 questions section especially is very relevant when facing common service outages.

Troubleshoot yourself

When your internet goes down with a ‘no data’ or ‘unable to connect’ message, the first thing to try is a restart of your mobile device. Some other things to check for are the mobile data settings to verify it’s turned on, software updates that could fix the outage, and also verifying that you are within the Metro mobile coverage area.

If you are unable to connect to a hotspot service with a device that is enabled to do so, check that the device hotspot settings indicate the service is turned on. Restarting the device also fixes the issue at times.

For issues with apps on your smartphone, first, check that the device is within the network area. Secondly, check your device settings to verify that it has storage space available to run apps.

For problems that still persist, you can visit the nearest Metro store or simply call Metro’s customer support line at 1-888-863-8768.