Can a business run T-Mobile and AT&T at the same time?
Yes, and for a lot of businesses it is deliberate rather than accidental. If a single carrier having a bad day can stop you trading, one carrier is a single point of failure — however good it is.
The usual design
Fiber from one carrier as the main connection, 5G fixed wireless from the other as automatic failover. The two run on different networks and different infrastructure, so an outage on one does not take the other with it.
The failover has to be automatic. A backup connection that somebody has to go and switch on is not a backup — by the time anyone notices, the damage is done.
The simpler version
T-Mobile SuperBroadband does the same job without the second vendor: 5G as the primary link with unlimited Starlink satellite behind it, on one bill, from $250 a month a site on a three-year term.
It is usually the right answer for a site that needs resilience but does not need enormous bandwidth — a restaurant, a shop, a branch office. Two separate carriers is usually the right answer where the primary connection genuinely needs fiber-grade capacity.
On the phone side
Splitting handsets across two carriers is a different decision and usually a worse one. You lose the volume that gets you negotiated pricing on either, and you double the admin for no resilience benefit — a phone that loses signal is not the same problem as a site that loses its connection.
Larger organisations sometimes do split deliberately, by region or by business unit, where coverage genuinely differs. Below that, concentrate the lines and diversify the circuits.
Designing it
We are independent of both carriers, so we have no reason to push you toward one. Tell us what each site does and what an hour offline actually costs you, and we will design it and price the options against each other.
Working it out
Plain answers to the questions we get asked most, with the pricing next to them.
T-Mobile or AT&T?
Where each one actually wins, the pricing on six lines, and the catch in AT&T's advertised rate.
Read it →When does the price become negotiable?
Under 20 lines you pay the rate card. From 20 to 99 the carriers will quote you — but only if someone registers the account.
Read it →Independent advice, or straight to the carrier?
It costs the same either way. What changes is whether anyone is looking at the whole picture for you.
Read it →Starlink as backup internet
Three different jobs it can do, what each costs, and why backup and coverage are not the same problem.
Read it →How long does switching take?
About three weeks. Why the phones are never the hold-up, and how to avoid waiting on a fiber build.
Read it →Get both carriers priced for your business
Email a photo or PDF of your current phone or internet bill to hello@photex.us and we will price it on T-Mobile and AT&T within one business day. Or call 847-991-9419.