Verizon To AT&T: Sorry, The Truth Hurts | Hacker News Reader

Verizon To AT&T: Sorry, The Truth Hurts

engadget.com

46 pointskloncks23 comments

I travel extensively throughout the US. I carry an iPhone and a BlackBerry on vzw (and also a vzw wireless broadband card with a Cradlepoint router).

The Verizon network wins hands-down for overall coverage/speed. If I am in a location with both 3G coverage and available bandwidth on the 3G network, then the iPhone is a great mobile device. However, those instances are rare and quite often my iPhone is getting Internet access via the broadband card/Cradlepoint router over Verizons network.

You know, I thought that they were doing somewhat acceptably in my limited experience with 3G... until I spent the weekend in Chicago with '3G' and 'Full' reception. I couldn't make or keep any calls, and the '3G' worked about 1/3 of the time.

Embarrassing to say the least. They work ok where I live now, but I'm likely going to switch away as soon as possible. Damn iPhone...

I have one of each. There is no comparision--verizon wins hands down in chicago.

I guess it depends on location. I'm lucky: In Philadelphia AT&T gets reception in places Verizon doesn't, so I can place calls on the subway. But the Northeast is an AT&T hotspot; I've never had the opportunity to take this phone any place tricky.

I had Verizon when I moved to Chicago, and now have AT&T for the iPhone. What a mistake. 90% of the time I have 5 bars of "3G" but the network won't actually transmit any data. Sometimes the phone flips back and forth from 3G to edge back to 3G, which most apps can't seem to handle. I drop well over 50% of my calls, while my wife's iPhone drops close to 90%.

When I lived in Chicago I had the previous incarnation which was known as "Cellular One" aka "Hellular One" and then Cingular, and it sucked then too.

Same here in CO Springs. AT&T "inflates" their connection information (more bars) on their phones. [citation needed I know] I can sit in my office with 4 or 5 bars of 3G and not bring up Google.com on my IPhone. I live on the top of a hill about a block away from an array of cell towers, but my calls rarely even connect (and drop all the time).

I've noticed this as well in an area with extremely bad reception (inside a skyscraper) - my iPhone seems to frequently default to showing 5 bars when it can't actually make or receive calls, but then when I go next to a window and it actually establishes a workable connection, the signal strength meter shows 1-2 bars.

I haven't seen a citeable source, though.

Edit: clarified a bit. Also, I wanted to add that I get one or more dropped calls basically every day, even outside (in Manhattan).

I live in Los Angeles and it's always switching back and forth between 3G & Edge, even when I'm standing still.. Sometimes dropping my call in the process. It's gotten to the point where I turn off 3G just so my calls won't drop..

AT&T 3G works reliably for me in Austin, though not blazingly fast. However, I'm tempted to go back to Verizon if I like the Droid. Verizon was always rock-solid for me: no dropped calls and much better service away from cities and interstates. I'm pretty sure Verizon's rural coverage was better eight years ago that AT&T's is today. I can't compare non-voice service directly, because I only used Verizon for voice calls, but Verizon wins the voice service comparison hands down. AT&T's voice service is really disappointing in comparison: occasional dropped calls in the city and limited service in the boonies.

Another thing I've noticed: with AT&T, I've often had difficulty making calls when I'm close to a concert or festival. This has been annoying since I live a few blocks from a city park that is often used as a venue. AT&T has apparently done something in the last year or so to ameliorate this problem a little, but (constant refrain) I never had a problem with minor local events when I had Verizon.

AT&T works great for me in Boston's North Shore, but not for my wife (iPhone I) nor my son (iPhone II). I can routinely make and receive calls with my Razr standing right next to them when they can't with their iPhones. So, make sure you compare apples to apples. I suspect that the sensitivity of the iPhones' transceiver is lacking. That's why I haven't bought one yet: my cell phone is my business phone and I need to be able to get calls most importantly.

I have no information on the third iPhone model, though.

To clarify, I have an iPhone 3G. Excluding the problems with events I described and the truly atrocious service I had before the 2.0.1 upgrade (or 2.1? I don't remember), I've never been unable to make a call from anywhere in Austin. I just have to try again if the call fails or is dropped, which is common but not an everyday occurrence. It's a tolerable level of service, but still irksome enough to bias me toward Verizon for my next phone.

I'd be curious to know: do other people in your area on AT&T who don't have an iphone have the same problem?

I'm astounded that AT&T filed a lawsuit over these ads. What would have been somewhat forgettable as a "snarky Verizon ad poking fun at AT&T" is now front-and-center in several media outlets, all with a positive Verizon spin. (Witness the comments here.) Even if they win (which is looking unlikely), all they've accomplished is getting the ads off the air - after drawing a huge amount of attention to them that they would not have otherwise received.

What I don't understand is why hasn't AT&T fixed this problem? I'm sure they have enough capital to make the investment to end this discussion. If consumers are aware of this problem I'm sure that AT&T is. It seems like this would be a better long term solution than lawsuits.

It's possible that they're holding their cash to roll out something like WiMAX instead.

I think the proposition of a single WiMAX data network is just about dead. Hopefully the tech survives to drive things on the scale of municipal wifi projects - as it's a vastly superior technology than wifi in those situations.

But in any case, AT&T is firmly in the LTE camp.

that doesn't mean that Intel (who is firmly cemented in the WiMax camp) won't use its influence with Apple to get an WiMax-powered iPhone...

I don't doubt a WiMax-capable iPhone might happen, as a secondary data capability ala the existing WiFi support.

I just don't think it would be sold as a WiMax iPhone as opposed to GSM/CDMA/LTE.

I read somewhere recently that their data usage has spiked several thousand percent since the iPhone came out. They've drastically increased capacity, but haven't caught up yet.

So it's a hard problem. Not that it excuses them - they launched a great web device into a field of devices that were nearly unusable on the web, so the spike is not surprising (at least in hindsight). But I do think they're trying.

AT&T is another monopolistic relic. They don't move fast on anything and there's a huge amount of management overhead for even the smallest task. They may very well invest a huge amount of capital into infrastructure upgrades but how much of that actually translates to real world improvements is unknown. I'm not sure Verizon is all that much better off in this respect but they happened to deploy a more scalable technology better suited for data long before the demand was a reality. Going forward with their LTE upgrade we could very well see the same situation AT&T is in.

AT&T had a first mover advantage in smart-phones-for-the-masses market, but as Verizon starts offering comparable Android based phones with a much better network, they will lose this lead.

I like my verizon, had them for about 10 years, but I hate them whenever I have to make/receive calls from home. The reception is junk, dropped calls, can only hear every other word.

Outside my house, perfect, inside junk.

Also their phone selection has been pretty crap until recently.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com