AT&T's 3G Network Gets Top Ranks

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

AT&T's 3G network beat out Verizon and Sprint's competing networks in testing done by ComputerWorld (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9083559).

To gauge the speed and reliability of these three wireless data networks, I used my ThinkPad X300 to collect nearly 500 data points at eight different places in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, within a 50-mile radius of midtown Manhattan's urban canyons.

I timed how long it took to establish a connection with each network, followed by speed tests. Using Alken's bandwidth meter, I was able to gauge download and upload speeds as well as how long it took to load that vendor's home page. Finally, I ran an Internet radio station and timed how long it took to drain the battery. I then compared it to running the battery down using the notebook's Wi-Fi radio.

All speed readings -- connection time, the Alken speed tests and page loading times -- were repeated five times and averaged.

The result (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9083559&pageNumber=5) placed AT&T as the leader with consistently faster download and upload speeds and shorter connection and page load times. The author notes that individual results may vary based on location.

As readers are probably aware, Apple is widely expected to announce a 3G iPhone by June's Worldwide Developers Conference.

Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/iphone/2008/05/13/atandts-3g-network-gets-top-ranks/)

[jazzkids]

Is it fair to say that Apple is probably been the best thing for AT&T?

I realize that they were probably doing fine before Apple, but I think that relationship has been more of a benefit to AT&T than the reverse.

I'm glad to see that my switch from Sprint was a good move!

[longofest]

I've actually been very pleasantly surprised with AT&T. I was nervous switching from Verizon, but I've had nothing but good cell service, not to mention I get to use the iPhone.

But really... haven't had the bad network coverage issues that Cingular used to have. They've done a good job of solidifying their network.

[liberty4all]

Now just post a Clearwire WiMax (4G) datapoint for comparison purposes...

http://clearwire.com

[longofest]

Now just post a Clearwire WiMax (4G) datapoint for comparison purposes...

http://clearwire.com

This was a 3G comparison. 4G is still a ways off for being really viable for consumers. See how limited the coverage map is for one. Also, the speeds aren't that much better than 3G (peak 3G speeds in this test were 1.6 Mbps, whereas clearwire peak is 2Mbps according to their website).

[amac4me]

Bring on the 3G iPhone! Nice to see these results. I'll be switching from Verizon once the new model is released. Looking forward to finally owning an iPhone.

[Rocketman]

Is it fair to say that Apple is probably been the best thing for AT&T?


I agree. I hope ATT is sourcing UNIX boxes for nodes from Apple!

Blackberry is an ATT friendly thing as well, but they have back end services to compliment the palmtop and network front end.

Oh, wait, Apple owns the former Worldcom telco center. THEY could offer Blackberry (crackberry) like back end services too.

Hmmm. iPod dock connector keyboard dongle anyone?

Rocketman

[SirOmega]

I have a hard time believing this. Or at least, thinking that this would apply nationwide.

I have both Verizon Rev A EVDO and AT&T HSDPA modems at work, and I find that the EVDO modems perform better than the HSDPA modem. Rev A EVDO is slightly faster - 1Mb/s-800kb/s vs 900-750kb/s - and has lower ping times (120ms vs 350ms) than HSDPA modems.

[Rocketman]

Now just post a Clearwire WiMax (4G) datapoint for comparison purposes...

http://clearwire.com

I am as strong of a Wimax advocate as anyone on this site, but it has latency issues and is not deployed yet of course, and hogs power. The Verizon vision of high bandwidth cellular wireless seems more compatible with the installed base of handsets and the installed base of handset and chip manufacturing for device action time intensive applications. Maybe for laptops or devices with double or quadruple sized batteries.

Once Wimax becomes dense it is better, but for rural and national coverages, cellular is still the thing.

Heck, iPhone EDGE (2.75G) is pervasive in this country and I tested that on a cross-country trip with almost no dead spots. That amazed me. Thank you NSA! :)

Rocketman

[stagi]

Very nice, bring on the 3g iPhone

[Diode]

This was a 3G comparison. 4G is still a ways off for being really viable for consumers. See how limited the coverage map is for one. Also, the speeds aren't that much better than 3G (peak 3G speeds in this test were 1.6 Mbps, whereas clearwire peak is 2Mbps according to their website).

Don't forget that Clearwire is capped at 256k upload.

They were getting 484Kbit/sec on AT&T's 3G ... which will make emailing photo's much much better.

[megfilmworks]

Bad news for all the haters.:D

[winterspan]

Hey, sorry If people already saw this, I'm not trying to paste it everywhere, I just thought it was definitely relevant here. AT&T may have great service 3G service where you can get it, but Verizon's network also gets fairly high marks and is available in many more suburban/rural places.

This is from another thread:

note: the map is certainly NOT PERFECT. There were many elements on the original maps that had to be removed to overlay them together such as other services coverage areas with different colors, differing state and city label locations, etc. In the areas where extraneous text labels were removed on the Verizon coverage, I did the best I could to extrapolate the coverage boundaries based on the surrounding area. That being said, DO NOT RELY on this map to insure you have 3G service in your area -- it is only intended to be used for a quick comparison of national coverage. To check your local area for coverage, please visit http://www.att.com or http://www.verizonwireless.com.


The Image below is an Gif animation. You need to let the frames load to see the comparison data...


http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/2482/attvsvzw3gdt0.gif

[Peel]

Finally, I ran an Internet radio station and timed how long it took to drain the battery.

Why would one company's 3G connection drain your battery faster than another? If you're streaming internet radio over both, the connection will be open the same, no? I wouldn't think it would matter that one had more bad packets, or faster throughput, etc. if the channel on the testing (receiving) device were simply pulling down data as fast as it was being served up.

[megfilmworks]

Have you ever been in a flakey edge area? Your battery meter will shrink before your eyes and your phone will get warm. Slower connections take longer to move data and during that time the battery is working hard for a longer time. You may not notice it with internet radio as a large buffer will try to keep the stream consistent at playback.

[autumn]

Hey, sorry If people already saw this, I'm not trying to paste it everywhere, I just thought it was definitely relevant here. AT&T may have great service 3G service where you can get it, but Verizon's network also gets fairly high marks and is available in many more suburban/rural places.

This is from another thread:

note: the map is certainly NOT PERFECT. There were many elements on the original maps that had to be removed to overlay them together such as other services coverage areas with different colors, differing state and city label locations, etc. In the areas where extraneous text labels were removed on the Verizon coverage, I did the best I could to extrapolate the coverage boundaries based on the surrounding area. That being said, DO NOT RELY on this map to insure you have 3G service in your area -- it is only intended to be used for a quick comparison of national coverage. To check your local area for coverage, please visit http://www.att.com or http://www.verizonwireless.com.


The Image below is an Gif animation. You need to let the frames load to see the comparison data...


http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/2482/attvsvzw3gdt0.gif


VZW and Sprint does lead at&t over in 3G coverage area for now. FYI, that at&t 3G coverage map is not most updated one. There are quite a few markets with 3G that are not marked in the map.

Nonetheless, at&t is working very hard to push 80 more markets of 3G this year.

Also, at&t's 3G upgrade path is easier than VZW and Sprint. They have HSDPA 1.8Mbit/s now, some markets have 3.6Mbit/s. Then they can go to 7.3, 10.2, 14.4. They use simultaneous voice and data which means you can browse the web, check your email, or anything data related while you are on the phone.

Even with Rev. A, VZW and Sprint are still not simultaneous voice/data network. They'll have to wait til Rev. B which is a pretty major ordeal to upgrade to as I understand.

Anyway, if you live in a major city and usually travel to other major cities like me, then you'll have no problem with at&t's 3G coverage. If not, at&t is catching up fast so hopefully your area will be covered soon.:)

[lax15]

Can't wait for the new 3g phone. Here in Atlanta, we get great 3g coverage so i'll be upgrading my 16 gig real soon.

[Analog Kid]

Certainly good news, I just wonder how it will handle the sudden rush of a couple million iPhone users...

I have a hard time believing this. Or at least, thinking that this would apply nationwide.

I have both Verizon Rev A EVDO and AT&T HSDPA modems at work, and I find that the EVDO modems perform better than the HSDPA modem. Rev A EVDO is slightly faster - 1Mb/s-800kb/s vs 900-750kb/s - and has lower ping times (120ms vs 350ms) than HSDPA modems.
Radio flies at the same speed for all these technologies, so I have to guess that those ping time differences must be indicating something that isn't spectrum or protocol related. What ever is causing that is probably also responsible for some of the speed difference.
Have you ever been in a flakey edge area? Your battery meter will shrink before your eyes and your phone will get warm. Slower connections take longer to move data and during that time the battery is working hard for a longer time.
The battery isn't trading electricity to heat because of slow data rates in that case, it's doing it to drive up the transmit amp. Depending on the phone, it could be pumping out as much as a Watt of radio power, which is easily a couple watts internally.

The slower connection might exacerbate this, but the real source of the power drain is distance to the tower.

[Poudresteve]

VZW and Sprint does lead at&t over in 3G coverage area for now. FYI, that at&t 3G coverage map is not most updated one. There are quite a few markets with 3G that are not marked in the map.

Nonetheless, at&t is working very hard to push 80 more markets of 3G this year.


I live in one of those places where at&t is certainly lacking in comparison with Verizon (Champaign, IL). Just happens to be location of the #5 engineering university in the world and one of the innovation hubs of the Midwest (the University of Illinois) - but not that at&t would notice - they have already upgraded Bloomington (home of State Farm Insurance) and Springfield (home of the corrupt politicians of Illinois) to 3G, and we're still sitting at EDGE speeds. So you can see where at&t figures their bottom line is at.

So I think that this article certainly figures out that at&t favors the big markets (it's pretty sad that 3G and not 4G or better is still the standard in NY metro, arguably the richest place on the planet). As an aside, all of these corporations have let our nation down so badly in terms of putting in place a consistent high speed standard that soon places like China and India (what we think of as the third world) will soon have faster nation wide wireless data access than the good ol' USA.

It's time that the government stepped in and made some policy decisions as for what is best for our economy - as a faculty member at a major university, I find it so wasteful that we leave it up to these corporations where our economy develops in terms of the data backbone compared to where it is not. I certainly encourage competition in terms of devices (like the iPhone), but in a small market place like where I do "business" so much is left to the infrastructure in place that it doesn't seem like competition is a factor, whereas corporate greed is the driver.

[cheekybobcat]

Is it fair to say that Apple is probably been the best thing for AT&T?

I realize that they were probably doing fine before Apple, but I think that relationship has been more of a benefit to AT&T than the reverse.

I'm glad to see that my switch from Sprint was a good move!

I'd say AT&T has been happy with the contract with Apple. It sure as heck didn't hurt them ;)

[winterspan]

Why would one company's 3G connection drain your battery faster than another? If you're streaming internet radio over both, the connection will be open the same, no?

It's far more complex than that.

1) AT&T and Verizon/Sprint do not share the same 3G technologies. AT&T's UMTS (W-CDMA) uses a different air interface and multiplexing technology than Verizon/Sprint's EV-DO (CDMA). This means they may have different signal processing and power transmission requirements for the mobile phone.

2) Your phone does not use a constant amount of transmission power. It varies considerably depending on how well the signal is traveling between it and the cellular tower. There are many elements that affect the signal transmission, including the type of network technology, the radio frequency that the network is on running on, the density and location of the tower placements, and the obstacles between you and the tower. A good rule of thumb is that the lower the frequency of the radio wave (and thus the higher the wavelength), the farther the signal will travel. This is because lower frequency (higher wavelength) signals have less attenuation from weather and other obstacles (like walls) and thus go farther with less transmission power. This is why over-the-air analog TV that transmits on 700mhz works so well in homes, and so many miles from the transmission station. This is why the FCC's auction for the rights to this very same 700mhz frequency was such a bid deal (in the USA) since current cellular networks run on frequencies between 800 and 2400mhz.

I don't personally know whether CDMA EV-DO technology or AT&T's UMTS/W-CDMA competitor is more efficient with regards to transmission power and signal processing power. I also don't know whose network is built better, but, judging by reports and coverage maps, it appears to almost exclusively depend on your local area. for 3G specifically, it appears Verizon has a larger coverage area for suburban/rural America, but AT&T is gaining fast and apparently has a better 3G network in the areas that is does service.

Have you ever been in a flakey edge area? Your battery meter will shrink before your eyes and your phone will get warm. Slower connections take longer to move data and during that time the battery is working hard for a longer time. You may not notice it with internet radio as a large buffer will try to keep the stream consistent at playback.

Yep, it's all about the signal strength and how much transmission power the phone has to use. I guess an analogy might be... the farther away your buddy is from you in a field or the more obstructions there is between you and him, the louder you have to yell and thus the more energy you use communicating. Is that terrible? lol

VZW and Sprint does lead at&t over in 3G coverage area for now. FYI, that at&t 3G coverage map is not most updated one. There are quite a few markets with 3G that are not marked in the map.

Nonetheless, at&t is working very hard to push 80 more markets of 3G this year.

Also, at&t's 3G upgrade path is easier than VZW and Sprint. They have HSDPA 1.8Mbit/s now, some markets have 3.6Mbit/s. Then they can go to 7.3, 10.2, 14.4. They use simultaneous voice and data which means you can browse the web, check your email, or anything data related while you are on the phone.

Even with Rev. A, VZW and Sprint are still not simultaneous voice/data network. They'll have to wait til Rev. B which is a pretty major ordeal to upgrade to as I understand.

Anyway, if you live in a major city and usually travel to other major cities like me, then you'll have no problem with at&t's 3G coverage. If not, at&t is catching up fast so hopefully your area will be covered soon.:)

Well, I used the map from their website and that was put together 2 days ago... I'm sure they don't update it as often as they should though. Also, you did make a really good point about simultaneous voice and data use. I knew GSM/EDGE couldn't do it, but I thought both EV-DO and UMTS could.

FOR EVERYONE WHO IS THAT NOT EXCITED ABOUT A 3G iPHONE ---- IT WILL ALLOW YOU TO RECEIVE PHONE CALLS WHILE YOUR DATA CONNECTION IS ACTIVE, UNLIKE THE CURRENT iPHONE.

[kingtj]

What happens when a number of users try to do 3G data transfers from the same tower, simultaneously?

I'm told that at least in some other countries, this is the downfall of 3G, in "real world" use. As more phones start supporting the standard, more people try to use it at the same time, on a given cell tower - and those towers have pretty limited total bandwidth. If you're the only one downloading some media on a specific tower, your 3G transfer speeds look great. But if 10 people do it at once, you get 1/10th. that speed, because by yourself, your 3G phone is capable of nearly saturating the TOTAL bandwidth provided to that one tower!

[Julien]

AT&T is planing to upgrade 3G to 20Mbps.:eek::eek:

Unbelevable (http://gizmodo.com/390432/att-3g-hitting-20mbps-in-2009)

[kjs862]

I still think if Apple had the option to go with verizon they should have taken that path... on complains with att though

[SirOmega]

AT&T is planing to upgrade 3G to 20Mbps.:eek::eek:

Unbelevable (http://gizmodo.com/390432/att-3g-hitting-20mbps-in-2009)

Increase the speed all you want between the tower and the phone, but as long as the bandwidth between the towers and the network is a few bonded T1s then it wont do much good.

[woody88]

I would love to get the new 3G iPhone. But I am very concerned about its 3G coverage, and I really may have to hold off until they have expand their 3G coverage. I live in Columbus, OH and looking at their coverage, it is simply pathetic. I basically cannot drive outside of Columbus, and once I do, then say goodbye to my 3G. What good is this going to do for my new phone? nothing. So I will have to see how they are expanding their coverage. AT&T can tell me all they want, unless I can see it happen in real life, this is all but a smokescreen to me. :o

[retroneo]

I basically cannot drive outside of Columbus, and once I do, then say goodbye to my 3G. What good is this going to do for my new phone? nothing.

Well, your device gives your seamless fallback to EDGE speeds in these areas outside HSPA coverage. You are still connected! Great news!

You can be speaking mid call and not even know this has happened. You could be in the middle of downloading an important email and the network can handover silently and seamlessly. It's exquisite in practice.

When HSPA coverage is expanded, as it is each day, your handset will automatically gain the faster speeds. No action required by you! Great news!

Both T-Mobile and AT&T are rolling out HSPA. T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon are also planning on rolling out LTE for even faster speeds.

Sprint may announce before year end they are rolling out LTE as well - especially if they are bought by T-Mobile.

Competition looks good for the coming years in the US Wireless market.

[retroneo]

Increase the speed all you want between the tower and the phone, but as long as the bandwidth between the towers and the network is a few bonded T1s then it wont do much good.

Cell sites are tiny in the city centre, with 16x T1 and more to the node B. As more capacity is needed, it is easily added. Network builders do a good job of managing capacity - the building and management of the network is usually outsourced to an equipment supplier. The telco doesn't do it and the equipment vendors take great pride in their network.

[cjosee]

white iphone

[lostfan916]

Well THAT'S interesting...


Hmm... maybe that's why AT&T had an "iPhone Black" option. It would make sense.

Boy, if this is the real deal, Apple will not be pleased....:rolleyes:

[iEdd]

Apple will not be pleased....:rolleyes:

That's been said so many times that it's lost all meaning. There are so many rumours, so many possibilities, it is more of WHICH ONE comes true that will be the surprise. :D

[eyeofyoursoul]

white iphone

That's a fake. It's a picture from the iphone accessories section of att's website, slightly manipulated of course.

[SirOmega]

Cell sites are tiny in the city centre, with 16x T1 and more to the node B. As more capacity is needed, it is easily added. Network builders do a good job of managing capacity - the building and management of the network is usually outsourced to an equipment supplier. The telco doesn't do it and the equipment vendors take great pride in their network.

But they're going to need an OC3 (155Mb/s) to each tower when this Rev 7 stuff rolls out if they want to deliver 10-20Mb/s to each end user. If you look at the ratio of average customer experience (1Mb/s) vs a tower with 20Mb/s of connectivity, scaling that up to a 10Mb/s customer experience is 200Mb/s of connectivity.

[Diode]

But they're going to need an OC3 (155Mb/s) to each tower when this Rev 7 stuff rolls out if they want to deliver 10-20Mb/s to each end user. If you look at the ratio of average customer experience (1Mb/s) vs a tower with 20Mb/s of connectivity, scaling that up to a 10Mb/s customer experience is 200Mb/s of connectivity.

They generally oversubscribe the towers .... you won't have all your customers pushing full bandwidth at the same time.

[Gantris]

What I am confused about, concerning 3G networks in general, are their availability. I currently live in the suburbs and I'm fairly certain that there is in 3G available here. Regardless of which carrier has the fastest 3G capabilities, does this even affect non city areas?

[kdarling]

Well, your device gives your seamless fallback to EDGE speeds in these areas outside HSPA coverage. You are still connected! Great news!

You can be speaking mid call and not even know this has happened. You could be in the middle of downloading an important email and the network can handover silently and seamlessly. It's exquisite in practice.

Is this from personal experience?

I've read a lot of comments from people with the opposite view. They say they often get dropped when they move from 3G to an EDGE environment, and it takes them a while to get going again.

Perhaps it's a phone-specific thing.

[Deanster]

Given that the handoff from one cell tower to another is often something substantially less than 'seamless', I wouldn't be surprised if there's a drop when you switch out of 3G to EDGE.

Sprint has clearly been working hard on 3G for quite a while, and their network shows it. However, the reality for me is that 99% of my time, including travel, both business and personal, is inside AT&T's 3G area. If I spend two days a year outside that, it's a big surprise. I realize that's not true for everyone, but the VAST majority of AT&T customers will have 3G connections from the minute they have a 3G device. I'll also have EDGE everywhere the phone can get a signal at all. And in Europe. And in Asia.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that my iPhone had EDGE in Turkey, Russia and Ukraine (major cities) a few weeks back. It's worked very well on two European trips also.

Don't mean to knock Sprint - they get a ton of credit for the job they've done with EV-DO - you can't really argue that it's the #1 3G network by far. Just that it's not even close to enough to convince me to switch to Sprint - I really want/need a GSM provider, and worldwide EDGE is a major benefit of that. Can't wait for a 3G iPhone - with that and GPS, it's a major upgrade. Though for the record the current triangulation location is surprisingly good - it's been a tremendous addition to the iPhone, enough so that I don't miss GPS at the moment.

[samab]

I don't personally know whether CDMA EV-DO technology or AT&T's UMTS/W-CDMA competitor is more efficient with regards to transmission power and signal processing power. I also don't know whose network is built better, but, judging by reports and coverage maps, it appears to almost exclusively depend on your local area. for 3G specifically, it appears Verizon has a larger coverage area for suburban/rural America, but AT&T is gaining fast and apparently has a better 3G network in the areas that is does service.

I won't go that far.

Verizon and Sprint both use ev-do rev A --- which uses 1.5 MHz channels (uplink plus downlink = 3 MHz). AT&T uses WCDMA/HSDPA --- which uses 5 MHz channels (uplink plus downlink = 10 MHz). So basically Verizon and Sprint use 1/3 of the spectrum space to achieve 60-80% of the average download speed and 40-50% of the average uplink speed.

What does that mean? Verizon and Sprint can deploy their 3G network on a larger area because it requires less spectrum space.

Another issue is the browser speed --- all 3 networks take the same time to load a webpage. So it doesn't matter for just internet browsing.

A third issue is that EV-DO rev A has better QoS features than HSDPA -- so even though EV-DO has slower uplink speed, it would be better than HSDPA on VoIP apps.

[retroneo]

Is this from personal experience?

I've read a lot of comments from people with the opposite view. They say they often get dropped when they move from 3G to an EDGE environment, and it takes them a while to get going again.

Perhaps it's a phone-specific thing.

There is a carrier operating in nine countries (Hutchison 3) which famously doesn't enable this feature - because it charges differently if you are using EDGE as uniquely they don't have their own 2G network. They (im)politely disconnect from the network to avoid a customer from unexpected charges.

This is likely where you are hearing this from. Hutchison's 3 brand at launch in 2003 was synonymous with 3G as it had an early lead. It garnered bad press for poor coverage that wasn't compensated by the soft handovers to 2G that other carriers use.

[retroneo]

What does that mean? Verizon and Sprint can deploy their 3G network on a larger area because it requires less spectrum space.

That's whacky physics you got there.

The width of the spectrum slice doesn't affect the coverage characteristics. The frequency affects the signal propagation characteristics.

AT&T's and Verizon's 850MHz towers are capable of having similar coverage area (large).

AT&T's, Verizon and Sprint's towers which use 1900MHz are capable of having similar coverage area (small).

Handsets and networks are multiband to offer a combination of conflicting coverage properties (better distance, better in-building, higher density cells)

Building more sites will always yield better coverage and network capacity, regardless of technology.

[samab]

That's whacky physics you got there.

The width of the spectrum slice doesn't affect the coverage characteristics. The frequency affects the signal propagation characteristics.

You mis-understood me.

Carriers have limited spectrum space in a given market --- say 20 MHz. If they need 12 MHz for their voice network, then they have 8 MHz space left for their 3G network.

But 8 MHz can't do WCDMA/HSDPA because you need 5 MHz for the downlink and 5 MHz for the uplink. The same 8 MHz can do EV-DO because you only need 1.5 MHz for the downlink and 1.5 MHz for the uplink.

That's why VZW will have larger 3G coverage than AT&T.

[DiamondMac]

New Orleans area is quite small but I am soon moving to either Chicago or D.C. so I figure I will be ok 3G wise

I am going to upgrade to 3G anyway even if I stay here because I want the capability to upgrade from EDGE anyway possible

So aggravating crawling at terrible speeds during lunch hours trying to just get to Google

[Chukystar]

Hi,

I am in Atlanta for Holidays during one week and i'd like to find a place to buy two iphone without contract?:(:apple:

Could you please help me?
Thanks,,
Chuk:)

[nakamuramori2]

atnt 3G covers more and more day by day..

[littlewaywelt]

Was on Verizon mobile since 84. Just left for iPhone. Verizon's EVDO coverage, in my experience isn't even comparable to ATT. I get 3G probably 40% of the time in metro DC. EVDO was 100%. Never had dropped calls on Verizon...maybe once every couple of months. It's daily on ATT, and I'm constantly switching over to EDGE.

One GSM side effect I wasn't ready for is that the phone's radio causes interference to all kinds of things, clock radios, my home theater. How annoying that I can't even take my phone into my home theater, or that I have to leave it on the other side of the room in my bedroom.

Verizon is platinum. ATT is copper at best.

[riversrwet]

Was on Verizon mobile since 84. Just left for iPhone. Verizon's EVDO coverage, in my experience isn't even comparable to ATT. I get 3G probably 40% of the time in metro DC. EVDO was 100%. Never had dropped calls on Verizon...maybe once every couple of months. It's daily on ATT, and I'm constantly switching over to EDGE.

One GSM side effect I wasn't ready for is that the phone's radio causes interference to all kinds of things, clock radios, my home theater. How annoying that I can't even take my phone into my home theater, or that I have to leave it on the other side of the room in my bedroom.

Verizon is platinum. ATT is copper at best.


So are you going back to Verizon? I'm with Verizon now, want to get a couple iPhones, but am very concerned about the #1 function = making/ receiving/keeping calls.

We just moved to the Larchmont/Mamaroneck, NY area. One would think the 3G service would be fine here by looking at their coverage map. There's no way I can handle dropping calls down here after having to deal with rural NH for 4 years...

[specify]

This thread was from 4 months ago..

[riversrwet]

This thread was from 4 months ago..


And the last 4 posts, now 6, within the last 7 days. Nice catch.

[FoxInSox]

All of this reminds me of when Sprint first came around. It would show you the coverage maps and make you think you'd have no dropped calls, but it was maddening to have that happen all the time.

So as much as I would love to try out this phone, you just can't really travel anywhere with it. Because you just never know when you will get a dropped call or lose service.

I really think it's going to take a while based on those maps for them to fill in the gaps. There still are gaps of service for Verizon. But for the most part whenever we travel even within the state we have service. And most of all that's what's most important to me right now.

It's too bad that have to have all the exclusivity with companies. I guess I don't know enough about the technology to question why they make the decisions they make, but why not go with a company that has more coverage. It just is less frustrating for the customers.

[raythemoneyman]

I would love to have the T-Mobile coverage on that same map just to see how good the Android coverage is really going to be when it comes out next month. :cool:

[specify]

And the last 4 posts, now 6, within the last 7 days. Nice catch.

You know what I meant with my post, but then again sometimes we all get carried away with the ******* abilities internet anonymity grants us.

[OC513]

This test must be old because 3G coverage in METRO NYC is HORRIBLE.....just inexcusable in such a big, urban market. AT&T needs to get their s&%t together.......they charge TOP dollar and do not provide top service. I have been with them for 10 years now but this 3G nonsense has me incensed.

[msarway]

This test must be old because 3G coverage in METRO NYC is HORRIBLE.....just inexcusable in such a big, urban market. AT&T needs to get their s&%t together.......they charge TOP dollar and do not provide top service. I have been with them for 10 years now but this 3G nonsense has me incensed.

i have the same feeling i am ready to go to VZ and buy a BB when the new thunder comes out at least you can make a call with out moving your feet. AT&T service is very bad and getting worse not better.