Verizon's Extremely Poor LTE service in Washington, DC

Carrier's coverage varies over the areas. Some of my friends can get data in places I can't and vise-versa. Here on the West coast LTE is almost everywhere but at some times can be spotty. I don't know about the east coast but most people here will swear that Verizon is better than AT&T. AT&T doesn't even have LTE coverage in my area. So it was a easy choice for me to go Verizon. Both AT&T and Verizon have coverage maps that you can put your address in and check the coverage for that specific spot. Be careful with this though because even though Verizon says that I don't have LTE in my house, I do.

If it really gets to the point that it bugs you to no end. Sell the iPad and buy a AT&T iPad. You might take a bit of a hit but it might be worth a better service in your area.

fusion150 said:

The service is terrible. I have the newest iPad, and more often than not when downtown, it will just spin in place while on LTE. The worst thing is, it doesn't even know its not working. I have to turn LTE off to force it to switch to 3-G, then I get Internet connectivity back.

I wish dearly I hadn't been seduced to buy a Verizon iPad on the argument that they had better service than AT&T. This is demonstrably WRONG. My old 3-G AT&T iPad worked better than this downtown.

Does anyone know how to fix this? I have had the iPad too long to return it for the AT&T version, although I wish I had done that when I had the chance.

Click to expand...

Greensboro here. Service was great in december and early march. Now piece of crap.

I think they are just screwing people using the "on demand" data plan because they don't screw you enough with 2Yr contract with higher price.

I can't manage to get a good connection now, despite it's the same device with same provider. Something changed on their side because they forced me to reboot for some network configuration in april.

The other news about throttling seems reality.

Verizon LTE Service Is Terrible in Washington, DC & New York City

I was glad to see this thread. Thanks for the initial post. With regard to iPhone service, Verizon - unlike AT&T - does not drop calls, but Verizon's LTE service is markedly inferior, despite it's earlier rollout and larger footprint. With both the iPhone and the iPad here seems to be a basic problem with data over Verizon's LTE network. Verizon's LTE data speeds frequently slow down, presumably to heavy network use, but I often find that I'm connected to their LTE network with a strong signal yet there's no access to data. I've only experienced this in DC and NYC, but it's nearly a daily occurrence. The other problem is that Verizon's 3G service is so much slower than AT&T's. I never thought I'd say this but I'm disappointed with Big Red and wish I hadn't left AT&T.

It sucks in Va Beach/Norfolk/Chesapeake too

SPEEDTEST.NET today, in the Greenbrier area:
1.69 Mbps down, ?? Mbps up (the test won't complete)

SPEEDTEST.NET last Sunday afternoon, in the VB Town Center area:
1.55 Mbps down, 4.49 Mbps up.

These tests were on my iPhone 5. My friends and coworkers on Verizon using other devices get similar results.

To me, when the speeds are 2 Mbps or slower (which seems common), certain apps take noticeably longer to refresh. Things like the App Store, Facebook, WeatherBug radar, USA Today, etc.

I absolutely would not recommend Verizon in this area. AT&T, T-Mobile, and even Sprint on are par with coverage, and ALL THREE have faster data speeds than Verizon currently does.