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AT&T Ain't All That Bad

AT&T is the only company that doesn't get service in the metro system here and the only service I've had dropped calls on in the past 6-7 years. Besides that, I've had no problems. I think I'll get used to not being able to use my phone in the metro, although it can be a huge hassle when trying to meet up with someone. Dropped calls aren't too often (maybe 1-2 every other week), so I can live with that.

I'm not complaining, I'm just not gonna lie and say it's great when it's not for me. Verizon and Sprint are both much better in this area. I see AT&T hitting some hard times if/when the iPhone goes to another carrier. I'll happily jump ship and pay the ETF on my plan.
 
wilheldp said:
I was with Verizon for 7+ years, and I can count on one hand the number of dropped/failed calls I had with them. I had more than that on my new AT&T serviced iPhone...YESTERDAY. The dropped calls and lack of service where my previous Verizon phones had perfect service is frustrating at best.
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I left AT&T for Verizon this year, and Verizon service is RIDICULOUS! Everywhere you go, you have service. Unfortunately, I won't be able to go back to the iphone until they leave at&t. I haven't had a *single* dropped call this year. Verizon phones are definitely a let down, but they have got some awesome, awesome cell service.

Seriously, it is that good.

**Edit:

Just to clarify, I live in Washington DC. So me having poor service with at&t is unrelated to being from some remote area.
 
It's great to hear about so many folks having good AT&T service. Unfortunately we have terrible service. The bad thing is it's only bad for an area within about a 2-3 mile radius around our house. It's really gotten to be a joke between us and our family and friends. We'll be driving home and talking to someone and I'll say time to be cut off we're entering the dead zone and sure enough 5 seconds later I get 2 beeps and the call drops. It is impossible to send or receive calls in our house. All calls are dropped within 10-20 seconds. Whenever the phone rings I automatically just walk outside. It's funny my wife has gotten so she just goes out and sits in the car whenever she gets a call from our son or daughter.

If it was not for the iPhone we would have long ago gone back to Sprint even if it meant paying ETF, it is that bad. But both of us love our iPhones and would absolutely hate having to give them up. I've talked and talked to AT&T but nothing ever helps. I was supposed to be on the micro-cell tower test list, but got an email at the last minute that they had too many testers and wouldn't need me. After hearing about how much it will cost, there is no way I'm going to pay that extra money to make up for AT&T's crappy service.

I have to say I really like what I see of the Palm Pre, if this continues I may become more and more tempted to switch back to Sprint. When we were with Sprint we had excellent service. If/when the new Tablet comes out I will probably buy one and then I may switch back for sure.
 
AT&T did just finish up the first round of testing for their M-Cell which seems would be a perfect solution for you. (Check out this Thread)

I've had AT&T for the past 5 years and although lately it hasn't been great overall I have no major complaints. Sure, dropped calls here and there, sometime REALLY SLOW data speeds, but I can still use my phone for what I want to use it for (MMS excluded ;)).
 
funkdoctor said:
I left AT&T for Verizon this year, and Verizon service is RIDICULOUS! Everywhere you go, you have service. Unfortunately, I won't be able to go back to the iphone until they leave at&t. I haven't had a *single* dropped call this year. Verizon phones are definitely a let down, but they have got some awesome, awesome cell service.

Seriously, it is that good.

**Edit:

Just to clarify, I live in Washington DC. So me having poor service with at&t is unrelated to being from some remote area.
Click to expand...

Yeah, AT&T sucks here in DC. Unfortunately I can't bring myself to go back to Verizon because I don't want to pay the same monthly bill as I do now for a BB curve or some other unexciting phone. I really hope Apple and Verizon make a deal because AT&T would be out a lot of customers, especially in the DC area where iPhones are so prevalent even with the lack of service.
 
I've had AT&T since I worked for them, a little more than 10 years now. I had some complaints back in the day about coverage, mainly because I was traveling to a lot of tiny little bumpkin places throughout the midwest. Coverage now is excellent (at least here...dunno about the other places because, thank God, I no longer travel to them). I don't have anything bad to say about their customer service because, frankly, I can't remember the last time I had to call them for anything.

Oh, and I finally got around to taking in the iFrogz Luxe case that I got on launch day that had a decent amount of color fade along one side and despite the fact that it was almost 2 months after I bought it, they exchanged it with absolutely no problem. Even let me pick out a different color. So yay AT&T. :)
 
I get dropped calls and the 3G speeds are slower than they used to be...but overall I'm satisfied.

I looked at my last month's bill and noticed that I used 580/700 minutes on my plan, but I used almost 1,100 minutes of 'free' calls! (Weekends and mobile-to-mobile. I guess it helps that I know so many people with iPhones!)

Anyway, the prices don't seem so crazy when I notice stuff like that.
 
They're no worse than any other provider.

Honestly, I haven't had that many issues to say whether I think they are better or worse than Sprint (who I had for several years before making the switch). Sprint seems to have the best coverage here, out of AT&T, Verizon & tmobile. But I do have 3G here with AT&T in most areas of the city I'm at.

I will say I had Verizon for a short amount of time before dropping them due to extemely awful reception. Of course, that was about 5 years ago, and I've heard it's much better now... but I doubt it's any better than AT&T is for me at this point.

Sprint CS was exceptional... but the lack of phones coming in was unimpressive and at the time they had nothing they could even remotely compare the iPhone to. I don't think I've ever had to call AT&T thus far for anything, so like I said.. no complaints.
 
I used to have Verizon back when it was GTE Mobilnet. It was GREAT.
I had Nextel with work. It was great when you were in a metro area, or near a major freeway.
Then I got AT&T. It was pretty good but the service wasn't good in the small town that I lived in. It was pretty good when I first got a MPX220 but later deteriorated. I was on the phone with Tech Support several times and they never resolved the issue. The tower was too far from the main part of the town.
Then I got the iPhone 2G. The EDGE left a lot to be desired, but was slowly usable. Mostly deteriorated small town service. As a matter of fact, EDGE was slow wherever I went but it was better than nothing.
Then I moved to a larger town outside of Houston. Max Bars, 3G. Upgraded my wife's phone to 3g. Now I have just upgraded my phone to 3GS. I'm on WiFi in my home so it's great.
But, if I disable WiFi, the 3Gs speed on a Speedtest (2 different Apps) is around 1.5 MB/s. That's on a system that supposedly has 3 MB/s.
But wait, you say they are going to upgrade to 7 MB/s. What, so I can get 3 MB/s speed........ I'll have to wait and see on that one.
It seems though they could provide a lot better service for what they charge. They can't even get MMS working for iPhones yet. And I'm paying for it on my Family Unlimited messaging plan.
 
ditto.... granted only had it for 3 weeks :}

came from Verizon, coverage is as good or better.. (was in one place to eat where i did not have signal with VZW, but do with AT&T)
 
No complaints here either. had AT&T since 1999 and its been great. they are actually better than ever right now, with way better coverage than before. I have four bars pretty much everywhere I go.
 
For what it's worth, a "little birdie" who works for a VERIZON Telephone service contractor (at a call center) told me that they have been told that they should prepare for a big increase in calls this fall because of the addition of an apple product to Verizon's cell network.
 
APPLENEWBIE said:
For what it's worth, a "little birdie" who works for a VERIZON Telephone service contractor (at a call center) told me that they have been told that they should prepare for a big increase in calls this fall because of the addition of an apple product to Verizon's cell network.
Click to expand...

I think 'Choice' would be great for the consumer.....
I DON'T know how Apple would get around the Exclusivity agreement with AT&T.

Anyway, this should be in another thread.
 
ozzyman500 said:
Never had problems with AT&T...been with them since the Cingular days. No complaints. :D
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Same here :D
I'm what some people call a "loyal" customer but i'm not asking for anything special ;)
But i have never had a problem with AT&T.
 
I called AT&T customer service around the time I first switched to AT&T and had the BEST customer service call of my life. The lady was so pleasant, joyful, and happy to help me. It was amazing.
 
Shockingly (and inexcusably) bad in San Francisco

I drive a cab in San Francisco, so I know all the dead spots all too well.
There's a HUGE area in the city where service is abysmal at best, which includes Upper Haight, Buena Vista Park, Roosevelt, The Castro, Diamond Heights, Noe Vallley, Twin Peaks, Mt Davidon, Mt Sutro, Eureka Valley, Upper Market, ect, ect ect. Probably something like a 10 square mile area.

Moreover, having recently upgraded my 1st-gen iPhone to the 3Gs, I'm shocked at how infrequently I'm on 3G - it seems like 2/3 the time I'm on edge as I drive around the city. And when I do have 3G, I'm lucky to get anywhere near 1 megabit, usually it's 300 - 600 kilobits. One particularly annoying dead spot is going through the Waldo Tunnel (1/2 mile North of Golden Gate Bridge). Calls get dropped here each and every time, like clockwork. This is a HUGE commuter corridor - it's freaking Highway 101! What excuse can they possibly have for that?

More bars in more places? Compared to what?
 
I switched from Sprint for the original iPhone two years back, and I noticed a big difference in call quality/service here in DC. My first three months with the 3G was a horrible experience. Multiple dropped calls on a daily basis in downtown DC area, to the point where I had to keep 3G off just so I could answer a call without dropping it. That being said, service has noticibly improved since then, and I can keep 3G on full time, but there are still a few dead zones around. I never had any issues with call quality on Sprint.

I don't know what it is with AT&T and DC, maybe they just don't like us, but the iPhone definitely makes up for it.
 
dissdnt said:
Still no 3G in upstate NY. I'm only 60 miles from NYC. Really AT&T?
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Okay, this is wrong. 60 miles from NYC is not upstate NY. I live in Rochester and I get 5 bars 3G coverage 99 percent of the time.
 
dissdnt said:
Still no 3G in upstate NY. I'm only 60 miles from NYC. Really AT&T?
Click to expand...

Hang in there! I just got 3G service today in Webster (southern Massachusetts on the CT border, It seems like they're definitely working on it. That was my only gripe with AT&T and today that has disappeared. I could tell they were doing something as I had full EDGE service at all times before but it was dwindling somewhat (went to 3 bars, then to full then to 2) lately. Come to find out that's usually the sign that they're upgrading a former EDGE frequency band cell tower to 3G and sure enough (this started 2 weeks ago) I now have full 3G service at home (1.8Mbps down and .24 Mbps up on avg so far).

As far as signal in my area overall? I have full 3G and EDGE service pretty much everywhere I go now as home was the only place I didn't get it previously.

There were some minor billing errors the first couple months I've had AT&T, but they were quickly rectified. I now actually have better service with AT&T than I did with Verizon in my area.
 
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