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AT&T coverage is not perfect, but is it that bad?

It's 'cool' to complain about AT&T these days. I have honestly enjoyed their service. I also enjoy my grandfathered unlimited data plan as well. Something VZW will not offer to ship jumpers if they do get an iPhone next year.

Your location matters the most though. I had my phone in LA and it was just an overloaded network. I dropped more calls there than I ever have. Whereas I'm almost perfect in over a dozen other cities I've traveled to. And if I had an issue I didn't flip out over it.

Remember, AT&T had a lot of customers before the iPhone came to their network. Once the iPhone goes on multiple carriers the heavy use of AT&T's network will loosen up and things will be good again. I don't remember all this complaining with the 1st gen iPhone. It wasn't until 3-4 million 3G users hoped on the network in just a few months that things wen't south.
 
aohus said:
i wouldn't consider L.A to be the most important metropolitan area in America. Anyhow, I don't believe it was the 3G connection that was slow, but the moto-blur skin + bloatware that Verizon put on the Droid X itself that made the droid x sluggish when rendering a webpage.

3G speed difference between AT&T and Verizon is almost negligible.
Click to expand...

500x_2009_3g_average_download_graphs.jpg


Almost negligible is correct, it almost is, but isn't, especially in LA.
Drag'nGT said:
Once the iPhone goes on multiple carriers the heavy use of AT&T's network will loosen up and things will be good again
Click to expand...

Myth. Cell phone data usage / smartphone sales are growing as a whole. iPhone to Verizon just means more data usage on Verizon but AT&T's consumer base will still grow with more smartphone sales.
 
Reception is acceptable. The only place I would like reception to be better is at home.
 
It isn't bad around my area (East Texas). I'm generally satisfied with them, although of course there's room for improvement. :)
 
To the OP AT&T coverage is great in the Washington DC/Baltimore area.

Sure DC is Verizon's backyard. And Verizon would grade out at 95 percent in the DC area. I would give AT&T at least a 90 percent rate in that area.

I have used Cingular/AT&T for the past 6 1/2 years in the DC area and coverage is great. Also DC has had 3G since 2005 so 3G coverage there is very solid.

As always there can be deadspots in some areas. My friend had zero or very limited cell phone coverage out near McLean Virginia/Langley near the CIA for years. And he has Verizon. Took Verizon until 2009 until they fixed his coverage.

So try the service for 20-25 days, if it's not working for you, just return the phone and cancel.
 
Service is marginal for me most of the time. I would like to note that despite having only 1 bar of service sometimes, the call clarity is pretty good. I did experience a minor service outage today around noon though in Sacramento which was frustrating.
 
sectime said:
That Verizon map is borderline fraud. That is VOICE coverage including roaming. Zoom then clik on DATA and you will see lots of !X. Not saying V doesn't have good coverage but that map ain't it.
Click to expand...

I just checked out your theory, and you are completely wrong. The map provided shows 3G broadband coverage, as it clearly states on the map. On Verizon's website, 3G broadband coverage is actually even larger when you count their roaming areas (free).
 
I live about an 1.5 hours East of Pittsburgh (small town), and i have reception everywhere Verizon people do. The overall reception is good as well.

Aside from that i recently took a road trip to Michigan for a wedding and never had problems with reception. I listened to Pandora radio the entire way out and back and my reception was fine while there.

My reception is good enough at home that my wife and i decided not to have a land line when we bought our house.

One of my friends used to have an iphone, then went to verizon to save money. He bought a Droid if you are wondering and kept it for about 4 months then came back to at&t and the iphone 4. Said he absolutely hated verizon and their customer service.

That is my overall experience with AT&T and their coverage.
 
I live in the Philadelphia area and service is great. I've been s long time and happy AT&T customer. I would say that verizon and AT&T are equal in this area.

Marc
 
AT&T coverage is pretty bad in the upper portions of New Hampsire, so much so, if you connect by 2G (EDGE) you can count yourself lucky. My wife has an iPhone and I droid x (verizon). We were in North Conway NH (white mountains of NH), she had no signal, much of the time, and I was full bars 3G service on Verizon.
 
I've been an att hater since the original iphone.

I surprise myself to say that it's actually gotten better. The 3g when it's working is pretty fast and the reception on iphone 4 is so much better than previous models. I do think much of it has to do with the new hardware.

I also own a palm pre plus and man is that phone crap. sure verizons network gets me signal in places where i can't get att, but if I am anywhere where att is working the palm gets turned OFF.
 
The AT&T coverage in Los Angeles (San Gabriel Valley area) is acceptable, but dropped calls are not acceptable...at least 2-4 times every week! and it happens only when connected to 3G (2G is excellent! No dropped call at all).

I always compare the signal of my Verizon prepaid phone with my AT&T iPhone 4, and I found that both carriers have similar coverage and signal strength here. Unfortunately, the signals at my home and the places that I usually go to (Wal-Mart next to my home, Fry's Electronics) are terrible for both carriers (0-2bars with slow data or no data...)...while T-Mobile gets full bars at these locations.

The signal at my school in Long Beach is excellent...for 2G!!! 3G is a joke there...1-2 bars of 3G when standing outside (switch to 2G then get full bars). Also...the 3G service failed on the first day of school (calls never connect...dropped calls...no data...)...need to switch back to 2G to make calls.
 
PNutts said:
Location location location. :)
Click to expand...

All that needs to be said really. I've lived in a lot of states in some areas even T-Mobile is superior. Where I am now though it's really lackluster. The same goes for all the other carriers. Good in some areas---bad in others.

Not exactly a hard concept to grasp. :)
 
Here in Louisville, KY, ATT 3G speeds and coverage is very nice. I get really good data speeds and I can honestly say I've never had a dropped call that I was aware was my phone.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Verizon stinks in my area, even though they list my area as having full EVDO service.... AT&T is much better in my area of PA.
 
Drag'nGT said:
It's 'cool' to complain about AT&T these days. I have honestly enjoyed their service. I also enjoy my grandfathered unlimited data plan as well. Something VZW will not offer to ship jumpers if they do get an iPhone next year.

Your location matters the most though. I had my phone in LA and it was just an overloaded network. I dropped more calls there than I ever have. Whereas I'm almost perfect in over a dozen other cities I've traveled to. And if I had an issue I didn't flip out over it.

Remember, AT&T had a lot of customers before the iPhone came to their network. Once the iPhone goes on multiple carriers the heavy use of AT&T's network will loosen up and things will be good again. I don't remember all this complaining with the 1st gen iPhone. It wasn't until 3-4 million 3G users hoped on the network in just a few months that things wen't south.
Click to expand...

Check this link about AT&T.
http://welcome.wireless.att.com/mobilitynewsletter/2010/2/

And also my brother have a Droid X and we compared the 3G (Speed Test) between iPhone4 and Droid X, the AT&T's 3G was twice faster.
 
I live right outside Philadelphia and coverage is completely fine for me. When I go into the city on weekends, I do experience some data issues. Especially if I'm trying to access Twitter or Facebook. However, if I have to make a call or send a text, I'm fine. I traveled out to San Francisco back in March with my now sold 3GS, and I really didn't experience any issues. I had some lapse in data here and there, but nothing worth complaining about. I stayed by Fisherman's Wharf, and stayed in the city for the most part while there. So yes, AT&T isn't perfect, but I've never had any major problems with them since I switched over 2+ years ago.
 
matthewyip said:
The AT&T coverage in Los Angeles (San Gabriel Valley area) is acceptable, but dropped calls are not acceptable...at least 2-4 times every week! and it happens only when connected to 3G (2G is excellent! No dropped call at all).

I always compare the signal of my Verizon prepaid phone with my AT&T iPhone 4, and I found that both carriers have similar coverage and signal strength here. Unfortunately, the signals at my home and the places that I usually go to (Wal-Mart next to my home, Fry's Electronics) are terrible for both carriers (0-2bars with slow data or no data...)...while T-Mobile gets full bars at these locations.

The signal at my school in Long Beach is excellent...for 2G!!! 3G is a joke there...1-2 bars of 3G when standing outside (switch to 2G then get full bars). Also...the 3G service failed on the first day of school (calls never connect...dropped calls...no data...)...need to switch back to 2G to make calls.
Click to expand...

I'm getting fed up with AT&T, I live in LB and the 3G here is horrible, there's sections of the city where I haven't been able to get any data for years now, and I keep using that worthless AT&T app to let them know, yet their service has not improved one bit! It's ridiculous since the areas that are dead zones are near cell towers, and there are no hills or anything to degrade the signal, and they are the areas I spend much of my time in. When I'm at home or a friends house I'm on Wifi so end up hardly using any of AT&T's data every month, so what exactly are we paying 30 bucks a month for? And to think those crooks charge people twice for using that shoddy third world data network if they tether!!:mad:

They keep talking about all the improvements they are making, especially in that email that went out to everybody last week, yet I haven't seen the slightest improvement over the last 2 years in the AT&T dead zones, which seem to be almost everywhere throughout LA and here in LB.
 
It sucks (about 25% of my calls get dropped) but eh...what'r'ya gonna do?

EDIT: But now that I think about it, I'm usually talking to other people on iPhones. So probaly it's their phone dropping half the time. Ok, great! I only drop 12.5% of my calls! Sorry, I take back my "sucks" and will simply say "lame" instead!
 
No complaints here. For the places I go, AT&T works well for me. I traveled to Seattle, WA this summer and I had excellent coverage there. Honestly, I don't think one company is better than another. It is really what works for each individual person.
 
Many people here seem to be confusing coverage with speed.

Verizon has more coverage in the US because it reaches areas (such as the homes on mountains and hills and along the beach waterfront) where AT&T does not. AT&T has faster speeds than Verizon because in the areas where AT&T does have coverage, their speeds are faster.
 
Rajani Isa said:
What issues is the microcell having with E911 sevice?
Click to expand...

E911 requires the network to be able to identify the location of the caller for 911 purposes. Since a microcell isn't using AT+T's wireless network, they can't locate the phone. This is why the microcell has a GPS antenna.

Unfortunately, if you can't get a GPS signal, then the FCC has made it illegal to use a microcell (because of 911 problems).
 
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