AT&T myths?

[Chupa Chupa]

But Sprint has the NOW network! (What the heck is that?)

It works like this: "NOW you hear me, NOW you don't." Seriously I had Sprint for nearly 10 years. Their service was spotty... like inside my house, but their customer service in-store was always decent to me. Twice they swapped my dead phone for a refurbed one when it was out of warranty and I didn't have the replacement plan. Their data was cheap too... $15 all you can eat including SprintTV, which wasn't much, but was kinda cool for the time.

 

[Michael CM1]

Agree with every point. I wouldn't be in love with any of them. If anything, I say I admire Sprint because there is no nickel and diming, just unlimited everything. I would rather AT&T come out and say MMS, tethering, minutes, texting, everything you want, as much as you want, $150. Would I pay it? No, but I would appreciate the straight up offer instead of going the nickel and dime route like the airlines. It make no sense to sell me a $99 plane ticket and then charge me $50 for 2 bags and $25 for an aisle seat, and $5 for a coke. Just charge me $179 to begin with!!!

I don't mind splitting everything up so much as long as it's plain what I get up front. I really would like about 1-2Gb of data, 200 text messages, the 550 minutes I get now (family plan) and not much else. I could really do without the $35/month above a voice plan, but there's not much of an alternative.

However, when I try to get DSL through AT&T and they tell me I need a voice line to get the lower prices, I'm going to say, "Um, I am giving you $115 per month for my AT&T cell phones. I think I've got a damn voice line." Charging $5-10 extra for not having a stupid landline to get DSL is just antiquated.

 

[DeuceDeuce]

As a former Verizon customer I can attest to how bad AT@T is compared to Verizon in many very important ways. But Verizon has crappy phones so....

 

[adammull]

As a former Verizon customer I can attest to how bad AT@T is compared to Verizon in many very important ways. But Verizon has crappy phones so....

Again, its all relative. I have never dropped a call once with AT&T. I did with Verizon. It all depends on where you live and where you use your phone.

 

[jaw04005]

It all depends on where you live and where you use your phone.

Shush! You're being too rational.

The problem on forums such as this is people don't come here to describe their positive experiences with products, services or companies. The bulk of the chatter is people with problems that need help.

Not to mention, who is going to defend a cell carrier anyway? It doesn't matter how great their service is, you're still going to feel cheated every month when you get the bill (complete with $20 of "taxes and fees" if you're in the United States).

I would like to see consumer polling on cell carriers. I would imagine they rank somewhere slightly below the oil companies on a list of the most hated corporations.

For the record, AT&T and Alltel have equally good coverage where I live. I've never had a major problem with AT&T. Now, poor Sprint. You only get their coverage in the metro or along the interstate.

 

[Thudstaff]

For those of you who have never met anyone on Sprint or with a "Sprint phone", allow me to introduce myself.


I've been with Sprint for about 6 years now and get great reception in the Chicago area (and locales that I've traveled in during that time). My current phone is an HTC Mogul. It works as advertised and has been a good phone for the last two years.

Sprint's plans are definitely cheaper than other major carriers. Period.

So why am I here? I'm bored.

I'm contemplating an iPhone just because. Fortunately I can get a decent deal through work on the plan, otherwise I likely wouldn't consider switching. Without my AT&T discount, my Sprint plan is $20 more per month than a comparable AT&T plan. With it, my Sprint plan is still cheaper.

 

[DiamondMac]

1.) AT&T has bad service: Nope!

Yup!

Been to several major cities with the original, 3G, and another 3G iPhone and had ridiculously bad service in all of them.

It is pretty pathetic to be honest

Now, I admit that I am sure AT&T is very good in some cities but the high AMOUNT of complaints just here alone show that the service is very poor in many parts.

So, the service is in fact terrible for many.

 

[jaw04005]

Been to several major cities with the original, 3G, and another 3G iPhone and had ridiculously bad service in all of them.

I'm fairly convinced that the iPhone (1G) and 3G have poor radio designs. It'll be interesting to see how the 3G S does. The few times I've had trouble with AT&T traveling, I popped my SIM into a Motorola RAZR and got reception fine.

 

[adammull]

I'm fairly convinced that the iPhone (1G) and 3G have poor radio designs. It'll be interesting to see how the 3G S does. The few times I've had trouble with AT&T traveling, I popped my SIM into a Motorola RAZR and got reception fine.

Oh its FOR SURE an iPhone only thing. I have been places where the iPhone has 0 bars and the Blackberry has 5. Same exact spot. I think the iPhone must be the weakest cell phone, in terms of signal, since the Zach Morris phone.

 

[johnqh]

It works like this: "NOW you hear me, NOW you don't." Seriously I had Sprint for nearly 10 years. Their service was spotty... like inside my house, but their customer service in-store was always decent to me. Twice they swapped my dead phone for a refurbed one when it was out of warranty and I didn't have the replacement plan. Their data was cheap too... $15 all you can eat including SprintTV, which wasn't much, but was kinda cool for the time.

Sprint is cheap because their phones suck. Other than Pre, their newest Smartphones are three years old (BB Curve), and people don't use as much bandwidth on those phones. Heck, when I used my Wmo phone, the carrier could give me unlimited data for $1 and still make money off me.

People hate ATT because they want $99 iPhone (or free) with no contract, with unlimited voice and data for $20/month - basically, very American mentality, want everything for nothing.

 

[adammull]

Sprint is cheap because their phones suck. Other than Pre, their newest Smartphones are three years old (BB Curve), and people don't use as much bandwidth on those phones. Heck, when I used my Wmo phone, the carrier could give me unlimited data for $1 and still make money off me.

People hate ATT because they want $99 iPhone (or free) with no contract, with unlimited voice and data for $20/month - basically, very American mentality, want everything for nothing.

The thing that really sucks for AT&T is that Apple makes it so easy to use data on this phone. I don't need to check my email on my phone, but I do, because its easy. I don't need to use Loopt and tell my Facebook friends where I am, but I do, again, because its so easy. On my Blackberry Curve, its so annoying to do anything but email, I hardly use the thing for data, and the browser is completely useless. They are making money off of me if I use my Blackberry, but on the iPhone, I can surf my normal sites, even these forums, even when I am on EDGE. EDGE on my Blackberry takes an hour to load.

 

[auero]

As a former VZ customer, I find their support to be better than Verizon.

+9999999999

I can't agree more. They've always bent over backwards for me and even paid my ETF's for switching to them, early upgrades, etc.

 

[Rusalka]

Sprint is a fine company as far as coverage goes, and as long as you don't want anything useful from them they're down right excellent.

But God forbid you have to talk to their customer service or their poorly trained in store reps.

I love ATT for the simple fact of: I ask for something and they give it to me. No stupid excuse for not wanting to, no "I work for commission so I want to get your money and get you out as quick as possible"


I took my old POS phone (Razr II, slowest interface I'd ever experienced) into sprint a few HOURS after I'd gotten my iPhone because suddenly the top half of the phone stopped working. They sent some salesman (Not Technician) to me who promptly (Not even looking at the phone) told me it was water damage.


My latest experience was a few weeks ago when I accompanied my friend who had a complaint about her Katana II not working, the guy said "It's just a problem with the phone, I'll order you a new one" which was fine, I guess. Aside from the fact that he couldn't stop watching FERGIE MUSIC VIDEOS long enough to look her in the eye. Oh, and the SECOND Katana II has the exact same problem, and sprint is refusing to give her another one, unless she pays an upgrade fee, pays the insurance deductible or pays full price.


I am so happy to be with ATT.

 

[jointsmoking]

Been with ATT in Seattle for many years. Never a problem. Good coverage, good customer service. I give em a b+

peace

 

[walangij]

Almost every single one of my friends has an iPhone (probably will be the most common phone in my demographic) and their opinion of ATT changes on the city. Some cities it sucks horribly, others it fantastic. A friend who had great service here in MI & in Chicago transfered to a school in the Napa Valley and has 0 bars all the time...phone goes straight to voicemail. Most of his friends there all have Verizon. I can't wait for exclusivity to end, so I can get an iPhone with the best service in my area...not being unable to choose. The ATT network was down for a full 24 hours near my university here, 2 times in one week. That was unacceptable, everyone used facebook & aim to communicate those days lol.

 

[manueld]

Definitely highly subjective, but what irks me about AT&T is that being in a major metropolitan city (Los Angeles), where I see iPhone up the yin yang, you would think that they would try to improve their network. There's not a day I don't get at least 2-3 dropped calls when I never used to get them when I was with verizon.

 

[bobsentell]

I live in a smaller city (pop 300,000 in the county) and all of my AT&T issues are strictly terrain and giant brick building I work in. (Radio signals don't go through bricks real well) I have family with Verizon and our dropped call ratios are equal and almost always due to terrain changes or thunderstorms. But the quality of service is still great.

I think a lot of these issue will go away with telcoms being able to go into the UHF frequencies. Cell towers are not cheap and you can't put one on every street corner. Add on top of that a plethera of city, state, and federal laws and it's a shock AT&T is able to put up a new tower at all.

 

[dissdnt]

I had both Verizon and Sprint before moving to AT&T for the iPhone.

Verizon has the best coverage in the US hands down. They also have the second best high speed network.

That brings me to Sprint. Not as good coverage, although I was pinned in my area Upstate NY. They also have the fastest high speed network in the US. Their EVDO has insane bandwidth.

Now using AT&T it's pretty sad compared to them. I do have pinned service but still no 3G, and I'm in one of the largest expanding areas in NY.

Where we do get 3G it's really sad. It only beats out edge by a second or two.

I think it's common knowledge of there short comings. At WWDC everyone laughed at the MMS and tethering news.

They continue to treat the iPhone as a passing fad and not the definitive standard in cell phone technology.

It took them a year to roll out an app for there customers. They still provide the dumbest text if you get an mms with a user/pass that's so complicated you have to physically move to a computer to check it. And then it's the size of a postage stamp.

Anyway done ranting, but I will bet that a large majority of iPhone users will jump at the chance to use there iPhone on another network. I know I
would

 

[QCassidy352]

Been to several major cities with the original, 3G, and another 3G iPhone and had ridiculously bad service in all of them.

And what cities would those be? Because I've lived in Boston and DC with the iphone 2G and traveled to a lot of other cities (NYC, Houston, Baltimore, to name a few) and had very good service everywhere. I'm told 3G is really bad in NYC but with a 2G iphone I did just fine.

I'm another convert from verizon, and I honestly don't see Verizon's network as any better than AT&T's. In my experience, both have coverage almost everywhere, neither ever has any drops. In fact, my gf still has verizon, and we always have comparable signal strength.

 

[newportpaco]

Service is entirely subjective for where you are in the world and where you use your phone most.

For some people Verizon is awesome and AT&T sucks. For others it is the opposite. In some cases they get good coverage on both.

The only thing you can be sure of is that Sprint will probably suck. (I kid)...

But whenever someone says, XYZ's network sucks... it is ignorant, because they all have their strong and weak points.
C
If you are a first time AT&T customer I think the return on the iPhone is only like 15 days, so be aware of that. Should be enough time though to find out if AT&T's network works for you.

I switched from Verizon a couple of years before the iPhone because I could not get a decent signal in my house. I had to stand outside to talk to people on my phone. AT&T has been great for me though. That doesn't mean the guy in Colorado will have the same experience.

Great post, most people are so dogmatic about why they love/hate AT&T or verizon. I have had both here in San Diego and I don't know if it's the iPhone or AT&T's network but it has been so bad for me. My old envy on verizon while it sucked comparied to the iPhone was so much more reliable, it allways worked, slow and clunky but worked. I know what a Lot of people will say here, "if the iPhone doesn't work for you then switch". Problem is why should I have too? I just want the iPhone to work like it should. Everyone seems to have their own opinions which is fine but when people think that their experince is everyones is when it gets anoying. I've been reading this site for about a year ( because of my iPhone, I have no interest in macs sorry ) and so many people make rude comments because it goes againsed what they belive.( holy cow, apple has a plan and it is right ). Anyway that is the way I feel, I'm dyslexic and really tired and typing this on my phone so be nice if you can lol.