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AT&T to Verizon switchers
- Thread starter AeroUK
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If I get the 4S that's what I'll be doing. It's cheaper than having to buy the phone full retail (used my early upgrade on white iPhone 4). When I had a Droid X on Verizon I didn't feel hindered by the 3G speeds, so you should be, provided you haven't tasted the HSPA+ of the 4S.
The only place you'll notice slower 3G speeds is in a speed test. Verizon's will loads websites etc just as faster and sometimes faster, I'm guessing because of faster pings. Plus, now you'll have that service EVERYWHERE!
I'm doing the same for the same reason - Also my plan is a little cheaper.
Hope I don't miss the coverage!
In all liklihood, you will miss the coverage. I'm moving to Verizon. After 4 years with AT&T I can't take the dropped calls and shoddy coverage anymore. I have a Verizon MiFi and it blows away my AT&T 3G coverage on a consistent basis. It sucks to have to rely on Verizon MiFi to make my AT&T iPhone and iPad 2 access the internet.
In all liklihood, you will miss the coverage. I'm moving to Verizon. After 4 years with AT&T I can't take the dropped calls and shoddy coverage anymore. I have a Verizon MiFi and it blows away my AT&T 3G coverage on a consistent basis. It sucks to have to rely on Verizon MiFi to make my AT&T iPhone and iPad 2 access the internet.
Where are you located at? If I'm buying a smartphone, I want to use it as a smartphone and have the best download speeds. That's why I'm waiting to see what the consensus is on AT&T.
I had a Blackberry on Verizon and I hated watching my friends download things several times faster on AT&T while I waited on Verizon. I don't mind the spotty coverage because I don't feel the need to always be 100% callable.
Oh well. There are always pluses and minuses.
I moved from AT&T (been a customer since the first iPhone) to Verizon back in February and left my wife with AT&T so that I could get the new phone when it came out. I have loved the move. I consistently get more and better coverage on Verizon. And I have paid pretty close attention too as my whole family is still on AT&T with iPhones. While there have been a couple times (as with any carrier) where the speeds/coverage wasn't what I would have liked, the overwhelming majority of the time things are awesome. The downloads may not technically have as high a rate, but they seem to respond more quickly (initial startup, ping, etc.), perform more consistently once the connection is established, and in many real world situations out performs my families AT&T iPhones on speed (with full bars on each, and despite the theoretical max download speeds).
I will hopefully be done with AT&T as soon as the port of my wifes number completes. I have been waiting over 5 hours for it to happen.
I will hopefully be done with AT&T as soon as the port of my wifes number completes. I have been waiting over 5 hours for it to happen.
I live in Cambridge, Mass and I stuck with AT&T hoping that the hspa+ would do something. It didn't. I'm still getting consistent speeds of less than .5 mb/s and high pings with occassional (like 1/10 speed tests) bursts of up to 3 mb/s.
Last night my friend came over to my dorm and I did a speed test on his Verizon iPhone 4 - it was consistently 2.5 mb/s over EVDO with sub 100 ms pings.
I think I'm gonna return this 4S and switch to Verizon now.
EDIT: On a sidenote, does anyone know how to move a grandfathered unlimited plan on AT&T to another line on the same family plan? My family is on AT&T, and I am going to be the sole person moving to verizon, so I would like some way of keeping the grandfathered plan on our account.
Last night my friend came over to my dorm and I did a speed test on his Verizon iPhone 4 - it was consistently 2.5 mb/s over EVDO with sub 100 ms pings.
I think I'm gonna return this 4S and switch to Verizon now.
EDIT: On a sidenote, does anyone know how to move a grandfathered unlimited plan on AT&T to another line on the same family plan? My family is on AT&T, and I am going to be the sole person moving to verizon, so I would like some way of keeping the grandfathered plan on our account.
I have yet to see my new VZW 4s break 300kbps on a speed test, whereas my old iPhone 4 would get 1-1.5mpbs in the same spot.
I'll give it a few more days and see how this pans out in usability for me.
Last weekend I tested AT&Ts HSPA+ on a non-IPhone smartphone (forget which one) at an ATT store and the download speeds were just as bad as those on my IPhone 3GS per speedtest app.
HSPA+ is a gimmick. AT&T's 3g network is theoretically faster than verizon's 3g + is faster in speed tests, But is slower in most real life tests compared to Verizon. It has slower pings + the service is horrible on AT&T (Here in NYC at least). In Manhattan i consistently lose service walking into an elevator or into stores. My Verizon Blackberry never loses signal.
Damn, I was hoping for better service as well. I guess the AT&T truck must have been following Walt Mossberg around when he got 7 mbs.
Once I get home and get the numbers ported my wife and I are leaving AT&T for Verizon. Sick of shoddy coverage! Like someone else said who cares how fast you can download stuff if you can never access the network?
It is a little faster on the web page but that is probably because I am going from 3gs to 4s. The 4s is a ton faster with web pages on wifi
I switched after having every iPhone on AT&T. Before I switched I tested my friends Verizon with my AT&T iPhone 4 both on 4.3. AT&T would go from .5mb to over 2mb while Verizon stayed steady around 1.3mb but Verizon had a way lower ping and loaded websites twice as fast all the time. I live on the 11th floor of a 30 story building in downtown salt lake city and AT&T would still drop calls and get static even I was right by a window. Between the horrible service and dropping the 10 dollar text plan I'm glad I switched for the 4s.
The second I wlk into a midtown NYC store (or an elevator) I lose my data too.
the only reason I can see to stay on ATT now that I am out of contract is that I have unlimited data. However, I have never gone over 1G in a given month in twoyears now so I am wondering if this is more an emotional attachment to the idea of unlimited data than a real world need. I doubt I would use more than 2G per month on the 3G network. However, I can imagine using my phone differently and consuming more data in the future when on the LTE network in a year or so. But who knows if the networks will let us keep our unlimited plans anyway at that point. I suspect they will but I wouldn't bet on it either.