AT&T Tops 3G Wireless Performance Study

[thestaton]

Interesting, but as others have said this isn't the case everywhere. AT&T is terrible in my area, and all they offer is Edge. I finally had enough and switched to the Droid and lets just say my friends have Verizon envy.

I just ran the droid speedtest.net app.

Download: 126.8 KB/s
Upload: 78.8 KB/s

Considering my location, I'm thrilled.

 

[seedster2]

I am having a different experience here in the city.

I reside in brooklyn and it used to be free of the nagging connection and data issues experienced in the city. Now it appears those issues are happening in Brooklyn.

I have both BB and iPhone and i dont see the superior performance of their network like this study reflects. My other ATT friends have similar complaints.

There's a reason why ATT never directly addressed Verizon's 3G map and spoke about number of customers...

 

[BrettJDeriso]

I work at a desk that is the tallest southern facing facade in SoHo. Meaning I have a direct line of sight to the downtown NY AT&T building. As I type, I'm looking at the dishes on their roof of that monstrously ugly windowless creature. As I walk towards the large window facing them, my calls instantly start to break up without fail. I drop so many calls while looking straight at their building it would be quicker for me to flash morse code to someone standing on their roof, and probably cost the same monthly.

We also have a line of sight to the Verizon building. Our Droid users never complain.

That's hilarious -and so true. I was in Atlanta for a week visiting one of our Network operations centers, and there was an AT&T office three blocks from ours. In fact, that's a mild understatement, considering AT&T owns every molecule of dirt in Atlanta, but I digress. Even with a 3rd floor line of sight view of the collossal RF arrays on their roof (think the shield generator on the forrest moon of Endor), my iPhone spent the entire week in my pocket.

Back home in the DC 'burbs, no complaints, as long as nothing important depends on it. When I'm sitting around my living room or goofing off at my desk, everything always works flawlessly. But the moment I actually need to look up an address -say, in the car- game over.

And the National Mall in DC? Keep dreaming.

 

[Drag'nGT]

I'd say I've drug my butt all over ATL and I've been good 98% of the time. But I also seem to see it from the perspective of it being wireless and I don't spaz out if I have an issue.

Other than that, I'm glad to see AT&T doing well in an actual report and not a VZW panties in a bunch commercial.

 

[delux246]

I just want to know why Los Angeles was not included in this study. Its more populated then the other California cities in the study and the second most populated city in the US...

 

[mgfish23]

try this

i work for AT&T and here are three things i've noticed in owning and troubleshooting every iphone model since launch:

1. Turn off your damn phone a couple times a week.
(double button forced reset) or red swipe off gesture.
* alternative, just open the first page of settings and swipe Airplane mode on /off to kill the network connection, then bring back.

2. Keep the latest firmware/software updated to phone. You wouldn't believe how many people are running 2.1 or 3.0 and are having major issues with connectivity compared to newer versions of the software. If you are like me, and like to jailbreak, 3.1.2 is sufficient, but 3.1.3 may just be an Apple jailbreak block.

3. Change your SIM card at an AT&T store every 3-6 months. If you've never used your little pick inside your iphone box, grab it or a paper clip works and take a glance at your sim card. IMHO, the iphone when using data services or lots of calls can "cook" or heat up the sim card and damage or render it inconsistent compared to moto Razr's of past. These cards do not save any contact info as the iphone uses itunes for syncing. These cards are FREE at any Corporately owned AT&T store. * be careful,as the Private Resellers/retailers of AT&T sometimes will try to screw you into charging 25 bucks for a new one. You'll know if their not Corporate when they don't sell the iphone in their store.

4. Anytime going to remote areas, perform the Airplane mode trick, it seems to find the nearest tower again pretty fast.

Additionally, a network engineer explained to me that the iphone literally will start a FRESH connection everytime you hit safari, no cacheing, everytime you hit facebook, these Iphones are DATA hogs, crazy data hogs. It's no surprise we've had dropped call issues as the data/voice is the same damn thing with 3g GSM.
Also, I believe the Iphone has a hard time dealing with whats called a "handoff". This only applies when driving in your car. Say you are driving on a phone call with 5 bars 3g coverage, and you slip into a less populated rural back road, even though AT&T has 5 bars os 2.5 Edge coverage, the iphone acts retarded and literally will try hard to keep **** on 0-1 bars of 3g coverage. Most times this will drop your call. Nothing the network can do about that. That's what happens when you get put a 25cent antenna in a 600 computer phone as well. I also have spoken to the sub contractor of a company that supplies components to apple stock earbuds. They COULD pay an extra 25 cents to put a decent speaker driver in them, but they cuts costs where they think they can, delivering a ****** set of headphones.etc.
Our store sells **** tons of Data aircards to Corporations like Cargill, General Mills. etc. here in the Twin Cities. Our company would rather have you buy an USB adapter for 59.99/month plus your 30 buck iphone access than to give you tethering. If you don't like it, then Jailbreak your iphone and ****.

Also, we're getting 3.0 Mbps in the Twin Cities. For the majority of people who never leave a 60 mile radius of their metro area home turf, this is ideal. I would never want to subsidize coverage for the cows in the boonies either as someone else put it. Verizon has all this weak 3g coverage that peeps are paying for where their damn phone will never use it.

If you don't think 3 Mbps makes a difference compared to 1.2on Sprint or 1.7 on Big Red, you're foolin yourself.
To the people who are waiting for a Verizon iphone, read what the CEO of Verizon said about Steve Jobs back in the summer of '08. "He wont live forever" or something like that. Keep dreamin.

 

[ChocolateOne]

i work for AT&T and here are three things i've noticed in owning and troubleshooting every iphone model since launch:

1. Turn off your damn phone a couple times a week.
(double button forced reset) or red swipe off gesture.
* alternative, just open the first page of settings and swipe Airplane mode on /off to kill the network connection, then bring back.

2. Keep the latest firmware/software updated to phone. You wouldn't believe how many people are running 2.1 or 3.0 and are having major issues with connectivity compared to newer versions of the software. If you are like me, and like to jailbreak, 3.1.2 is sufficient, but 3.1.3 may just be an Apple jailbreak block.

3. Change your SIM card at an AT&T store every 3-6 months. If you've never used your little pick inside your iphone box, grab it or a paper clip works and take a glance at your sim card. IMHO, the iphone when using data services or lots of calls can "cook" or heat up the sim card and damage or render it inconsistent compared to moto Razr's of past. These cards do not save any contact info as the iphone uses itunes for syncing. These cards are FREE at any Corporately owned AT&T store. * be careful,as the Private Resellers/retailers of AT&T sometimes will try to screw you into charging 25 bucks for a new one. You'll know if their not Corporate when they don't sell the iphone in their store.

4. Anytime going to remote areas, perform the Airplane mode trick, it seems to find the nearest tower again pretty fast.

Additionally, a network engineer explained to me that the iphone literally will start a FRESH connection everytime you hit safari, no cacheing, everytime you hit facebook, these Iphones are DATA hogs, crazy data hogs. It's no surprise we've had dropped call issues as the data/voice is the same damn thing with 3g GSM.
Also, I believe the Iphone has a hard time dealing with whats called a "handoff". This only applies when driving in your car. Say you are driving on a phone call with 5 bars 3g coverage, and you slip into a less populated rural back road, even though AT&T has 5 bars os 2.5 Edge coverage, the iphone acts retarded and literally will try hard to keep **** on 0-1 bars of 3g coverage. Most times this will drop your call. Nothing the network can do about that. That's what happens when you get put a 25cent antenna in a 600 computer phone as well. I also have spoken to the sub contractor of a company that supplies components to apple stock earbuds. They COULD pay an extra 25 cents to put a decent speaker driver in them, but they cuts costs where they think they can, delivering a ****** set of headphones.etc.
Our store sells **** tons of Data aircards to Corporations like Cargill, General Mills. etc. here in the Twin Cities. Our company would rather have you buy an USB adapter for 59.99/month plus your 30 buck iphone access than to give you tethering. If you don't like it, then Jailbreak your iphone and ****.

Also, we're getting 3.0 Mbps in the Twin Cities. For the majority of people who never leave a 60 mile radius of their metro area home turf, this is ideal. I would never want to subsidize coverage for the cows in the boonies either as someone else put it. Verizon has all this weak 3g coverage that peeps are paying for where their damn phone will never use it.

If you don't think 3 Mbps makes a difference compared to 1.2on Sprint or 1.7 on Big Red, you're foolin yourself.
To the people who are waiting for a Verizon iphone, read what the CEO of Verizon said about Steve Jobs back in the summer of '08. "He wont live forever" or something like that. Keep dreamin.

Oh my gosh someone who knows what they are talking about... oh joy!

I sit in here all day and listen to all the crybabies whine about how you dont get coverage when they know nothing of their cell phones and how they work. Verizon blah blah blah AT&T blah blah blah, the fact of the matter is you spend too much time on the phone if you notice all of this. Get a life, grow up, get a hobby but please stop crying. Learn that coverages are all based upon locality of the towers and the type of device and software you're using. One coverage can have better service in you area while the other cannot. It goes both ways. Dont use your shortsightedness as insight into reality. Do your research, read the facts, test for yourself, and for god's sake please learn how to use your phones before you whine. Makes you look really bad when you have no idea what you're talking about.

Thanks mgfish23 for keeping it sane in this place.

 

[whizpup]

All US carriers suck. But they suck equally.

Man.. u said it. Japan and Korean mop the floor with US carriers in performance. In all fairness to coverage..the US is FRIGGIN GIGANTIC compared to our Asian neighbors.. We've got alotta ground to cover.