AT&T VS. Verizon Poll

[galenmd]

I need some advise from Los Angeles area users.

I am totally confused as to what carrier to go with. I pre-ordered a Vz 32 GB, delivery estimated on Oct 5 (I fell asleep at 11:50pm!!!)

I'm in West L.A., and currently have an iPhone 4 on AT&T with unlimited grandfathered. Signal on AT&T is great at home and work, but I drop a lot of calls on the road, even just around town. My girlfriend has Vz and is always making fun of me.

I currently only use about 300 MB/month, but expect that will shoot up (a lot) with LTE. 3G is too painful to use meaningfully.

L.A. is supposed to have LTE, but I keep seeing posts here (recently) about how they expect it to arrive soon. What's the story with AT&T LTE here? Is there good coverage and speeds? What is Vz LTE like in L.A.? Tethering option is nice with Vz.

Also, I found out after the pre-order that Vz LTE and phone cannot be used simultaneously. WTF?? This is not HUGE for me, but I anticipate that I will be annoyed at times.

I am willing to cancel the Vz pre-order and stick with AT&T. Another benefit is that I can give my son my iPhone 4.

Thoughts? Advise please.

Thx

 

[mac.cali]

I need some advise from Los Angeles area users.

I am totally confused as to what carrier to go with. I pre-ordered a Vz 32 GB, delivery estimated on Oct 5 (I fell asleep at 11:50pm!!!)

I'm in West L.A., and currently have an iPhone 4 on AT&T with unlimited grandfathered. Signal on AT&T is great at home and work, but I drop a lot of calls on the road, even just around town. My girlfriend has Vz and is always making fun of me.

I currently only use about 300 MB/month, but expect that will shoot up (a lot) with LTE. 3G is too painful to use meaningfully.

L.A. is supposed to have LTE, but I keep seeing posts here (recently) about how they expect it to arrive soon. What's the story with AT&T LTE here? Is there good coverage and speeds? What is Vz LTE like in L.A.? Tethering option is nice with Vz.

Also, I found out after the pre-order that Vz LTE and phone cannot be used simultaneously. WTF?? This is not HUGE for me, but I anticipate that I will be annoyed at times.

I am willing to cancel the Vz pre-order and stick with AT&T. Another benefit is that I can give my son my iPhone 4.

Thoughts? Advise please.

Thx

I'm also from LA and I can tell you Verizon is stronger than ATT in most if not all parts. It's also a fact that Verizon has more spectrum space in So. Cal vs. ATT. Coming from ATT I can tell you its a diffrence. Many times my ATT iphone would say 4-5 bars of service but couldn't make a call or dropped a call. Yes their 3G speeds were faster than Verizon's 3G speed, but however since LTE is activated in LA that has not been an issue at all. Since it seems like your family is on ATT it might be wise to stay with them for financial reasons.

 

[macguy77]

What are people's experience with Verizon in NYC?

I work all around manhattan and though it seems AT&T service is full bars in a majority of NYC boroughs, it seems particularly bad on wall street, soho, greenwhich village and herald square.

I'm wondering if the 10$ extra a month to switch from AT&T to VZW is worth the increase in service (if any).

 

[robertk328]

I'm switching from AT&T to Verizon. It's bittersweet, because I'm very satisfied with AT&T and ultimately I think they have marginally better coverage where I live.

This sums it up for me. I'm switching anyway, however, since a place we visit frequently loses signal on AT&T about 10 minutes before we get there. When we arrive, the Verizon phones all have bars. Have been with AT&T for a long time but they have yet to add coverage there. No talk/surf - not sure I'll miss it. I think I've used it a couple of times, but if it's that big of a deal, maybe in 2 years they have coverage there (or VZW adds it) and it's a non-issue.

 

[silroc]

What are people's experience with Verizon in NYC?

I work all around manhattan and though it seems AT&T service is full bars in a majority of NYC boroughs, it seems particularly bad on wall street, soho, greenwhich village and herald square.

I'm wondering if the 10$ extra a month to switch from AT&T to VZW is worth the increase in service (if any).

IMO it is worth it.

Full bars means crap- 2 reasons why

1. AT&T drops calls at an alarming rate even in full bars.
2. AT&T is so congested that even at full bars it still freezes and lags.

F AT&T in NYC

 

[mpossoff]

IMO it is worth it.

Full bars means crap- 2 reasons why

1. AT&T drops calls at an alarming rate even in full bars.
2. AT&T is so congested that even at full bars it still freezes and lags.

F AT&T in NYC

I've heard AT&T LTE is pretty good. It's not a secret that AT&T 3G is bad.

 

[silroc]

I've heard AT&T LTE is pretty good. It's not a secret that AT&T 3G is bad.

ok


The more people stay with AT&T the better for me

 

[galenmd]

I just cancelled my order with Vz (via apple.com) and re-ordered with AT&T. Though Vz voice is much better here in L.A., I just don't like the idea of not being able to use data and cell at the same time. Also, since I'm grandfathered in with unlimited, I am getting a better deal.

 

[Dkorda]

Was tempted to go to Verizon but kept AT&T for the following reasons:

1) Although VZ has better LTE, AT&T keeps expanding/improving it in my area so for the majority of my use, I'm covered.
2) No need to move to a more expensive share data plan with AT&T. I was able to keep my existing plan.
3) No upgrade fee charged to me by AT&T. My partner, on Verizon, had to pay one.

All excellent points. It will be tough to get unlimited with Verizon unless you take over someone elese's plan.

 

[aquadisiac]

with sprint i have unlimited and a 23% discount

pay about 73 a month

the 23% discount with my employer for sprint was not worth the sucky speed(lack of)

I have a question...I'm on verizon and have a 2GB data plan and was wondering if using LTE rather than 3G will make my data go up more. If so, I won't be able to use it too much.

I would like to know this too.

 

[minik]

I'm going to stick with AT&T and keep my grandfathered unlimited (5GB full speed) data plan. If I switch the Verizon, my monthly plan will be $110 (with 4GB data and mobile hotspot) on a single line before local tax. That's $20 more expensive than my current AT&T plan before any tax.

 

[OTACORB]

The battle between AT&T and Verizon depends on where you are geographically. I am in Central, LA and Verizon has areas as much as 25 to 30 miles with ZERO coverage, can't even room of Sprint because Sprint doesn't have towers in those areas either. We are talking about areas around Fort Polk, LA which has thousands of troops. They have seeded this area to AT&T with their fast 3G, which they call 4G.

Anyway... Its all where you are located as to which is better.

 

[vistadude]

We don't have at&t LTE where I live, so if I get the iphone 5 and use my "unlimited" data plan, do I get 3 GB of hspa data or 5 GB hspa data?

And why do people from portland abbreviate the city as PDX? PDX is the airport code....

 

[c1ar3]

Both carriers give good service in my area but i also heard verizon is better. Either way ill stick to AT&T its way cheaper for me.

 

[bushman4]

Depends on how the service is where you use it.
Theres no comparison to be made unless people live in the same area.

 

[nlkccom]

I need some advise from Los Angeles area users.

I am totally confused as to what carrier to go with. I pre-ordered a Vz 32 GB, delivery estimated on Oct 5 (I fell asleep at 11:50pm!!!)

I'm in West L.A., and currently have an iPhone 4 on AT&T with unlimited grandfathered. Signal on AT&T is great at home and work, but I drop a lot of calls on the road, even just around town. My girlfriend has Vz and is always making fun of me.

I currently only use about 300 MB/month, but expect that will shoot up (a lot) with LTE. 3G is too painful to use meaningfully.

L.A. is supposed to have LTE, but I keep seeing posts here (recently) about how they expect it to arrive soon. What's the story with AT&T LTE here? Is there good coverage and speeds? What is Vz LTE like in L.A.? Tethering option is nice with Vz.

Also, I found out after the pre-order that Vz LTE and phone cannot be used simultaneously. WTF?? This is not HUGE for me, but I anticipate that I will be annoyed at times.

I am willing to cancel the Vz pre-order and stick with AT&T. Another benefit is that I can give my son my iPhone 4.

Thoughts? Advise please.

Thx

I'm in Los Angeles, and currently with AT&T. Most places that I go to got horrible signal. Leaving for Verizon on 9/21!

 

[F123D]

Have no issues with AT&T. Great service with no dropped calls. Grandfathered data and text plans keep me as a customer.

If I was signing up as a new customer, I'd pretty much flip a coin.

 

[jimmypowder]

People just get concerned without the word "unlimited". If you use more than 2 GB of data you are spending far too much time on your phone anyways - live a littl!

Streaming music on your iphone everyday on a 45 minute drive to work each way will alone
get you to 2gb in a month . Add in one Netflix movie while your away on business and your over
2gb's easy .

 

[leenak]

Streaming music on your iphone everyday on a 45 minute drive to work each way will alone
get you to 2gb in a month . Add in one Netflix movie while your away on business and your over
2gb's easy .

That is good to know, I had the option of bumping up my data usage by 1GB or 3GB to account for my phone usage. I went with 3GB due to wanting to stream music fairly regularly.

 

[davistld01]

I've seriously considered jumping from AT&T, where I've been for over 10-years, to Verizon mostly because of the 22% discount off my monthly bill due to their contract with the car dealership I work for. But...I would have to pay cancellation fees for two current AT&T lines which would total $400 or more, and I've pretty much always had satisfactory service with AT&T, and have always gotten pretty much anything I wanted or wanted done with them. Plus I have an unlimited data plan I've taken care to move from phone to phone for years, and AT&T has never tried to take it from me or force me to change.

So, looks like I'll stay put. I can't see how Verizon could be all that much better to warrant my expenditure & me having to begin a new relationship.

 

[Lamarak]

Staying ATT, i find data and talk at sametime very useful. ATT always gave good service for us also. And ATT phone also has much better resale value making it easier for my fix to have newest phone. And wife and I bith have unlimited lines though that might go. We both have LTE Ipads and cost would be cheaper on a share everything plan.

 

[jimmypowder]

That is good to know, I had the option of bumping up my data usage by 1GB or 3GB to account for my phone usage. I went with 3GB due to wanting to stream music fairly regularly.

Yeah and with the iPhone 5 I guarantee you that you will use more data then with the iPhone 4 . FaceTime over 3G !
It will be interesting how much that sucks up .

I

 

[aloysius241]

Easy: AT&T. I'm going to ride this unlimited data plan train until the tracks go off a cliff. Even when they throttle my speeds I still manage to use up 11 gb of data each month. Same with my wife but she uses considerably less.

 

[Ervin]

Share Plan

The mobile share plans are the reason why i'm leaving Verizon for AT&T. I was very satisfied using the iPhone 4 on the Verizon network, but I don't think it's worth paying an extra $25/month just because I want 3 gigs of 4G while im forced to pay for unlimited minutes which i don't need. AT&T still has individual plans which fits better with my phones minute and data usage.

 

[leenak]

The mobile share plans are the reason why i'm leaving Verizon for AT&T. I was very satisfied using the iPhone 4 on the Verizon network, but I don't think it's worth paying an extra $25/month just because I want 3 gigs of 4G while im forced to pay for unlimited minutes which i don't need. AT&T still has individual plans which fits better with my phones minute and data usage.

When I signed up for my iPhone, I was given the option of an individual plan and had minute options of 450 and 900 minutes and various data options. I went with a share plan though because it works best for my needs.