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GAHHHHH at&t making it hard to hold out

pesos

pesos

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 30, 2006
702
196
Four dropped calls today. Important ones. It's as if AT&T is trying to push me to go back to big red. Trying to hold out June but the idea of actually being able to make phone calls in my home (all 4 drops have been with the phone sitting still on my desk with speakerphone on) is very attractive. I didn't have this many drops in 4 years with verizon, sigh. /rant off
 
pesos said:
Four dropped calls today. Important ones. It's as if AT&T is trying to push me to go back to big red. Trying to hold out June but the idea of actually being able to make phone calls in my home (all 4 drops have been with the phone sitting still on my desk with speakerphone on) is very attractive. I didn't have this many drops in 4 years with verizon, sigh. /rant off
Click to expand...

This is why I never switched carrier to AT&T to get the iphone regardless of how much I wanted the iphone or not. What is the point in having a great phone if you can't use it half the time? Now that the iphone is coming to the most reliable network, I will finally get to have my cake and eat it too :)
 
I was doing 3 to 5 dropped calls per day for about a year.

But things have been pretty stable since Christmas. Lucky me. Well, these things come in waves, I'm sure it'll get worse again someday soon. I've been here before.
 
Did you try disabling 3G? You might just be in an overloaded 3G cell, or you keep getting passed back and forth between towers.

TEG
 
I tested an iPhone on AT&T's network in and around the Philadelphia, South & Central New Jersey, and Delaware areas alongside of my trusty Verizon phone. Dropped calls were the least of AT&T's issues; network connectivity issues was bigger issue. At least 65-75% of the time, the AT&T iPhone had no coverage. Swapped it with another device and ran the same routes again and the same issues existed, no coverage where the Verizon phone always had service. In the month of testing before we returned the phones, the AT&T iPhone lost countless phones calls, voicemails in many cases took days to retrieve; all-in-all I'd say that the phone was useless on AT&T's network about 65-75% of the time in and around a major city such as Philadelphia; that's pretty dam bad!

I left Cingular years ago because of a special corporate promotion from Verizon. At the time, Cingular had excellent coverage in the this area; however, Verizon simply offered us a better deal. Keep in mind this is pre-smartphone error, in fact, the Palm Treo 650 was just hitting the marketplace. I can say that without a doubt, whatever AT&T has done to Cingular's network; it's truly a shame because Cingular's service was awesome but I'm glad we decided to leave when we did. Since we've had Verizon, I had dropped only ONE maybe TWO calls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike near the Lebanon curve, that's it. The data is plenty fast (yes, it's okay that one cannot use the web and phone at the same time), the average speeds are consistent regardless of where we've travelled. Also it should be noted that almost everywhere we've gone, from Nova Scotia Canada to the Florida Keys, Seattle Washington to Detroit and just about everywhere in between, we've had 3G service, even in Yellowstone National Park; if that doesn't speak volumes for Verizon's network, I don't know what does.

Yes, we'll be switching to the Verizon iPhone in just a few short days; I've already strong-armed Verizon to move up our upgrade dates in order to abandon these horrible BlackBerry Storm devices.

Anyway, the network truly depends on the area of the country your located in, who is actually maintaining the network, and the terrain of the area in question. For Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore-DC, and Detroit; it's certainly not AT&T.

In my opinion, if you travel to Europe often, then a GSM carrier may be better in the long run; however, for those who spend the majority of their time in the US and Canada, with light travel to the Caribbean Islands; it doesn't really matter if you choose CDMA or GSM; YOU'RE COVERED...
 
YMMV.

I've had my fair share of dropped calls. Where was I? In the corner of my basement.

I have excellent service with AT&T. I had less than excellent service with Verizon. Yes, I switched - AT&T has treated me better as a customer and offers better coverage than any other provider in my area.

Is it so impossibly difficult for people to understand that their personal experience does not equate to everyone else's?

gldubzakjr said:
For Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore-DC, and Detroit; it's certainly not AT&T.
Click to expand...
I have several friends in the metro DC area with AT&T. Several different phones. They have no complaints.
 
pesos said:
Four dropped calls today. Important ones. It's as if AT&T is trying to push me to go back to big red. Trying to hold out June but the idea of actually being able to make phone calls in my home (all 4 drops have been with the phone sitting still on my desk with speakerphone on) is very attractive. I didn't have this many drops in 4 years with verizon, sigh. /rant off
Click to expand...

"Important ones" LOL!

Do not let the door hit you on the way out. Sounds like YOU picked the wrong carrier which is YOUR fault. I do 50-60 calls a day with AT&T and seldon get a dropped call. Even your red hot Verizon will drop you if you make calls from in a trailer.:eek:

Rant off:rolleyes:
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Looks like you need to hit up Verizon. If the coverage isn't working, it's time to switch.
 
hmm AT&T has been great for me so far, if i were you, i'd probably switch.Couldnt put up with dropped calls.
 
I live in Pensacola and I'm not lying when I say... I've never had a dropped call, ever. (Unless you count the proximity bug a "dropped" call).
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I travel to Center City Philly weekly for work. I have not had any connectiom or dropped calls with my iPhone 4.

In fact I'm posting this now from Philly with my iPhone and all seems well.
 
I don't have any phone at this time waiting for the iPhone 5 release will go back to at&t., with there good deals since Verizon offer the iPhone.
 
gldubzakjr said:
Verizon Ad
Click to expand...
For the record, folks, I live in Philadelphia. I commute to the northern burbs. I do business across the bridge in Jersey. I haven't dropped a call in months. I think I've dropped 2-3 since July. My girlfriend, who has Verizon and lives with me, occasionally misses calls and texts. My dad, who's in the northern burbs and has Verizon, misses calls.

Both services have their share of issues, but as someone who doesn't particularly like AT&T (as you can tell by my icon), it's not nearly as bad as people make it out. In fact, it's been pretty damn great since the summer.
 
landscapeman said:
I have a feeling that you were on Cingular's CDMA network.
Click to expand...

It was NOT their CDMA, it was GSM as that was all this area had at the time. Formally the Comcast Metrophone/Cellular One Network converted over to Cingular. Originally the network was TDMA and then converted under Cingular to GSM; long before out troublesome experience.

I've seen comments about Florida as well; we tested the iPhone's down their along the East coast of Florida and no troubles what-so-ever; but that's original AT&T country so I expected it.
 
gldubzakjr said:
Anyway, the network truly depends on the area of the country your located in, who is actually maintaining the network, and the terrain of the area in question. For Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore-DC, and Detroit; it's certainly not AT&T.
QUOTE]


I'll disagree with the NY part...I have multiple family and friends that live in the city and on Long Island, most of them with iPhones, and they have never had issues with dropped calls. Issues with slow 3G at times, yes, but overrall I wouldn't say Verizon is hands down better up there.

Maybe you were just holding it wrong in Philly? ;)
Click to expand...
 
I dropped 2 calls yesterday while outside on my patio, and normally drop at least 1 every other day or so while inside at home. Oddly, yesterday the phone rang while I was on the Peoplemover at Disney World so I decided to take the call just for funsies--the call was rock solid and dead clear throughout the ride, which includes stints inside Space Mountain and other ride buildings. Service appears to be extremely flukey in my experience. I love absolutely everything else about the iPhone, so I put up with it and just use my VoIP work phone when I'm at home now instead.
 
My problems with AT&T weren't so much the dropped calls, but more so the coverage issues:

-In the middle of a college campus so many classrooms had no signal at all.

-The coverage map shows our area blanketed in 3G yet I fell back to EDGE almost all the time. AT&T tech supported admitted that not every tower in our area was upgraded to 3G and that the 3G coverage maps "lie".

-On AT&T even if you have a tiny 3G signal you might not get data working, as signal strength affects data. On CDMA a weak signal still works.

-AT&T's data could be super fast, then it could be dial-up speeds later that same day. Verizon maybe slower but it's fairly consistent all day.

-I go to a lot of sporting events and concerts, and AT&T chokes when more than 30 people gather in the same area. No other carrier seems to have that issue or at least not near as bad.
 
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