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But imagine being on verizon lte and then going to an area without it. You'll drop to evdo where as Att lte would fall back to hspa+.

WRONG, try Edge or GPRS.

Mainly because Verizon has always had an eye towards network performance and reliability as a key competitive aspect. This involves spending a lot of money, something SBC and Cingular (AT&T is just a brand name at this point) declined to do, now it's going to bite them in the rear.

Vendor: "It will take $11M to fix this issue correctly. What do you want to do?"

Verizon answer: "We'll have the PO cut today. Get your people lined up, we can start as early as tonight."

AT&T answer: "We'll get back to you. That seems like a lot of money."

I'm not sure if this is reality, but this has always been the opinion I've had. I think it's from a article I read many years ago on AT&T's business.
 
It all depends on who spends the most cash on upgrading towers and rolling out fiber backhaul. Right now verizon has lte running in 40 cities with a full rollout by 2013 and att has nothing. Take ur guess of who will come out ahead.

Att accelerated their rollout and is 80% done will their backhaul and are expected to complete LTE in 2013 as well. The issue is if they can convert enough 2g towers to 3g/hspa+ to get better coverage in rural areas. Just because they don't announce it doesn't mean they're doing nothing. They actually have spent more money in their network than any other carrier the past year and a half. The question is is whether it's enough to increase call quality.
 
Att accelerated their rollout and is 80% done will their backhaul and are expected to complete LTE in 2013 as well. The issue is if they can convert enough 2g towers to 3g/hspa+ to get better coverage in rural areas. Just because they don't announce it doesn't mean they're doing nothing. They actually have spent more money in their network than any other carrier the past year and a half. The question is is whether it's enough to increase call quality.

Yeah, because they let it go without much investment for too long. They're playing catchup now.

And just because they don't announce it also doesn't mean they are doing anything. The more logical answer would be to expect that you've seen in the past.....not much.
 
Yeah, because they let it go without much investment for too long. They're playing catchup now.

And just because they don't announce it also doesn't mean they are doing anything. The more logical answer would be to expect that you've seen in the past.....not much.

I don't believe the hype that Att has been playing catch up. I believe it's hype.
Seriously...if Att is that bad why do they have so many customers?

First if Att is so bad why do they have so many customers?

Second it's truth that Att covers 97% of population as well as Verizon. The map commercial was a lie. The Verizon map shows square mile. Go to Att site and see.

I'm not saying that one network is better than the other but in reality I think it's hype and many Verizon fans sucked it up.

I believe both networks are close in regards to reliability however it's noted that Att has better performance.

Why do you think Sprint and t-mobile are not close to Verizon and Att? It's because their networks are inferior to Verizon and Att. If Att was that bad then they would be #3/4.
 
First if Att is so bad why do they have so many customers?

Second it's truth that Att covers 97% of population as well as Verizon. The map commercial was a lie. The Verizon map shows square mile. Go to Att site and see.

I believe both networks are close in regards to reliability however it's noted that Att has better performance.

Why do you think Sprint and t-mobile are not close to Verizon and Att? It's because their networks are inferior to Verizon and Att. If Att was that bad then they would be #3/4.

1). Because until now, AT&T was the only network you could get an iPhone on in the USA. That alone can explain why AT&T gained more customers over the last few years.

2). There's a lot more to "coverage" than what can be explained by looking at a coverage chart! There are other issues such as capacity, signal strength, reliability, etc. While AT&T's network is fine in many areas, there's no question that AT&T has many more trouble spots than Verizon.

3). Regarding performance, it's true that AT&T has better DATA performance, at least theoretically. But again, Verizon still outperforms AT&T in many areas because of capacity issues and signal trouble spots. Would you rather consistently get 1-2 mbps downloads, or wildly varying speeds that often runs much lower than that or where signal drips altogether? For many, this is a very real choice they have to make. In areas where AT&T is good, then yes indeed they would have the performance advantage.

4). Regarding T-Mo and Sprint, again they don't have the iPhone, nor they as readily available in as many areas so of course they don't have as many customers. Number of customers is not how one should rank the carriers. For example, US Cellular got best rankings in consumer reports, but they have a lot fewer customers because they are regional.

Bottom line is that one should choose a carrier based on how the network performs in the area they live, which can vary wildly.
 
Att accelerated their rollout and is 80% done will their backhaul and are expected to complete LTE in 2013 as well. The issue is if they can convert enough 2g towers to 3g/hspa+ to get better coverage in rural areas. Just because they don't announce it doesn't mean they're doing nothing. They actually have spent more money in their network than any other carrier the past year and a half. The question is is whether it's enough to increase call quality.

Where did you get this? Have a link? 2.5 weeks ago Vega said by the end of this year he hope to have 2/3 (66%) of the backhaul, for current cells, to be ethernet or fiber. Am I misreading your post?

'Specifically, de la Vega said that the company is equipping its backhaul network with Ethernet and fiber, which will provide network speeds of up to 6 Mbps--what AT&T calls "4G speeds." He expects that two-thirds of the company's network traffic will be on the expanded backhaul by year-end.'
 
1). Because until now, AT&T was the only network you could get an iPhone on in the USA. That alone can explain why AT&T gained more customers over the last few years.

They have always been close in number of customers prior to the iPhone.

Travisimo said:
There's a lot more to "coverage" than what can be explained by looking at a coverage chart! There are other issues such as capacity, signal strength, reliability, etc. While AT&T's network is fine in many areas, there's no question that AT&T has many more trouble spots than Verizon.

Might be true however ATT always had more smartphone users than Verizon which could be the cause.

Travisimo said:
Regarding performance, it's true that AT&T has better DATA performance, at least theoretically. But again, Verizon still outperforms AT&T in many areas because of capacity issues and signal trouble spots. Would you rather consistently get 1-2 mbps downloads, or wildly varying speeds that often runs much lower than that or where signal drips altogether? For many, this is a very real choice they have to make. In areas where AT&T is good, then yes indeed they would have the performance advantage.

I would take an educated guess because ATT always had more smartphone users than Verizon.

Bottom line is ATT gets a bad rap because of the Verizon hype such as the 'map commercials', etc.

Also ATT always had more smartphone users than Verizon. I'm sure if Verizon had as many data hungry smartphone users then it's very possible they would have same issues as ATT.
 
They have always been close in number of customers prior to the iPhone.



Might be true however ATT always had more smartphone users than Verizon which could be the cause.



I would take an educated guess because ATT always had more smartphone users than Verizon.

Bottom line is ATT gets a bad rap because of the Verizon hype such as the 'map commercials', etc.

Also ATT always had more smartphone users than Verizon. I'm sure if Verizon had as many data hungry smartphone users then it's very possible they would have same issues as ATT.

I really don't thing smartphone users use all that much data. When ATT changed pricing they said ' on average, 65 per cent of its customers use less than 200MB per month. If you exceed 200MB in a month, you can get another 200MB for an additional $15.
and
claims 98 percent of its smartphone customers use on average less than 2GB of data per month.

I'd like to see published data on exactly how much data is used on all the carriers. The numbers I trust most are from the carriers. Everything else is a guess. If Verizon know how much to charge my company for a couple hundred laptop cards for people at our site, they can do the math. Same goes for ATT.

And CDMA scales better than you think.
 
I really don't thing smartphone users use all that much data. When ATT changed pricing they said ' on average, 65 per cent of its customers use less than 200MB per month. If you exceed 200MB in a month, you can get another 200MB for an additional $15.
and
claims 98 percent of its smartphone customers use on average less than 2GB of data per month.

I'd like to see published data on exactly how much data is used on all the carriers. The numbers I trust most are from the carriers. Everything else is a guess. If Verizon know how much to charge my company for a couple hundred laptop cards for people at our site, they can do the math. Same goes for ATT.

And CDMA scales better than you think.

Whether Att says XYZ use less than 200mb is irelevant the fact is as a whole Att has more smartphone users than Verizon and as a whole most likely use more data compared to Verizon.
 
Whether Att says XYZ use less than 200mb is irelevant the fact is as a whole Att has more smartphone users than Verizon and as a whole most likely use more data compared to Verizon.

And laptop cards? mifi hotspots? Can't just do smartphones. All data usage has to be counted. Datacards are used a lot outside of cities/burbs because comcast and fios don't cover them. I'll have to look up the data again, but I remember the 2009 numbers for datacards had att in a low 3rd place. I think Sprint owned North Carolina back then too, the whole map seemed to be just them.
 
Att accelerated their rollout and is 80% done will their backhaul and are expected to complete LTE in 2013 as well. The issue is if they can convert enough 2g towers to 3g/hspa+ to get better coverage in rural areas. Just because they don't announce it doesn't mean they're doing nothing. They actually have spent more money in their network than any other carrier the past year and a half. The question is is whether it's enough to increase call quality.

ATT will always have the 2G thorn in their back. Unless they give all the 2G dumbphone stragglers 3G phones (which they should have done but I guess were too cheap), they're going to be stuck wasting precious bandwidth supporting 2G. This is one of the huge advantages of CDMA where 2G and 3G can run simultaneously in the same frequencies.

As for them having spent more money than any other carrier, all I can say is too little too late. Verizon now has the iPhone, has AT&T beat with LTE (their rollout will cover a much wider land mass than AT&T), and has a strong and loyal customer base. If I were on ATT's exec board, I would be scared.

P.S. Also worth noting is that AT&T STILL sells 2G only dumbphones! Just goes to show how out of touch this company is with running their network.
 
ATT will always have the 2G thorn in their back. Unless they give all the 2G dumbphone stragglers 3G phones (which they should have done but I guess were too cheap), they're going to be stuck wasting precious bandwidth supporting 2G. This is one of the huge advantages of CDMA where 2G and 3G can run simultaneously in the same frequencies.

As for them having spent more money than any other carrier, all I can say is too little too late. Verizon now has the iPhone, has AT&T beat with LTE (their rollout will cover a much wider land mass than AT&T), and has a strong and loyal customer base. If I were on ATT's exec board, I would be scared.

P.S. Also worth noting is that AT&T STILL sells 2G only dumbphones! Just goes to show how out of touch this company is with running their network.

And Att doesn't have a strong loyal customer base as well? Both carriers both have a strong loyal customer base.
 
And Att doesn't have a strong loyal customer base as well? Both carriers both have a strong loyal customer base.

I'm not saying that they don't have their customer base but what I'm alluding to is that a lot of Verizon customers stuck by Verizon during the iPhone exclusivity years (and dealt with ****** droids) so it shows a certain amount of loyalty and satisfaction with service that Verizon has provided.

Now that the iPhone has landed on Verizon and nationwide LTE rollout is right around the corner (no more claims from ATT that they have the fastest network), ATT is at a decidedly disadvantaged position (unless they somehow discover the next blockbuster smartphone and sign a 4 year exclusivity period :p).
 
ATT's 3G upgraded is at Verizon's current "4G". The real issue is in the future the failsafe for Verizon will require more hardware than ATT's.
 
ATT's 3G upgraded is at Verizon's current "4G". The real issue is in the future the failsafe for Verizon will require more hardware than ATT's.

Right yeah ok, I guess we can't argue with someone who is crazy
THIS is the dumbest post of the day..............
 
I'm not sure if this is reality, but this has always been the opinion I've had. I think it's from a article I read many years ago on AT&T's business.

No, it's from my actual first-hand experience with both of them.

:)
 
Travisimo said:
3). Regarding performance, it's true that AT&T has better DATA performance, at least theoretically. But again, Verizon still outperforms AT&T in many areas because of capacity issues and signal trouble spots. Would you rather consistently get 1-2 mbps downloads, or wildly varying speeds that often runs much lower than that or where signal drips altogether? For many, this is a very real choice they have to make. In areas where AT&T is good, then yes indeed they would have the performance advantage.

It depends on the area. I consistently get 1-2 Mbps downloads on my area if frequentcy which is Phila/South Jersey. I'll take an educated guess that Verizon is just as consistent in my area with lower speeds. I've been averaging very close to 2 Mbps downloads and my Verizon counterparts have been getting slower speeds. No question at least in my area Att is probably 50% faster than Verizon however what's more important is reliability. In my area I'm able to consistently get 3G. Verizon counterparts are also able to get consistent 3G.

To be honest I'm not in 'love with Att' but with them because consistent and reliable in my area.

To be honest I think the Verizon is better is hype created from those map commercials. If you look at both Verizon and Att maps they are very close in coverage.

As for Att is not getting into 4g LTE as aggressively as Verizon a couple of weeks ago an Att tech was asking me where a certain building was on campus cause there's an Att tower there. I asked him some questions. He said that he needed to get tongue tower cause if implementing 4g LTE and said Att is starting to implement 4 g LTE heavily in the Philly region as well as other regions.
 
Now that the iPhone has landed on Verizon and nationwide LTE rollout is right around the corner (no more claims from ATT that they have the fastest network), ATT is at a decidedly disadvantaged position (unless they somehow discover the next blockbuster smartphone and sign a 4 year exclusivity period :p).

Remember though that Verizon has a 3G iPhone and LTE does nothing for that device. Att can and will continue to claim the fastest broadband speed because nationally they still are. The last consumer reports showed that Att won every market in speed. Verizon wont be able to claim the nation's fastest until it LTE is in fact national. Att isn't completely dumb and thats why they are aggressively planned to finish LTE around the same time as Verizon though a little behind.

As for me I get good coverage with Att and where I use it I'm almost always in 3G. I usually get anywhere from 2-3.8mbps. I really don't care about how the service is in areas I don't use my phone. What's important is that the service works where you need it too and then base your carrier choice off that. If Att was as bad as everyone on the forums say it is then Att wouldn't be the #2 carrier.
 
Remember though that Verizon has a 3G iPhone and LTE does nothing for that device. Att can and will continue to claim the fastest broadband speed because nationally they still are. The last consumer reports showed that Att won every market in speed. Verizon wont be able to claim the nation's fastest until it LTE is in fact national. Att isn't completely dumb and thats why they are aggressively planned to finish LTE around the same time as Verizon though a little behind.

As for me I get good coverage with Att and where I use it I'm almost always in 3G. I usually get anywhere from 2-3.8mbps. I really don't care about how the service is in areas I don't use my phone. What's important is that the service works where you need it too and then base your carrier choice off that. If Att was as bad as everyone on the forums say it is then Att wouldn't be the #2 carrier.

Actually alltell is the reason why Verizon is #1. Prior they were consistently #2.
 
WRONG, try Edge or GPRS.

You are right AND wrong. If HSPA+ upgrade is in place in an area where LTE is not, the obvious back-fall is obvious. However, HSPA+ is not there and LTE is there and you have to fall-back after loosing LTE, then yes, it'd be EDGE or GPRS. (Assuming regular HSDPA/HSUPA and UMTS is absent)
 
Actually alltell is the reason why Verizon is #1. Prior they were consistently #2.

Unless you look before AT&T merged w/ Cingular.

This argument goes nowhere....

You are right AND wrong. If HSPA+ upgrade is in place in an area where LTE is not, the obvious back-fall is obvious. However, HSPA+ is not there and LTE is there and you have to fall-back after loosing LTE, then yes, it'd be EDGE or GPRS. (Assuming regular HSDPA/HSUPA and UMTS is absent)

Yeah, I know. Just trying to point out the fact that people that keep bringing up the whole falling back on HSPA+ vs EVDO fail to aknowledge the state of AT&T's network as it is currently run and make it should like AT&T will have HSPA+ everywhere when in fact we don't know if that will happen and if it does...when.
 
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