Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Why choose AT&T 4G vs Verizon?

Glad to hear some good reasons to go with AT&T. Another reason I went with AT&T was because I've been pleased with their 3G service so if I'm somewhere where LTE is spotty, I'll still have good service.

I'm in San Antonio but I don't have any experience with AT&T LTE coverage here. Anyone also from SA who can share their experience?

I'm leaning to keeping it but I have 10 days to change my mind.
 
Last edited:
AT&T, if no LTE is available, falls back on HSPA+ which is fairly fast. (between 6-10 Mbps in my experience)

Verizon, if no LTE is available, fall back on EVDO which is fairly slow. (between 1/2 - 1 Mbps in my experience).

Verizon has free hotspot though. I might go with VZ if I buy one.
 
I would suggest checking coverage (if you can) in the areas that you care about. For example in the building that I work in AT&T coverage is basically zero while Verizon signal is 2 to 3 bars. At my home AT&T is one bar and Verizon is 2 bars. So that makes the decision pretty easy.
 
The good news by reading the responses is that on average not one it better than the other, so in a sense you can't go wrong with AT&T or Verizon.

I went with Verizon by reasoning that I wouldn't want to use 3.5G (HSPA+) as I feel that's too slow and a bit frustrating at times. At this point in my life/work, having access isn't mission critical, so I'd only want to use it with LTE speeds. Apple says the Verizon version would work overseas and looking at the specs it seems it would be just as fast as AT&T overseas. I like the hotspot option, although perhaps AT&T will offer that in the future. Perhaps, Verizon will price match AT&T and offer 3GB for $30 like AT&T. In summary, the biggest reason I went with Verizon is because they have much more LTE coverage than AT&T.
 
Had both, went with AT&T

Here's my reasoning: I originally preordered an AT&T on 3/7, just because I had always had AT&T and I didn't have much time to research LTE coverage, the ability to use AT&T 4G (not LTE) on the Verizon iPad, etc. Then, while waiting for launch day, and discovering that Verizon had LTE coverage in Philadelphia and AT&T did not, I got up early and bought a Verizon on launch day. That's when the fun began. Logically, it made sense that I could simply drop my AT&T sim from my AT&T ipad2 into the Verizon ipad3 and I'd be able to get the AT&T 4G (not LTE), but as everyone discovered, it wasn't that simple. The Verizon ipad3 does not recognize the AT&T sim card, so the only way to get AT&T 4g on the Verizon iPad is to first activate the sim on the ipad2, then put the active sim into the Verizon iPad. The problem is that once its in there, you still can't access it through settings. Sure, you can go online and modify the service, but if you don't want it to auto renew, your account only stays active for 60 days. Bottom line is that if you don't want to use the cellular service all the time but simply want the ability to activate it in the future, you have to either keep a spare iPad 2 around so you can reinstate service from there and then swap the sim to the Verizon iPad, or keep paying a monthly fee. Neither of these options is particularly appealing. But what really made my mind up was when I visited the Verizon store to try an iPad actually running on LTE. I did a speed test on it and it came back around 7 up and 7 down...not very impressive. With a strong AT&T signal on the AT&T HSPA+ I was able to almost duplicate that (down at least ). So I decided to stick with the AT&T. I've owned the iPad 2 since launch and have never even used the cellular option so I figure if I ever need cellular, which would be when I travel, there's probably a good chance that there may be AT&T LTE in the city I'm traveling to.

Oh, and one more thing, the Verizon display was definitely yellower than the AT&T and once I discovered that, it really sealed the deal.
 
Last edited:
wordoflife said:
AT&T, if no LTE is available, falls back on HSPA+ which is fairly fast. (between 6-10 Mbps in my experience)

Verizon, if no LTE is available, fall back on EVDO which is fairly slow. (between 1/2 - 1 Mbps in my experience).

Verizon has free hotspot though. I might go with VZ if I buy one.
Click to expand...

Good point.

I have AT&T for my iPhone, but ultimately went with the Verizon iPad because of how fast they're rolling out their LTE network to more areas. It's already in neighboring towns (~a 20 minute drive away) and was told by a Verizon rep that it would blanket my town by the summer.
He also told me Verizon plans to blanket the country with LTE (like 3G is now) by the end of 2013.
 
Blorzoga said:
.....
Oh, and one more thing, the Verizon display was definitely yellower than the AT&T and once I discovered that, it really sealed the deal.
Click to expand...

You do realize that you're probability of getting a yellow screen is 50% with Verizon and the probability of not getting a yellow screen on AT&T is 50%. :p

I chose Verizon (despite the hell that best buy put me through along with the less than helpful VZW corporate store staff) for the following
1. AT&T hasn't even announced the pending availability of LTE in my area and by the time they do, iPad 4th generation will be out.
2. Verizon's hot spot feature is just too good to pass up.
 
magbarn said:
You do realize that you're probability of getting a yellow screen is 50% with Verizon and the probability of not getting a yellow screen on AT&T is 50%. :p

I chose Verizon (despite the hell that best buy put me through along with the less than helpful VZW corporate store staff) for the following
1. AT&T hasn't even announced the pending availability of LTE in my area and by the time they do, iPad 4th generation will be out.
2. Verizon's hot spot feature is just too good to pass up.
Click to expand...

I know there's no correlation between the yellow screen and the carrier. My AT&T just happened to be whiter than my Verizon, so that played a part in my decision. I didn't want to go through the return-my-iPad-because-the-screen's-not-perfect routine that occurred with the ipad2 (light bleed, etc). Having two units gave me the opportunity to choose the one that I liked better.
 
I'm a flip flopper

So, I ordered 2 AT&T LTE iPads on 3/7. Like I have ordered the AT&T version the past two years. We also have 2 AT&T iPhone 4s. I thought it was a slam dunk. I've had great service, and no issues with AT&T since 2007. So, after my order, I found a few reasons to switch.

1. Free Hotspot
2. Verizon LTE in Memphis and my small town (Olive Branch, MS) south of Memphis. AT&T has no published dates for this area.
3. Every major city we travel to, both carriers have LTE.
4. Having AT&T iPhones and Verizon iPads gives the best of both worlds.

So today I swapped mine and so far so good. This is not an easy choice. Lol
 
HazChem said:
Glad to hear some good reasons to go with AT&T. Another reason I went with AT&T was because I've been pleased with their 3G service so if I'm somewhere where LTE is spotty, I'll still have good service.

I'm in San Antonio but I don't have any experience with AT&T LTE coverage here. Anyone also from SA who can share their experience?

I'm leaning to keeping it but I have 10 days to change my mind.
Click to expand...

If AT&T gives you good service in your area and you don't need a personal wi-fi hotspot, then by all means stick with AT&T.
 
I am thinking about the same att vs verizon does anyone know if you have a grandfathered att iphone unlimited plan could you use it with the ipad
 
Which carrier would be be better in the North Jersey area near NYC?

Asking this because I'm thinking of returning my 16 gig wifi towards a 4G one. Just trying to decide which carrier would be better and faster in my area.

The free hotspot on Verizon is hard to pass up though.
 
Verizon isn't in Alaska (yet), so my only option was AT&T. That being said, I'm getting faster downloads on the new iPad than on my iPhone, as much as double the download rate in some cases.
 
wordoflife said:
AT&T, if no LTE is available, falls back on HSPA+ which is fairly fast. (between 6-10 Mbps in my experience)

Verizon, if no LTE is available, fall back on EVDO which is fairly slow. (between 1/2 - 1 Mbps in my experience).

Verizon has free hotspot though. I might go with VZ if I buy one.
Click to expand...

This is incorrect. Verizon falls back to CDMA 3G, which in my experience this weekend was 2-4 mbps.
 
Chose Verizon for three reasons:

1. Verizon has the most coverage for LTE, including the areas I most frequent.
2. Mobile Hotspot
3. AT&T sending me a nice text message "threat" about throttling my "unlimited" plan on my iPhone 4S. I use 5GB or less on average. So they don't deserve more of my money ;p
 
AT&T is practically useless during busy periods. I also find that during the day, 1 to 2mb is the norm.

Keep in mind that this company was the first get rid of unlimited data and set the trend with ridiculously low limits.

How many time does this company have to shaft people before they wake up... They don't care about the customer, something also illustrated by them being ranked dead last for CS.
 
cdebnil said:
This is incorrect. Verizon falls back to CDMA 3G, which in my experience this weekend was 2-4 mbps.
Click to expand...

Verizon uses CDMA and their 3G network runs on EVDO, in the same fashion that AT&T uses GSM and their 3G network runs on HSPA+.

Regardless, you can't hit 4 mbps on CDMA 3G or EVDO (it's the same thing).
 
Don't be fooled by the technical jargon and specs. If the network and backhaul is not there, they're useless. While EVDO is slower, Verizon is renowned for their bulletproof network.

If you are in a spot where AT&T has great service, limited congestion, and adequate backhaul to actually support HSPA+, then yes they will be faster than Verizon EVDO.

That said, Verizon LTE covers 203 places and that will be doubled by the end of the year. Therefore, in x months, falling back on 3G will not be an issue.

All while to this day, AT&T is still actually rolling out 3G from 2G.
 
i've finally made the decision to go with the verizon 4g lte ipad for the following reasons:

1. i already have an iphone 4s on ATT. this year, the new model will very likely be 4G LTE and i will be getting it when it does come out. someone mentioned this earlier, but it is nice to have the best of both worlds. once apple releases an LTE iphone and i get the verizon LTE ipad, I should have fantastic coverage no matter where I go in this country.
2. after checking my iphone 4s data usage over the last year, i've never surpassed 1GB of data usage. verizon offers the 1GB plan for $20, which is fine for my needs. it also includes mobile hotspot at no extra charge.
3. verizon LTE coverage in my area seems to be fantastic. i went to both the ATT and Verizon stores today and tested their LTE devices. both had similar speeds in my area.
 
some quick opinions

I think all the pros and cons for each have been discussed, but I would like to emphasize 2 points that I think need to be considered for not choosing AT&T versus Verizon:

1. As I understand it, AT&T falls back to HSPA+ (or some assortment of characters) in very specific areas, areas that almost all seem to be covered by Verizon's LTE. So from what I understand, this is not an advantage to AT&T unless you prefer HSPA+ over LTE. (I'm basing this with what I saw on the Coverage app)

2. AT&T has been marked by various consumer reports and sites as being a pretty consumer-neglected company. While Verizon is not perfect, it has been regarded as the better company by consumers among the big carriers. In my own experience, I really have had no issues with AT&T customer service. But the decisions they have made with customers as a company have been discouraging me from continuing to be their customer. I'm looking forward to trying out Verizon for the first time.

Those are my thoughts.
 
Currently, Verizon iPads are having problems with Pre-Paid SIM cards. When you cancel your service, it renders the SIM card useless and Verizon stores will not give you another pre-paid card. Thus, Verizon is really pushing everyone to have a post-paid plan.
 
For those that have corporate discounts (Premier accounts) with AT&T, you can get 20% off the 5GB 4G LTE plan, so it's $40/month-to-month with a $10/GB over usage fee. It's a post paid plan, but you can cancel any time and restart service with a phone call.

From what I've read, it's easier to start and stop the post paid plans with AT&T.
 
I went with Verizon because of the coverage in my area where AT&T doesn't have LTE service and the plans are pretty far off on it. The other reason is because of the hot spot. I have been with AT&T since cell phones started but I feel I will get better service with Verizon on the Ipad where I travel and live. I will keep my cell phones unless Verizon gives me a much better offer.
 
I've ordered an ATT iPad because Verizon's LTE coverage where I live is non-existent.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back