Breakdown of 3G Network Speeds, Reliability AT&T comes up short in connection reliability... Tipped by tmpchaos 
PC World says they spent the months of March and April conducting tests of 3G wireless broadband services from Verizon, AT&T and Sprint (sorry, T-Mobile) in thirteen cities across the States. In all, the magazine ran 5443 individual tests from 283 testing locations, and breaks down their downstream, upstream and reliability results in this single chart. According to the magazine, Verizon showed a good mix of reliability and speed, while AT&T unsurprisingly takes a hit on reliability -- which the magazine defines as connecting at a speed faster than dial-up and remaining connected during a one minute streaming test. You can see the mag's specific testing approach here.
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  gigahurtzPremium
join:2001-10-20
Palm Coast, FL | Surprised? Why am I not surprised? | |
|  |  baineschile2600 ways to livePremium
join:2008-05-10
Sterling Heights, MI | Re: Surprised? Kinda scary to think whats going to happen when ATT launches LTE; and the problems they will face with that.
Just another testament on why Apple should move to VZW | |
| | |  RobIn Deo speramus.Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
kudos:3 | Re: Surprised? said by baineschile:Kinda scary to think whats going to happen when ATT launches LTE; and the problems they will face with that. Just another testament on why Apple should move to VZW Once VZW adds 30+ million iphones to their network, I'm sure you'll see a slow down too.
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| | | |  Matt3All noise, no signal.Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
kudos:12 | Re: Surprised? said by Rob:said by baineschile:Kinda scary to think whats going to happen when ATT launches LTE; and the problems they will face with that. Just another testament on why Apple should move to VZW Once VZW adds 30+ million iphones to their network, I'm sure you'll see a slow down too. I don't think that would occur. It's my understanding that CDMA and EVDO are inherently more efficient than GSM/HSDPA. Additionally, you can roam on any CDMA/EVDO tower whereas AT&T (for the most part) has to go it alone. Verizon has the luxury of roaming among Alltel (now Verizon) and Sprint towers.
It's not like this is new to AT&T anyway. I performed a HUGE migration of worldwide users to a BlackBerry system and I had numerous people returning AT&T Blackberries because their service was awful. | |
| | | | | RobIn Deo speramus.Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
kudos:3 | Re: Surprised? said by Matt3:said by Rob:said by baineschile:Kinda scary to think whats going to happen when ATT launches LTE; and the problems they will face with that. Just another testament on why Apple should move to VZW Once VZW adds 30+ million iphones to their network, I'm sure you'll see a slow down too. I don't think that would occur. It's my understanding that CDMA and EVDO are inherently more efficient than GSM/HSDPA. Additionally, you can roam on any CDMA/EVDO tower whereas AT&T (for the most part) has to go it alone. Verizon has the luxury of roaming among Alltel (now Verizon) and Sprint towers. It's not like this is new to AT&T anyway. I performed a HUGE migration of worldwide users to a BlackBerry system and I had numerous people returning AT&T Blackberries because their service was awful. I really can't disagree since I don't have a very good understanding of the technologies.
But it's something we'd have to wait to see.. 2010.. maybe.
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  jmn1207Premium
join:2000-07-19
Ashburn, VA
kudos:1 | Re: Surprised? It's a bit confusing for me to try and keep up with, but this is generally how I believe Sprint's roaming agreements work with regards to Verizon.
On my BlackBerry Curve with Sprint, I only show "1XEV" when I am connected to Sprint PCS, and when I roam off Sprint PCS, I only see "1X" maximum.
According to my BlackBerry manual:
D = text only (maybe voice)
1x = voice/text only
1X = slow data
1XEV = fast data
I seem to recall that the roaming agreement with Verizon allows for the Sprint Powervision stuff to work when roaming. This includes their TV and radio stuff, but it would not include general web surfing or downloads/uploads.
The exception would be with Alltel, which is technically Verizon now, but there was already a 3G data roaming agreement in place which Verizon honored after the Alltel acquisition. | |
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| | | | | | How do you purpose getting faster data speeds via a 1.25 MHz channel versus a 5 MHz channel? Not possible. Any carrier would buckle under a massive influx of high speed devices. | |
| | | | | wierdo
join:2001-02-16
Tulsa, OK | said by Matt3:I don't think that would occur. It's my understanding that CDMA and EVDO are inherently more efficient than GSM/HSDPA. Per MHz, HSDPA is more efficient than EV-DO (even Rev.A). EDGE can do 2.3Mbps per MHz under ideal conditions on a single sector (with frequency reuse, more like 384Kbps per sector), but has terrible latency and a limit of about 300Kbps per device under ideal conditions. There are network limitations that reduce speed further, but a data only EDGE network could actually be quite fast.
HSDPA as currently deployed by at&t does a maximum theoretical speed of 7.2Mbps per 5MHz or 1.44Mbps/MHz or 2.88Mbps/MHz if they deploy the HSDPA 14.4 upgrade.
EV-DO Rev.A has a maximum theoretical spectral efficiency in a data only of about 2.5Mbps/MHz, although that fails to take into account the significant penalty for having to have a separate 1.25MHz channel dedicated to voice and 1xRTT data.
So HSDPA and EV-DO are pretty close in theoretical spectral efficiency, with HSDPA enjoying the advantage on fully upgraded networks. (There are a few around the world, FWIW) Both are significantly better than EDGE when the reuse factor is taken into account.
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It's wierdo, not weirdo. Yes, I know that's not the 'proper' spelling of the similar english language word.  | |
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| | |  TimePremium
join:2003-07-05
1 edit | said by Rob:said by baineschile:Kinda scary to think whats going to happen when ATT launches LTE; and the problems they will face with that. Just another testament on why Apple should move to VZW Once VZW adds 30+ million iphones to their network, I'm sure you'll see a slow down too. Sprint would cripple under the pressure too. Considering this is a company that's bleeding millions of customers, and I'm assuming the Pre hasn't made much of a difference, I find this test to be complete hooey. What people on this site fail to realize is that AT&T is 3 or 4 networks that were essentially smacked into one. They have work to do - but at least they aren't bleeding customers like Sprint.
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"If it can't be done with brains, it can't be done with hours" - Clarence "Kelly" Johnson | |
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| | | | said by baineschile:Kinda scary to think whats going to happen when ATT launches LTE; and the problems they will face with that. Just another testament on why Apple should move to VZW [/BQUOTE another reason exclusive contracts shouldn't be aloud. Matter of fact I'm typing on my iPhone as we speak. I just wounded if the gov did come in and say no more exlusive contracts then how crippled the phone would be from one carrier to the next | |
| | |  en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Personally, I'd recommend Sprint for reliability over VZW, if I went by the results.
VZW has typically had reliable connectivity, but is a painful company to deal with on both personal and business level. | |
| | | | jmn1207Premium
join:2000-07-19
Ashburn, VA
kudos:1 | Re: Surprised? said by en102:Personally, I'd recommend Sprint for reliability over VZW, if I went by the results. VZW has typically had reliable connectivity, but is a painful company to deal with on both personal and business level. My personal experience, having Sprint for wireless and Verizon for FiOS, is similar to yours; however, Sprint's customer service gets hammered when based on overall satisfaction scores, and by a significant margin. | |
| | | | | en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Re: Surprised? I haven't used VZW in a long time (due to business/CS issues), and use Sprint for work, AT&T for home.
Here in L.A., they're about the same for coverage/quality of service.
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Canada = Hollywood North | |
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| Matt3All noise, no signal.Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
kudos:12 | AT&T has a huge problem with their network that they need to address. Look at those reliability number for AT&T, good lord they are awful. Much worse that I would have guessed, but I don't do much that requires a continuous 1-minute of connectivity. | |
| | glinc
join:2009-04-07
New York, NY | They key is in investing money in their infrastructure. If AT&T is not dishing money to improve their towers/networks they will go down. | |
| |  LinklistPremium
join:2002-03-03
Longport, NJ
kudos:5 | AT&T really has some bad stats for reliability. And based on the many complaints from iPhone users about dropped calls and data sessions jumping back and forth between 3G and regular speeds, hardly surprising that the test stats backs up all the complaints in the forums here.
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My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page | |
| | | TimePremium
join:2003-07-05 | Re: Surprised? said by Linklist:AT&T really has some bad stats for reliability. And based on the many complaints from iPhone users about dropped calls and data sessions jumping back and forth between 3G and regular speeds, hardly surprising that the test stats backs up all the complaints in the forums here. A good portion of those "complaints" aren't even from AT&T or iPhone users.
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"If it can't be done with brains, it can't be done with hours" - Clarence "Kelly" Johnson | |
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| | Kinda odd!!! It's kinda odd why they only break 1000 Kbps on there chart twice with AT&T but several with Verizon. That is the complete opposite from what I see in the real world.
I have been to 5 cities over the past 2 weeks on business and in all I had no problems getting over 1 Mbps with AT&T, and in some had no problem getting over 1.5 Mbps. | |
| |  knightmbEverybody Lies
join:2003-12-01
Franklin, TN | Re: Kinda odd!!! said by dlewis23:It's kinda odd why they only break 1000 Kbps on there chart twice with AT&T but several with Verizon. That is the complete opposite from what I see in the real world. I have been to 5 cities over the past 2 weeks on business and in all I had no problems getting over 1 Mbps with AT&T, and in some had no problem getting over 1.5 Mbps. I see similar speeds as well, just wish they would quit advertising it as 3.6 Mbps because I've never seen it get even close to that speed and I'm within sight of the tower. I've tried it at 2:00AM, tower within sight, -20 db signal, no go.
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Click Here to pollute their data | |
| | | | | Re: Kinda odd!!! On one strange evening I actually got a 3.3 down from my Alltel/Verizon tower. I'm 3.5 miles away, in "fringe" territory and usually get between 65K-1.50M down. It was for one hot second and I nearly fell out of my chair.
So THAT'S what it's capable of! Why I've never seen that again I don't know. | |
| | | | | If you had a -20dBm signal your receiver would burn out. Just because you see a tower doesn't mean that it is your carriers tower. | |
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| RobIn Deo speramus.Premium
join:2001-08-25
Kendall, FL
kudos:3 | said by dlewis23:It's kinda odd why they only break 1000 Kbps on there chart twice with AT&T but several with Verizon. That is the complete opposite from what I see in the real world. I have been to 5 cities over the past 2 weeks on business and in all I had no problems getting over 1 Mbps with AT&T, and in some had no problem getting over 1.5 Mbps. IMO, Florida is AT&T's best 3G market. I constantly see above 1Mbps on my 3G speedtests.
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| | | Cod
join:2000-07-05
Kernersville, NC Reviews:
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Kinda odd!!!
Greensboro, NC AT&T 3g test from 5 minutes ago. | |
| | | | TimePremium
join:2003-07-05
1 edit | Re: Kinda odd!!! No dropped calls, no reliability issues. | |
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| | | | said by Rob:IMO, Florida is AT&T's best 3G market. I constantly see above 1Mbps on my 3G speedtests. Got that right, I constantly see over 1.5 Mbps here in the Boca/Delray area. | |
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| | | | Re: Further proof that its all about location Your not kidding. I am in the unfortunately position of having to help be part of the decision of which wireless carrier to migrate to for my corporation. We have a mix of VW, Sprint, AT&T, and TMO. We recently were trying to streamline carriers and of course with over 250 BBs, 300 "regular phones" and 150 aircards our work was cut out for us so we got proposals and went through some tests with all of them.
We basically wanted to cut through the BS and see who was best in OUR LOCATIONS. And take my word, dont just look at a coverage map.
Whats with that anyway? They are completely inaccurate!
All carriers will say whatever you want to hear about coverage, products from what we went through. So we tested everyone as to what would fill OUR NEEDS. Basically we have reps who travel domestically as well as internationally. Although these users are only around 50 or less in a given month.
So we tested about 10 phones for each of the above mentioned carriers. We tested all BB's. TMOs-8900, VWs-Storm, ATT- BOLD, Sprints-Curve.
Reception:
VW as you would expect got the best reviews followed by Sprint. Although the users got better coverage they complained about "crackling and garble" for quality a decent amount. Surprising to us at least TMO came in 3rd for reception, but users never onced complained of bad quality. And there were not many complaints on drops. I only say this is surprising bc last time (2 years ago) we tried a mass rollout with them and simply could not get enough reception to justify a complete rollout. ATT came in last with reception.
Aircards:
This was pretty simple, but a few surprises. Sprint was the most reliable, then VW, But we got the fastest speeds recorded with ATT then TMO. The highest speeds we recorded were actually on TMOs 3G network out of Atlanta, NY, and San Diego (I believe). We got over 2000 download and 400 uploads.
Devices:
VWs Storm got horrid reviews simply bc of the keyboard. Sprints Curve was adequate and ATTs Bold was solid but had slow responsiveness. TMOs 8900 was the most user friendly and fastest response, although it lacked the tethering speed a few users required. (No 3G)
Customer service:
Each carrier said we had a dedicated "team" but I am just not sure this was the case. Wasnt really close. Sprint was the worst. I guess this was to be expected. ATT was fine, Verizon a little better. (Their rep was pretty hot)  But TMO was far above the rest. Their assigned team seemed to be the most responsive which makes a few of our lives easier. I expected more from VWs team as they had been great in the past. It was almost like they didnt need our business.
Overall:
DATA:
We ended up keeping most of the aircards with Sprint in hopes of using their Wi-Max whenever it gets here. For our users who are using them pretty much in the big cities we moved 50 to TMO.
Voice:
We dumped ATT. They had us in some sort of "MAC" agreement which required a certain revenue over the term of a contract and it upset to many people above my paygrade.
We dumped Sprint except for the aircards. Just couldnt justify keeping them on board for more, after looking at the overall picture.
We kept TMO and VW for voice on about a 85-15% split with the bulk going to TMO. Kind of surprised all of us, (except one user who swears by them.) We are using their UMA(WI-FI calling) technology pretty much with every user. But get this, our international users are using this service to make calls while overseas and they are not even counting against the minutes. No additional plan required. That may have been the deciding factor. The savings could not be matched. I even told the ATT rep that all he had to do was give us this and with our landline discount we may have well went with them. But alas, that is not on their roadmap.
We kept some current VW users on board bc there are places that plain and simple VW gets the best coverage. Simple as that.
Anyhow, a little over a month into it and its going surprisingly well. As I have stated in an earlier post, I am glad for this bc I may have been shown the door if had not went so smooth! I was a user of VW and ATT and honestly was rooting for VW to bring it home. But internationaly they just cannot compete for what we need.
Hope this helps the arguement some of you guys may face when trying to figure out "the best carrier". Its all dependent on how YOUR CORPORATION, or family uses their wireless service. | |
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| | My Observations ATT - oh boy... i guess i can upload pics faster on your network than others
Sprint - the most reliable barely edging out Verizon on an overall basis. Upload speeds are a bit disappointing in some markets.
Verizon - by far the fastest download speeds. But the markets where they perform the best are the markets where they are the CLEC so they should be performing the best.
Overall I'm not surprised how Verizon performed considering in many of the markets tested they are CLEC. Controlling your own lines to your towers can REALLY help out in getting the proper amount of bandwidth needed. It's somewhat surprising how well Sprint performs considering they aren't the CLEC provider at all in any markets. Remember, Sprint has to go through Verizon and ATT in almost all of the markets listed with the exception of Denver(Qwest) for access. So whenever they do win out on speed it's a compliment to them on how hard they work. And being the most reliable is a huge credit to them. ATT is just so disappointing... even in the markets where they are the CLEC they still don't win out. Does anyone believe their marketing anymore?
The results are best viewed on a market by market basis though. Rounding out and finding averages as I did isn't the best way to judge unless you're a big road warrior. One should really find their home market and judge accordingly. | |
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See 7 replies to this post | |
rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO | Bandwith to where? I linked to and read the "specific testing approach" page from this thread's article. However, I couldn't figure out what test site they used to derive the numbers.
I have three speed tests on my iPhone: DSLReports, Ookla and SpeedTest. DSLReports and Ookla let me choose the destination server. Due to Internet "weather" and packet routes, I have found that the destination server can have a huge impact on performance. For instance, I'm located in St. Louis and sometimes I achieve significantly higher performance (1.3Mbps vs. 500Kbps) by choosing a Chicago-based server over a St. Louis-based server.
While I have no problem with them using a laptop for the tests, they claim that they use it over a smart phone because of the "high processing requirements" of the test application. That makes me pause because I don't think a bandwidth test should require substantial processing power. For nearly ten years DSLReports has offered a Java benchmark test. As a "virtual" language Java requires more resources than a native application. Still, I've never known the DSL Reports Java benchmark to require vast quantities of memory or processing power... even on PCs from five or six years ago.
Bottom line -- I think we need more information about how the tests were conducted to draw meaningful conclusions. As my graduate-level statistics professor always said, "In descending order of trust, there are liars, damn liars and statisticians." | |
| iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
 ·Verizon Online DSL
·RoadRunner Cable
·Comcast
| No Dallas? Low Sprint? Interesting that there were no results in the table from Texas. Nothing from DFW, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso...even though I'm pretty sure all three carriers route traffic through Dallas on some of their tests (most likely the Denver one).
As for Sprint, I'm in Florida for vacation and speed tests tend to hit 1200/300 most of the time. AT&T was also good last I checked (last summer) down here...1200 kbps down, 500-700 kbps up. Then again, I'm not in a full-on metro market.
The upload and reliability numbers on AT&T were expected though...I like the upload speed on ATT HSPA but the connection isn't the most solid I've used. Sprint and Verizon, as I expected, were quite reliable connection-wise.
Who's gonna bet that Verizon uses the PCWorld study to back up their "nation's most reliable 3G network" claim?
Lastly, I wonder what modems were used in the tests. The Sprint download numbers seem a bit low. I can outdo 'em on my HTC Touch Pro on WMWiFiROuter, and it isn't even an MBB card  | |
| | rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO | Re: No Dallas? Low Sprint? Click on the "testing approach" link in the article. It discusses the modems they used. They claim they used the latest recommended by each provider. | |
| | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | Re: No Dallas? Low Sprint? Thanks for making me read the article. Looks like the test results are legit. WOuldn't expect anything less from PCW though | |
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 SmokeyI'd rather be skiingPremium
join:2003-05-20
Wild West
 ·Verizon Wireless..
| I would aggre My unscientific results would agree that Verizon provides a very good mobile 3g network. I get really good coverage, decent speeds, and a reliable connection. Even while moving I have maintained a 256k stream for 6 hours in an urban environment.
The only think lacking is bandwidth. I hate the 5gig cap, but have yet to see a bill for the overage.
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Para Bellum!! | |
| | | Coverage The other thing that demands some attention here is the coverage footprint of all providers.
Last year I traveled quite a bit, and had both an AT&T option GT HSDPA card, and the built-in verizon EVDO in my lenovo laptop. My conclusion was that AT&T 3G coverage is a complete joke compared to verizon. You have to be smack in the middle of a major metro area in order to have AT&T 3G coverage. 5 miles out, and you are on edge. Any further (esp. in rural areas), and it's entirely possible you won't even have GSM coverage!
Look at the data coverage maps of both providers. They are not exaggerations!
Other than that, my experience mirrors the reviewer. When both worked, they had comparable D/U speeds (verizon was usually a teeny bit faster with lower latency).
P.S. It is my understanding that sprint has good data roaming agreements with verizon. I can't vouch for this myself, but if this is true, then sprint might be a good choice! | |
| | | | Re: Coverage Sprint's network in the Northeast is extremely underrated. Yes, they do hop on VZ's network when roaming, so it's the best of both worlds, imho.
Verizon in Upstate NY is very overrated. I just left Sprint for VZ because of 'the network' and have been extremely disappointed, with call quality in particular. So disappointed that I had to go to ATT, but that was ultimately for the iPhone. | |
| | LinklistPremium
join:2002-03-03
Longport, NJ
kudos:5 | said by anonym :
P.S. It is my understanding that sprint has good data roaming agreements with verizon. I can't vouch for this myself, but if this is true, then sprint might be a good choice!
Living in territory where Verizon is king I find that to be true. Sprint has good coverage, but I have roamed on Verizon for data access. That is easy to check too. My Palm Pre has data roaming OFF by default. And when I couldn't get a data connection(west of S Jersey shore), by turning on data roaming I almost always then got a connection, presumably thru Verizon - the only other 3G EVDO provider in my area.
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LinklistPremium
join:2002-03-03
Longport, NJ
kudos:5 |  Smartphone WiFi capability makes 3G less important
Also, when using WiFi the download speeds have been around 4 to 5 mbps(speed limited by the phone itself and not the broadband connections capability. I have been using dslreports iPhone speed test to measure 3G vs WiFi connections.
»i.dslr.net/iphone_speedtest.html
I know Verizon sells a ton of phones with EVDO but without WiFi capability. I would NEVER get one without the capability.
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| cahiattPremium
join:2001-03-21
Smyrna, GA | Go ATT.... And take T-mobile with you. I'm a Sprint user for personal and self-business purposes. I have ATT for the other company since I travel to the UK a lot. I needed a GSM phone for that.
You remember that Sprint commercial where they used two cowboys to tout their speed versus ATT? The Sprint cowboy would repeatedly draw and bitchslap the ATT cowboy.
Yeah. It really is about that way in my experience with both networks. | |
| | | Weird. Does the chart take into consideration the difference in customer numbers?
My sister's boyfriend has vz, and he gets suck 3G service.
- A
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LETS GO METS! | |
|  Mike_
join:2003-06-24
Fort Lauderdale, FL
·Verizon Wireless..
| Tests do not do justice These tests seem very biased towards CDMA2000/ev. Also, their charts show cities within their test states, but no where are they actually showing data on "283 total testing sites". So I really cannot believe they did a very thorough test in that regard. They also missed out on at&t's strongest state 3g connectivity and coverage location (Florida).
Reliability in percentages just doesn't seem acceptable. You cannot quantify having either a good connection, decent, or no connection within certain areas of connectivity with reliability percentages. What could that actually mean to an actual user of said network? That standing in some special spot, 60% of the time you will be connected GOOD, or maybe 20% of the time it will have magically NO CONNECTION?
Also, reliability means its there, ready, when you need it, at any given time. They should have done tests many different days consistently, then take an average of those days. Either way, saying "good", "excellent", or "poor" connectivity would have been a better choice.
I as a user of both att and Sprint can safely say they are very consistent wherever I travel (usually all of east coast). I usually hit over 2mbps with att here in south florida, sprint around 1.5. Now att obviously has a terrible 3g coverage map compared to the cdma guys, but aside from coverage, PC World, imo, did not do much justice with these tests, specifically with "reliability". Speeds, on the other hand, involve too many day-to-day network factors -specifically user volume/congestion on each tower.
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If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Unless you know what you're doing. | |
| | | 3g Somehow, the problems with AT&T don't surprise me. Which is why no matter how much I love the Iphone I refuse to have their crummy wireless service.
I am with Verizon for my cell phone and there is voice and 3g service almost everywhere including in some very remote and rural areas. Also, it is very reliable and seems to work pretty well regardless of whether I am a in a large city or a very rural area.
Whats wrong with AT&T? They manage adequately with the DSL service I have but they won't get my wireless service until they expand their coverage and make their 3g service reliable. They are behind the times. While their at it they need to invest in top notch, domestic customer service.
Have a nice day. | |
| | | ATT 3g It bothers me that I was getting over a 1 megabit 3g connection 15 miles off the coast of St. Thomas last week and here at home am averaging less than 100 kilobits/s on an edge connection! This is not the middle of the friggin ocean! People actually live here! Get it together AT&T!!! I live in Taylors, SC by the way. | |
| | | | Re: ATT 3g Strange. Must be either your particular location, home structure or handset. AFAIK where you are generally situated in SC is well blanketed w/ 3G via ATT. My dad's friends live not too far away and they use iPhones & other smartphones issued by ATT w/ little problems. It's not uncommon for small dead spots to exist with all carriers though. What happens if you use the phone just outside your home?
-Pedro | |
| | | | | Re: ATT 3g Well I'm getting 4 to 5 out of 5 bars on edge so I don't think it's just that I live in a hole or anything. 3g coverage just ends about 3 quarters of a mile away from my house. I live just past the edge of 3g coverage. I guess the several hundred houses within a mile of my house wasn't worth covering with 3g. We all have 3g phones at my house and nobody gets it. The speed has also slowed down quite a bit since the new iphone launch. I was getting almost 200 kilobits consistently on edge and am now getting 50 to maybe 75 down if I'm lucky and 15 to 20 kilobits up. AT&T needs to hurry up and upgrade their network here. I do not want to pay $30 a month for dial up speeds on my blackberry. If an AT&T rep reads this the cell site ID I'm operating off of right now is 8012 172 42203 26. AT&T needs to stop providing 3g in the middle of the ocean and upgrade the service here! | |
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slckusrPremium
join:2003-03-17
Maumee, OH
kudos:1 | I would expect better Out of Verizon, spending 5 billion annually on your "network", and the company that cant keep a subscriber is right up there with you.
Att is a joke, but at least they got an iPhone. | |
|  mobOn the next level..Premium
join:2000-10-07
·SureWest Internet
| Not suprised at all VZW has good service, and this also shows that Sprint has really been working very hard at providing quality service as well, and that Ma Bell is just sitting around doing nothing while charging outrageous fees for everything.
My family was all on ATTWS before it was consumed by Cingular. Now we're all split amongst the "Big 3" here. I've been on on Sprint for 3 years now here in the mid west, and have no major problems. My sister is on VZW on the East coast, and she's very happy with the service. My brother and parent are still on ATT, at least until their contracts expire. I am sure if VZW could get the iPhone now, my brother would pay the termination fee immediately and switch the same day.
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If we do not succeed, then we run the risk of failure - J. Danforth Quayle
Ich habe kein Mitleid - Me | |
| | | | Re: Not suprised at all Your not kidding. I am in the unfortunately position of having to help be part of the decision of which wireless carrier to migrate to for my corporation. We have a mix of VW, Sprint, AT&T, and TMO. We recently were trying to streamline carriers and of course with over 250 BBs, 300 "regular phones" and 150 aircards our work was cut out for us so we got proposals and went through some tests with all of them.
We basically wanted to cut through the BS and see who was best in OUR LOCATIONS. And take my word, dont just look at a coverage map.
Whats with that anyway? They are completely inaccurate!
All carriers will say whatever you want to hear about coverage, products from what we went through. So we tested everyone as to what would fill OUR NEEDS. Basically we have reps who travel domestically as well as internationally. Although these users are only around 50 or less in a given month.
So we tested about 10 phones for each of the above mentioned carriers. We tested all BB's. TMOs-8900, VWs-Storm, ATT- BOLD, Sprints-Curve.
Reception:
VW as you would expect got the best reviews followed by Sprint. Although the users got better coverage they complained about "crackling and garble" for quality a decent amount. Surprising to us at least TMO came in 3rd for reception, but users never onced complained of bad quality. And there were not many complaints on drops. I only say this is surprising bc last time (2 years ago) we tried a mass rollout with them and simply could not get enough reception to justify a complete rollout. ATT came in last with reception.
Aircards:
This was pretty simple, but a few surprises. Sprint was the most reliable, then VW, But we got the fastest speeds recorded with ATT then TMO. The highest speeds we recorded were actually on TMOs 3G network out of Atlanta, NY, and San Diego (I believe). We got over 2000 download and 400 uploads.
Devices:
VWs Storm got horrid reviews simply bc of the keyboard. Sprints Curve was adequate and ATTs Bold was solid but had slow responsiveness. TMOs 8900 was the most user friendly and fastest response, although it lacked the tethering speed a few users required. (No 3G)
Customer service:
Each carrier said we had a dedicated "team" but I am just not sure this was the case. Wasnt really close. Sprint was the worst. I guess this was to be expected. ATT was fine, Verizon a little better. (Their rep was pretty hot) But TMO was far above the rest. Their assigned team seemed to be the most responsive which makes a few of our lives easier. I expected more from VWs team as they had been great in the past. It was almost like they didnt need our business.
Overall:
DATA:
We ended up keeping most of the aircards with Sprint in hopes of using their Wi-Max whenever it gets here. For our users who are using them pretty much in the big cities we moved 50 to TMO.
Voice:
We dumped ATT. They had us in some sort of "MAC" agreement which required a certain revenue over the term of a contract and it upset to many people above my paygrade.
We dumped Sprint except for the aircards. Just couldnt justify keeping them on board for more, after looking at the overall picture.
We kept TMO and VW for voice on about a 85-15% split with the bulk going to TMO. Kind of surprised all of us, (except one user who swears by them.) We are using their UMA(WI-FI calling) technology pretty much with every user. But get this, our international users are using this service to make calls while overseas and they are not even counting against the minutes. No additional plan required. That may have been the deciding factor. The savings could not be matched. I even told the ATT rep that all he had to do was give us this and with our landline discount we may have well went with them. But alas, that is not on their roadmap.
We kept some current VW users on board bc there are places that plain and simple VW gets the best coverage. Simple as that.
Anyhow, a little over a month into it and its going surprisingly well. As I have stated in an earlier post, I am glad for this bc I may have been shown the door if had not went so smooth! I was a user of VW and ATT and honestly was rooting for VW to bring it home. But internationaly they just cannot compete for what we need.
Hope this helps the arguement some of you guys may face when trying to figure out "the best carrier". Its all dependent on how YOUR CORPORATION, or family uses their wireless service. | |
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 SuntopPremium
join:2000-03-23
Choteau, MT
·3Rivers Communic..
| What is funny about AT&T Is that they use Verizons 3G for their internet. When I do YOUR IP on DSLR, it says sometimes it uses verizons 3G network vzw* and also has its mymode.com too or something like that. AT&T would be more reliable if they had more saturation of towers. But Microcells will fix a lot of the problems.
Sprint always been better than AT&T even on the wired internet
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The following statement is true...
The preceding statement was false!!--George Carlin | |
| | | | Re: What is funny about AT&T No, AT&T's network (GSM/EDGE/WCDMA/HSDPA) is incompatible with Verizon's network (CDMA/EVDO). Their backhauls are also not shared.
You are seeing a whois query on the IP address you are assigned, and some carriers (AT&T and Verizon definitely do in some areas - I've seen it before) share from many of the same IP pools that are contracted from a 3rd party vendor. | |
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