You'd think that with Apple's HQ being located here and with so many tech companies AT&T's service would be spectacular. It's shit. With all the money they must be raking in in from people who want the iPhone, you'd think they'd be investing rapidly in upgrading their service. Yet in my home in here in the South Bay, I can rarely make a call, sometimes even when I step outside the house. And I live in a suburb of Silicon Valley. I get much more reliable service in Kansas City (Sprint's HQ - where I travel to frequently), and some other cities, but even then it's not as good my old Treo with Sprint service.
You might think that or you might think, with so many tech-type people
living in a small area, that the demands on AT&T's bandwidth are exceptionally
large, and this causes the lack of reliability you cite.
Get out of your fantasy world. Verizon sucks the big one. At&t rules the roost in terms of reliability and service. For every one of you there two at&t customers who are perfectly satisfied. The "grass is always greener" syndrome is alive and well.
I can't speak to Verizon because I left them 5 years ago. I can, however, speak to AT&T, because I have had AT&T for five years now, and AT&T sucks the rigid wank of Satan.
Their cavalier use of the word "service" to describe what they provide is the most lying, out and out fraudulent deception in the history of mankind. "Service to His Darkest Lord" would be a better description.
AT&T is every bit the agent of the Devil himself that spiders and poodles are, and anybody who does not recognize that either lives within 20 miles of their corporate HQ, is a waterhead, or never personally used a phone on the Devil's Network.
You get out of YOUR fantasy world, Zohan, and smell what the Jobs is cookin':
AT&T goes away as soon as that contract ends. The secrecy is simply there to keep Wall Street from knowing too much too early.
However, CDMA/EVDO is used only by 20% of the subscribers in the world at best. It is dominant in the US, parts of the Americas, S. Korea, Any phone designed for VZ will have to have GSM/EDGE or even WCDMA to roam worldwide... I suspect it will add another $25-50/phone to the cost.
No it is not, CDMA/EVDO only has a 10% market share
What's clear is that AT&T's quality of service is subjective and based on where you live. So, some people get crappy service (as I did in NYC), and some people are getting great service.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pats
@Tech Idiot: I know you pass the day being a idiot, but text works just fine on the Iphone.
C'mon, that's rude, not to mention against forum rules.
Well... duh. I switched form Verizon for an iPhone, and the femto-second I can switch back I will. I never really believed just how different the quality of connection and data rates could be between major carriers until I switched. As much as I love my iPhone, if AT&T somehow managed to stay exclusive until 2011, I think I will end up punting on the iPhone. Ultimately, I value the phone service over everything else.
That means ATT has you for two more years. Lots can happen during that time to keep you going as an ATT customer!
You might think that or you might think, with so many tech-type people
living in a small area, that the demands on AT&T's bandwidth are exceptionally
large, and this causes the lack of reliability you cite.
I don't think so. Unless everyone living in Silicon Valley is up at 3:00 a.m. downloading porn to their iPhones.
I have been on AT&T for about a year now, and no matter what time of night or day, I get lousy service. Besides, your theory doesn't account for losing connections every time you pass a specific location, or their lack of coverage in certain areas -- like where my house is located. Even AT&T admits their coverage isn't so stellar. If you go to their coverage map and enter any Silicon Valley address or zip and look around, you'll find plenty areas where coverage is "moderate" -- their term for "shit" (their scale being Best - Good - Moderate - No Service).
I can't speak to Verizon because I left them 5 years ago. I can, however, speak to AT&T, because I have had AT&T for five years now, and AT&T sucks the rigid wank of Satan.
Their cavalier use of the word "service" to describe what they provide is the most lying, out and out fraudulent deception in the history of mankind. "Service to His Darkest Lord" would be a better description.
AT&T is every bit the agent of the Devil himself that spiders and poodles are, and anybody who does not recognize that either lives within 20 miles of their corporate HQ, is a waterhead, or never personally used a phone on the Devil's Network.
You get out of YOUR fantasy world, Zohan, and smell what the Jobs is cookin':
AT&T goes away as soon as that contract ends. The secrecy is simply there to keep Wall Street from knowing too much too early.
Although I appreciate your dramatic hyperbole, I think the best you can hope for is for
the iPhone to be offered on more cell networks in addition to AT&T.
I don't think so. Unless everyone living in Silicon Valley is up at 3:00 a.m. downloading porn to their iPhones.
I have been on AT&T for about a year now, and no matter what time of night or day, I get lousy service. Besides, your theory doesn't account for losing connections every time you pass a specific location, or their lack of coverage in certain areas -- like where my house is located. Even AT&T admits their coverage isn't so stellar. If you go to their coverage map and enter any Silicon Valley address or zip and look around, you'll find plenty areas where coverage is "moderate" -- their term for "shit" (their scale being Best - Good - Moderate - No Service).
Why is it everone thinks going to CDMA is such a hard thing? The way people make it sound, you would think a CDMA chip has never been invented. There is no inventing, buy it from Qualcomm. You can buy them yourself if you want.
The other issue is people say it is only good for the US if you make it CDMA. Not really, there are many other countries that CDMA or GSM/CDMA mix ( you know...China for example...the country that has more population than the rest of the world ).
And do you really think its impossible to build a phone with both CDMA and GSM radios? It is and has been done for a while.
The people that say it can't and won't be done are the GSM/ATT fanboys that this is their last gleaming hope of being someone very special.
Going to just Verizon would open the potential to 80 million plus customers....let alone the other CDMA carriers in the world.
If you think Apple is going to keep its exclusivity with ATT just to be nice and turn its back on hundreds of millions to possibly billions more dollars, you are nutz. They love making money just like any other company.
I look for VZW to announce the iPhone or something similar from Apple when the LTE networks are promoted.
LTE will use a SIM style card, but, it will not allow just taking the device from one carrier to another like with GSM. I believe their plans are to use CDMA as the backbone for the voice and low speed data and the LTE for higher speed.
As for which is better, VZW touts the Most Reliable network. I believe this is true, but, it mostly depends on your location. Some providers have better service than others in certain locations. To be fair, I have seen areas where a small local regional carrier had better coverage than any of the Big 4.
Validated in what way? Complaining the iPhone is too slow and getting a faster one two years later, complaining that AT&T sucks and having others with occasional issues or constant issues in certain areas is not the result of your clairvoyance. It’s only you complaining about wanting something that will occur eventually.
You are probably even claiming that Apple has “listened to you” about glossy screen sucking because there is a rumour that they me including matte as an option. The rational people here that do prefer glossy have stated that the option for users would be nice, but your absolute statements about glossy screens suck for all users, that they don’t look better than matte in any regard, agreeing that those who prefer glossy are ignorant.
For you to validated you’ll have to actually make logical, rational, balanced claims; not hyperbolic whinefests about Apple being doomed. You can’t see the difference in the same way Michael Bay doesn’t realize that good CGI doesn’t equal a plot or storyline.
Dude- Ok- Let get the record straight.
1.) The 3 highlighted items- I have never ever stated. You keep stating the 3rd over and over and I have repeatedly asked you to prove it. I hope the monitors make note of this. You have made this claim at least 3 times in the last month without showing where I've said that. You can't keep stating things that are not truth.
Quote:
those who prefer glossy are ignorant.
2.) Over the last 6 months , many things have occurred that you have stated were either not in Apple's business model, not needed, etc, etc. these are:
a.) A small formed professional laptop. You've stated the MBA was the extent of that quest. and guess what- we now have a 13" MacBook PRO.
b) iPhone got MMS Texting, video, voice recognition- all things that you've stated were not wanted. Meanwhile this version of iPhone is selling at an unbelievable rate. Other and not just me thought they were important enough to hold out until it got it.
c.) Firewire is back on the 13: - again you said it wasn't gonna happen.
d.) Matte screens- you keep insisting that the 17" matte was some kind of experiment????You still do not get it. It is what many professionals want and got. Many just don't want a high gloss display- Apple listened! It's really not that hard to comprehend. And now matte will probably return across the line as it should have never left.
e.) AT&T is second rate compared to Verizon. Do you have stock in AT&T as well as Apple? You must because you are in major denial. AT&T is always rated at or near the bottom. I'm hoping that I have a better experience than others have. I think the new 3Gs iPhone helps out a lot. It is really fast, etc. The AT&T rate seems kind of excessive but I've budgeted for it - so I'm not worried.
You really need to get a grip on reality and face the fact the although mine and other's requests are being met by Apple , your dismissals are simply being dismissed.
C'mon, that's rude, not to mention against forum rules.
I don't think he understood what I was asking so he posts some flippant answer. I was curious how iPhones received texts prior to 3.0 - I think text works great on my new phone.
Just last night I was discussing AT&T's incredibly poor service here in the Silicon Valley area with a colleague of mine. We both work in tech and recently switched from other (way better) service providers. Why? Because we wanted the features the iPhone has to offer.
We exchanged notes on the terrible service here. It's almost impossible to converse for an extended period of time without dropping a call. We both talked about the experience of sitting in a chair in your house with what seems like a good connection, and then you move an inch to right and BAM!.....the call instantly dissappears. Also we both talked about locations on Highways 101, 280 or 17 where every single time you drive by a certain spot, you'll loose your call.
You'd think that with Apple's HQ being located here and with so many tech companies AT&T's service would be spectacular. It's shit. With all the money they must be raking in in from people who want the iPhone, you'd think they'd be investing rapidly in upgrading their service. Yet in my home in here in the South Bay, I can rarely make a call, sometimes even when I step outside the house. And I live in a suburb of Silicon Valley. I get much more reliable service in Kansas City (Sprint's HQ - where I travel to frequently), and some other cities, but even then it's not as good my old Treo with Sprint service.
So I have to agree based on conversations I have had with quite a few people. The day the iPhone goes to another carrier, whether it's Verizon or someone else, people will leave AT&T in droves.
But since Apple is likely not to make a CMDA iPhone, but instead wait for LTE, since that will be for both Verizon and at&t, we have no way of knowing who's network will be stronger. LTE is a completely different signal than CDMA. It could very well be, that when everyone switches over, at&t's towers will have better LTE penetration than Verizon's.
Though it's possible for Apple to make a CDMA iPhone, I agree it's unlikely. As such we would need to compare the overall quality of Verizon's LTE, against AT&T's LTE+3G+GSM networks. AT&T would likely win that in the short term!
That said, it is _possible_ that Apple will make an LTE+CDMA phone. I think that's more likely a backup plan and bargaining chip with AT&T.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jerseymac
We just want choice. Give us a phone for each carrier. Give us non glossy options on the Mac. You know we'll pay extra for it.
I see some of the AT@T defenders have returned. Not mad about MMS and tethering anymore?
Competition is great. In Australia Telstra has the best coverage and costs a bit more than AT&T for the iPhone. Three other networks also offer the iPhone, and at much cheaper rates. The low end sweet spot is the 16GB iPhone 3GS for free on a <US$60 plan (2 year contract). Lots of voice minutes provided but only 1GB of data.
All carriers offer MMS, but only Vodafone offers Visual Voicemail & free tethering.
ps.
In general, it's a pity that we're seeing too many big companies buy each other up rather than give us lots of competition.
Just last night I was discussing AT&T's incredibly poor service here in the Silicon Valley area with a colleague of mine. We both work in tech and recently switched from other (way better) service providers. Why? Because we wanted the features the iPhone has to offer.
We exchanged notes on the terrible service here. It's almost impossible to converse for an extended period of time without dropping a call. We both talked about the experience of sitting in a chair in your house with what seems like a good connection, and then you move an inch to right and BAM!.....the call instantly dissappears. Also we both talked about locations on Highways 101, 280 or 17 where every single time you drive by a certain spot, you'll loose your call.
You'd think that with Apple's HQ being located here and with so many tech companies AT&T's service would be spectacular. It's shit. With all the money they must be raking in in from people who want the iPhone, you'd think they'd be investing rapidly in upgrading their service. Yet in my home in here in the South Bay, I can rarely make a call, sometimes even when I step outside the house. And I live in a suburb of Silicon Valley. I get much more reliable service in Kansas City (Sprint's HQ - where I travel to frequently), and some other cities, but even then it's not as good my old Treo with Sprint service.
So I have to agree based on conversations I have had with quite a few people. The day the iPhone goes to another carrier, whether it's Verizon or someone else, people will leave AT&T in droves.
Since when Sprint has good service?? it is the only phone carrier that constantly lose subscribers..do they leave because they have good service. I was with Sprint 3 years and had to constantly battling with problems.
I don't see iPhone for Verizon anytime soon, but I can't miss a chance to rant about AT&T. The 3G service in coastal LA is a real joke.
I get 3G about 15-20% of the time. I'm on GPRS (2.5G) another 10-15% of the time; the rest is EDGE (2.75G) of course. And even when I supposedly do have a 3G signal, stable connections are truly a rarity.
with 4G on the horizon, how much is anyone going to spend getting a better 3G experience for users??? (as an interesting side note - with VoIP, why are we still building cell networks anyway - just wifi and wiMax everywhere...)
If Verizon et al are busy adding support for 4G GSM, I hope that support includes support for older GSM technologies, since otherwise it will limit the number of roaming customers and handsets they have access to in the beginning. Access to roaming customers is one big reason to support GSM: the provide additional income from customers traveling abroad and international phone users using the network while present.
As to quality of service, they all rock and they all suck. Many cell phone companies seem fine, until you deal with customer service and then it depends on the person you are dealing with. On the other hand preventing access to features of your cell phone is one way to displease customers. As to network speeds, the number of customers making heavy data use is going to have an impact on the speed and in many ways I don't think many cell phone companies to expect such a high data usage, though they should now.
Comments
You'd think that with Apple's HQ being located here and with so many tech companies AT&T's service would be spectacular. It's shit. With all the money they must be raking in in from people who want the iPhone, you'd think they'd be investing rapidly in upgrading their service. Yet in my home in here in the South Bay, I can rarely make a call, sometimes even when I step outside the house. And I live in a suburb of Silicon Valley. I get much more reliable service in Kansas City (Sprint's HQ - where I travel to frequently), and some other cities, but even then it's not as good my old Treo with Sprint service.
You might think that or you might think, with so many tech-type people
living in a small area, that the demands on AT&T's bandwidth are exceptionally
large, and this causes the lack of reliability you cite.
Get out of your fantasy world. Verizon sucks the big one. At&t rules the roost in terms of reliability and service. For every one of you there two at&t customers who are perfectly satisfied. The "grass is always greener" syndrome is alive and well.
I can't speak to Verizon because I left them 5 years ago. I can, however, speak to AT&T, because I have had AT&T for five years now, and AT&T sucks the rigid wank of Satan.
Their cavalier use of the word "service" to describe what they provide is the most lying, out and out fraudulent deception in the history of mankind. "Service to His Darkest Lord" would be a better description.
AT&T is every bit the agent of the Devil himself that spiders and poodles are, and anybody who does not recognize that either lives within 20 miles of their corporate HQ, is a waterhead, or never personally used a phone on the Devil's Network.
You get out of YOUR fantasy world, Zohan, and smell what the Jobs is cookin':
AT&T goes away as soon as that contract ends. The secrecy is simply there to keep Wall Street from knowing too much too early.
However, CDMA/EVDO is used only by 20% of the subscribers in the world at best. It is dominant in the US, parts of the Americas, S. Korea, Any phone designed for VZ will have to have GSM/EDGE or even WCDMA to roam worldwide... I suspect it will add another $25-50/phone to the cost.
No it is not, CDMA/EVDO only has a 10% market share
@Tech Idiot: I know you pass the day being a idiot, but text works just fine on the Iphone.
C'mon, that's rude, not to mention against forum rules.
Well... duh. I switched form Verizon for an iPhone, and the femto-second I can switch back I will. I never really believed just how different the quality of connection and data rates could be between major carriers until I switched. As much as I love my iPhone, if AT&T somehow managed to stay exclusive until 2011, I think I will end up punting on the iPhone. Ultimately, I value the phone service over everything else.
That means ATT has you for two more years. Lots can happen during that time to keep you going as an ATT customer!
If the shoe fits:
How does one get that fish image as wallpaper -- it has been around in ads and media from Day 1, but Apple has never offered it!
How does one get that fish image as wallpaper -- it has been around in ads and media from Day 1, but Apple has never offered it!
Try here.
How does one get that fish image as wallpaper -- it has been around in ads and media from Day 1, but Apple has never offered it!
You?re going to kick yourself for asking that question. Just save the image and to your photos and then make it your wallpaper.
Try here.
You?re going to kick yourself for asking that question. Just save the image and to your photos and then make it your wallpaper.
Heh heh. Thanks.
You might think that or you might think, with so many tech-type people
living in a small area, that the demands on AT&T's bandwidth are exceptionally
large, and this causes the lack of reliability you cite.
I don't think so. Unless everyone living in Silicon Valley is up at 3:00 a.m. downloading porn to their iPhones.
I have been on AT&T for about a year now, and no matter what time of night or day, I get lousy service. Besides, your theory doesn't account for losing connections every time you pass a specific location, or their lack of coverage in certain areas -- like where my house is located. Even AT&T admits their coverage isn't so stellar. If you go to their coverage map and enter any Silicon Valley address or zip and look around, you'll find plenty areas where coverage is "moderate" -- their term for "shit" (their scale being Best - Good - Moderate - No Service).
http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/
I can't speak to Verizon because I left them 5 years ago. I can, however, speak to AT&T, because I have had AT&T for five years now, and AT&T sucks the rigid wank of Satan.
Their cavalier use of the word "service" to describe what they provide is the most lying, out and out fraudulent deception in the history of mankind. "Service to His Darkest Lord" would be a better description.
AT&T is every bit the agent of the Devil himself that spiders and poodles are, and anybody who does not recognize that either lives within 20 miles of their corporate HQ, is a waterhead, or never personally used a phone on the Devil's Network.
You get out of YOUR fantasy world, Zohan, and smell what the Jobs is cookin':
AT&T goes away as soon as that contract ends. The secrecy is simply there to keep Wall Street from knowing too much too early.
Although I appreciate your dramatic hyperbole, I think the best you can hope for is for
the iPhone to be offered on more cell networks in addition to AT&T.
I don't think they will go away.
I don't think so. Unless everyone living in Silicon Valley is up at 3:00 a.m. downloading porn to their iPhones.
I have been on AT&T for about a year now, and no matter what time of night or day, I get lousy service. Besides, your theory doesn't account for losing connections every time you pass a specific location, or their lack of coverage in certain areas -- like where my house is located. Even AT&T admits their coverage isn't so stellar. If you go to their coverage map and enter any Silicon Valley address or zip and look around, you'll find plenty areas where coverage is "moderate" -- their term for "shit" (their scale being Best - Good - Moderate - No Service).
http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/
Too bad they didn't have that map before you signed up and so sad you didn't discover
the problem during the period when you could have returned the phone for a refund.
Please keep us all posted regularly on how you are feeling about it.
The other issue is people say it is only good for the US if you make it CDMA. Not really, there are many other countries that CDMA or GSM/CDMA mix ( you know...China for example...the country that has more population than the rest of the world ).
And do you really think its impossible to build a phone with both CDMA and GSM radios? It is and has been done for a while.
The people that say it can't and won't be done are the GSM/ATT fanboys that this is their last gleaming hope of being someone very special.
Going to just Verizon would open the potential to 80 million plus customers....let alone the other CDMA carriers in the world.
If you think Apple is going to keep its exclusivity with ATT just to be nice and turn its back on hundreds of millions to possibly billions more dollars, you are nutz. They love making money just like any other company.
I look for VZW to announce the iPhone or something similar from Apple when the LTE networks are promoted.
LTE will use a SIM style card, but, it will not allow just taking the device from one carrier to another like with GSM. I believe their plans are to use CDMA as the backbone for the voice and low speed data and the LTE for higher speed.
As for which is better, VZW touts the Most Reliable network. I believe this is true, but, it mostly depends on your location. Some providers have better service than others in certain locations. To be fair, I have seen areas where a small local regional carrier had better coverage than any of the Big 4.
Validated in what way? Complaining the iPhone is too slow and getting a faster one two years later, complaining that AT&T sucks and having others with occasional issues or constant issues in certain areas is not the result of your clairvoyance. It’s only you complaining about wanting something that will occur eventually.
You are probably even claiming that Apple has “listened to you” about glossy screen sucking because there is a rumour that they me including matte as an option. The rational people here that do prefer glossy have stated that the option for users would be nice, but your absolute statements about glossy screens suck for all users, that they don’t look better than matte in any regard, agreeing that those who prefer glossy are ignorant.
For you to validated you’ll have to actually make logical, rational, balanced claims; not hyperbolic whinefests about Apple being doomed. You can’t see the difference in the same way Michael Bay doesn’t realize that good CGI doesn’t equal a plot or storyline.
Dude- Ok- Let get the record straight.
1.) The 3 highlighted items- I have never ever stated. You keep stating the 3rd over and over and I have repeatedly asked you to prove it. I hope the monitors make note of this. You have made this claim at least 3 times in the last month without showing where I've said that. You can't keep stating things that are not truth.
those who prefer glossy are ignorant.
2.) Over the last 6 months , many things have occurred that you have stated were either not in Apple's business model, not needed, etc, etc. these are:
a.) A small formed professional laptop. You've stated the MBA was the extent of that quest. and guess what- we now have a 13" MacBook PRO.
b) iPhone got MMS Texting, video, voice recognition- all things that you've stated were not wanted. Meanwhile this version of iPhone is selling at an unbelievable rate. Other and not just me thought they were important enough to hold out until it got it.
c.) Firewire is back on the 13: - again you said it wasn't gonna happen.
d.) Matte screens- you keep insisting that the 17" matte was some kind of experiment????You still do not get it. It is what many professionals want and got. Many just don't want a high gloss display- Apple listened! It's really not that hard to comprehend. And now matte will probably return across the line as it should have never left.
e.) AT&T is second rate compared to Verizon. Do you have stock in AT&T as well as Apple? You must because you are in major denial. AT&T is always rated at or near the bottom. I'm hoping that I have a better experience than others have. I think the new 3Gs iPhone helps out a lot. It is really fast, etc. The AT&T rate seems kind of excessive but I've budgeted for it - so I'm not worried.
You really need to get a grip on reality and face the fact the although mine and other's requests are being met by Apple , your dismissals are simply being dismissed.
C'mon, that's rude, not to mention against forum rules.
I don't think he understood what I was asking so he posts some flippant answer. I was curious how iPhones received texts prior to 3.0 - I think text works great on my new phone.
Just last night I was discussing AT&T's incredibly poor service here in the Silicon Valley area with a colleague of mine. We both work in tech and recently switched from other (way better) service providers. Why? Because we wanted the features the iPhone has to offer.
We exchanged notes on the terrible service here. It's almost impossible to converse for an extended period of time without dropping a call. We both talked about the experience of sitting in a chair in your house with what seems like a good connection, and then you move an inch to right and BAM!.....the call instantly dissappears. Also we both talked about locations on Highways 101, 280 or 17 where every single time you drive by a certain spot, you'll loose your call.
You'd think that with Apple's HQ being located here and with so many tech companies AT&T's service would be spectacular. It's shit. With all the money they must be raking in in from people who want the iPhone, you'd think they'd be investing rapidly in upgrading their service. Yet in my home in here in the South Bay, I can rarely make a call, sometimes even when I step outside the house. And I live in a suburb of Silicon Valley. I get much more reliable service in Kansas City (Sprint's HQ - where I travel to frequently), and some other cities, but even then it's not as good my old Treo with Sprint service.
So I have to agree based on conversations I have had with quite a few people. The day the iPhone goes to another carrier, whether it's Verizon or someone else, people will leave AT&T in droves.
Check it out yourself. http://www.cellreception.com/
But since Apple is likely not to make a CMDA iPhone, but instead wait for LTE, since that will be for both Verizon and at&t, we have no way of knowing who's network will be stronger. LTE is a completely different signal than CDMA. It could very well be, that when everyone switches over, at&t's towers will have better LTE penetration than Verizon's.
Though it's possible for Apple to make a CDMA iPhone, I agree it's unlikely. As such we would need to compare the overall quality of Verizon's LTE, against AT&T's LTE+3G+GSM networks. AT&T would likely win that in the short term!
That said, it is _possible_ that Apple will make an LTE+CDMA phone. I think that's more likely a backup plan and bargaining chip with AT&T.
We just want choice. Give us a phone for each carrier. Give us non glossy options on the Mac. You know we'll pay extra for it.
I see some of the AT@T defenders have returned. Not mad about MMS and tethering anymore?
Competition is great. In Australia Telstra has the best coverage and costs a bit more than AT&T for the iPhone. Three other networks also offer the iPhone, and at much cheaper rates. The low end sweet spot is the 16GB iPhone 3GS for free on a <US$60 plan (2 year contract). Lots of voice minutes provided but only 1GB of data.
All carriers offer MMS, but only Vodafone offers Visual Voicemail & free tethering.
ps.
In general, it's a pity that we're seeing too many big companies buy each other up rather than give us lots of competition.
Just last night I was discussing AT&T's incredibly poor service here in the Silicon Valley area with a colleague of mine. We both work in tech and recently switched from other (way better) service providers. Why? Because we wanted the features the iPhone has to offer.
We exchanged notes on the terrible service here. It's almost impossible to converse for an extended period of time without dropping a call. We both talked about the experience of sitting in a chair in your house with what seems like a good connection, and then you move an inch to right and BAM!.....the call instantly dissappears. Also we both talked about locations on Highways 101, 280 or 17 where every single time you drive by a certain spot, you'll loose your call.
You'd think that with Apple's HQ being located here and with so many tech companies AT&T's service would be spectacular. It's shit. With all the money they must be raking in in from people who want the iPhone, you'd think they'd be investing rapidly in upgrading their service. Yet in my home in here in the South Bay, I can rarely make a call, sometimes even when I step outside the house. And I live in a suburb of Silicon Valley. I get much more reliable service in Kansas City (Sprint's HQ - where I travel to frequently), and some other cities, but even then it's not as good my old Treo with Sprint service.
So I have to agree based on conversations I have had with quite a few people. The day the iPhone goes to another carrier, whether it's Verizon or someone else, people will leave AT&T in droves.
Since when Sprint has good service?? it is the only phone carrier that constantly lose subscribers..do they leave because they have good service. I was with Sprint 3 years and had to constantly battling with problems.
I get 3G about 15-20% of the time. I'm on GPRS (2.5G) another 10-15% of the time; the rest is EDGE (2.75G) of course. And even when I supposedly do have a 3G signal, stable connections are truly a rarity.
Here's hoping for more choices next year.
with 4G on the horizon, how much is anyone going to spend getting a better 3G experience for users??? (as an interesting side note - with VoIP, why are we still building cell networks anyway - just wifi and wiMax everywhere...)
If Verizon et al are busy adding support for 4G GSM, I hope that support includes support for older GSM technologies, since otherwise it will limit the number of roaming customers and handsets they have access to in the beginning. Access to roaming customers is one big reason to support GSM: the provide additional income from customers traveling abroad and international phone users using the network while present.
As to quality of service, they all rock and they all suck. Many cell phone companies seem fine, until you deal with customer service and then it depends on the person you are dealing with. On the other hand preventing access to features of your cell phone is one way to displease customers. As to network speeds, the number of customers making heavy data use is going to have an impact on the speed and in many ways I don't think many cell phone companies to expect such a high data usage, though they should now.