AT&T has slightly more coverage (3G and EDGE) than Verizon does.
AT&T has been and continues to invest millions in expanding their 3G coverage.
Verizon rejected the iPhone when Apple first came calling.
The maps in the ads only show 3G coverage.
AT&T coverage today is leagues better than when the iphone 3G first came out.
Why doesn't Verizon invest in updading it's network to a worldwide standard instead of a finicky proprietary one?
You mean the billions Verizon invested into making EV-DO work remarkably well and expanding their footprint in spots the iphone will never reach? Maybe if AT&T wasnt paying an arm and a leg for the iphone they could do the same thing?
I have a better idea, since VZW will have LTE in 30 cities next year and their network map done by 2013, how about AT&T pull their head out their ass and start their rollout of LTE next year like VZW instead of the patchwork job their trying to do with HSPA+
Well, I had the same reaction before I went back and thought about the OP's situation. He had lost his phone due to an accident, and he needed a new one. Would Verizon have provided him a replacement at no (or at least a reasonable) cost without extending the contract that was soon to end? Sure, he could have just started a new contract with AT&T and an iPhone without canceling the Verizon contract until after the final month had been paid. However, that would have necessitated a number change, which for some people can be a pretty big deal.
I'm thinking that the OP was actually in a pretty bad situation because of that dunking of his previous phone.
Thompson
Unless they would need it for email, or web, you can get a cheap $30 Verizon phone right off ebay. Now I don't know the OP, but like I said, there's always call forwarding. Probably cheaper than a termination fee.
My point was that Apple would not be able to provide a universal phone to ALL US carriers, the network difference goes beyond GSM/CDMA. They use different radio frequencies and network technology.
Now all the carriers are selling heavily subsidized smartphones. They hate this state of affairs ? and wish that American consumers would just pay full price for the phones, the way people do in Europe. T-Mobile recently introduced an option for customers to pay a lower monthly bill if they buy their own phones, and even offered to spread the handset cost over two years with no interest charges.
?They are trying to break the model and get away from the big subsidies that are going into these phones,? said John Hodulik, an analyst at UBS Securities. ?There is something to that, but I?m not sure it will work because people want their brand-new shiny phones.?
I'm sure it's possible to call forward for a couple months until the number can be ported. My opinion, most people don't educate themselves, they want others to tell them.
Sure, but then that would require a porting of the iPhone number to the preferred number a coouple months later. When I was in a similar situation (i.e. getting an iPhone prior to canceling my previous contract) my AT&T rep said that they would not support a mid-contract number switch at no cost. In other words, I was stuck with whatever number they gave me at contract initialization. This didn't bother me much, so I went ahead with it. Was my rep insincere or incorrect?
Sure, but then that would require a porting of the iPhone number to the preferred number a coouple months later. When I was in a similar situation (i.e. getting an iPhone prior to canceling my previous contract) my AT&T rep said that they would not support a mid-contract number switch at no cost. In other words, I was stuck with whatever number they gave me at contract initialization. This didn't bother me much, so I went ahead with it. Was my rep insincere or incorrect?
Thompson
He said no cost. You have to determine cost of number change, and call forwarding + last months payment. Of that is <termination (I'm willing to bet it is) then why wouldn't you?
I'm sure it's possible to call forward for a couple months until the number can be ported. My opinion, most people don't educate themselves, they want others to tell them.
you are correct. you can do this. most people dont cause they are lazy/idiots.
Sure, but then that would require a porting of the iPhone number to the preferred number a coouple months later. When I was in a similar situation (i.e. getting an iPhone prior to canceling my previous contract) my AT&T rep said that they would not support a mid-contract number switch at no cost. In other words, I was stuck with whatever number they gave me at contract initialization. This didn't bother me much, so I went ahead with it. Was my rep insincere or incorrect?
Thompson
not sure how att did it, but vzw (if its a couple months after, there was never a charge for anything less than a month that im aware of with the hundreds of ports i did) would charge a $10 fee to switch the number like that. it could usually get waived however.
I thought Verizon's "Apples to apples" comparison wasn't.
Wasn't Verizon including it's slower service in its map and only AT&Ts fastest service on their map?
I don't care. Truth or not, false or not, AT&T is blowing it with the iPhone and Verizon wouldn't be any better. There's always some area where you're not covered and both networks would be overloaded by a popular iPhone.
It will be nice when Apple sheds its contract with AT&T and some real competition can begin.
Eriamjh,
That's a good point. I looked at Verizon's map comparison
The key does say 3G for both maps. If Verizon is showing non-3G coverage alongside of 3G coverage then I think AT&T would have something. But I'm afraid the 'Truth does hurt'
By the way I have an iPhone (Edge) and love it. A little competition is a good thing. AT&T has plenty on Verizon if they want to retaliate....
That's a good point. I looked at Verizon's map comparison
The key does say 3G for both maps. If Verizon is showing non-3G coverage alongside of 3G coverage then I think AT&T would have something. But I'm afraid the 'Truth does hurt'
By the way I have an iPhone (Edge) and love it. A little competition is a good thing. AT&T has plenty on Verizon if they want to retaliate....
Argosy
vzw updated all of its network to be 3g. there are 2 versions of evdo (rev 0 and rev A). vzw is not making their map up saying its all 3g, due to the fact that it really is. now keep in mind in all the areas that have 3g, it also has the non-3g voice part as well. the voice section of vzw is quite a bit larger
Wait wait wait, so your telling me you can pull the iphone away from your face, send a SMS while talking, surf the web, and use GPS while on a phone call over speakerphone? Where is that at because id love to try it out on my girlfriends iphone right now.
Yes, you can do that. Pull the phone away from your face, hit the Home button and then fire up Safari, Messages, Google Maps.....whatever. You don't have to put them on speaker phone if you don't want to.
AT&T needs to stop whining, man up, and start producing ads that showcase the inherent benefits of HSPA over EVDO.
well I'm glad to see you've come to your senses and finally stopped defending At&t as you've been over the last 2 years and I advised you against. Nice to see you've come to your senses. If I could pull some of those old posts of yours defending AT&T-oh how times change.
Yes, you can do that. Pull the phone away from your face, hit the Home button and then fire up Safari, Messages, Google Maps.....whatever. You don't have to put them on speaker phone if you don't want to.
so just limited to first party apps then i assume like typical limited multi-tasking
Seriously, every person who thinks EDGE performs anywhere remotely close to Verizons 3G should be taken outside and shot mercilessly in the fucking face to send a message. EDGE is slow as balls, you might average 80-100k on a REALLY GOOD DAY the latency is what kills EDGE, in real world performance, EDGE is not cutting the cake (this is coming from a Former Blackberry Storm owner on Verizon and a Current Bold owner on AT&T)
AT&T's rollout of 7.2 is nice, but VZW will have LTE starting next year (about a 30 city roll out) and LTE > HSPA+ by a fucking mile and VZW will have completed its full rollout by 2013, leaving AT&T in the dust.
Whats the point of paying for a data package when you still have to be hunkered under the wifi umbrella to get...data?
Also lets be real here, you can do voice/data at the same time on 3G but that is nil for iphone users seeing as how you cant multitask (see what i did there?) and when you drop down to EDGE you cant do both either so this is a moot point
If VZW didnt have such shit phones id already be back on Big Red (waiting for the new Tour to come out next year with wifi and trackpad). Any Apple fan is delusional if they will sit here and defend AT&Ts atrocious and lackluster service.
PS, VZW doesnt gimp phones anymore for the stupid or uninformed, so your 2007 insults no longer have merit now.
You can multi-task just fine while on a call on an iphone, iFail loser. Latency kills any wireless internet too.
so just limited to first party apps then i assume like typical limited multi-tasking
Yes, for now. There may be a day when Apple decides to allow full-on multi-tasking for any and all apps, but I doubt they will do that any time soon without thinking of a way to implement that cleanly, intuitively and without any degradation of battery life.
He said no cost. You have to determine cost of number change, and call forwarding + last months payment. Of that is <termination (I'm willing to bet it is) then why wouldn't you?
I don't know how close I am, but if they really charge that much for CF and NC I would be surprised.
Yes, these are made up numbers, but that is fine.
Note though, that while $130 is less than $170 it begins to present a dilemma in the customer's mind regarding whether to put up with the associated hassle (of call forwarding, having outgoing calls originating from a different # than your friends are expecting, taking action to port the number, hoping those all go smoothly, etc) to save the (estimated) $40. And I'm sure there would be other subtle annoyances, but I don't feel like wasting too much time thinking about it right now, given that it's not my problem. (I would if it were.) The bottom line is that one could not necessarily be called crazy if they decided to eat the additional $40 just to be done with it.
In other words, this is starting to sound like not such a slam-dunk obvious decision point. You probably appreciate that. Verizon (and all the other carriers) certainly do. They optimize their termination fees with all of these work-around scenarios in mind.
Wait wait wait, so your telling me you can pull the iphone away from your face, send a SMS while talking, surf the web, and use GPS while on a phone call over speakerphone? Where is that at because id love to try it out on my girlfriends iphone right now.
You can do all those things with the iPhone on 3G or WiFi. Though it’s more convenient to hold a conversation whilst wearing the iPhone headphones.
The one thing you can’t do is the iPod app since that will require audio which you are using to maintain your call. You can, however, run most 3rd-party apps while on a call which makes running an app like Box Office to look up movie times quite handy. Then you can SMS the data or even take a snapshot of the page and send that as an MMS.
Just press the Home Button while on a call and have it.
Yes, for now. There may be a day when Apple decides to allow full-on multi-tasking for any and all apps, but I doubt they will do that any time soon without thinking of a way to implement that cleanly, intuitively and without any degradation of battery life.
honestly i think its a load of crap, i had backgrounder back when i had my first gen touch and it ran just fine without murdering the battery life using AIM and facebook and a couple other apps, and they could easily set x2 home presses to pull up multi-tasking when the screen is on, while some use this as a shortcut for the ipod, id rather have it set up like this and be able to control music via the volume buttons (hold up to skip song rather than cranking the volume up) like the blackberry
honestly i think its a load of crap, i had backgrounder back when i had my first gen touch and it ran just fine without murdering the battery life using AIM and facebook and a couple other apps, and they could easily set x2 home presses to pull up multi-tasking when the screen is on, while some use this as a shortcut for the ipod, id rather have it set up like this and be able to control music via the volume buttons (hold up to skip song rather than cranking the volume up) like the blackberry
The iPod Touch doesn't have a 3G chip in it, which is a serious battery hog, so I'm not sure your experiences with your first gen touch provide a solid basis for your statement "I think it's a load of crap".
Note though, that while $130 is less than $170 it begins to present a dilemma in the customer's mind regarding whether to put up with the associated hassle (of call forwarding, having outgoing calls originating from a different # than your friends are expecting, taking action to port the number, hoping those all go smoothly, etc) to save the (estimated) $40. And I'm sure there would be other subtle annoyances, but I don't feel like wasting too much time thinking about it right now, given that it's not my problem. (I would if it were.) The bottom line is that one could not necessarily be called crazy if they decided to eat the additional $40 just to be done with it.
In other words, this is starting to sound like not such a slam-dunk obvious decision point. You probably appreciate that. Verizon (and all the other carriers) certainly do. They optimize their termination fees with all of these work-around scenarios in mind.
Thompson
I fully understand your point and it makes a lot of sense. I guess I'm just frugal. I do wonder though. How bad is it really to have a new number?
Comments
AT&T has slightly more coverage (3G and EDGE) than Verizon does.
AT&T has been and continues to invest millions in expanding their 3G coverage.
Verizon rejected the iPhone when Apple first came calling.
The maps in the ads only show 3G coverage.
AT&T coverage today is leagues better than when the iphone 3G first came out.
Why doesn't Verizon invest in updading it's network to a worldwide standard instead of a finicky proprietary one?
You mean the billions Verizon invested into making EV-DO work remarkably well and expanding their footprint in spots the iphone will never reach? Maybe if AT&T wasnt paying an arm and a leg for the iphone they could do the same thing?
I have a better idea, since VZW will have LTE in 30 cities next year and their network map done by 2013, how about AT&T pull their head out their ass and start their rollout of LTE next year like VZW instead of the patchwork job their trying to do with HSPA+
Well, I had the same reaction before I went back and thought about the OP's situation. He had lost his phone due to an accident, and he needed a new one. Would Verizon have provided him a replacement at no (or at least a reasonable) cost without extending the contract that was soon to end? Sure, he could have just started a new contract with AT&T and an iPhone without canceling the Verizon contract until after the final month had been paid. However, that would have necessitated a number change, which for some people can be a pretty big deal.
I'm thinking that the OP was actually in a pretty bad situation because of that dunking of his previous phone.
Thompson
Unless they would need it for email, or web, you can get a cheap $30 Verizon phone right off ebay. Now I don't know the OP, but like I said, there's always call forwarding. Probably cheaper than a termination fee.
My point was that Apple would not be able to provide a universal phone to ALL US carriers, the network difference goes beyond GSM/CDMA. They use different radio frequencies and network technology.
Now all the carriers are selling heavily subsidized smartphones. They hate this state of affairs ? and wish that American consumers would just pay full price for the phones, the way people do in Europe. T-Mobile recently introduced an option for customers to pay a lower monthly bill if they buy their own phones, and even offered to spread the handset cost over two years with no interest charges.
?They are trying to break the model and get away from the big subsidies that are going into these phones,? said John Hodulik, an analyst at UBS Securities. ?There is something to that, but I?m not sure it will work because people want their brand-new shiny phones.?
NY Times
Verizon allows you to buy the phones full price on a month-2-month plan. If carriers don't like subsidization, then they shouldn't do it period.
I'm sure it's possible to call forward for a couple months until the number can be ported. My opinion, most people don't educate themselves, they want others to tell them.
Sure, but then that would require a porting of the iPhone number to the preferred number a coouple months later. When I was in a similar situation (i.e. getting an iPhone prior to canceling my previous contract) my AT&T rep said that they would not support a mid-contract number switch at no cost. In other words, I was stuck with whatever number they gave me at contract initialization. This didn't bother me much, so I went ahead with it. Was my rep insincere or incorrect?
Thompson
Sure, but then that would require a porting of the iPhone number to the preferred number a coouple months later. When I was in a similar situation (i.e. getting an iPhone prior to canceling my previous contract) my AT&T rep said that they would not support a mid-contract number switch at no cost. In other words, I was stuck with whatever number they gave me at contract initialization. This didn't bother me much, so I went ahead with it. Was my rep insincere or incorrect?
Thompson
He said no cost. You have to determine cost of number change, and call forwarding + last months payment. Of that is <termination (I'm willing to bet it is) then why wouldn't you?
Made up numbers:
$10 (call forwarding 1 month) + $60 (last month of plan) + $30 (number change) = $130
130 is < 170
I don't know how close I am, but if they really charge that much for CF and NC I would be surprised.
I'm sure it's possible to call forward for a couple months until the number can be ported. My opinion, most people don't educate themselves, they want others to tell them.
you are correct. you can do this. most people dont cause they are lazy/idiots.
Sure, but then that would require a porting of the iPhone number to the preferred number a coouple months later. When I was in a similar situation (i.e. getting an iPhone prior to canceling my previous contract) my AT&T rep said that they would not support a mid-contract number switch at no cost. In other words, I was stuck with whatever number they gave me at contract initialization. This didn't bother me much, so I went ahead with it. Was my rep insincere or incorrect?
Thompson
not sure how att did it, but vzw (if its a couple months after, there was never a charge for anything less than a month that im aware of with the hundreds of ports i did) would charge a $10 fee to switch the number like that. it could usually get waived however.
I thought Verizon's "Apples to apples" comparison wasn't.
Wasn't Verizon including it's slower service in its map and only AT&Ts fastest service on their map?
I don't care. Truth or not, false or not, AT&T is blowing it with the iPhone and Verizon wouldn't be any better. There's always some area where you're not covered and both networks would be overloaded by a popular iPhone.
It will be nice when Apple sheds its contract with AT&T and some real competition can begin.
Eriamjh,
That's a good point. I looked at Verizon's map comparison
The key does say 3G for both maps. If Verizon is showing non-3G coverage alongside of 3G coverage then I think AT&T would have something. But I'm afraid the 'Truth does hurt'
By the way I have an iPhone (Edge) and love it. A little competition is a good thing. AT&T has plenty on Verizon if they want to retaliate....
Argosy
Eriamjh,
That's a good point. I looked at Verizon's map comparison
The key does say 3G for both maps. If Verizon is showing non-3G coverage alongside of 3G coverage then I think AT&T would have something. But I'm afraid the 'Truth does hurt'
By the way I have an iPhone (Edge) and love it. A little competition is a good thing. AT&T has plenty on Verizon if they want to retaliate....
Argosy
vzw updated all of its network to be 3g. there are 2 versions of evdo (rev 0 and rev A). vzw is not making their map up saying its all 3g, due to the fact that it really is. now keep in mind in all the areas that have 3g, it also has the non-3g voice part as well. the voice section of vzw is quite a bit larger
Wait wait wait, so your telling me you can pull the iphone away from your face, send a SMS while talking, surf the web, and use GPS while on a phone call over speakerphone? Where is that at because id love to try it out on my girlfriends iphone right now.
Yes, you can do that. Pull the phone away from your face, hit the Home button and then fire up Safari, Messages, Google Maps.....whatever. You don't have to put them on speaker phone if you don't want to.
AT&T needs to stop whining, man up, and start producing ads that showcase the inherent benefits of HSPA over EVDO.
well I'm glad to see you've come to your senses and finally stopped defending At&t as you've been over the last 2 years and I advised you against. Nice to see you've come to your senses. If I could pull some of those old posts of yours defending AT&T-oh how times change.
Yes, you can do that. Pull the phone away from your face, hit the Home button and then fire up Safari, Messages, Google Maps.....whatever. You don't have to put them on speaker phone if you don't want to.
so just limited to first party apps then i assume like typical limited multi-tasking
Seriously, every person who thinks EDGE performs anywhere remotely close to Verizons 3G should be taken outside and shot mercilessly in the fucking face to send a message. EDGE is slow as balls, you might average 80-100k on a REALLY GOOD DAY the latency is what kills EDGE, in real world performance, EDGE is not cutting the cake (this is coming from a Former Blackberry Storm owner on Verizon and a Current Bold owner on AT&T)
AT&T's rollout of 7.2 is nice, but VZW will have LTE starting next year (about a 30 city roll out) and LTE > HSPA+ by a fucking mile and VZW will have completed its full rollout by 2013, leaving AT&T in the dust.
Whats the point of paying for a data package when you still have to be hunkered under the wifi umbrella to get...data?
Also lets be real here, you can do voice/data at the same time on 3G but that is nil for iphone users seeing as how you cant multitask (see what i did there?) and when you drop down to EDGE you cant do both either so this is a moot point
If VZW didnt have such shit phones id already be back on Big Red (waiting for the new Tour to come out next year with wifi and trackpad). Any Apple fan is delusional if they will sit here and defend AT&Ts atrocious and lackluster service.
PS, VZW doesnt gimp phones anymore for the stupid or uninformed, so your 2007 insults no longer have merit now.
You can multi-task just fine while on a call on an iphone, iFail loser. Latency kills any wireless internet too.
And EVDO is slow as well.
so just limited to first party apps then i assume like typical limited multi-tasking
Yes, for now. There may be a day when Apple decides to allow full-on multi-tasking for any and all apps, but I doubt they will do that any time soon without thinking of a way to implement that cleanly, intuitively and without any degradation of battery life.
He said no cost. You have to determine cost of number change, and call forwarding + last months payment. Of that is <termination (I'm willing to bet it is) then why wouldn't you?
Made up numbers:
$10 (call forwarding 1 month) + $60 (last month of plan) + $30 (number change) = $130
130 is < 170
I don't know how close I am, but if they really charge that much for CF and NC I would be surprised.
Yes, these are made up numbers, but that is fine.
Note though, that while $130 is less than $170 it begins to present a dilemma in the customer's mind regarding whether to put up with the associated hassle (of call forwarding, having outgoing calls originating from a different # than your friends are expecting, taking action to port the number, hoping those all go smoothly, etc) to save the (estimated) $40. And I'm sure there would be other subtle annoyances, but I don't feel like wasting too much time thinking about it right now, given that it's not my problem. (I would if it were.) The bottom line is that one could not necessarily be called crazy if they decided to eat the additional $40 just to be done with it.
In other words, this is starting to sound like not such a slam-dunk obvious decision point. You probably appreciate that. Verizon (and all the other carriers) certainly do. They optimize their termination fees with all of these work-around scenarios in mind.
Thompson
You can multi-task just fine while on a call on an iphone, iFail loser. Latency kills any wireless internet too.
And EVDO is slow as well.
way to reply late dumbass, someone already called me on it.
Really, how slow is slow because 900kbits isnt slow by my standards
Wait wait wait, so your telling me you can pull the iphone away from your face, send a SMS while talking, surf the web, and use GPS while on a phone call over speakerphone? Where is that at because id love to try it out on my girlfriends iphone right now.
You can do all those things with the iPhone on 3G or WiFi. Though it’s more convenient to hold a conversation whilst wearing the iPhone headphones.
The one thing you can’t do is the iPod app since that will require audio which you are using to maintain your call. You can, however, run most 3rd-party apps while on a call which makes running an app like Box Office to look up movie times quite handy. Then you can SMS the data or even take a snapshot of the page and send that as an MMS.
Just press the Home Button while on a call and have it.
Yes, for now. There may be a day when Apple decides to allow full-on multi-tasking for any and all apps, but I doubt they will do that any time soon without thinking of a way to implement that cleanly, intuitively and without any degradation of battery life.
honestly i think its a load of crap, i had backgrounder back when i had my first gen touch and it ran just fine without murdering the battery life using AIM and facebook and a couple other apps, and they could easily set x2 home presses to pull up multi-tasking when the screen is on, while some use this as a shortcut for the ipod, id rather have it set up like this and be able to control music via the volume buttons (hold up to skip song rather than cranking the volume up) like the blackberry
honestly i think its a load of crap, i had backgrounder back when i had my first gen touch and it ran just fine without murdering the battery life using AIM and facebook and a couple other apps, and they could easily set x2 home presses to pull up multi-tasking when the screen is on, while some use this as a shortcut for the ipod, id rather have it set up like this and be able to control music via the volume buttons (hold up to skip song rather than cranking the volume up) like the blackberry
The iPod Touch doesn't have a 3G chip in it, which is a serious battery hog, so I'm not sure your experiences with your first gen touch provide a solid basis for your statement "I think it's a load of crap".
Thompson
Yes, these are made up numbers, but that is fine.
Note though, that while $130 is less than $170 it begins to present a dilemma in the customer's mind regarding whether to put up with the associated hassle (of call forwarding, having outgoing calls originating from a different # than your friends are expecting, taking action to port the number, hoping those all go smoothly, etc) to save the (estimated) $40. And I'm sure there would be other subtle annoyances, but I don't feel like wasting too much time thinking about it right now, given that it's not my problem. (I would if it were.) The bottom line is that one could not necessarily be called crazy if they decided to eat the additional $40 just to be done with it.
In other words, this is starting to sound like not such a slam-dunk obvious decision point. You probably appreciate that. Verizon (and all the other carriers) certainly do. They optimize their termination fees with all of these work-around scenarios in mind.
Thompson
I fully understand your point and it makes a lot of sense. I guess I'm just frugal. I do wonder though. How bad is it really to have a new number?