Strange how the dropped call rate for AT&T shot up when the iPhone 4 came out....and then when the bumpers became easily available, the dropped call rate came back down.
With all the whinging and moaning that seems to be floating around the internet 16% seems incredibly low.
Therefore one can only come to the conclusion that AT&T's issues are considerably less than what they are made out to be.
I figured as much.
Still, I don't care. I live in New Zealand and Vodafone has great coverage. It's not all-encompassing but it is the majority of the country and considering the lay of the land here in NZ that's pretty good.
Verizon's inability to do basic things like talk while surfing the net seems incredibly backwards. I haven't had that problem since... well around 2003.
I use my iphone 4 for business and personal reasons. For business, I use a few Web Conferencing Apps (AT&T Connect and Cisco Webex). Both are excellent for joining conference calls and for sharing presentations at the same time. I've slam dunked many deals this way. However, both Apps require concurrent voice/data access.
It's also nice talking to customers (and the wife) on the phone and at the same time receiving/sending/reviewing emails from them.
I don't think wireless companies are viewed by most with anything that even approaches "loyalty!"
For eg., I'm personally, very happy and loyal to Apple - iPhones, laptops, iMacs, OS, software, ATV and even MobileMe!
When I had a Corvette, I had a certain affinity to the brand. And when I had a Ford F-350 CrewCab Dually same thing.
But wireless companies, not so much! They are right up there with "Cocks" Cable, insurance companies and blood-sucking banks.
Most people don't change banks b/c it's just too much trouble. Same, I think with wireless & cable companies.
If people change it will most likely b/c of price! The lowest price for data and voice plans...that's the American/Chinese business model! That's really how we vote...with our wallet!
I feel sorry for people who get frustrated with bad service, dropped calls, weak signals etc. Probably all the tall buildings in NYC contribute to that. I imagine Verizon and Sprint have their problems in NYC as well.
My ONLY issue with AT&T is over cost. The more companies carrying the iphone and the more competition in general, the better it will be for consumers.
Companies are allowed to make profits of course but $30 a month for text messages, paying for phone minutes I never use (even with rollover provision) and requiring data on iphone plus ipad plus laptop etc is just greed and TOO MUCH!
Amen to most of your post, except for cost. AT&T and Verizon constitute a monopoly in my humble opinion and we won't see much, if any, reduction in costs.
Strange how the dropped call rate for AT&T shot up when the iPhone 4 came out....and then when the bumpers became easily available, the dropped call rate came back down.
Oh, it's not Apple's fault.
Do you have any numbers for your conjecture? Hard data? Facts? I mean you seem to know the rate. Put up or shut up. "Everbody knows that . . . " or "They say . . . " won't cut it here.
It is not just the tall buildings of NYC and San Francisco. I live in Pensacola, Florida – a flat, low-lying state. My home is two blocks off the coast in a residential area with plenty of other people nearby, including the Pensacola Naval Air Station, and yet I am lucky to get one or two bars with my iPhone. Before getting a Microcell, the phone often failed to complete calls, dropped nearly half of all calls and had troubles even keeping a signal at all on many days. This despite that fact that I could drive down the road onto the isolated barrier island in the middle of nowhere and get four and five bars and crystal clear service. Plus, the cable company learned that the signal from the iPhones when trying to communicate with the local tower was disrupting their cable modems and forcing them to reset many times a day. Even better shielded coaxial cable was not enough. The cable company had to switch to a different frequency to avoid this issue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katonah
I feel sorry for people who get frustrated with bad service, dropped calls, weak signals etc. Probably all the tall buildings in NYC contribute to that. I imagine Verizon and Sprint have their problems in NYC as well.
I live in the Bay Area, and am one of the unfortunate suckers who carries a personal phone (iPhone, obviously on AT&T) and a work phone (has been some form of BlackBerry on Verizon for many, many years).
I drop just as many calls on my Verizon phones as I do on AT&T.
Wireless devices are radios. They will never be without temporary disconnects.
I've been with AT&T ever since they started carrying the iPhone ... of course, I didn't really have the problem of having to switch carriers because I had just moved back from Sweden a few months after the first iPhone came out. Before I lived in Sweden though I had been with Verizon since I'd had a cell phone (my original carrier was LA Cellular who was eventually bought out by Verizon ... that's how long ago it was). I never really had any problem with Verizon, but then again ... I haven't had any problems with AT&T either (I live in the northern costal area of San Diego County).
All of my extended family members in the area all have Verizon, and I find it interesting they always tell me how bad AT&T's network is. They say things like "Oh, well I don't have dropped calls," and I just kind of look at them and say "... neither do I." Then they'll say, "well, I don't have trouble finding coverage," and once again I'll just kind of look at them like "neither do I." And, usually at some point they'll tell me about how slow the AT&T 3G network is, and I'll counter "actually it's twice as fast as Verizon's in most parts of San Diego." Still ... they think AT&T sucks ... their loss I guess.
The point is I must have about seven or eight relatives in the area on the Verizon network who have been saying for a long time now they have been waiting anxiously for the iPhone to be released with Verizon. I have no doubt that as soon as they can get a CDMA iPhone they're going to do it, but I really haven't heard anyone I know who has a GSM iPhone with AT&T say "Oh, I wish I could get an iPhone on Verizon's network." As for myself ... I have no plans of dumping AT&T.
In the end I think most "switchers" will boil down to people who live in areas were AT&T's network isn't as developed as Verizon's ... therefore providing a very understandable reason for switching. If the AT&T network in my area sucked, but the Verizon network were good I would probably switch too (it doesn't though, so there's no real reason). Plus, about the only real feature that would differentiate the Verizon iPhone would be the Hot-Spot function ... and that doesn't appeal to me. I'd much rather have a GSM phone with a SIM tray I can use when I go to Europe (and just put in a local SIM card), and be able to continue using voice and data at the same time. That is a function (voice and data) I use rather often, and I wouldn't like losing that if I switched to Verizon.
I think as both networks roll out their LTE networks, and Apple eventually releases an LTE compatible phone the incentives to stay with either network may change.
I admit this is pathetic on my part, but I can't help but feel some loyalty to AT&T. I really like my iPhone and I don't think I'd have the iPhone if AT&T hadn't been willing to cut a deal with Apple that was far better than what I imagine Verizon would have been willing to cut at the time.
I totally sympathize with the people in NYC and SF who have had terrible experiences with AT&T, and I don't blame that at all for wanting to switch. Where I live, Verizon is better, just not *that* much better.
So I will probably be sticking with AT&T for the foreseeable future out of what I'm sorry to say is little more than lame sentimentality.
Let's see if we can get more like 40-50% to jump ship. The more of you that move to Verizon, the less saturated AT&T's network will be!
Won't make any difference.
Right now the major reasons that cell phones drop calls.
1. you are out of range of a tower
2. the signal strength is too weak
Very rarely is it because there are too many people on a tower or an overloaded network infrastructure.
Verizon traditionally has had more towers than AT&T and also lower frequencies which allow the signal to be stronger inside of buildings.
Both of those issues are being addressed by AT&T with billions being spent on towers and lower frequencies. I have noticed considerable improvement over the last year or so in my area.
So it will not matter how many users bail or don't bail your AT&T service should continually improve.
Traveling around the nation, I have to say, Verizon rocks. I have a Verizon telephone and an iTouch. That's good enough. Maybe an iPhone on VZ would be great, except I don't want to pay for a data plan. So it will be ~2 years before I can buy a used VZ iPhone.
Never believe what consumers say about their future purchase behaviour.
So true.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
Not going to happen. Note that CES 2011 showed no LTE phones that are as small as the iPhone. Note that the original iPhone has ?2G? even though ?3G? on AT&T was much more built out than LTE is now, not to mention the other 4 countries in launched in that year. Note that Apple cares about battery life and performance, not about adding some marketing letters to a spec sheet.
Agreed. Apple would need a CDMA/LTE phone for Verizon and ATT's LTE network probably wouldn't be built out enough by summer to justify the compromises current LTE handset technology would cost (primarily power consumption). And what about the rest of the world. Is there enough LTE built out in other countries that having an LTE phone would matter?
2011 will be one GSM iPhone and one CDMA iPhone. Even in 2012, will enough of the world's GSM networks be upgraded to LTE to justify an LTE iPhone that could only be used on GSM networks in most places? Would Apple build three models (LTE, GSM, CDMA)? Unlikely. The million dollar question...would Apple ever build at CDMA/LTE phone at all, or will Verizon be stuck on CDMA-only until it's LTE network is built out enough for an LTE-only phone (probably 2013).
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
Sorry, but speaking to back end folks, and having to deal with the crap with Verizon's 5 times fraudulently billing me [several hours of phone calls to get them removed] I'll be enjoying the transition.
It's unfortunate you've had a bad experience, but it's not limited to Verizon. I left ATT because of bad billing and outright lies by their CRSs (even had one CSR admit that the last CSR had lied to me) ...on top of the poor reception.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lowededwookie
... I live in New Zealand ...Verizon's inability to do basic things like talk while surfing the net seems incredibly backwards. I haven't had that problem since... well around 2003.
Isn't parts of New Zealand covered by a CDMA network? I'm unsure which network. I assume it has the same limitation as Verizon's.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Psych_guy
Do you have any numbers for your conjecture? Hard data? Facts? I mean you seem to know the rate. Put up or shut up. "Everbody knows that . . . " or "They say . . . " won't cut it here.
Well, if you read the article, the numbers you are asking for where in there: "Of those polled, 4.7 percent said they had experienced a dropped call in the last three months, less than the 6 percent who said they had dropped calls in September."
The last three month of September was the quarter after the iPhone 4 was released. The quarter after that when Apple gave away cases and told everybody to get a case or hold their phone differently, the dropped calls dropped by about 20%. Not conclusive, obviously, but supports the theory.
Traveling around the nation, I have to say, Verizon rocks. I have a Verizon telephone and an iTouch. That's good enough. Maybe an iPhone on VZ would be great, except I don't want to pay for a data plan. So it will be ~2 years before I can buy a used VZ iPhone.
VZ's network doesn't just meet my expectations. It consistently exceeds them, no matter where I happen to be -- urban or rural. ATT's problem is that VZ is so good.
I've never used a single month's limit. I look forward to those rollover minutes.
The fact that you have never used up your regular minutes means that you are paying for more minutes than you can use, so rollover minutes are worthless in your situation. The only time it is useful is if you talk a lot one month in particular so you don't get charged. If you never go over then there is no point.
Do you have any numbers for your conjecture? Hard data? Facts? I mean you seem to know the rate. Put up or shut up. "Everbody knows that . . . " or "They say . . . " won't cut it here.
Uhm....did you even to read the article and look at the last graph? Pretty obvious.
Sorry, but speaking to back end folks, and having to deal with the crap with Verizon's 5 times fraudulently billing me [several hours of phone calls to get them removed] I'll be enjoying the transition.
I am waiting until after AT&T's end of March light up and the June release of OS X and iPhone. It doesn't cost me a dime because I've never upgraded my phone with Verizon, since Jan 2003. I've been out of my contract for a long time.
I had the same problem with Verizon every month I had to look at the bill for obscure fraudulent charges. Verizon & Sprint go hand in hand for ripping off customers on their bills..Verizon has been ordered to refund millions of customers for fraudulent charges just few months ago. I left them and never looked back.
Never believe what consumers say about their future purchase behaviour.
Agreed. Look at the figures here. 15% of AT&T users plan to switch carriers within the next 90 days.
Everything I've seen suggests that the majority of people who switch carriers do it when their contract ends - which is probably a pretty random date. If that's true of the 15% planning to switch from AT&T, then that would mean that 60% of AT&T users will be switching this year. Just not even remotely plausible. Retention rates for cell phone companies are in the 90%+ range.
Comments
Strange how the dropped call rate for AT&T shot up when the iPhone 4 came out....and then when the bumpers became easily available, the dropped call rate came back down.
Oh, it's not Apple's fault.
Right- and the antenna has been "redesigned"!
Therefore one can only come to the conclusion that AT&T's issues are considerably less than what they are made out to be.
I figured as much.
Still, I don't care. I live in New Zealand and Vodafone has great coverage. It's not all-encompassing but it is the majority of the country and considering the lay of the land here in NZ that's pretty good.
Verizon's inability to do basic things like talk while surfing the net seems incredibly backwards. I haven't had that problem since... well around 2003.
It's also nice talking to customers (and the wife) on the phone and at the same time receiving/sending/reviewing emails from them.
This would not be possible with Verizon.
For eg., I'm personally, very happy and loyal to Apple - iPhones, laptops, iMacs, OS, software, ATV and even MobileMe!
When I had a Corvette, I had a certain affinity to the brand. And when I had a Ford F-350 CrewCab Dually same thing.
But wireless companies, not so much! They are right up there with "Cocks" Cable, insurance companies and blood-sucking banks.
Most people don't change banks b/c it's just too much trouble. Same, I think with wireless & cable companies.
If people change it will most likely b/c of price! The lowest price for data and voice plans...that's the American/Chinese business model! That's really how we vote...with our wallet!
Best
I'm in the minority, I guess.
I am very happy with AT&T.
I NEVER have a dropped call.
I live in Westchester county, north of NYC.
I feel sorry for people who get frustrated with bad service, dropped calls, weak signals etc. Probably all the tall buildings in NYC contribute to that. I imagine Verizon and Sprint have their problems in NYC as well.
My ONLY issue with AT&T is over cost. The more companies carrying the iphone and the more competition in general, the better it will be for consumers.
Companies are allowed to make profits of course but $30 a month for text messages, paying for phone minutes I never use (even with rollover provision) and requiring data on iphone plus ipad plus laptop etc is just greed and TOO MUCH!
Amen to most of your post, except for cost. AT&T and Verizon constitute a monopoly in my humble opinion and we won't see much, if any, reduction in costs.
Strange how the dropped call rate for AT&T shot up when the iPhone 4 came out....and then when the bumpers became easily available, the dropped call rate came back down.
Oh, it's not Apple's fault.
Do you have any numbers for your conjecture? Hard data? Facts? I mean you seem to know the rate. Put up or shut up. "Everbody knows that . . . " or "They say . . . " won't cut it here.
I feel sorry for people who get frustrated with bad service, dropped calls, weak signals etc. Probably all the tall buildings in NYC contribute to that. I imagine Verizon and Sprint have their problems in NYC as well.
I drop just as many calls on my Verizon phones as I do on AT&T.
Wireless devices are radios. They will never be without temporary disconnects.
All of my extended family members in the area all have Verizon, and I find it interesting they always tell me how bad AT&T's network is. They say things like "Oh, well I don't have dropped calls," and I just kind of look at them and say "... neither do I." Then they'll say, "well, I don't have trouble finding coverage," and once again I'll just kind of look at them like "neither do I." And, usually at some point they'll tell me about how slow the AT&T 3G network is, and I'll counter "actually it's twice as fast as Verizon's in most parts of San Diego." Still ... they think AT&T sucks ... their loss I guess.
The point is I must have about seven or eight relatives in the area on the Verizon network who have been saying for a long time now they have been waiting anxiously for the iPhone to be released with Verizon. I have no doubt that as soon as they can get a CDMA iPhone they're going to do it, but I really haven't heard anyone I know who has a GSM iPhone with AT&T say "Oh, I wish I could get an iPhone on Verizon's network." As for myself ... I have no plans of dumping AT&T.
In the end I think most "switchers" will boil down to people who live in areas were AT&T's network isn't as developed as Verizon's ... therefore providing a very understandable reason for switching. If the AT&T network in my area sucked, but the Verizon network were good I would probably switch too (it doesn't though, so there's no real reason). Plus, about the only real feature that would differentiate the Verizon iPhone would be the Hot-Spot function ... and that doesn't appeal to me. I'd much rather have a GSM phone with a SIM tray I can use when I go to Europe (and just put in a local SIM card), and be able to continue using voice and data at the same time. That is a function (voice and data) I use rather often, and I wouldn't like losing that if I switched to Verizon.
I think as both networks roll out their LTE networks, and Apple eventually releases an LTE compatible phone the incentives to stay with either network may change.
I totally sympathize with the people in NYC and SF who have had terrible experiences with AT&T, and I don't blame that at all for wanting to switch. Where I live, Verizon is better, just not *that* much better.
So I will probably be sticking with AT&T for the foreseeable future out of what I'm sorry to say is little more than lame sentimentality.
Let's see if we can get more like 40-50% to jump ship. The more of you that move to Verizon, the less saturated AT&T's network will be!
Won't make any difference.
Right now the major reasons that cell phones drop calls.
1. you are out of range of a tower
2. the signal strength is too weak
Very rarely is it because there are too many people on a tower or an overloaded network infrastructure.
Verizon traditionally has had more towers than AT&T and also lower frequencies which allow the signal to be stronger inside of buildings.
Both of those issues are being addressed by AT&T with billions being spent on towers and lower frequencies. I have noticed considerable improvement over the last year or so in my area.
So it will not matter how many users bail or don't bail your AT&T service should continually improve.
Never believe what consumers say about their future purchase behaviour.
So true.
Not going to happen. Note that CES 2011 showed no LTE phones that are as small as the iPhone. Note that the original iPhone has ?2G? even though ?3G? on AT&T was much more built out than LTE is now, not to mention the other 4 countries in launched in that year. Note that Apple cares about battery life and performance, not about adding some marketing letters to a spec sheet.
Agreed. Apple would need a CDMA/LTE phone for Verizon and ATT's LTE network probably wouldn't be built out enough by summer to justify the compromises current LTE handset technology would cost (primarily power consumption). And what about the rest of the world. Is there enough LTE built out in other countries that having an LTE phone would matter?
2011 will be one GSM iPhone and one CDMA iPhone. Even in 2012, will enough of the world's GSM networks be upgraded to LTE to justify an LTE iPhone that could only be used on GSM networks in most places? Would Apple build three models (LTE, GSM, CDMA)? Unlikely. The million dollar question...would Apple ever build at CDMA/LTE phone at all, or will Verizon be stuck on CDMA-only until it's LTE network is built out enough for an LTE-only phone (probably 2013).
Sorry, but speaking to back end folks, and having to deal with the crap with Verizon's 5 times fraudulently billing me [several hours of phone calls to get them removed] I'll be enjoying the transition.
It's unfortunate you've had a bad experience, but it's not limited to Verizon. I left ATT because of bad billing and outright lies by their CRSs (even had one CSR admit that the last CSR had lied to me) ...on top of the poor reception.
... I live in New Zealand ...Verizon's inability to do basic things like talk while surfing the net seems incredibly backwards. I haven't had that problem since... well around 2003.
Isn't parts of New Zealand covered by a CDMA network? I'm unsure which network. I assume it has the same limitation as Verizon's.
Do you have any numbers for your conjecture? Hard data? Facts? I mean you seem to know the rate. Put up or shut up. "Everbody knows that . . . " or "They say . . . " won't cut it here.
Well, if you read the article, the numbers you are asking for where in there: "Of those polled, 4.7 percent said they had experienced a dropped call in the last three months, less than the 6 percent who said they had dropped calls in September."
The last three month of September was the quarter after the iPhone 4 was released. The quarter after that when Apple gave away cases and told everybody to get a case or hold their phone differently, the dropped calls dropped by about 20%. Not conclusive, obviously, but supports the theory.
Traveling around the nation, I have to say, Verizon rocks. I have a Verizon telephone and an iTouch. That's good enough. Maybe an iPhone on VZ would be great, except I don't want to pay for a data plan. So it will be ~2 years before I can buy a used VZ iPhone.
VZ's network doesn't just meet my expectations. It consistently exceeds them, no matter where I happen to be -- urban or rural. ATT's problem is that VZ is so good.
I've never used a single month's limit. I look forward to those rollover minutes.
The other great perk for AT&T: Rollover Minutes.
I've never used a single month's limit. I look forward to those rollover minutes.
The fact that you have never used up your regular minutes means that you are paying for more minutes than you can use, so rollover minutes are worthless in your situation. The only time it is useful is if you talk a lot one month in particular so you don't get charged. If you never go over then there is no point.
Do you have any numbers for your conjecture? Hard data? Facts? I mean you seem to know the rate. Put up or shut up. "Everbody knows that . . . " or "They say . . . " won't cut it here.
Uhm....did you even to read the article and look at the last graph? Pretty obvious.
Sorry, but speaking to back end folks, and having to deal with the crap with Verizon's 5 times fraudulently billing me [several hours of phone calls to get them removed] I'll be enjoying the transition.
I am waiting until after AT&T's end of March light up and the June release of OS X and iPhone. It doesn't cost me a dime because I've never upgraded my phone with Verizon, since Jan 2003. I've been out of my contract for a long time.
I had the same problem with Verizon every month I had to look at the bill for obscure fraudulent charges. Verizon & Sprint go hand in hand for ripping off customers on their bills..Verizon has been ordered to refund millions of customers for fraudulent charges just few months ago. I left them and never looked back.
I wouldn't even consider it until I see how Verizon handles the iPhone.
I am a multi-tasker on Verizon you cannot do two things at once like on At&t...I simply cannot go back to one thing at a time.
Never believe what consumers say about their future purchase behaviour.
Agreed. Look at the figures here. 15% of AT&T users plan to switch carriers within the next 90 days.
Everything I've seen suggests that the majority of people who switch carriers do it when their contract ends - which is probably a pretty random date. If that's true of the 15% planning to switch from AT&T, then that would mean that 60% of AT&T users will be switching this year. Just not even remotely plausible. Retention rates for cell phone companies are in the 90%+ range.