Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Verizon’s Coverage Maps

If you watch any television, you can’t avoid the countless Verizon Wireless advertisements comparing the coverage maps of Verizon and AT&T. For the sake of full disclosure, I’m a Verizon Wireless customer; however, I’m offended by these maps primarily since I didn’t have cell phone service in one of these red areas where I called home up until only a few weeks ago.



AT&T is apparently unhappy about these maps too since they have sued Verizon.



Based on the blue map, does that mean that there are no AT&T wireless stores in Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and nearly all of New Mexico and Nebraska? Does anyone in these states have cell phone service through AT&T? I’m confused.

9 comments:

carissajaded said...

It doesn't surprise me!! AT&T sucks balls! I don't have it anymore (sprint) my my friends that have AT&T are constantly dropping calls...

Brendon said...

These maps aren't about cell phone coverage, it's about data service. This is saying you can get Verizon's fastest data service in more areas than AT&T's. I have AT&T and I love it. I've had it for about 4 years now. I have had Verizon (I spent the $175 to get out of my contract with them, that's how bad their coverage is) and I also had Nextel, which was by far the worst. My friend just got rid of Sprint because of how terrible it was. Maybe it all has to do with what area you're in.

Messiah said...

Interesting that you're confused, because AT&T voluntarily dropped their claim against Verizon on these maps since the maps themselves state that it's for "3G coverage" and not phone coverage. THad you blogged about this a month ago, AT&T might have had you as their star witness! But I guess instead, they thought the better avenue was to go after Verizon with a pudgy Luke Wilson.

Archi said...

Yes, what they said.

It is indisputably true that AT&T's 3G coverage isn't as extensive as Verizon's. But as an AT&T customer, I can also tell you this is pretty much meaningless. So when I'm traveling, my web browsing is slightly slower because it's on the "Edge" network. Which does not, as far as I can tell, involve The Edge from U2.

Sean said...

I guess I only use cell phones for, well, talking on them. I've started texting a little but I don't think these maps represent calling/texting areas (or do they?). So what does 3G mean? Messiah, it's entirely possible that I did blog about this before, though I don't remember. Seeing all of these commercials while watching 4 sporting events on Sunday just put me over the edge with these maps.

Gobo said...

In NYC, AT&T is the absolute suck, and the 3G network here is so overloaded that you simply cannot use it.

Now that Verizon has the Droid, i see no reason to use AT&T in the NYC metro area. I am switching back to Verizon, and getting a Droid, as soon as my AT&T contract is up in July.

Archi said...

Shame about NYC, because it's fine here, and I presume most other places.

Sean---3G is the network speed. That earlier commenter isn't entirely correct, I don't think: it is a voice and data network. So if 3G is awful where you live, then your calls will suck too. Not just your data speed.

Gobo: If you just use the iPhone on the Edge network, does it work fine? Or is it the entire AT&T system that's overloaded?

Gobo said...

If you use the iPhone (or Blackberry) on the Edge network, you don't have quite as many issues, but it's not stellar. We still have a ton of dropped calls, even when we have 4 or 5 bars worth of service.

We switched away from Verizon (first to T-Mobile, then to AT&T for iPhone) because they had boring phones and were more expensive, even thought service has always bee the best by far in our area. Now Verizon has better phones (including said Droid) and the service plan for Droid is the same price as AT&T's plan for iPhone, so we're probably switching back to Verizon.

Brendon said...

Gobo, you're right. I never realized that 3g had anything to do with voice communications. I stand corrected. That being said, I've used my phone in places that definitely aren't in the blue and never noticed any difference.