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Communications Wireless Networking Apple

AT&T Admits New York City iPhone Service Sucks 144

RevWaldo notes a post up at The Gothamist on AT&T's admission of its poor cell service in New York. "AT&T has realized that the first step towards recovery is admitting it has a problem. The phone giant has confessed that its New York City iPhone service is not up to par, according to a presentation slide published on Tom's Guide noting that the company's 3G Voice Composite Quality in the New York metro area — particularly in Manhattan — is below its performance objective. ... The slide does contain some good news for AT&T subscribers. Apparently, AT&T has had '[t]hree consecutive months of improvement'..."
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AT&T Admits New York City iPhone Service Sucks

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  • The Pope is Catholic.
    Goldfish like water
  • Real Improvement? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ivogan ( 678639 ) on Friday January 29, 2010 @01:07PM (#30951426)
    I am left wondering if the improvement stated is a result of consumers switching carriers from AT&T.
    • by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Friday January 29, 2010 @01:19PM (#30951662) Homepage

      Probably. The sad part is that their network is at best mediocre everywhere else. Detroit or Chicago I also get lots of dropouts and keep dropping back to the Edge network instead of 3G. Even voice calls have problems everywhere on an AT&T network.

      They need to upgrade and expand EVERYWHERE.

      • Or alternatively maybe the improvement was defined as narrowing the distance between their goals and the reality and they accomplished that by just lowering their standards.

      • by sconeu ( 64226 )

        You mean the Verizon "There's a map for that" ads are accurate? But the AT&T guy says they have coverage (G-type not specified) everywhere!!!

        • Re:Real Improvement? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by slimjim8094 ( 941042 ) on Friday January 29, 2010 @02:32PM (#30952856)

          No, they're not accurate. Neither is being particularly truthful, but Verizon is outright lying. They're comparing apples to oranges.

          Verizon's 3g is more like AT&T's 2g (EDGE). AT&T's 3g (really HSDPA) is wicked fast (I've gotten a real-world 4.5mbps with 100ms latency). I don't think Verizon has anything that even comes close to that. So AT&T's HSDPA service is pretty limited, sure, but they have 2g (which is Verizon's 3g) over their *entire* service area.

          There's a lot of things AT&T needs to improve on, but I don't think their coverage or technology is one of them. They just need to deliver what they're capable of more frequently.

          • There's a lot of things AT&T needs to improve on, but I don't think their coverage or technology is one of them. They just need to deliver what they're capable of more frequently.

            Finally a voice of common sense.

            It's also true that Verizon has outspent AT&T on investment in its wireless infrastructure over the last few years. AT&T's wireless network's capital expenditures [pcworld.com] from 2006 through September 2009 totaled $21.6 billion, versus $25.4 billion for Verizon and $16 billion for Sprint (including Sprint's investments in WiMax operator Clearwire). Per subscriber: Verizon - $353, AT&T - $308

            But despite this, Verizon's 'high speed service' is not real high speed. It's a sha

          • You know, I heard that before.. If true, I would have expected it to be raised during the "Map ad" lawsuit, yet the only thing they argued (to my knowledge) was that the map implied "no coverage" in the white areas. Additionally, the counter-campaign has been squarely focused on coverage, not speed.

            FWIW, I'm in Denver in 3G coverage right now, and my SpeedTest app shows 1.5Mbit down on my 3GS. While I fully believe that you've pulled three times that (wherever you are), I suspect the speed isn't quite un

          • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

            Real world Verizon 3g (EV-DO Rev A) is between 2-3mbps down and .25-.5mbps up. I have personally seen these speeds is over a dozen metro areas around the country. EV-DO coverage is what is shown on that map in the commercial. Very rarely do I ever drop back to 1X (2g) service, logging over 80k miles of driving around the country in the past 2 years, I have used it everywhere from Manhattan to the West Virginia sticks. EVDO has some info on speeds - http://www.evdoinfo.com/ [evdoinfo.com]
          • I don't care who has 2G/3G/10G. Just because I might have gigabit pipe to my phone does not mean I will ever attain those speeds. I'll be limited to what AT&T's network can handle.

            My example that AT&T sucks in my area..

            I tried to download a 240k text file from a website. I downloaded it on my friend's 56k dial-up (I know.. friends don't let friends use 56k) faster than my iphone. In fact, the iphone timed out on me (twice!) and I had 3G coverage with all bars. The third attempt did download, bu

            • by sconeu ( 64226 )

              That's not G as in Gigabit, it's G as in "Generation". 3G = Third Generation.

              • I know. I was simply stating that it doesn't matter what kind of performance I think i'm getting from my phone to the tower, there is clearly insufficient bandwidth for the towers and the AT&T network.

          • Verizon is lying? Wired seems to disagree with you: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/07/3g-speed-test/ [wired.com]

            If you don't like the Wired guys for some reason then you can look to PCWorld: http://www.pcworld.com/article/167391/a_day_in_the_life_of_3g.html [pcworld.com]

            Yes, on spec HSDPA is faster but out in the real world with real deployments the differences between HSDPA and EVDO-REVA seem to be reasonably close.

            " I don't think Verizon has anything that even comes close to that."

            Except their 4G service that's rolling out to

      • Probably [guardian.co.uk] not. [prfire.co.uk] Even if you assume that some portion unlocked their baseband (which was still impossible on new phones last I checked) and went with an alternative carrier, these are all bandwidth-heavy 3G phones being sold, while the people leaving are most likely older Edge users. So at best you're increasing network load with faster connections replacing slower ones, and at worst you're adding more users AND faster connections.

      • Try San Francisco. You would think they'd be especially interested in that city, but it sucks royal donkey balls to use an iPhone there.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by saterdaies ( 842986 )

      It isn't an improvement from customers switching away. AT&T added more customers than Verizon last quarter and had a similar churn rate of 1.4%. So, no, AT&T has more customers than ever and customers are staying with AT&T at the same rate as Verizon and more customers are signing up for AT&T than Verizon.

      It's a real improvement.

  • by frinkster ( 149158 ) on Friday January 29, 2010 @01:09PM (#30951486)

    I rarely get 3G data service during the week. Usually it's EDGE and not very fast EDGE at that.

    Weekends are much better.

    Anyone thinking of getting an iPad should really think about the real value of the 3G option - will it be worth anything in your area?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Idbar ( 1034346 )
      I was in Orlando last weekend, and 3G kept dropping the connection, and the calls were often dropped too.
      • Large tall concrete & metal structures interfere with radio signals. News at 11.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Zerth ( 26112 )

          I wouldn't exactly say that Orlando has many tall structures.

          • I wouldn’t know, but what I do know is this: densely packed buildings of any size play havoc with radio signals. They block and reflect the signal, making it nearly impossible to get a strong, consistent coverage.

  • by soren100 ( 63191 ) on Friday January 29, 2010 @01:12PM (#30951522)

    Now if they can just admit their service sucks everywhere else too, then they can take some of all that iPhone money and actually improve the service.

    What's really amazing about AT&T and the iPhone is that if you are in a large crowd of people (such as a festival), the service becomes overwhelmed and you can't even make or receive a call.

    Even just going to LA can make the phone get pretty unresponsive as it waits for a signal from the overloaded tower, so you can't really use it for much.

  • by Chineseyes ( 691744 ) on Friday January 29, 2010 @01:13PM (#30951558)
    Thanks for finally fucking noticing. I've called to complain to ATT numerous times over the years and every single time i was given the following bullshit excuses:
    - You need a new sim card
    - Your phone might be damaged
    - We don't see any problems in the area

    So when is ATT going to give me my money back for diminished service?
  • Y axis? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Flavio ( 12072 ) on Friday January 29, 2010 @01:15PM (#30951602)

    What's that graph supposed to represent without an y axis?

    This is marketing disguised as an objective quality metric. Without showing the numbers, they've admitted to nothing, and promised nothing.

    • The Y Axis is how much BS you're willing to buy from AT&T.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by crankyspice ( 63953 )

      As long as we're using AA doublespeak here ("first step . . . admitting . . ."), might as well continue in that vein. "Progress, not perfection." The line just shows progress. And that's all that matters. Oh, yeah, and "fake it 'till you make it."

      (No, I've never been in AA, but I was (am?) in recovery from anorexia, and eating disorders and the various addictions have a high degree of population overlap.)

      (As an anorexic, I already know that I'm not *worthy* of good service, and so I never complained abo

    • by tepples ( 727027 )
      "Voice Composite Quality" is correlated with the bandwidth available for voice calls. Voice in recent GSM takes 4.5 to 12.2 kbps; the AMR codec [wikipedia.org] can drop down to lower bitrates if the tower is congested.
    • by garcia ( 6573 )

      Without showing the numbers, they've admitted to nothing, and promised nothing.

      Even if they gave us the numbers it wouldn't tell us jack. Numbers mean nothing w/o context of how they are getting the data they are charting. Is this a customer survey? If so, how is it administered and who is the population (people who call in to AT&T CSRs, random sampling via e-mail, what?)

      I'm willing to bet that this is some sort of valid survey conducted on a regular basis by AT&T but the marketing team took it, str

    • What's that graph supposed to represent without an y axis?

      The Y axis represents "3G Voice Composite Quality Index", duh! Don't you speak marketing robot? High fives all around, everyone, team meeting at the Sizzler!

    • It has a y-axis. Don’t you see “Performance Objective”?

      Whatever that is, the y-axis is the percentage of it achieved.

      • They’re actually calling it the 3G Voice Quality Composite Index.

        Found this on another one of their powerpoint presentations:

        Composite Quality Index is an overall view of 3G network performance that measures call success as well as our customers’ ability to access and remain on AT&T’s 3G network.

        Still no mention of how exactly it’s calculated, but in the 2010 AT&T Developer Summit’s Keynote Session presentation, the slide about the Voice Quality Composite Quality Index

      • by treeves ( 963993 )

        Whatever "that" is,....

        The "that" is crucial. What is "that"? How many subscribers who don't call to complain about the coverage, signal strength in mW, # of city blocks w/ coverage?
        Also,
        Is it a linear axis or log, or some other scale? Does it start at zero at the bottom, or some other number?

        • The audience for whom the powerpoint presentation was intended probably had a better idea of what it was than any of us do.

    • You are joking, right? If AT&T came out and their Y-Axis shows that AT&T's target speed was 128k, everyone on this forum would go apeshit.

      AT&T was smart in not letting anyone know how low they are going to go and call it "acceptable" performance.

  • I wonder if AT&T is having problems in New York and Chicago and some other large cities because they don't know who to bribe or what local bosses control what happens. There are fewer people standing in the way of upgrades like this in some places than in others.

    • AT&T is one of the oldest and most entrenched corporations in the country, if not the world (the British East India Company is older of course, but is a shadow of its former self). I doubt they don't know the right way to grease the right wheels.

      • by Kohath ( 38547 )

        Maybe they're not willing to do it. Or maybe they can't compete with the favors their competitors are offering in exchange for slowing AT&T down. Who knows?

    • I wonder if you are just another right-leaning jagoff who will use the summary of any story to blame something lefty like "unions" without regard to the necessity of proof to level yet another of your accusations.

      (checks Kohath's comment history)

      Reasonable hypothesis.
      • by Kohath ( 38547 )

        I'm not accusing. I'm insinuating. No facts required for an insinuation. (You need to learn the rules.)

        Are you claiming that unions never obstruct anything? Are you claiming that local governments never obstruct things? Are you claiming that every civic decision and permit in Chicago and New York is 100% honest?

        Corruption in some large cities is well known.

        • by Jeng ( 926980 )

          So you basically have no problem with the fact that you are a troll since you think its perfectly fine that your comment has no facts and that you are trying to blame those who have absolutely no say in this matter.

          I would love for you to point out a real world situation where a union can cause bad cell reception.

          • by Kohath ( 38547 )

            Not trolling. I think it's a reasonably likely partial explanation for why coverage is some places is worse than in others.

            It's hard to provide proof of something like that because you seldom see press releases about a decision to obstruct progress due to unpaid bribes.

            • by Jeng ( 926980 )

              I think it's a reasonably likely partial explanation

              A reasonably likely partial explanation? Are you serious? Why not just say "Hey, I'm totally pulling this out of my ass!"

              This is so highly unlikely you can't even come up with a hypothesis that would lend the least bit of credence to your opinion.

  • why is the service in NYC so horrible :( and why is America so far behind in telecommunications :(

    as an aside, I have no interest in the iPad until it has 4G connectivity. What is up with that?

    • Mr. Anderson, what good is 4G connectivity if there's no way to connect it?

      Seriously, the limit isn't the mobile devices - it's easy to build a $500 device with better b/w. It's much harder to upgrade tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure to support it. Especially when most* of the country has no data service whatsoever.

      *by area

      • Mr. Anderson, what good is 4G connectivity if there's no way to connect it?

        Seriously, the limit isn't the mobile devices - it's easy to build a $500 device with better b/w. It's much harder to upgrade tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure to support it. Especially when most* of the country has no data service whatsoever.

        *by area

        what do you mean? we already have active 4G service in Stockholm. http://www.telia4g.se/om-4g [telia4g.se]

        • by chill ( 34294 )

          Here in Chicago, too. http://www.clear.com/coverage [clear.com]

          • that's kinda slow to be considered 4G isn't it. Seems more like Turbo3G, but I digress.

            Download Really fast. CLEAR 4G is four times faster than 3G, with average download speeds of 3 to 6 Mbps and bursts over 10 Mbps*. So make your downtime up time.

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by chill ( 34294 )

              Yes. The U.S. is really a 2nd World country when it comes to broadband and high-speed telecom. We don't like to outright admit it, but that is the truth compared to places like Sweden or S. Korea.

              • by lelitsch ( 31136 )

                2nd World? My iPhone worked better in the Masai Mara National Park in Kenya than here in San Francisco.

                • by chill ( 34294 )

                  Oddly enough, the better thought "tech" areas in the U.S., like Manhattan and San Francisco, are more like 3rd World when it comes to wireless.

                  You'd figure, with Pac Bell's (now AT&T) HQ being in San Ramon, service in the Bay Area would be better than elsewhere. You'd figure wrong, sadly enough.

                • 2nd World? My iPhone worked better in the Masai Mara National Park in Kenya than here in San Francisco.

                  I live in a suburban area, and have 3G coverage just about wherever I go. The nearest "city" has to be over 15-20 miles away, with the major cities further off.

                  I think my speed tests average around 1.25-1.5 Megabit. Hardly stellar, but fast enough for my needs. Then again I don't know if it's worth the extra $30 per month...

                  However I've encountered a small number of dropped calls since I got the iPhone 6+ months ago. Not many, but definitely more than 1. I hear over-seas their cell coverage and speeds

              • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                by Lord Ender ( 156273 )

                Yes. The U.S. is really a 2nd World country

                Hoo boy are you confused. Let me make this easy for you:

                • First World: democratic capitalism, aka The US and its allies
                • Second World: dictatorial communism, aka the Soviet Union and its allies
                • Third World: everyone else (These countries were not allied with either of the above groups primarily because they were too poor to matter in the great struggle over property rights and liberalism.)

                To say the US is "second world" is absurd, as being aligned with the US is the

                • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                  by chill ( 34294 )

                  No, I'm not confused. You just didn't understand my use of the analogy.

                  I was talking about the state of telecommunications, specifically related to broadband availability, speed and cost. I was doing it using the same scale you defined, but in relation not to political-economic strata but telecom.

                  Thus, I was just breaking down the levels of telecom in the world into three segments:

                  The first world being marked by places like Sweden and S. Korea, where things like 100 Mbit data to your home or office is che

                  • by afabbro ( 33948 )

                    The first world being marked by places like Sweden and S. Korea, where things like 100 Mbit data to your home or office is cheap and available. Where 3G or better wireless coverage is pervasive, including not only 90%+ of the population, but the majority of the landmass as well.

                    The second world is marked by places like the U.S. and Canada, where there are large stretches of open land where the best you can get is ISDN or dial-up. They aren't all that populated, but there are still a lot of them.

                    Allow me to speculate that there are more square miles that are covered by broadband or 3G in the USA than in either South Korea or Sweden, or probably both combined. You're really comparing apples and oranges.

                    • by chill ( 34294 )

                      That is the typical reason given, but when you look at the quality of service in the areas of the U.S. which comparable population density, it doesn't hold water.

                      Case in point, AT&T is admitting their service in NYC and SF are horrible. These are two of the densest populated areas of the country, and the network is significantly underperforming.

                      I'll grant you that on availability of 3G out in the hinterlands, places like the U.S. and Canada will never be able to compete with the little countries.

                    • That doesn't make sense at all. The absolute number of square miles is irrelevant -- obviously the US has more square miles of coverage, it's a much much larger country than both combined (in fact, it's more than 17x larger).

                      When you consider the population density or the subscriber density into account that you get a somewhat meaningful train of thought. Sweden actually has a lower population density than the US (22 vs 34 persons/km^2), of course, South Korea is off the chart (490 persons/km^2). Given thos

                  • No, really, you're confused. The fact that the Soviet Union does not exist does not mean you all of a sudden have the right to redefine any word which refers to the Soviet Union.

                    "Second World" has never been the accepted terminology to refer to "those countries with moderate wireless internet coverage." It has a specific definition which you were ignorant of until I educated you. You tried to invent a new phrase based on your misunderstanding of another phrase. There's no weaseling out of it.

                    • by chill ( 34294 )

                      Dude, you didn't educate me. I'm in my 40s, fairly well educated and grew up on a military base in Europe. I'm familiar with the usage of the terms you quoted and have been for a couple decades now.

                      I'm saying the division of things into three tiers -- haves, 2nd fiddle, have nots -- isn't exclusive to that one definition. The terms themselves are in the popular consciousness, even though a large portion of the population wasn't born until after the fall of the USSR. They are generally understood to mean

                    • It is quite clear that he was using the phrases "First World" and "Second World" to define a hierarchy based on telecom progress that mirrors the hierarchy those terms traditionally reflect in political and social progress.

                      Whether he was using the terms illustratively or speaking metaphorically, it was quite clear (to me, at any rate) that he not only understands the traditional use of those words but was also leveraging that usage to make his point.

                      In conclusion, you lose one point for poor comprehension a

                • And me thinking that, counting from the sun, all countries were third world countries.
                • You missed the adverbial phrase, "when it comes to broadband and high-speed telecom.

                  I'll explain the metaphor, also. The People paid for the infrastructure (via taxes, for some of it anyway). "The People" control it, too, well, as private corporations. But they're sure dictatorial. If Verizon Wireless lowers minute buckets on their plans, AT&T follows. They might as well be part of the government, considering the lobby dollars. Indirectly, the government laid the infrastructure, and sets price on how m

  • ...while it's data that is giving people fits. When I say "people" I mean "me."
  • AT&T NYC service (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 29, 2010 @01:32PM (#30951890)

    I was in Downtown Manhattan /w AT&T service a few months ago - 3G service in general (Not just IPhone) wasn't just slow it was so slow that the effective result was it didn't work at all - don't waste your time trying slow. The experience was comparable to GSM data service (14.4k) of decades past. In contrast call quality was quite good and I never had any problems there.

    Thankfully outside of the Metro area all was well in 3G land. At the time I suspected all of those massive Sprint displays in times square had some sort of magical influence over my data connection :)

  • Fastest 3G network in the country... Sure, as long as you don't count major metro areas or any of those other peskly 3G networks.
  • In Other News (Score:1, Redundant)

    In other news, AT&T admits the sky is blue.

    Uh. Yeah. We knew that already...
  • For the past three months more people in NYC are leaving AT&T than they are picking up as new subscribers?
  • It sucks out on Long Island too! Hope they don't just focus on Manhattan. I mean it's ridiculous how bad AT&T service is in all facets. Sorely tempted to trade my beloved Iphone for a Nexus. I get so mad everytime I see what's his face from Old School talking about how fast their network is. Also so what if it's faster, you don't get any coverage anywhere! I mean really, I could have the fastest race car in the world, but if I can only drive it up and down my drive way it's pointless!
    • It sucks out on Long Island too! Hope they don't just focus on Manhattan. I mean it's ridiculous how bad AT&T service is in all facets. Sorely tempted to trade my beloved Iphone for a Nexus. I get so mad everytime I see what's his face from Old School talking about how fast their network is. Also so what if it's faster, you don't get any coverage anywhere! I mean really, I could have the fastest race car in the world, but if I can only drive it up and down my drive way it's pointless!

      The Nexus One is a nice phone but I feel some of the UI features lack the polish/maturity of the iPhone. Specifically: multi-touch and the way it handles dropdown menus.

      And while T-Mobile coverage isn't horrid by me, it is noticeably weaker than AT&T.

  • As I still cannot get a 3G nor an Edge signal to sustain itself for more than literally 10 seconds...

    Right in front of City Hall in Downtown Manhattan. They *say* they've upgraded their NYC network and added capacity, but my signal strength (as noted by decibel, not bars) has remained absolutely consistently horrible everywhere in the Financial District, Gramercy Park, all of the Village, and both the Upper East and Upper West Sides.

    Lies and more goddamn lies.
  • Wonder how well the iPad 3G will do in NYC when released.
  • Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday January 29, 2010 @01:56PM (#30952316)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by astrashe ( 7452 ) on Friday January 29, 2010 @01:57PM (#30952326) Journal

    I live in Manhattan, and I own an iPhone. Believe me, I know about all the problems. I complain a lot to my friends.

    But they're clearly trying to climb on top of this. They're opening up about the problems, and they had that incident a month ago or so when they stopped selling iPhones. They're trying to figure it out.

    I ran a dial-up ISP in the 90's. Tons of people came on to the net, and everyone in the business was trying like crazy to grow their phone banks and their networks to handle the new people. Back then everyone complained about their ISP -- it was hard to keep up.

    That's what's happening now with wireless. Everyone is starting to use lots of data. Three years ago, almost no one used wireless net access. Three years from now, almost everyone in the city will want to be able to stream video to their phones at the same time. All of that infrastructure has to be built, and all of it has to be financed. Imagine if some other major chunk of infrastructure had to be built from the ground up -- electrical wiring, or roads, or whatever. It's a big job.

    The transition is inevitably going to be bloody. We just need AT&T to be open about it, and to really step up and try to keep up with the growth. When they come clean like this, it's a very positive sign. And once everyone's online, and the growth stabilizes, things will get a lot better.

    (I realize that no one will buy this. But I figured I'd put it out there anyway.)

    • by BitZtream ( 692029 ) on Friday January 29, 2010 @02:42PM (#30952982)

      it was hard to keep up.

      Only if you over sell and never say 'we are at capacity and can not take any more subscribers at this time'

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      I live in Manhattan, and I own an iPhone. Believe me, I know about all the problems. I complain a lot to my friends.

      But they're clearly trying to climb on top of this. They're opening up about the problems, and they had that incident a month ago or so when they stopped selling iPhones. They're trying to figure it out.

      I ran a dial-up ISP in the 90's. Tons of people came on to the net, and everyone in the business was trying like crazy to grow their phone banks and their networks to handle the new people. Back then everyone complained about their ISP -- it was hard to keep up.

      That's what's happening now with wireless. Everyone is starting to use lots of data. Three years ago, almost no one used wireless net access. Three years from now, almost everyone in the city will want to be able to stream video to their phones at the same time. All of that infrastructure has to be built, and all of it has to be financed. Imagine if some other major chunk of infrastructure had to be built from the ground up -- electrical wiring, or roads, or whatever. It's a big job.

      The transition is inevitably going to be bloody. We just need AT&T to be open about it, and to really step up and try to keep up with the growth. When they come clean like this, it's a very positive sign. And once everyone's online, and the growth stabilizes, things will get a lot better.

      (I realize that no one will buy this. But I figured I'd put it out there anyway.)

      If ATT had been honest about this of if they'd even shut up and not commented, nobody would be bashing anything. Everybody knows that building out a network takes time. But ATT has consistently been denying any issues whatsoever, claiming that its network was the fastest, most reliable, largest, most advanced, shiniest network on Earth, and that any customer who claimed otherwise was a lying, mentally retarded psychopath for suggesting so. Even to the point where its PR people were arguing openly with blogg

  • I remember reading in the consumerist that an AT&T consumer representative said "the phone is not offered to you because New York is not ready for the iPhone." They (temporarily) stopped selling one of the best selling phones in the country's biggest market! Isn't this already an admission that their service sucks? I guess it could be interpreted as AT&T blaming the iPhone and New Yorkers instead of their own network, but I think we all saw through the rep's thinly veiled admission.

    http://consumeris [consumerist.com]

    • the question is why they started selling it again. did it really matter that they stopped selling the phone for a few days? all of those people that were denied on day one just went and bought it on day 3. what was the point?

  • My BlackBerry is on the Teleus carrier here in Canada. When I went down to NYC last summer my BlackBerry was a worthless POS. Just bringing up my email and replying was a challenge. Everywhere we went the signal was great but the service was horrid. The two places I noticed the biggest drops was at the MET on a Saturday afternoon and at a Yankee's game in the evening on the weekend. There was literally no service and I felt like when I used to try and dial into a busy ISP in the 90s. Even when you connect t
  • the first step on the road to recovery.
  • by PDG ( 100516 ) <pdg@webcrush.com> on Friday January 29, 2010 @02:39PM (#30952948) Homepage

    I hear NYC and SanFran AT&T horror stories all the time, and then people jump on the bandwagon and say it sucks everywhere else too.

    Well, works beautifully in Boston. Recent reports show that its faster and more reliable in Boston than Verizon as well. Believe me, I was a 12 year Verizon veteran and shied away from AT&T because of the 'stories' I heard. One day, work gave me an AT&T serviced BlackBerry and I swapped the sim card into an iPhone off EBay and was astounded that I got better and faster service than my Verizon account gave me.

    Dropped Verizon and went AT&T within a week. Nary a problem since.

    • Complaints one hears about a cellphone carrier are directly proportional to the number of customers said carrier has. All carriers suck some of the time in some of the places.

    • I had Verizon forever, since they were AirTouch.

      I finally made the leap (of faith) to the iPhone last year after getting sick of the crappy crippled phones from Verizon. I was dreading the carrier change but its actually been great.

      No dead spots yet -- Highland Park in St. Paul was a black hole for Verizon. Data seems faster, but the hardware comparison isnt really the same (Motorola Q Black vs. iPhone 3G & 3GS). Voice quality/availability as good or better than Verizon, AFAICT.

      Really overall it's be

  • If you look at the full version of the slide, here:

    http://media.bestofmicro.com/6/C/237396/original/att-q409-slide-1.jpg [bestofmicro.com]

    One of the next 90 day fixes is "Deploy Ethernet to Cell sites to improve network backhaul".

    As an NYC iphone customer I can almost forgive them for bad reception in the canyons of the city. So many tall buildings etc...

    But come on, the bottleneck is also that they don't have enough bandwidth from the towers to the network?? WTF?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Vegeta99 ( 219501 )

      Not that I'm backing them up, but just a measly 5 years ago, the most a phone could suck down the pipe was about 300kbps, tops. And nobody had phones that did that; a call only takes up 8-13. Now, they're sapped by phones like mine that can pull up to 7.2Mbit, and a LOT more people using data.

  • ...or Domino's will sue you for copyright infringement.

    rj

  • Very few days go by when I don't have a call dropped on my iPhone, just sitting here in my home office. And forget about when driving. Everyone I know in LA who has an iPhone complains about the very same thing. If you want to listen to a funny conversation, eavesdrop on a conversation between two iPhones. "Yeah, it's me again. The iPhone dropped the call again. Yeah, well.... hello? Hello?"

    So far their answer? "Mark The Spot", an iPhone app that they want you to switch to and register a complaint about dro

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