Is it the Phone or the Network?
Marco talks about the iPhone/Verizon debate:
I was a loyal Verizon customer before moving to the iPhone in late 2007. I frequently travel to the fringes of cellular reception areas, including many areas with zero coverage from any carrier. I’ve found: AT&T isn’t as bad as many people think, and Verizon isn’t as good as many people think.
I particularly liked this point, that could easily go unnoticed:
…it’s actually in Verizon’s customers’ best interests that the Droid doesn’t sell very well.
Time will tell, especially since Verizon appears to be more apt to spend money on upgrades than AT&T. However, I completely agree. Once Verizon gets a smartphone that isn’t crappy—and thus very popular—they will quickly realize they have their own set of problems.
Well, yeah, Verizon has to spend more money on upgrades than AT&T, especially over the course of the next five years or so, as they move from CDMA to LTE, which itself is based upon the GSM technology AT&T already has. But this is an area Verizon has to understand, and be prepared to spend the money to make their customers happy. In other words, these are problems Verizon will understand before they get a successful smart phone.
Regardless of that, I maintain my position that the iPhone isn’t having the impact on AT&T that many people seem to think, in terms of network issues. It really just isn’t that hard to hit reasonably high levels of data usage through e-mail and casual mobile web browsing (i.e., visiting mobile sites like m.espn.com), which can be done easily from any smartphone. The past few months, I’ve been exceeding 200 MB per month on a freakin’ Windows Mobile phone, and while I’m obviously on the geeky side, I’m doing nothing terribly geeky to get those numbers. I really don’t think Verizon or even Sprint would have the issues AT&T has been having, and time will certainly tell if certain projections made about Android prove to be correct. Until then, I’d go as far as to say AT&T may not be as bad as they are made out to be, but they do suck, especially in terms of 3G coverage, and the iPhone certainly cannot be blamed for that.
I also find it generally interesting that the typical comparison isn’t (yet) between the iPhone and Droid. Or the iPhone and a Blackberry. Instead, it’s the iPhone (a device) vs. Verizon (a network).
People are making this comparison because many people have the iPhone, and are unhappy with the coverage that they have on AT&T. And then there are the people who want the iPhone, but aren’t willing to lose the whole reason for having a mobile phone in the first place: to be able to be reached anywhere you go. And then there’s the fact that AT&T’s 3G coverage is still atrocious outside of metropolitan areas compared to either Verizon or Sprint. Regular voice coverage is one thing, but on a smartphone, 3G coverage is a necessity, and AT&T fails miserably here.
Either way, we’re finally starting to see competition that is actively seeking to match and better the iPhone in its strongest areas, in both WebOS phones and Android phones. BlackBerries are already better than the iPhone if you’re a heavy messaging user, which is why you’re really not seeing much comparison between the two. Different phones for different user needs. The comparisons in the more generalized cases will come, and the networks will make a difference in those comparisons.
Further, having also been a loyal Verizon customer until this summer, I can say I’m disappointed with AT&T coverage, but only when I get off the “beaten path”. Granted, this is easy to do in Virginia, but in my day-to-day use, I have absolutely no problems with AT&T and actually find their data network to be quite excellent.
I definitely agree that AT&T isn’t as bad as everyone thinks. I’m not sure (honestly; that’s not a passive/aggressive way to disagree) that Verizon isn’t as good as everyone thinks.
Location is everything. In general, AT&T might not be as bad as everyone thinks, but move thirty, forty, fifty miles outside of your nearest metropolis, and yeah, they probably are as bad. These are the areas where Verizon and even Sprint are doing much better, in every facet of coverage.
