AT&T Admits New York City iPhone Service Sucks

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'..."

Comments

Real Improvement?

[ivogan]

I am left wondering if the improvement stated is a result of consumers switching carriers from AT&T.

Re:Real Improvement?

[slimjim8094]

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.