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AT&T Admits New York City iPhone Service Sucks

Posted by kdawson on from the but-we-knew-that dept.

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'..."

15 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Real Improvement? by ivogan · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

    --
    Who was that pointy-eared bastard?
    1. Re:Real Improvement? by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    2. Re:Real Improvement? by slimjim8094 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
  2. Chicago isn't any better by frinkster · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?

  3. Good -- maybe they will start to improve by soren100 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Good -- maybe they will start to improve by corbettw · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sounds like one more reason not to go to LA. Not that anyone needed any more.

      --
      God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
  4. As an ATT customer in manhattan.... by Chineseyes · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?

    --
    I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended

    --A wise old fart named SC0RN
    1. Re:As an ATT customer in manhattan.... by SomeJoel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So when is ATT going to give me my money back for diminished service?

      As soon as it makes business sense for them to do so.

      --
      <Complete your profile by adding a signature!>
  5. Y axis? by Flavio · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Y axis? by JustOK · · Score: 4, Funny

      I have their Giga Bullshit plan. It's awesome.

      --
      rewriting history since 2109
  6. AT&T NYC service by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    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 :)

  7. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  8. Stop bashing AT&T for this! by astrashe · · Score: 4, 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.)

    1. Re:Stop bashing AT&T for this! by BitZtream · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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'

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
  9. Works great up in the Boston area by PDG · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    --
    "Where is my mind?"