Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Tired of Molly's tired rant about AT&T's coverage/iPhone

May 27, 2010 12:59PM PDT

First off, I'm no friend of AT&T's. But I get very tired of Molly (and almost every other tech reporter hack on earth) ranting about AT&T's coverage. Well, Verizon must suck eggs globally since my iPhone trounced a coworker's Droid phone the other day while speed testing them simultaneously. The point here is, not everybody lives in San Francisco or New York!! In fact, the VAST MAJORITY don't. Please stop characterizing your allegedly lousy AT&T service as if it were a universal problem. My iPhone has been a fast, trouble free joy to use since the day I bought it almost a year ago.

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
And
May 27, 2010 1:32PM PDT

Majority of iPhone users aren't in America and are using carriers with tethering. Wink
BTW I get 6mbit on my iPhone speed testing it on Telstra here in Australia.

And I must say I'm rather surprised to hear even AT&T has fanboys.

- Collapse -
I live in a smallish
May 27, 2010 11:10PM PDT

middle American city. And my iPhone service sucks. Its not just the big coastal cities. Data is generally OK but phone service is horrible. I drop about a third of the calls I make. Even with 5 bars standing in the middle of downtown with a clear view of multiple cell towers I drop calls. I've complained to AT&T, I've had Apple replace my iPhone and nothing makes a difference. Everyone I know here with iPhones complains of the same thing.

If I could take the iPhone to another carrier I would in a second. Molly's rants seem perfectly justified to me.

- Collapse -
Woah
May 28, 2010 8:39AM PDT

Line of sight and you still drop calls? That's an incredibly overloaded network.
Do you know if you're in an 1900mhz or 850mhz area? That's another issue, 1900mhz will have more dead spots, due to valleys or buildings etc, which 850mhz can get through more easily.

- Collapse -
They deserve it!
May 28, 2010 9:23AM PDT

I am more tired of crummy AT&T service than Molly's rants. Fix the service and I agree, stop the rants. We're going on 4 years here. There really shouldn't be issues anymore, but there are. So let the rants flow!

- Collapse -
I believe we have both spectrums here
May 29, 2010 2:01AM PDT

because I can still remember the day in late 2008 AT&T started devoting more bandwidth to the original 3G iPhone and my 1st gen iPhone's signal strength went to hell. It happened to everyone on my office with a first gen iPhone at the same time and we were told by AT&T that they were devoting the entire 850 mhz spectrum to 3g iPhones. EDGE was relegated to the 1900 mhz ghetto. I'd be sitting right next to a window with data at all.

So now that I have a 3GS I'm assuming i have access to that 850 mhz spectrum because I have no trouble getting a data signal even deep within the bowels of our office. Phone calls are another issue however.

- Collapse -
It is a universal problem...
May 28, 2010 1:08PM PDT

...now go away fan boy.

- Collapse -
Um, yeah.
May 28, 2010 2:41PM PDT

Not a universal problem, and not a fanboy. So other than those two misguided points, you are correct (?). I can't stand AT&T's 3G throttling, tethering waffling and generally their attitude toward consumers stinks and has long before 3G or iPhones came along. However, common sense would dictate that service on iPhones could not possibly be as horrible as Ms. Woods and the others apparently on the same CNET ant-hill have characterized. Given the numbers of iPhones sold and the user satisfaction, something just doesn't match up here. I know success also breeds haters, but the journalists at CNET are much too grown up for that, aren't they?

One would also think that given the communications and networking capabilities we have now, the majority of journalists, and especially tech journalists, would not have to all cluster in San Francisco, New York or Washington DC.. I think this skews their opinions of everything from 3G coverage, immigration issues, etc., etc., more than just a little.

- Collapse -
Uhh, no...
May 28, 2010 11:21PM PDT

It is most certainly not a universal problem. I know this first hand having an iPhone on Telstra here in Australia and having zero dropped calls and almost all of the time 5 bars 3G service. My other iPhone on Optus however, often it drops to 2G or drops a call... bad network.
It is an AT&T problem.

- Collapse -
It is rather annoying but....
May 29, 2010 3:31PM PDT

....it's how it is in their area and it's what affects them the most. Just like how they tend to act like T-mobile sucks, when over here in PA, Sprint and Tmobile are both awesome.