AT&T Sucks, and So Does Your Carrier
Among the dull roar of criticisms about iPhone I have to endure, one in particular stands out as the most irritating and unfounded - the attack against AT&T. I hear these slanderous indictments all the time…“Why did Apple choose AT&T?”, “AT&T sucks! They should have gone with Verizon or Sprint”, “AT&T is evil”. Blah blah blah.
Here’s a bit of schooling for you numbskulls - What you don’t understand is that the quality and reliability of wireless service in the U.S. is subjective and varies from one location to another. For example, in my specific locale, Sprint offers the worst reliability and coverage of any major carrier. T-Mobile is practically non-existent. Verizon offers great service, but their selection of handsets is abysmal. So, for all practical purposes, AT&T is the “best” wireless carrier for me. Your experience will vary. A friend of mine who lives in Redmond Washington (no, it isn’t Bill Gates) says that T-Mobile offers the best coverage and voice quality in his area, while Sprint is teh suck. So which one of us is right? We both are.
Unlike other parts of the world like Asia and Europe, wireless infrastructure in North America is less ubiquitous and unevenly distributed. This is the reason why we suffer through so many dropped calls, poor voice quality, and latency.
So yes, AT&T does suck. And so does Verizon. So does Sprint. So does T-Mobile. And so on. There is no “best” wireless carrier, only best in your location. Live it, learn it, be it.
July 14th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Right On! Finally someone who gets it. I’ve been on AT&T in Detroit for years. It’s been very good for me.
Now if someone would challenge the “It’s so expensive” myth. They talk about the iPhone as the cost of phone + service. (It’s &1500.00!!). Why don’t they talk about other phones this way.
Lame.
July 14th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
I’m one of those switchers. ATT sucks, Verizon sucked. They all suck. As you say it just depends on where you happen to be standing.
In my personal usage so fare the ATT service has been comparable to VZ. Some dropped call, but I also dropped calls on VZ.
To those still bitching about ATT I say get over it. Apple had to pick someone. And to those on VZ they offered it to you them and VZ turned it down.
July 15th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
I’m glad they didn’t go with Verizon. I’d quit using cellular if they were the only choice left. The only thing worse than their coverage is their customer service. I switched to Cingular last year and it’s been great. I’m not happy about them being bought back by AT&T again and changing the name. If I hadn’t already signed up with Cingular, I don’t think I would have switched to AT&T but since I’m already here, it’s been fine. I’d pick T-Mobile if they had better coverage because they have good plans and notoriously good customer service.
But you’re right…they all pretty much suck.
July 16th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Me, I likey T-Mobile, so I’m going to hold out and see what happens with them and the iPhone. I’ve heard conflicting info on the Apple-ATT iPhone service contract, everything from a 5-year exclusive to only thru Dec. 2007.
Anyhoo, T-Mo does have awesone CS (at least in my experience), and their service plans are, as a whole, the best and cheapest. Sure, their network coverage could be better, but for the most part my reception has been 99% glitch-free. Will be interesting to see where the iPhone lands next.
July 27th, 2007 at 10:31 am
I love my iPhone, but…
I traveled to India recently to teach a course in Banglaore. When I landed in Bombay, I turned on my phone and it promptly connected to an EDGE network and downloaded 2MB of Yahoo! and other e-mail that I didn’t want. The resulting charge was about $70 for that sync.
There is currently no way to disable EDGE when roaming outside of the U.S.. I managed to trick it into not kicking in by keeping my Wifi turned on to a site that I didn’t have access to. However, this was a poor hack…
Apple and AT&T need to provide the ability to disable EDGE Roaming. I would like to be able to enable it when needed, but most of the time, I can wait to download my latest batch of junk e-mail to a time when I am in a WIFI zone.
I would guess that most folks who can aford an iPhone also travel extensively. Many of those people even have a passport and dare to venture outside of the U.S.. I hope that AT&T and Apple can understand that their current approach to mobille data is untenable outside the U.S.. They need to come up with an International Roaming plan for data and SMS that makes sense. Until then, I taking my old RAZR along and leaving my iPhone shut off…
July 28th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Good point about how wireless quality varies throughout the US. But AT&T “service” does suck.
They took weeks to troubleshoot my landline/broadband install–checking on my building’s wiring. They then “billed” me for said installation and one month non-existent “service” even though I never even went online with them. AT&T’s online service must suck so much that my MacAfee spam guard was blocking the AT&T software from being installed.
The kicker? I just found out they put me into collection for a bill I never received for service that was never used. Their call center sucks too: they work when you’re at work and have limited hours on Sat–it’s the reason why I stayed home last night and why I got up at 8 am today! I just hope the good folks at Cingular don’t go the way of their AT&T parent.
The right thing for AT&T to do is to refund people (something that other vendors practice) within the first month’s experience–but oh wait, that would be fair treatment of the customer, leading to AT&T not wrongfully charging people. I can see why this would be distasteful to AT&T.
August 4th, 2007 at 2:08 am
Well then, pretty much everyone here is right. AT&T sucks, Verizon sucks, Sprint sucks, Alltel imo really sucks, and T-mobile sucks.
I work as a tech for Sprint/Nextel. What people don’t seem to understand is that CELLULAR IS NOT A PERFECT TECHNOLOGY. Considering the fact that 10 years ago NONE of us carried a mini computer in our pocket, that was able to make phone calls, and take pictures, and surf the web, oh and play music. I find it a small wonder that any of this crap works at all. Cellular companies are no different then the old Ma Bell system of yesterday with the exception of the fact that they are using nearly unproven equipment and technology. I am not saying that people shouldn’t feel the need to complain when the services they are spending their hard earned money on isnt working. Im just siding with those that understand things are not perfect. Customer service reps work sad shitty jobs where people yell at them all day long. Really whens the last time you called your cell provider when your phone was working right. In store techs (like me) and sales staff deal with some of the most charming people on the planet who yell at us because they refused insurance when they bought the phone and they ran it over with their car. Honestly if you have a legit complaint then you should be heard and handled with respect. Thats what I do anyway. But in all reality all big companies kinda suck. My Comcast internet blows, but what are you going to do thats life. We could after all still be running around like cave men.
September 5th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Odd that this apologist for AT&T ends up on a page with two advertisements for AT&T. Live it, learn it, be it. Gimme a break. AT&T’s customer service stinks. Anybody who has dealt with them knows that. The problem starts with the stupid telephone interface you must traverse to get to a customer representative. Punch in your number. Pick your option. You may have to give your number again. What the last four digits of your Social Security number. Whoops, you’ll have to call back and go through the entire process again. It’s amazing and infuriating. AT&T has designed the perfect system for enraging customers. A government psychologist really needs to look at it, figure out the principles and apply them to the war on terror. Who needs torture when you have AT&T? Come on guys, you can do better than this.
September 5th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Uh…those are Google Adsense ads, not advertisements by AT&T. I have as much control over that as I do the weather.
November 21st, 2007 at 6:59 pm
They all suck, but ATT is the maestro of suck.
November 24th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
So, while accepting what you say is correct, then in the regions where at&t does suck, people must opt out of the iPhone? NOT! Your logic “AT&T is the “best” wireless carrier for me” (in your region) has more justified the reason for iPhone to be unlocked to all the unfortunate people not so lucky as to live in your “best” at&t region.
April 6th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
The pop up advertising on the screen sucks. Bellsouth can’t or wont do anything about it.