Comments on: Have I Reached My Limit with ATT?

By: GNC-2010-07-23 #595 It’s a Hoax Mom! - Geek News Central

GNC-2010-07-23 #595 It’s a Hoax Mom! - Geek News Central — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:00:29 +0000

[...] Really? Droid users sucking down Bandwidth! Stitcher plays Podcast in Background on iPhone. More AT&T Frustration. Popbox does not initially Pop. Need Power hook up to Power Line. Darth Vader needs some cash for [...]

By: tomwiles

tomwiles — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:16:00 +0000

I had a Sprint air card for more than 5 years. Once they started rolling out 3G, I began to notice that often in the middle of the night, usually around midnight, the 3G service would suddenly go away and all that was available was 1XRT.

What was happening was that specific towers were being worked on. All cell carriers do it pretty much the same way — the schedule repairs/upgrades during the middle of the night in order to minimize impact on network peak usage times — i.e., the daytime and evening. Both Verizon and AT&T do it this way too.

AT&T will likely eventually get it’s network fixed. They have an inherent disadvantage in that their network is GSM, whereas Sprint and Verizon are CDMA and often have CDMA sharing agreements in place for different towers.

I have a Sprint phone and a Verizon (formerly from Alltel) air card. Verizon does have the best 3G coverage of the two, followed very closely by Sprint.

By: Rob Brewer

Rob Brewer — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:21:20 +0000

Sounds like a tough spot. I was an ATT customer, and then a Cingular customer, and then an ATT customer again before switching to Verizon just over a year ago. I worked hard to maintain fairly current Windows Mobile phones while at the same time avoiding extending my contract period as much as possible. This certainly helped a lot when I finally jumped carriers. While I don’t have any good advice on how to avoid the early termination fees, I would recommend you find someone that uses a different carrier who might be willing to spend some time with you to compare reception in various areas. Don’t just check Verizon, alhtough for me, they had superior coverage everywhere I spent time. I mean EVERYWHERE! Work, home, traveling to see family and friends throughout WA, ID, and MT. I’m paying more per month (by about $10) but I have reception where and when I need it. Best of luck!

By: Michael Anderson

Michael Anderson — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:11:01 +0000

I agree with you on the “they are all basically the same” sentiment. We are on Verizon and have been pretty happy with the service right now.

But if we weren’t, what would I do? We just replaced 3 of our 4 phones last November, with the last one coming due in a few months (and like you, needing replacement). So we’d get the same hefty fees (likely more because of my Droid)!

Also, VZW is the only one with solid signal here (my Droid almost always has solid 3G … unless I hold it wrong of course ) and I have too many friends frustrated by AT&T’s crap service here. Also, all of both my and my wife’s family is on VZW, meaning that all of those 2 hour calls between my wife and her sister cost nothing …

Not easy, that is for sure!