Verizon Vs. At&t Service is it worth the switchover

[rjohnstone]

Pick the service that works for you first... then pick a phone.
If you reverse this order, you have no right to complain about the service if it sucks.

Where I live and work, AT&T provides more reliable coverage than Verizon.
I've been with them long before the iPhone.
I've also had phones from Verizon for work purposes during the same period.
The Verizon service was spotty at best and didn't work in my house at all.
This is why I have an AT&T personal phone and why my company switched my work phone over to AT&T as well.
That's not to say that Verizon is bad, it's just not as good as AT&T in the places that I need to use a phone.

 

[zephxiii]

The single biggest thing you are going to learn about moving from AT&T to Verizon is that while your voice call quality will DRAMATICALLY improve in almost all parts of the country...

I don't know about that, 3G voice quality has been stellar everywhere for me. In the D.C. area my family had abysmal voice quality on verizon, it was much more improved on AT&T.

Out in rural Indiana AT&T voice has been very nice.

 

[einmusiker]

Depends on the service in your area I suppose
And family or friends you have on each network

+1

exactly. I have both only because I can't get att at work (I barely get verizon there) if it wasn't for that I'd have little issue with att as it is currently as it's gotten much better in recent years, unless of course I'm travelling somewhere they don't service :/

 

[nburwell]

When I was on Verizon, I experienced not one single dropped call between the 3-4 phones that I had while under contract with them. Beginning with owning the 2G iPhone all the way up to my current iPhone 4, I've had maybe about 4-5 dropped calls on AT&T - not bad, IMO.

To me, it seems as though service is very similar in my area for both Verizon and AT&T. However, the kicker with me is that Verizon gives our company a pretty decent discount off our entire phone bill; whereas AT&T only discounts the data and voice plan. So IF the iPhone went to Verizon, I probably would stick with AT&T since they have not done me wrong in the 2+ years that I have been with them.

 

[scaredpoet]

Where I travel most frequently (NJ, NY, PA, MD, DC, VA, and the Southern and Southwest regions) AT&T works great for me and I almost always seem to have 3G coverage that works well. That and I have unlimited data grandfathered on my plan. There's no benefit for me to switch over.

I have Verizon Service through OnStar on my car, and in the times I've used it, I've surprisingly had more trouble with it than on AT&T.

But if I lived in California or traveled there a lot, then I probably would switch to Verizon for the iPhone. From what I experienced in the San Francisco/Palo Alto area, AT&T coverage is pretty bad there.

Yeah. Just one of the reasons why I would like a Verizon iPhone.

You're not going to get unlimited data on a Verizon iPhone.

 

[Mliii]

Again, this really depends upon WHERE you are in California.
I have AT&T. My girlfriend has Verizon. We've been in the same room and there are plenty of times when I will get a call from someone AFTER that same person has tried to call her and it's gone directly to her voice mail.
As others have suggested, if there is a Verizon iPhone, select service in the area where you are most often and base your decision on that rather than generic conversations about the benefit of Verizon vs. AT&T.

From what I can tell (though not pretending to be an expert on this), pricing is about the same. I'm grandfathered in with unlimited data and I seem to recall several threads here suggesting that Verizon intends to go with tiered pricing as AT&T did, so that's not an issue for me.

Simultaneous voice and data DOES matter to me, so that's a + for AT&T. I use their A list and most of my family is on AT&T, so those are other plusses.

For me to switch carriers, there would have to be some compelling reason to do so, and so far at least, there doesn't seem to be one given where I am and where I travel most frequently.

 

[maceleven]

Drops calls

I am in Southern California and have had so many dropped calls on my iPhone 4 with At&t ,im wondering if Verizion has that problem . My Friend has Verizon and he laughs at all my dropped calls actually everybody say my phone sucks but its At&t network.

 

[ucfgrad93]

Pick the service that works for you first... then pick a phone.
If you reverse this order, you have no right to complain about the service if it sucks.

Agreed. The best phone in the world is useless if the network in your area stinks.

 

[superhighsen]

I am considering going to Verizon as well since there data coverage is astronomically better. Now yes I do have UNL data with At&t and Verizon most likely will have a 5gb cap. But when LTE comes out and we all know Verizon will get that up and running in more areas much faster than At&t will. So then is UNL data worth it. I dunno. With that said I'd only consider it with at least 5gb of data, anything less than that isn't worth it. If Verizon miraculously comes out with a UNL plan for $30 (which i doubt) than I'm 100% peacing out of At&t.

 

[brock2621]

Verizon, if w/ LTE.

 

[thetexan]

I am considering going to Verizon as well since there data coverage is astronomically better. Now yes I do have UNL data with At&t and Verizon most likely will have a 5gb cap. But when LTE comes out and we all know Verizon will get that up and running in more areas much faster than At&t will. So then is UNL data worth it. I dunno. With that said I'd only consider it with at least 5gb of data, anything less than that isn't worth it. If Verizon miraculously comes out with a UNL plan for $30 (which i doubt) than I'm 100% peacing out of At&t.

There's no cap on their phones, the caps come on their pure data devices such as USB cards. There were rumors that Verizon would cap phones like AT&T has but those rumors were squashed by Verizon who just last month stated their phones will continue to have unlimited data.

 

[einmusiker]

I am considering going to Verizon as well since there data coverage is astronomically better. Now yes I do have UNL data with At&t and Verizon most likely will have a 5gb cap. But when LTE comes out and we all know Verizon will get that up and running in more areas much faster than At&t will. So then is UNL data worth it. I dunno. With that said I'd only consider it with at least 5gb of data, anything less than that isn't worth it. If Verizon miraculously comes out with a UNL plan for $30 (which i doubt) than I'm 100% peacing out of At&t.

I never plan to give up my unlimited data since I routinely use over 5gb/month with tethering.

 

[Geckotek]

I am in Southern California and have had so many dropped calls on my iPhone 4 with At&t ,im wondering if Verizion has that problem . My Friend has Verizon and he laughs at all my dropped calls actually everybody say my phone sucks but its At&t network.

I think you just answered your own question. We can't really answer it for you anyway.

Doesn't Verizon have a 30 day return policy? Perhaps you need to try out a phone to see if the coverage works for you in your area.

 

[maceleven]

I think you just answered your own question. We can't really answer it for you anyway.

Doesn't Verizon have a 30 day return policy? Perhaps you need to try out a phone to see if the coverage works for you in your area.

Thanks Best response thus far

 

[sniffies]

I read somewhere on this forum that there's actually a 5GB cap, but I'm not certain if that's true or not.

I would choose AT&T over Verizon personally, their service is fine in the Miami area (currently in the UK for winter) and I prefer the option of changing my sim-card, I'm using a Vodafone sim at the moment in my iPhone to avoid roaming charges and it works perfectly, if the Verizon iPhone came w/o this then it'd be a no-go for me as I travel back + forth to the UK during holiday seasons with my family.

As mentioned before, the simultaneous data may apply to some but I rarely call, I have thousands of rollover minutes as I only used 47 seconds of my minutes last month.

How do you use Vodafone sim-card if AT&T iPhone is locked???

 

[Zepaw]

I have lived in areas AT&T claimed had good service and couldn't make a call. I am out in the middle of nowhere 10 miles from the nearest small town right now and can get a great Verizon 3G signal.