When Om Malik of GigaOM said he was breaking up with his iPhone 5 months ago because of the failures of AT&T, I must admit, I thought he was overreacting. I was wrong.
Since I switched to AT&T from Verizon just over 2 years ago to get the iPhone (which, of course, AT&T has exclusively in the U.S.), there have been no shortage of shortcomings by AT&T. But as of late, I’ve been noticing things getting much, much worse. And I’m hardly the only one. And so it’s time to call out AT&T on those failures. And plead with Apple not to renew its exclusive contract with AT&T when it expires next year.
In my mind, the most recent AT&T failure is completely inexcusable. Its visual voicemail system — which is the only way to be notified of voicemails on the iPhone — has been down for many users for days, if not weeks. And AT&T apparently didn’t bother to tell anyone. What does this mean? Thousands, or hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of missed connections, that could be vital for personal lives, business and a host of other things. I’m simply dumbfounded by the failure.
Here’s how I found out about it. While I was coming home from the office yesterday, I all of a sudden got bombarded by visual voicemails. It was only then that I realized that I had not received one in a while. How long? Since sometime before July 3, apparently. Yes, 2 weeks without a single voicemail.
Even better is that not only did I get bombarded by these weeks old voicemails at once, but I still cannot listen to them. It has been over a day since the notifications finally came in, and visual voicemail is still down. I’ve had to manually call the AT&T voicemail service — not a huge deal, except that I’ve never done it before, so I didn’t know how, and that I didn’t receive any kind of notice that I had to do that.
Once I did that, sure enough, I had a a range of voicemails from personal ones, to pretty important ones for appointments and work that I just totally missed, to a voicemail from my 90-year-old grandma, who probably thinks I’m avoiding her now. I’m not grandma, AT&T just is a complete and utter failure.
Oh, and did I mention that half of those missed voicemails don’t even show up in my call logs as missed calls? So who knows what else I’ve missed from people who didn’t bother to leave voicemails.
I’m so pissed off that I kind of want to call AT&T and demand that they call each of the people I missed calls from and personally apologize. Instead, I’m writing them this very public condemnation.
This is really, really bad any way you look at it. But it’s compounded by a host of other failures over the past several months and years on AT&T’s behalf.
Even since the iPhone launched on AT&T’s network, there have been reports of problems. But things really got bad with the launch of the iPhone 3G last year, when basically no one could activate their phones. Okay, so AT&T learned from that mistake, right? Nope — the same thing happened this year. And immediately after that post, AT&T contacted us to suggest that it wasn’t its fault, but when we asked for some sort of proof or statement to that effect, they did not get back to us. Yeah.
And let’s not forget the total failure of AT&T’s network during this year’s SXSW festival. AT&T tried to pat itself on the back for rushing to turn up the bandwidth — something which still didn’t really work all that well, and came far too late. Sure, there were a ton of iPhones in one place that were accessing the network, but AT&T has one job: To provide service to its customers, and it failed at it.
And it fails at it far too often. Depending on where you are here in Bay Area (I’m using that as an example because that’s where I live, but the problems are hardly confined to here), there is basically no AT&T reception. This is what Malik noticed all those months ago. And as more iPhones are being sold, it’s getting progressively worse.
AT&T promises that network upgrades are coming, but the fact is, the company has had over 2 years to fix these issues (that have arisen since the launch of the iPhone) and they have not. Hell, they can’t even get basic services like MMS and tethering working, even as their carrier counterparts in other countries already have them up and running. And now you can add visual voicemail to the list. Pathetic.
And something else that’s not talked about nearly enough is that the newest iPhone, the 3GS, is built to handle data download rates twice that of older iPhones. But it doesn’t. Why? Because AT&T’s network isn’t yet equipped to handle it. And won’t be for most places until 2011. There will likely be two more versions of the iPhone by then.
And even where AT&T is testing the new faster network, in Chicago, there is apparently no data transfer speed difference, tests performed by Gizmodo have confirmed. Again, nice job AT&T.
As someone who writes about the iPhone a lot, I often get asked by people if I think they should get one now or wait to see if it ever gets on another carrier. That answer becomes easier everyday: If you can, wait.
As great as the iPhone is as a mobile computing device, it is still first and foremost a phone. But with AT&T’s shortcomings, it has basically turned the iPhone into an iPod touch. So why not just buy one of those? After all, you can get much of the actual working functionality, without having to pay a high monthly bill.
AT&T’s exclusive deal with Apple is set to expire next year, and they’re trying to extend it right now. I will say right now that if Apple does re-up with AT&T it will easily be one of the most disappointing things it has ever done. And I think ultimately that would prove to be a huge blunder from a business perspective.
I understand why Apple went exclusively with AT&T at first (though it had first offered the device to Verizon, which turned it down) — it got a pretty sweet deal, and was able to use it to put it in a position of power over the entire industry. And I even understand why they re-upped the first time — to get an even sweeter deal (the subsidy from AT&T for each phone sold). But now AT&T is a liability for Apple that will inhibit its huge potential for growth in the U.S.
Apple no longer needs AT&T. Thanks to its huge success, it can dictate its own terms to other carriers now, and ensure it controls the iPhone ecosystem — its top priority. Verizon, as the nation’s largest carrier, is likely to give it the most resistance. But that resistance is futile. The iPhone will eventually be on Verizon, on Apple’s terms. It’s just a question of when.
If that’s by the end of next year, many of us will be happy campers. I don’t care what I have to pay to break an AT&T contract, I will do so in a heartbeat.
If it’s not next year, will I consider switching carriers and getting another phone? Yes. As I indicated, I’d be happy carrying around an iPod touch and having some other phone — even a crappy one — that actually works. Or more likely, I’ll just unlock the iPhone and use it on another carrier. At this point, I don’t care how much that costs, I just want a working phone.
But I don’t think I’ll have to do that. Because I truly believe that Apple has to know that it needs to expand its carrier roster in the U.S. to continue growth. And if I were a betting man, I would bet on that happening next year.
Let’s all do what we can to ensure that happens — to ensure Apple gets the message. Every time there is one of these ridiculous AT&T failures, tweet about it, blog about it, write Apple about it, or scream about it. Do whatever you can, but don’t just sit there and take it any more.
It’s time to send a message, since AT&T can’t provide us with ours with any sort of reliability.
Update: The plot thickens (gets worse for AT&T)… From Molly Wood on Twitter:
AT&T CS told me today there’s been a 3G outage in CA for DAYS. Shouldn’t I get a “free text” about THAT?
Yes, I think we all should have.
Update 2: AT&T has written me expressing their concern over the problems and the overall reaction to this story. They say they are looking into the reports of issues and are going over the tweets/comments. On the widespread CA 3G outage mentioned above, my contact says that he, “checked with network officials in SF and nationally and we know of no 3G issues like that mentioned in the tweet.” That seems to suggest that customer service and AT&T proper aren’t on the same page — something which is absolutely no surprise.
And naturally, reports of issues are still rolling in. Here are two that highlight the problem from both a personal life and business life perspective:
Can’t say it better than this:
Agree.
Count me in! The moment the iPhone goes to Verizon I’m canceling with AT&T.
THEY SUCK!!
Count me in! The moment the iPhone goes to Verizon or any other carrier for that matter. I’ll finally by an iPhone.
AT&T killed the efforts that Cingular was attempting to establish, and I left AT&T to go with Cingular and was a happy Cingular customer for 7 years. It was like a cancer in remission for 7 years, and then it came back, just couldn’t get away from them, so I cut them out just after the merger.
Huge Apple fan, but disappointed that I have chosen not to adopted their most ingenious communication tool ever because of a 3rd party relationship. AT&T is flat horrible, and hopefully Apple is listening to their users vs. what AT&T is trying to spin for the sake of a bottom line.
Cingular was the one that bought AT&T then changed it’s name to AT&T.
actually, cingular was owned by sbc and bellsouth. sbc bought at&t and adopted the name, them bought bellsouth giving them complete control over cingular and changing cingulars name as well.
This John person is right about that.
As soon as AT&T and Apple renew their contract, I’m buying another iPhone.
it is not AT & T, it’s iPhone that SUCKS!
Try AT & T with ANY Other phone… you will see the difference!
Cingular bought AT&T (uppercase) Wireless, which was a different company from the current at&t (all lowercase). at&t (lowercase) is the result of a merger of SBC and BellSouth, who purchased Cingular’s wireless services and rebranded it under the at&t (lowercase) logo. It’s all ridiculously confusing, I admit.
As I remember it it went like this:
SBC owned Cingular jointly with Bell South. Cingular wanted to buy AT&T Wireless. They screwed up in the purchase, getting the network and customers, but not the name, which was a good part of their want. That name had cache then as being a good provider. AT&T then planned to rollout service under the AT&T Wireless name, leasing a network from another carrier. SBC then bought AT&T entirely, then later bought Bell South. IIRC, this brought the old AT&T another $6BB on their sale, which is pretty damn good on their part.
It really doesn’t matter, because SBC used to be AT&T. So no matter who bought who and when, they were ALL AT&T at one point not too long ago.
The real point is, no matter who owned who, what network they’re on, and where they’re going in the next few years – AT&T SUCKS RIGHT NOW. And right now is what matters. They aren’t going to get better over night. By the time their network upgrades go live, they’ll still be behind everyone else who move with the times.
Apple really needs to just leave AT&T behind. BUT, only if they’re going to open up the iPhone to MORE THAN ONE CARRIER. Another exclusive contract will effectively put us right where we are now.
The iPhone needs to have competing carriers to help push the contract prices down and the network quality up.
This is really bad on AT&T’s part. The company has been flooded with complaints and they are proving to be inefficient time and again. Above all, all this AT&T crap spoils the iPhone. I wonder why I should possess the iPhone with such a bad carrier. Sure, like MG, I would pay through my nose to get out of AT&T. Apple, are you listening?
Looks like another forum for complainers rather than anything constructive. Verizon just done have a lineup of devices that are compelling. Whats more, everyone I know is getting an iphone. Blackberry just lack functionality unless you are dealing only with corporate email.
Bellsouth was the best compnay around they had the best wireless best dsl and service, ATT had to come and screw up Bellsouth. Bellsouth had enough money to buy out ATT but the reverse happened, and now ATT is taking American jobs awaay and sending them overseas again
Talk about a big scam they need to be deregulated again and let cingular and Bellsouth come back
THEY AREN’T SO HA!
Techcrunch should reverse the posting order of comments so that the most recent show up at the top. Check out TED.
It’s more fun. It democratizes commenting. Everybody gets a little airtime. The way it is now, on highly commented blogs, the first comments get all the attention and the end comments get no attention. It’s like going to the cafeteria and the first guy gets all the food while the rest just get to watch.
On low commented blogs it’s not relevant. On highly commented blogs it’s clearly a violation of the Second Amendment.
Let the revolution begin. Tweeter “appleFIREatt”.
Help spread the word. Apple needs to know how unhappy we are with att.
iPhone—go with Verizon!!! The customer service is WAY better!!! The network isn’t too shabby either!! AT&T has rotten customer service, too many dead zones……. blah, blah, blah….. I would not leave Verizon for AT&T even if they had a phone that would wipe my butt.
I wouldn’t praise Verizon customer service until you’ve had a problem you needed them to resolve. Verizon has brought me to literal tears trying to get them to stop sending me bills for a service I never had. I had to call them every month for six months before it finally went away.
Face it, a telecom is a telecom when it comes to service… meaning no matter who is on your bill, if you have a problem with it, you’re going to talk to a machine, then to a person who doesn’t care and will most likely transfer you to someone else. Your call will get dropped and you will have to start over again. You’ll spend about 40 minutes on the phone and never really get the sense that anything was accomplished.
You guys should try T-mobile! I have been a proud customer of them for almost 8 years! (Since they were VoiceStream). They ahve EXCELLENT US-Based Customer suport that beleives THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT!! They even ahve a department dedicated to servicing UNLOCKIED handsets that they don’t even sell *cough* iPhone *cough* I am a porud use of the 2G iPhone on T-Mobile USA, and it runs circles around my friend’s on AT&T!
LOL!!!!!!! Remember the Verizon customer support person who wouldn’t help a sheriff locate a dying man because he was $20 behind on his bill?
Classic!
http://www.time...-11-hour-search
vote with your $$$. If you don’t like it, cancel now or stop complaining.
Count me in! The moment the iPhone goes to Verizon I’m canceling with AT&T.
THEY SUCK!!
Daniel McNeely hit the nail on the head. I was starting to think that I really wanted the iphone. But I did not want to deal with ATT. I have been with Verizon for almost 5 years and did not want to switch to ATT. So right on!!!! Thanks Daniel!
Iphone is a hunk of shit, get a blackberry. Been through them all for years and ATT has been the most consistent service but as cool as the apps for the iphone are its still just a glorified ipod….not a worthy phone. Maybe this rant should be redirected to “Iphones are a steaming heap of failure”.
Nah, your post is a heap of failure.
burn
Agreed. My BlackBerry works excellently on AT&T. Maybe these people need to get actual phones, and stop using those toys.
What does Visual Voicemail, poor reception, and 3G outages have anything to do with just iPhones, you toolbags? Other than the fact that 2 out of 3 of those work better on iPhone?
Perhaps the fact that the other issues mentioned are directly related to the iPhone, such as lack of tethering and MMS.
As it stands, I would have to say that both the iPhone and AT&T suck equally…
Thank You Allen! BlackBerry FTW
Unfortunately for your “theory” there are markets for cell phones beyond the US market. People in those markets are not burdened with the company that calls itself AT&T (of course it is not AT& T but rather an impostor that bought the name to pretend they are something other than the carpetbaggers that they are). Have you heard the widespread expressions of pain and disappointment from users of carriers in other markets? I haven’t.
Personally I’m quite satisfied with an iPod touch until Apple rids itself of the massive failure that is AT&T. If a Blackberry satisfies your needs then good for you. But for many of us the data network is far more important than the legacy voice network (look at the measured bandwidth usage for objective data about this topic and the iPhone). For that market the iPhone and its imitators are the first handheld devices that are seriously worth consideration.
Nah, the big problem is the iPhone’s success. AT&T (in its desperation to get the iPhone) signed a crappy deal with Apple in which each new iPhone subscriber doesn’t supply enough revenue to them to upgrade their 3G network. If you want to know why your service is so sparse, think about how cheaply you purchased your iPhone in the first place. They are upgrading their network, but it takes time…
On another note: All of those countries where service is super fast have government subsidized cell phone infrastructure, which allows the carriers to ease their cost burden. Plus, they are all small, dense countries… In general, putting up 3G towers anywhere in the US doesn’t offer as much return on investment because of how spread out our fat suburban asses are. Apple ass raped AT&T in the exclusivity deal… thats why Verizon said “no thanks”…
iPhone is a great toy… I’ll stick with my qwerty Nokia until this crap blows over.
I have never owned a Blackberry, but everyone I’ve ever known to have owned one has had severe issues with it – like lagging opening screens/applications, center track ball sticking, falling out, or losing sensitivity, or the case just straight up cracking and falling off, buttons sticking… navigating is anything but intuitive, actually it’s a pain in the ass, the keyboard is a pain in the ass….
I haven’t had any issues with service. My only bitch about AT&T is that they kept saying they’d have 3G in Alaska by whatever time and it didn’t come til ages later, but it’s finally up there…. in time for me to have left! Visual voicemail IS a little quirky at times, and I was getting a lot of dropped calls in AK… but customer service has always been good to me, refunding charges etc.
It’s not just AT&T that makes the iphone suck. It’s a pretty UI and all but you’re locked into an Apple environment where people have to write apps just to get around the fact that the web browser and OS don’t do a lot of things.
Read more about the failings of the iphone. Especially if you’re considering one:
http://www.iphonessuck.com/
Kay,
“an Apple environment where people have to write apps just to get around the fact that the web browser and OS don’t do a lot of things.”
WTF?
You’re new to IT and tech aren’t you..??
Ever tried using windows on a phone?
Yeah, if you actually know what you’re doing you can do just about anything with that OS that you can do with a desktop.
Ever try to alt + tab between apps on your iphone?
IMHO, I’d have to agree here. I’ve been using AT&T (and prior to the name change, Cingular) for about 5 years. I’ve gone through 3 phones, and had no problems. I’ve also traveled extensively across the US and never had a problem elsewhere.
Meanwhile, I’ve noticed friends with iPhones facing similar problems.
You and other people that post comments like you miss the point. We are not talking about other phones, we are talking about a phone that uses the network more intensively. So we are complaining about the fact that other carriers in other countries that have the iphone are not experiencing the same problems (in case you didn’t make the connection, that means that it is at&t’s fault).
Way to miss the point.
so other smartphones use the network less intensively?
I average 10-15gb a month in data usage on my tilt…
The BlackBerry is nothing compared to the IPhone. YOU MUST BE JOKING!
You’re right, Blackberrys work…
In the late 90s Pacific Bell was laying fiber-optic cable in my neighborhood in San Jose so we could have world class high speed internet. Then AT&T bought them out. The fiber project was canceled. AT&T had the fiber dug up and removed to make sure nobody could ever use it. Later on AT&T execs were quoted as saying they would roll DSL out slowly because they didn’t think there was a demand for it.
well I don’t have an iPhone & probably on’t anytime soon….BUT I have noticed in the past few months I have had poor reception, losing txts, missing calls, etc.
i was happy with cingular & was disappointed when they sold to att.
I even remember asking my husband “how long do you think it will take for att to screw this up.”
it took a little longer than i thought, but i knew it would happen eventually.
I think you’ve got it wrong.
As I remember it it went like this:
SBC owned Cingular jointly with Bell South. Cingular wanted to buy AT&T Wireless. They screwed up in the purchase, getting the network and customers, but not the name, which was a good part of their want. That name had cache then as being a good provider. AT&T then planned to rollout service under the AT&T Wireless name, leasing a network from another carrier. SBC then bought AT&T entirely, then later bought Bell South. IIRC, this brought the old AT&T another $6BB on their sale, which is pretty damn good on their part.
Going to search for the details. However, the execs of your beloved Cingular are the same ones that are here for this debacle.
Check AT&T and AT&T Wireless wikipedia pages for details.
I have been complaining about this problem for almost a year now. I am in nyc and I would get att voicemail days late and forget about out text msg.
I am in Manhattan as well, the service is beyond abysmal. My iphone is basically useless. Before the iphone I had a blackberry bold, service sucked then as well. I called AT&T repeatedly, they could care less. How bad, how is this, if I want to make a call I have to call it 50 times to get it to go through 1 time, the rest are call failed, on both the ipone and the bold. Gets worse, once I had a connection the call would be dropped within 5-10 minutes. I say class action lawsuit.
Ditto for Queens. I live in one of the apartments across the east river from the UN. After dozens of conversations with different AT&T people asking the same questions (have you turned off and on the phone every day, replaced your SIM card, poured the blood of a freshly killed chicken over the screen, etc), someone finally admitted that the tower that I was locking on to was in Manhattan. Which made perfect sense, because I had been getting far better service when it was extremely cloudy!
Class action lawsuit does sound pretty attractive at this point.
Ditto Brooklyn. I thought it was just me–or so AT&T would have me believe…
Disagree. The iPhone is a GSM phone so it has the capability to work worldwide without many hassles. Sure, the roaming rates can suck, but at least I have service. Verizon, unless you get one of their World Edition phones, will only work in the US.
I’ve had no major problems with ATT in the past 8 years that I’ve been with them.
And as a current Best Buy Mobile employee, I can safely say that of the 4 different contract carriers I have in my store, I would choose ATT any day.
Completely agree. When someone has a specific problem they look on the internet, find other people with specific problems, and call it an epidemic.
Not surprised by this article though. Standard TechCrunch garbage.
I agree too. AT&T works fine on my phone. No dropped calls, always sends my texts and I always get my voicemail’s. I would never switch to another network.
“AT&T is a Big (fill in blank),” is trending now on Twitter.
Make sure you Twitter what you think AT&T is a Big _________ . Get our voices heard even louder, have fun with this and let’s keep this trending!
I want to take my device and use it on whatever network, as well utilize any application!!! The wireless industry needs to be regulated!
Generally the service rankings are conceded to be
1. VERIZON
2. T-Mobile
3. At&T
4. Sprint/Nextel
I’m realatively happy with the GPhone and Price through T-Mobile in Boston – not perfect but no major probelms and not as bad as other carriers I’ve had – particularly Sprint/Nextel which should have been run out of business a long time ago
AT&T was good before cingular bought them and screwed everything up. I have been with Sprint since then and have never had a single problem. I’m surprised by all the hype about how bad Sprint is… in my experience, it has been great. I recently got the Palm Pre and it is awesome. In terms of speeds, the pre is way better than what you get on at&t’s “3g” network. at&t 3g is a joke.
Totally agree… I’ve had Sprint for 10 years and never have problems. I’m always mystefied when people complain about Sprint because I travel all over the country and have a consistently good experience with Sprint. We even have Sprint data cards for our laptops here at work (for use while traveling) and they are awesome — faster speeds that our in-office wifi network!
I guess the one thing I will say about Sprint is that their customer service leaves something to be desired. I’ve been with them for a long time, so it’s hard for me to compare to other carriers’ customer service, but I have to believe Sprint has plenty of room for improvement. Thankfully, I only have to call them once every other year for the occasional billing issue.
(BTW, I have no relationship with Sprint, just a happy customer.)
AT&T was charging me roaming charges in Ohio. Only problem was however, that I was in harrisburg at the time they charged me. They had me roaming in places that were never roaming before, and out of four AT&T phones in the house, I was the only one with the problem. Nobody ever wanted to do anything at all. All I ever got from them was that I was wrong and they were right.
The best part, my phone didn’t display a roaming indicator when I was receiving a call, so I couldn’t tell if I was going to be roaming or not.
I will never go back to them. Ever.
Didn’t know, people hated AT&T so much.
Meee too! I actually just wrote a blog post about my latest experience with AT&T customer service. They added a new policy last month which comes with a new $36 “Sponsorship Fee” whenever u add an FAN number to your account. Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://plzkthxb...tinues-to-suck/
the iphone sucks. get a life people. you don’t need all this crap on a phone. use your phone to call people and leave it at that. being ‘connected’ all the time is entirely overrated – I can say that because I’m on call 24×7 and the first thing I want to do when I go on vacation is turn off my phone and disconnect. serves you and your twittering nonsense bullshit life right. fuck the iphone. pussies.
It turns out that the iPhone downloads voicemail messages over its 3G (or 2G) data connection, but not over WiFi, per http://arstechn...-the-iphone.ars
Viva this article! Fuck AT&T. I live in Michigan and last Saturday I went to the MSU vs. UM football game–the state’s biggest college rivals. I could not receive or make calls OR texts ALL FUCKING DAY. I had 10 family members in town and could never get a hold of them. Another friend who has the iPhone said this happens EVERY Saturday game day. It took everything inside me not to PUNT the POS across the room. AT&T ALWAYS drops calls.
Direct access to your voicemail (on an iPhone): press and hold “1″ on your number-dial keypad.
Yep. Got it now, after a bunch of helpful tweet responses. Of course, I had no idea that I wasn’t getting any voicemails for 2 weeks, so I had no idea to even manually call the number. FAIL.
It’s the same on most GSM carriers in most countries, Mr. ‘researcher’. And it had been this way for at least 10 years, because it’s one of the features of GSM EQUIPMENT.
Hey, TechCrunch, where did you find this newborn?
^ go flame somewhere else.
You’re so right. Because we work for a technology blog we should know every shortcut and keystroke. How did I not know that?
If you claim to work for a tech blog, and don’t know that holding ‘1′ is the Voicemail shortcut, you should find another hobby.
1? I have to press *86
So, not every one has that shortcut.
Regardless, the article is about AT&T sucking. I doubt very much MG needs to know to press 1 to get his voicemail to comprehend that AT&T has some very shitty service.
I too remember *86 from the Verizon days. I didn’t know “1″ because the main point of Visual Voicemail is not having to use it.
MG, Timmy and HOW:
I see that you are clearly missing Alex’s point.
Alex clearly mentioned the feature in GSM phones. I have always had GSM phones and it has always been 1 for voicemail. If you have switched from CDMA to GSM, it is not his fault.
I think the 1 for voicemail, or “call your own number” has been well established for some time. Did you also know that if you hit CTRL+C at the same time, you can copy stuff?
I think I’ve found the only, living, AT&T fanboy in you, Alex.
It is NOT the same with GSM carries elsewhere. In my experince it is not the same with a GSM carrier ANYWHERE other than AT&T. I have carried my iPhone nearly a million miles in the past three years, Asia, Europe, Australia, South America, and the US, and I have never encountered anywhere, even in the Gobi desert of China, which even approaches the atrocious thing AT&T calls “service”. Do you know my phone actually works in my home in China? And in the parking garage downstairs. and in every elevator and subway tunnel I have been in? Every- and i stress “every” place in the world has better GSM service that does the Bay area and most of the US for that matter.That is the RF service….bars….. that does not count the so-called “customer service” or the issues like being down for two weeks. I have never ever encountered this anywhere else in the world.
he’s talking about ‘1′ for voicemail. It’s been like that for T-mo and ATT for ever.
I never noticed any feature like that. In Hong Kong and mainland China I pressed *83 or *86 or something. In the US I might have pressed 1 (T-Mobile). But I hardly ever use voice-mail. Voice-mail sucks. Who cares if someone knows the shortcut. Do you know the shortcut to skip to the end of the line in OS X? (ctrl-E I think) Who cares? Do you work for AT&T?
Um, that’s been a standard feature on every phone I’ve owned since about 1997. Seriously dude, this is hardly an obscure feature. There are these things grown-ups use called ‘quick start guides’. You should really check one out.
How often do you actually POWER OFF your phone? Even if there are no outages, this could happen with any phone. Turn it COMPLETELY off for about 5 minutes, once a week, let it re-register with the network! It will improve text and voicemail reliability.
You’d be surprised at how many people never power cycle their phones regularly…
Wait, you use a phone for work but don’t check your voicemail on a regular basis? And run a tech blog wtihout reading things like instruction manuals? Ow.
You can also just call your own number from your phone. Same result. And that’s consistent with all carriers.
It is nice for some people in Canada, I can just buy one of those unloved(so many its cheap) iPhones on eBay and unlock them : D
As a happy customer of Verizon (they are expensive but my phone works everywhere), I look forward to getting the iPhone on their network
As a formerly happy Verizon customer (though I hate their phones), as am I.
As a former Verizon client, I look forward to the day when I can pay premium prices for premium service.
I look forward to a day when cell phone service is as cheap as the ones in Asia due to fierce competition!
I look forward to the day when mobile service is as cheap as the ones in Asia due to fierce competition!
Thats true, the price is crazy cheap in Asia. I lived in the Thailand and I paid about $0.02 a minute or sometimes even as low as $0.007. I live in Australia now and seriously miss the cheap mobile service of Thailand. (Although living in Thailand does come with its disadvantages like no 3G because the government agencies are just controlling every mobile phone carrier and are f**ked up) I was on the country’s second largest carrier and it’s funny how they are the only carrier in Thailand now that have not received the rights from government agencies to develop a 3G network (even though they explicitly expressed strong interest). Part of why the prices for calls are so cheap: the carriers can only compete on one thing, call rates.
I look forward to the day double postings will be gone…
I left Verizon two years before the iPhone arrived because they would not support a cell card for my PowerBook. The EDGE card worked, but was never as fast as the CDMA version.
Should Verizon allow the app store, and Apple produces a version for the network, I’m gone. Good luck ATT!
As a current Verizon customer, I sincerely hope the iPhone does not come to VZW. I like my uncongested network, and drop-free calls. I like my blazingly fast mobile data connection.
Most of all, I like not having the type of people who would buy an iPhone on my network.
LMAO I AGREE!
Yes, let’s stereotype all iPhones users. Are you 12?
“The type of people who would buy an iPhone.”
So I guess you’re the type of person who thinks you can reduce a personality to their choice of mobile phone.
Seek maturity.
Another HAPPY Verizon customer here. My phone (an LG Dare) works EVERYWHERE. I can count on one finger the number of times my phone has dropped a call in the past two years. That’s right: one dropped call in two years. And I was out in the boondocks when it happened, under a metal roof.
I will never, ever buy an iPhone unless it is with Verizon. AT&T has had a coverage gap the size of 10 square blocks within city limits here for years, and they do nothing about it. My inlaws just paid hundreds of dollars just so they could get away from the steaming heap of failure that is AT&T before their contract was up. It’s that bad.
I really hope Apple wises up. And soon.
Can you somehow please get this article to the president of at&t and have him respond candidly and honestly without and corporate bullsh*t, legalese or double-speak? Also, ask him when they will officially change their stock symbol to FAIL.
Just keep pointing out problems and eventually they’ll hear us.
I work closely with the AT&T Mobility guys and I assure you that this will get sent up to Stankey (COO) and Stephenson (CEO). They’re conscious this stuff is getting said about them and they want it to stop. The best way to get it to stop is fix the network.
You stopped all of the sudden.
It should be continued this way: In order to fix the network you need to start WORKING instead of making laughable and ridiculous monopolistic deals just because you can get away with it.
I work closely with the AT&T Mobility guys and I assure you that this will get sent up to Stankey (COO) and Stephenson (CEO).
Well that and $4 might get you a cup of coffee. They’ve had 2 years to fix this and service is worse than ever.
I can’t wait till this exclusivity deal ends and carriers have to start competing on the fastest download speeds.
These are the same jackasses that named John Donovan, a sales guy, as CTO.
When push comes to shove, when the next iPhone 4GXi comes out, AT&T service will still be crap, the phone/service will still be overpriced, and the people complaining now will have purchased it anyway and continue to complain.
I’m in the process now of writing a letter to the corporate office because I’ve completely had it. I was told by 2 ATT workers (1 at call center and 1 at my local corporate retail location) that 4 towers around my home has been down since August 20th. I cannot call out nor receive calls, cannot text and when someone text me or leave vm I get the alert hours later. #1 I’m a real estate agent and my clients cannot get hold to me because I have a home office. I literally have to get in my car and drive .5 miles, park and conduct business in my car. #2 I have a sick mother 8hrs away and I can’t get in touch with her. I was told that only certain phones are receiving service…I don’t have an Iphone but it is 3G yet the Iphone work in my home. I’m due to upgrade in 2 mths and ATT refuse to allow me to upgrade early to a phone they we know is working in my area because Apple restrictions. The supervisor never apologized he was too busy trying to convenience me that the other 2 ATT employees lied to me and all the towers around me are working fine saying “its your phone”…no stupid its your NETWORK. I repeatedly told him that my phone works fine once I leave the area. EXPLAIN THAT. ATT may have a serious lawsuit on there hands if I start losing business or something happens to my mother and I cannot call out. And you know if I cancel my contract they won’t waive the disc fee.
Verizon sucks because every phone they offer is locked and running the same basic O/S. Plus they don’t budge for credits and their service is expensive.
AT&T sucks because their expensive and their network isn’t as strong as they say it is, nor is 3G widely available.
T-Mobile sucks because they pretty much have no 3G anywhere and service is spotty in a lot of areas.
Sprint sucks because their customer service is horrible and everyone says their network is crap.
Nextel sucks because their customer service sucks, their equipment is out dated and over priced and their coverage is spotty.
Let’s get over the carrier rants. Go to any forum and theres always somebody that says something sucks about each one of the major carriers.
I agree that Verizon’s phone generally suck, and the OS they force on many of those phones is laughably bad, but the network is so much better than AT&Ts.
All carriers have their faults, but their jobs are first and foremost to offer phone service, which Verizon does the best by most accounts.
Did you ever consider that this is why their network is better? Because they dictate certain things such as the OS and the phones?
Naaa… it’s tower coverage. They own the block.
Not everywhere. VZW had poor existence in the southern midwest until they acquired Alltel. Now they are doing better here.
Exactly… it’s partially their superior towers but it’s mainly that they have so much control over their phones.
Apple was the first to ever take full control of phone development as a phone manufacturer. They were looking for someone who would let them and AT&T was the only one to accept. If Verizon had accepted, they might have had a similar problem as well. Before the iPhone, AT&T didn’t have these same problems.
I am NOT saying that the iPhone is to blame. It’s the fact that being an exclusive carrier for the worlds most advanced phones is a HUGE responsibility. One in which AT&T failed at. Their are many things that AT&T should have done that they didn’t that could have helped avoid some of these problems. With Verizon, these problems would probably have happened, but dealt with better.
Going with MG’s example, I am sure Verizon would have sent out a text informing iPhone users about the visual voicemail issue.
“Before the iPhone, AT&T didn’t have these same problems.”
Even though I agree with at least the majority of what’s been said, I have to disagree with this. The problems started for me as soon as Cingular became AT&T. But, with the advent of the iPhone 3G, (shortly before it, actually, in preparation for) most of the problems in my area actually got much better. It’s still by far the best option in my area, iPhone or not. No other carrier has as uniformly dependable coverage in the area. The only places AT&T cuts out since the 3G upgrade is waaaaay out in the country where hardly anyone goes.
Yes, there are new problems with the iPhone and its drain on systems. And no, I’m not defending AT&T, they have a -lot- of issues and I’m as upset as anyone else at some of the BS they’ve pulled since this spring. But they aren’t the devil, they’re just a huge company trying to do its best by as big a majority of their customers they can; those that fall outside the majority unfortunately get stomped on. And unfortunately, I don’t think the iPhone users qualify as the majority of their customers. Of the 30-40 people I know that use AT&T, only 4-5 have iPhones.
I beg to differ, and would have to say, each carrier is strong in some places, weak in others. I had Verizon in my area and could not wait for the 2 years to be up, cancelled the service it sucked so bad where I am. Couldn’t get or make a call anywhere in my house. I switched to AT&T and have never missed a call, never had a call dropped (Verizon dropped calls constantly) and never have any voice mail issues.
Granted, I am not using an i-Phone, have been holding off on that, but the Motorola (MOTO) phone I have has performed flawlessly, and so has AT&T… I have had Sprint, and they were better than Verizon, but not as reliable as AT&T has been in my area.
So, it’s pretty obvious, each carrier has its faults and each one has its positives. I could write the same article you did about Verizon where I am (and was very tempted to do so, but though, what’s the use, it’s not going to change).
Rants and raves will go on as long as there are different carriers, of that I’m sure.
Totally agree! I’ve tried T-Mobile and Verizon, both suuuucked for the two main areas I travel – and where I live. I switched to AT&T and haven’t had a SINGLE problem. The iPhone totally ROCKS on AT&T! You guys that are having problems just need to move to a different area.
Verizon’s network is still functional because they don’t let any powerful handsets onto it? What happens when Verizon’s network gets overloaded by iPhone traffic also? Two years from now people will be screaming at them same as what AT&T’s suffering today.
This is very true.
Verizon has lots of handsets, but generally from users who don’t utilize their phones very often.
IIRC most corporate plans are with AT&T and, T-Mobile, and Sprint thanks to their relentless discounts to woo corporations several years ago. VZW didn’t make much effort. They also have the advantage of being useful in Europe, a giant dead zone to VZW… making it even more attractive to business.
Verizon gets by because their network gets such little usage per cell phone.
If Verizon were to get the iPhone and keep up the quality of service they would need to charge nearly double AT&T to have any hope of keeping their network up. I’m not sure how many would pay $50+ data and still not have 100% european roaming.
Load of sh@$ that Verizon doesn’t get any high usage… They have more customers than ATT&T and smartphones to boot like the LG’s, Blackberry’s and Samsung’s. These smartphones use data just like the Iphone. You’re argument is flawed.
Seriously I’m glad you can state your case about how you feel, but if you’re going to make claims like that then you really need to get some facts! The Storm, and other smartphones are extremely popular on Verizon. Maybe they aren’t as ubiquitous as the iphone on at&t but to say that people like to pay higher than average rates for a service that they don’t use is crazy.
in two years they will be offering 4G (LTE) and many of these complaints will be null!
Isnt sprint already offering it in Baltimore? (or thats what they claim)
Well you tell Verizon to make their commercials true and I’ll consider switching to them. I have to have AT&T here as it is the only cell carrier that works in my small town. I would LOVE to change to Verizon but I get NO SERVICE in and around my house and there are “Dead Zones” everywhere around here! Kind of sucks cuz before moving here I had them as my cell carrier!
The SMART PHONES do NOT have the VCAST on them I any way….I know as my Blackberry is completely free of it
There’s actually a website you can go to. It doesn’t have the complete lineup that VCast has, but it has a lot last I checked.
I’m actually scared of Verizon though- The Razor could do tethering just not with Verizon’s OS.
I’m actually happy with my iphone 3g other than not being able to get voicemail, all the call drops, no mms, sorta no tethering and the expensive price….so yeah i like my $100/mo Ipod/alarm clock.
Verizon has excellent coverage. I have had zero problems nationwide in 8 years. The phones and OS have sucked. However, I have stuck with LG, and the new EnV Touch is a vast improvement. And there are always Blackberrys. I just prefer a large keyboard.
I agree all carriers suck they have some flaw about them in one way or another. I’ve been with cingular & moved over to at&t when they got bought out. I have the iphone and I have no problems with my phone, I hear soooo many people complain about their phone yet I haven’t had one problem even when I’m in the country at my gma’s house I still get good coverage and can roam the internet however when I had the lg vu my phone was a heap of crap ! but i HIGHLY doubt apple will go to anybody else other then AT&T.
What a great country, where mobile “service” providers can look down their arses at the very customers who make their jobs possible, and still make gobs of money.
I do feel sorry for the CSRs who are just doing what they’re told to do, but I’m not sure how the product managers, sales managers, accountants, C-levels et al can sleep at night.
Just some facts. Not that I’m jumping to AT&T aid here, but the activation fiasco last year was an iTunes failure, not AT&T. I can say my service has been fine, the voicemail thing barely affects me because I stay in contact, not through voicemail, but through email mostly. I don’t think I would go Verizon because frankly, I like having my unused minutes rolled over. And what makes you assume Apple isn’t already dictating the terms. Do we know SMS isn’t available because Apple wants them to change how it is handled? They dictated visual voicemail. Just food for thought. Nothing says that Verizon could handle the excess traffic either.
I’m not going to go into all of this, because most have been addressed ad-naseum elsewhere, but I will correct one part: It’s not an SMS problem, it’s MMS. And here’s apparently the reason, which is again laughable on AT&T’s part:
http://www.boyg...il-late-summer/
Just misspoke, I meant MMS.
Also to point out again, to access voicemail directly, press and hold 1. Read the FAQ people.
I agree with MG that it’s pretty much widespread knowledge that AT&T is to blame.
However, you do bring up a good point. AT&T has a bad MMS policy. This part is their fault. But, because of this, Apple has probably demanded that they change their policy which is the explanation behind the MMS delay. Currently, MMS is more expensive than SMS. However, AT&T has noted that when MMS is available for the iPhone, it will be treated the same way as a text message.
So, it could partly be Apple’s dictation to blame for the delay, but in the big picture, we have Apple to thank for reshaping some of their messed up policies.
Sounds like another case of the very vocal minority. I haven’t had any problems whatsoever with my iPhone, even visual voicemail. (Who does voicemail nowadays, anyway?) My signal strength is perfect in the major Los Angeles area. Let’s just bitch and complain about AT&T when we know little to nothing about the time and resources required to make adequate network adjustments to accommodate an extremely data-intensive user base. I guess if the iPhone was on Verizon first, these issues would be NON-EXISTENT, right?
iPhone on Verizon? CDMA? As if Apple will go through the trouble of licensing with Qualcomm and engineering CDMA phones just so a tiny group of users (compared to the global iPhone market) can have it, too.
someone works for AT&T lol. yeah, not the minority, definitely the majority. It’s basically the worse service out there, second only to sprint.
iPhone on AT&T totally ROCKS where I travel and live.
“Tiny group of users?” Are you serious? You think Verizon customers are a “tiny” group of users; based on that revelation alone, I’m tempted to discount every other word you typed in your tirade against AT&T naysayers.
The second iPhone is on Verizon, I’m buying one. And I can count at LEAST two dozen friends of mine who are in the exact same boat. For that very reason, several of them are even counting down the months until the exclusive contract’s expiration. Simply put, Verizon is more reliable, more customer-friendly, and more practical, and we would sacrifice the pleasure of owning an iPhone before we would sacrifice the convenience and ease we have experienced as Verizon patrons.
Not to mention the fact that so many people are on Verizon that it’s impossible for me to go over my minutes, if I’m calling the mobiles of my friends and family.
In sum: yes, it would be considerably lucrative for Apple to open up the iPhone to Verizon.
verizon is more reliable = YES
customer-friendly = NO THIS IS A JOKE, I have had many, many instances where customer service is near useless.
practical = if you ware willing to get a basic phone and overpay or get a high end phone and still overpay
verizon will nickel and dime your monthly bill until you get so tired that you just mentally think its a VERIZON TAX or MAFIA protection.
I am switching to sprint.
Yes, TINY GROUP OF USERS. Think of how many tens of millions of iPhone users there are worldwide. You think the Verizon customers who want an iPhone are a substantial group compared to the global users? HAHAHA.
Verizon had 86.6 million users as of March 2009.
http://news.vzw...2009-04-27.html
Lifetime iPhone + iPod touch (which isn’t a phone) sales COMBINED is 37 million. Probably 10-15 million of those are iPod touch, not iPhone.
http://www.macw...touchsales.html
Found on a 5 minute Google search BTW.
@Matt
And? Not everyone on Verizon would want an iPhone. Just because Verizon has 86.6 million users doesn’t mean they’re all going to get iPhones. AT&T has about 84 million users and only a tiny chunk of them have iPhones. Guess what? Your 5 minute Google search proves nothing. Those were numbers I already knew.
And how many of the 86 million are from Alltell, who are basic voice phone users? Numbers mean nothing dude.
You understand that Apple approached Verizon first, right? Meaning that they decided that this tiny chunk of users was more worth while than AT&T’s.
Not gonna happen
Actually, Verizon users know the phones suck, but choose the NETWORK anyway, because call quality is more important than baby-shaking and boob-jiggling apps.
So yes, on Verizon, a minority of people would buy the iPhone.
BTW, all smartphones released after June 2009 on Verizon will be fully unlocked (i.e, the Saga, Omnia HD, and HTC Ozone): Wifi, GPS, Bluetooth, everything.
Just so yall know. If they do decide to go with Verizon the iPhone will probably be LTE and not CDMA.
Good point. I just don’t think LTE will be deployed by next year. O_o
I don’t know about the minority.
I’m seeing similar issues as well but I wasn’t sure if it was AT&T or the iPhone. At first I thought it was because my house tends to get bad reception. But now that I’m reading this, I see it’s not just me. My situations weren’t as bad though. I’m just noticing vmails that are several days old (not weeks).
Actually, if there were a CDMA version of the iPhone and it was a quad-band phone then it would work in your more popular areas of Europe and most of Asia. ATT’s 3G network is only in major cities where ATT owns there transmitters. ATT doesn’t own most of their network. That means it will take them much long to deploy LTE across the national. Currently ATT towers can’t handle much load due to their backbone infrastructure not there cell technology. They can put LTE on a tower but if it doesn’t have the bandwidth to support the theoretically speeds it will be the same as UMTS. Look at the Chicago speed test results if you like. Version and sprint operate CDMA towers with EVDO Rev. A it cost much more to put up CDMA towers mostly because of Qualcomm but also the infrastructure to the towers can handle more speed.
I have an iPhone on ATT and a Moto Qc on sprint. I love the iPhone’s UI the 3G radio is unreliable but the EDGE radio is solid. ATTs network infrastructure is not built to handle a multiple iPhone power users simple as that. Minus the fact the Q runs on the worst platform I’ve tested in a while (windows mobile). I have better luck getting a call out with my with it phone 70% of the time.
These AT&T guys keep on failing. I’m fairly happy with my provider here in the Netherlands, although data roaming is not done here.
They credit you up to 30E (40$ish) per megabyte of use when not on the dutch network. That is fucked up man.
Hilarious. The video is perfect!
I’m also now having a lot of trouble NOT thinking about this http://www.ev-files.com/ every time I visit Tech Crunch.
AT&T practices deceptive advertising with their “more bars in more places” ad.
Yeah.. more CRAPPY bars. I’ve been an AT&T customer for over 5 years with all kinds of phones… Sony Ericsson, Nokia and now the iPhone and I’ll make and receive calls with “full bars” that were totally full of static.
It has gotten so bad, I had to get a land line phone at home just so I could make and receive calls.
I mean hello, we’re talking Sunnyvale here… not in some boondocks country!
Yeah if not for the iPhone I’d have dropped these worthless mofos 2 years ago.
Yeah no joke. They must have perfected some way to fool their phones into thinking they have great signal when there’s really near to none.
I’ve been a Verizon customer since ‘98, if the iPhone ever gets on the Verizon network I will switch in a hurry to it!
I’ve been an AT&T customer since the first iPhone came out, if I had to go with Verizon I wouldn’t have an iPhone.
I agree if I had to go to any other carrier other than AT&T for the iphone I won’t have one. & my job provides discounts for nextel, alltel, and verzion and I still won’t switch lol
This article has summed up virtually ALL of the frustrations w/ my iPhone experience ever since buying a 3G last July…
I couldn’t have put it any better, really – and what’s even funnier is the fact that your fishback on the failures for VVM, etc. actually might get me off the hook w/ my lady. Thanks for the odd side benefit.
Just as long as she doesn’t read TC comments, right?
Bravo! I’ve been saying this very same thing for a long time. I actually have two phones — an iPhone 3G (on AT&T) and a Blackberry Tour (on Verizon) (which replaced my Blackberry Word Edition). I live in downtown Seattle and very regularly have awful reception or just flat-out cannot call at all. My Blackberry *never* gives me this problem and has had near-perfect reception in 20+ states and 8+ countries. The only time I can recall being unable to make a call on Verizon was when stranded on the side of the road in a blizzard in the middle of Austria, but I *still* had SMS and Internet service. (Had to Twitter that I was stranded, naturally!) My iPhone is basically a mini-Netbook and I use it to browse the web when I’m on the bus, and for GPS. I wish they sold a Touch with a data plan (and no voice), because I’m paying for voice that I never use because I basically *can’t* use it.
Have you considered a MiFi from Verizon to use with an iPod touch? That would be a data plan without paying for voice service and the wifi service would be available to laptops and any other wifi devices you might use without paying a tethering fee. The current generation touch does not have a GPS receiver but there is a good chance the model expected in the fall will (and faster processor, better graphics, more memory, etc).
I whole heatedly agree.
ATT is a piece of shit company. they have some fucking issues, and they lie a lot too. their fucking sales people in the stores have no damn clue about what they are saying.
I just got internet on my phone a few days ago, when i was told there was a $60 charge, for internet and tethering. Then i made it clear there is no additional charges and the sales person said “correct, you have unlimited internet and tethering for $60 and not a penny more”
Then i fucking find out there is a 5gb limit, and they charge overages.
This is one of the many issues i have had with this fucking company. other issues relate to overage or messed up billing on home phone lines. This company is just one big scam, full of shit!
I really hope Apple takes this into consideration. I have my Verizon contract set up pretty much perfectly, my contract will expire right around the time the iPhone should come to Verizon. And once my current contract is up with Verizon, I won’t be renewing it until Verizon gets the iPhone. As soon as the iPhone comes to Verizon, I’m getting it. Apple, the next step is to Verizon, I don’t care what you might have to give up to do it, if you want more sales, you’ve gotta go it.
any chance you enabled iphone 3.0 tethering via one of the many hacks posted – including on techcrunch? i did, and lost visual voicemail until i realized i hadn’t gotten any for over a week.
i googled “iphone 3.0 tether hack visual voicemail,” and found this: http://bit.ly/B8yp0. 5 minutes, and back in business.
not that i don’t hate at&t, but i got caught by this one even though several stories all warned i *might* lose visual voicemail.
The same thing happened to me. I would look into this and make sure that the same people that lost visual voicemail are not the same ones that engaged in the tethering hack.
I enabled the tethering hack weeks ago when it came out. It broke visual voicemail, so I reverted it. One heck of a coincidence if everyone’s voicemail spontaneously broke the same week that a tethering hack came out that breaks visual voicemail.
I had the same problem with tethering, make sure you aren’t the one at fault here. (As much as I’d love to hate on ATT)
Totally. That’s how I found out the “1″ voicemail approach.
I bought a new 3GS and first thing I set up tethering. Took me a week to figure out the problem was the hack/solution and not ATT.
yup, had the same problem. went about 2 weeks before I realized I hadn’t received any VMs.
One has to wonder how many of the issues are AT&T and how many are the iPhone/Apple. Everybody I hear complaining about the AT&T service are all iPhone owners.
I have an unlocked G1 on the AT&T network. I have little problem with coverage, granted it is generally not 3G as AT&T uses the non-standard 1900MHz 3G frequencies in my area.
I have not experienced an issue with a missed voicemail due to no notification.
My only complaint is the 3G frequencies that AT&T uses.
I have appalling problems in the US with at&t when I’m roaming from Europe – just one example is coverage in the Mission in SF which is totally dire – whole blocks around 16th St and Valencia where I can’t reliably keep a call up on my trusty S-E W880i.
I have noticed similar problems in Europe, but only on intercity trains travelling at 100+mph through forests with no obvious towns or villages nearby. It’s similar in semi-rural parts of Brazil (SP) where I get excellent reception with dropouts only in mountain passes etc.
I can’t comment on visual voicemail, but GSM/3G is positively medieval in the USA with at&t.
“Failure” used 11 times in one article?
This must be serious…
Using CTRL+F to find that out…
That must be very serious…
@article; can’t say much, not from U.S >.<
Honestly the only mobile company that is worth dealing with in the US is t mobile. Their coverage may not be the best, but they know how to treat a customer. Verizon was a huge pain in the ass too. I was actually more than happy to pay the etf just to get rid of them.
Yeah unlocking my iPhone to run on thier service is the only reason I got one, T-mobile knows how to treat a customer. Buuuuuut…. I gotta do a rain dance to get a frickin signal within 200 yards of my house.
I agree about t-mobile. Their customer service is fantastic and in most metro area’s they have great service. I have had AT&T and Verizon along side my t-mobile phone and t-mobile has always been much better for me. My signal is always fantastic. The lack of 3G is a bit disappointing but they are working on it. I will be getting an Android phone with them this year sometime. I am hoping they get the HTC Hero (Or T-mobile G2 touch, whatever they are rebranding it too).
Gotta say I agree. After dealing with AT&T customer service, I miss the t-mobile love
Dave McClure said it best:
“Dear AT&T + Apple: Fuck You. iPhone dropped call *5* goddamn times driving 280/101. tell me why I pay $300/mo 4 such shitty svc?”
http://twitter....uses/1861566749
Ask Sarah Lacy, she’ll tell you they have better reception in Rwanda than Sand Hill Road with AT&T.
Sand Hill Road has no coverage because rich old people in Menlo Park who don’t use cellphones are afraid of cancer, or ugly towers, or just modern times. Maybe in the 90’s there were more people who could afford cellphones (e.g. VCs) driving that road than others in the Bay Area, but today it’s nothing special as far as network load. It just doesn’t have enough towers nearby because the networks can’t get permission from the municipality to build them.
oh wow
In defense of Sprint ” who’s customer service has been rated #1 among carriers “, I have Never lost a call and my visual voicemail is flawless. Would be a nice perk to see the iphone on Sprint’s network though..
AT&T sucks, today, yesterday and always, they sucked in the past and no one alive today hasn’t been screwed by AT&T, They will always suck even if Apple gave them the opportunity of a lifetime to redeem themselves. The upside to the story is that other carriers and device makers are getting a chance to catch up with the iphone.
The other day I left a business meeting and thought it strange to have received any emails on any of my 3 accounts set-up on my 3G. I tuned the phone off and on again to get 39 of them! I miss Verizon every day.
Regarding your comment about getting an iPod: Just get a Palm Pre. At my home and some other locations I tried it loads websites faster over the Sprint network than my iPod gets them over Wifi (because the apple devices seem to have a huge latency before displaying a website).
My brother’s contract with Sprint recently expired. He was considering an iphone. However, Sprint called him and offered a Pre for free with 2 yr contract.
My contract is up next week and was pretty set on getting a 3GS, but….free is a pretty powerful thing.
I agree about the Sprint network. I was comparing speeds with my friend’s iPhone 3G and sprint was lightning fast. I got the 12mb webOS 1.0.4 update in just about 10 seconds even though it said it would be pushed to my phone over a couple of days!
THANK YOU! I had no idea my voicemail wasn’t working!
Very irresponsible, AT&T.
I can’t wait for the FCC to ban exclusive deals, we are all better off paying the real price for our phones rather than the subsisized deals.
“we are all better off paying the real price for our phones rather than the subsisized deals.”
Yeah I would much rather pay $600 for a phone than $200!
Apple WILL renew the deal with AT&T because they are going to start selling other models of Apple Phones
http://hardware...16&from=rss
I have AT&T and have had zero problems. My coverage is excellent and I rarely drop calls, however I’m not using an iDrone. (Samsung Epix). Still wondering how someone doesn’t notice not getting ANY voicemails for two weeks?
probably b/c he said they didn;t show up as missed calls either….
Yeah I would much rather pay $600 for a phone than $200!
^^^ LOL
You pay much more than $600 dollars for the phone over the long run.
Verizon: best network satisfaction and performance in the US (source: Consumer Reports).
I don’t see how the wireless industry in the US has been allowed to get to where it is. Can you imagine if you were locked in to buying a certain computer with a certain OS to use the internet via a certain carrier and that the computer wouldn’t work with other providers?
So you are upset because YOU have finally crushed into problems with your cellphone operator reliability. Those other things with other users didn’t matter until now.
That’s not so extraordinary after all. I think you are over reacting and you should have already know what kind of operator AT&T or Verizon is WHEN you agreed to long term subscription with AT&T. Stop being self-centered and understand that there maybe not a lot of experience in visual voicemail at AT&T and they are not going to build cellphone tower for only few people. It’s not worth it. With a lot of customers there will always be mistakes and problems with the service. It’s funny that you even thought that they should call to your granny…
I use cracked iPhone in Finland and I couldn’t think myself as a TeliaSonera Finland Customer. I never will be.
If by you, you mean hundreds of thousands of people you’re right – it’s only you.
AT&T has had visual voicemail for THREE YEARS. I live down the friggen street from an AT&T tower and I’ll get dropped calls while standing stationary in my backyard.
This doesn’t happen as frequently with other carriers, my girlfriend has the G1 on t-mobile and experiences none of the consistent issues I have – and plus, T-Mobile doesn’t block applications from being approved for Android (AT&T has done this multiple times).
Just buy an iPod Touch and a Verizon MiFi. Get great nationwide 3G all in a package that weighs what an iPhone does but only costs $60 a month for unlimited data plus 5 people get WiFi in the 30 foot bubble around you.
AT&T and Apple are why class action lawsuits are a great idea. Where’s a bad lawyer when you need one.
Wow, and I thought visual voicemail acting up was just for me. I’ve missed dozen of client calls over the past few weeks, and now that I know it’s a widespread issue, this really pisses me off. Good for you for calling them out, TechCrunch. Although, I’m still mad at you for leaking Twitter’s info. =p
Get a Blackberry. I have one with AT&T and I don’t experience any of the problems you described. People I know who have used both (BB and iphone) say the BB is much better.
Your kidding. I had a BB Curve, it is a very nice phone, but I’m sorry it was nothing compared to the iPhone. I was happy with my Curve until I switched. I switch from Tmobile because I was getting horrible data service in my area (I had full bars). I got tired of complaining. I was once told by a Tmobile rep that they slow us down after 5MB of web access (not 5GB, yes 5MB).
The iPhone isn’t without it’s problems. I was in Indy and could not call anything in my home area code. I did a restore on the phone at the hotel to get it to work. Some weird unresponsiveness has happened also. BB does it also.
What I really enjoy about the iPhone is the App store, iTunes, Youtube, real browser with SSL. Opera on the BB is not secure, you have a man-in-middle that can watch your data!
Going from a regular cell phone to a BB is a dream, but it’s clunky compared to the iPhone.
Why does everyone complain u don’t like the service no ones forcing u to use them but u CHOSE to cus the iPhone not there problem I have never had any problems in the past 5 years and every one says I can’t wait till verizon or any other carrier gets the iPhone who’s to say it will be any better who says that they can handle it better hell for all we know it could be worse apple picked Att for a reason there not dumb they know what there doing.
Actually, the reason why Apple picked AT&T is because they gave Apple total control and a higher percentage of return cost; Verizon reportedly was unwilling to do either of those.
And most of us who are excited about Verizon getting iPhone are Verizon customers who have been unwilling to switch just for the iPhone, mainly because of our satisfaction with our carrier. Last year Consumer Reports named Verizon the carrier with the best network performance and satisfaction in the US. As with many others like me, I didn’t want to give all that up merely to have the Apple phone (cool as it is.)
Your pain is a necessary part of the deal between Apple and AT&T.
Apple picked the worst carrier, because the carrier is desperate enough to pay any price for exclusivity.
It would’ve been one thing if AT&T simply paid Apple for the privilege, but it is also passing the cost to you through overpriced plans..
In the end Apple needs the profit margin that a despearate carrier like AT&T provides. So with or without AT&T, you will continue to overpay, suffer or both.
True.
What I don’t get is that you say not getting voice msgs is a bad thing. If you managed to do without them for 2 weeks **and not even notice**, why bother with voice mail? If they can’t reach you they can’t reach you. Get over it.
That has to be the most absurd thing I’ve heard in a long while.
The value of reliability is not having to waste time worrying about or keeping track of whether something is wrong.
Having had multiple carriers in major metropolitan areas over the years, it’s become painfully obvious that service reliability is not one of AT&T’s primary concerns. What I find most surprising and sad is the consistency of the mediocrity of their service that I’ve experienced since the mid 90’s (then Cingular). If their level of performance were exhibited in someone working under me, I’d have fired them a long time ago.
No question, if the iPhone is offered to another carrier, AT&T is history.
(No bother in suggesting switching to another phone/carrier now. iPhone is, for me, a superior handset and does not preclude me from having serious issues with the service provider that I’m required to be tied to.)
Thanks for missing my point. It’s got nothing to do with reliability, I’m questioning the whole need for voicemail, which Ziegler himself admitted, he hadn’t missed for 2 weeks. If ya not getting any vm’s, why continue to HAVE vm?
I agree. voicemail is largely pointless, especially with email, txt, etc.
But he was getting voicemails. He just wasn’t aware that he was not getting them. Voicemail is something that you generally don’t check unless you have that indicator blinking.
If your answering machine at home never lit up saying you had a message, would you ever think to hit the play button to listen? If that light burns out, you may go days without realizing that you haven’t gotten any messages.
And as far as txt and email go. You can’t always send txt or an email. What if it’s someone calling from a pay phone, or any land line phone really? You can’t text or email from them.
I’ve heard many rumors and speculation that AT&T’s exclusive ends next year, but is there contract proof anywhere? As unreliable as the network is, I’ve got the 3GS and will be getting the Hero. So it goes.
Perhaps it’s time to leverage the power of social media to get a massive petition together to send to Apple. I am thoroughly in love with my iPhone right up to the part where I need to use it as a telephone. The electronic and mechanical functionality is supurb but the telecommunications network in Boston is: FAIL.
I bought my iPhone day 1 and even on Corey Hill, one of the highest points in Boston, my bars can drop from 4 to No Service back to 1 while I’m sitting on the couch or standing in my front porch.
Apple now dominates the smart phone market and will only see exponential growth if they let each and every provider support iPhones.
Apple: we love your device but hate your partner. Please fix.
Those of us suffering from AT&Ts horrendous service are well within our rights to file a class action lawsuit to collect payment for each day we didn’t get the service we were promised. Any lawyers want to lead that charge?
p.s. I posted a tweet several weeks ago about AT&Ts new network promised for 2011. It is NOT, I repeat, NOT 3G compatible.
NOT 3G compatible? So they will remove 3G in 2011? wtf?
It’ll more likely be UMTS/HSDPA (current 3G) compatible, but not necessarily GSM/Edge (”3G” compatible). GSM has been marketed as “3G” for a while in that it’s AT&T’s third generation of technology, and while it is the global standard, it’s more like second-and-a-half generation tech in practical terms.
You’re right, EDGE was marketed everywhere else (as in on the planet) as 2.5G.
at&t are planning an LTE rollout, but that’s going to be delayed if my experiences working in telcos in Europe has anything to do with it – the stack, deployment architecture is still studded with PowerPoint gaps (ie implementation of critical components still only really in slidepacks). My bet is a real rollout sometime in 2012-2013 in a couple of markets.
LTE isn’t the same as GSM (2G), UMTS (3G) and involves different radios, protocol stacks etc, like the changes from 2G->3G but with some more fundamental design deltas, such as a transition to IP transport, which makes it a riskier bet for deployment – just one or two of the many new moving parts being delayed impacts a carrier pretty significantly.
Vale, you never have reception problems therefore no one should complain??? I have had AT&T (previously Cingular and Cellular One) for about 10 years. Service took a big dive once AT&T took over. I used to get good reception at home, but no longer (I haven’t moved).
Cell companies sell “service”. As a customer, I’m not interested in how “difficult” it is to provide. I didn’t tell them to get into this business! If they can’t provide it, they should try selling hamburgers or something else. How do you suppose they’d react if I didn’t pay my bill for two weeks and instead told them, “I’m sorry, my check system is down”. “I hope to have it restored soon”!
They all have their flaws. Sprint is the best because theyre cheap. At least with the iPhone I can hop on wifi and surf flawlessly.
You’re right to call AT&T out on their faults and I hope it results in improvements from them. However, I would say you went a little over the top. As frustrated as I am with network issues in NYC, overall it does a decent job and I think the total value prop is great. The value of the device itself, the app store, etc more than make up for a 2nd rate network. I’m happy with my decision.
Granted AT&T has alot of network problems, but the iPhone has alot of known issues as well. Half of those issues most iPhone users are experiencing are AT&T network issues, the rest is the substandard crappy hardware that the iPhone employs. I service Apple products and when I found out what Apple uses for parts and the number of the handsets that have to be repaired, I was appalled. I dropped AT&T and went with Sprint. I’ve had Verizon, that’s a whole bucket of other issues.
i agree 100%. AT&T network is horrible for iPhones. there stupid data map says they cover where i live in virginia but in actuality i haven’t been in an area with a 3G network to support my iphone ever. so in the end of the day this college kid is paying 30 dollars a month for a service i have not used in 2 months
I wholheartedly agree. Granted I am only 15 years old and my iPhone is not used for buisness purposes etc. But I do have friends and family thatdepend on my phone toget in touch with me and my visual voicemail is always down. And I never have signal to receive calls/texts and even when im on 3G nothing works. I tell my parents I hate this phone amd they just tell me that its mt fault. They dont understand that this iphone was the biggest WASTE OF MONEY ever.
Oh Google Voice, words can not express how much I love you for not failing this hard.
Google Voice isn’t comparable as a service – kind of a dumb comment here.
Though, on an actual related note – word is Apple blocked the Google Voice app for the iPhone due to AT&T influence. Just another reason to switch to Android.
If you unlock an iPhone what other networks can you use it on?
You can use it on almost every other phone network in the world, except in Korea and Japan. In the US, it’s AT&T and T-Mobile only. That’s for normal voice calling. The 3G frequency used by the AT&T and the US model of the iPhone is incompatible with those used elsewhere, including US T-Mobile.
I have heard of people using them on verizon and sprint…is this possible?
No. Verizon and Sprint are CDMA networks.
No, it’s not possible. The iPhone does not support the CDMA network standard that Verizon and Sprint use instead of GSM-based network technology.
Though with Verizon’s increasing library of dual-format CDMA/GSM phones, the possibility of their launching a GSM network in the next couple years seems to be getting more likely. So hey, stay tuned..
I got 3G reception on my US iPhone in the UK.
I have been with AT&T Wireless since before they were AT&T Wireless…PacBell to Cingular to AT&T. I also have a Sprint phone for work and a Verizon MiFi 2200. I know each network has their share of detractors and lemon experiences, but mine has been good with AT&T, at least in terms of coverage and phone service. I’ve lived in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Francisco with AT&T service and had no problems over the past 11 years.
There have been cases where I’ve had zero coverage with AT&T, but same with Sprint and Verizon. There are obviously ways all the networks could improve [Verizon with their phones, AT&T with their "no MMS or tethering for iPhones until some point in the future", Sprint with their customer service, etc...], but I think all of them are fairly equal, at least in my limited experience.
I hope your luck with AT&T turns around soon.
You forgot a couple…
Cellularone to Pacbell, to Att, to Cingular, to Att
You forgot McCaw.
and suncom. Mine was Suncom>ATT>Cingular>att.
I have been with them all along because they provide the best reception in my area no questions asked. I am not on contract anymore and I dont mind shelling out to get a good unlocked phone if required. My current 5800XM (better than iPhone 3G and same as iPhone 3Gs-featureswise) does great on the att network.
It’s 50:50 when I make a call if I’ll get an “all circuits are busy”. I also got the voicemail barrage, which included important calls from Verizon (my internet), my movers, and the Consulate General of Finland.
Fuck AT&T, I pay you more than twice what I paid T-Mobile and get terrible service.
Yeah, I work and live in NYC.
yeah, as bad as it is in SF. it was much, much worse in NYC when I was there for a week this summer.
Great. I’m really looking forward to carrying an iPhone shaped lump in my pocket during IPTV World this week in NYC.
Should I just get a pager and use a pay phone instead? Too gangster?
Gangster. But at least it will work.
You’re dashing my dreams, MG. We iPhone users in NYC look at the Bay Area as the Promised Land of Connectivity, where our phones will work and there’s a cell tower on every corner.
It made me happy to think of such a place, even if I don’t live there myself, and now you’ve taken that away from me.
if you can find a pay phone!
Good call Jay! I’m gonna just cancel AT&T and get a pager. Then I can use Skype (via wifi) on my iPhone when I need to get back at peeps.
I’ve never been a huge fan of AT&T, but this article is off base. I have used the iPhone 3G extensively since it came out in Seattle and all over Los Angeles (even a couple of weeks in the Bay Area) and never had any of the problems your describing. The only real issue is the occasional dropped call (about 3-5 a month) which is not a huge issue (as that has happened on every other phone I’ve had as well). Most people I call are free (as the iPhone is popular so it’s mobile to mobile) and I have a ton of rollover minutes so I really never exceed my usage. I can’t speak for the customer service other than to say I’ve never had a problem, so have never called them.
Well then if you haven’t had the problems, the hundred or so other commenters and hundreds of people tweeting about this must be wrong.
VZ BB MSFT brigade at work.
I have had cingular the past 10 years. Very happy and currently have an iphone.
Microsofties reading this, please note that I am once again being accused of being a Microsoft shill. Please remember this in the future. Thanks.
MG, is it so hard to keep your allegiances straight? Come on, man!
There is no possible way you are “happy” with AT&T.
NO ONE is happy on their crummy network.
Please say “tolerable” instead – that HAS to be what you mean.
I am quite happy on AT&T. Your logic is flawed.
The iPhone on AT&T Totally-Rocks!
incidentally, while i wholeheartedly agree with the thrust of this article, it just so happens that at&ts network where I am (Madison, WI) is pretty robust.
add me. I am happy too.
All this complaining about exclusive this and iPhone that. Everybody knew what they were getting into when iPhone was introduced and the AT&T network. Why all the bellyaching after the fact, they’re are alternative’s if you don’t line the package find another carrier. End of Story…!