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  1. #31
    Dave
    Guest

    Re: Verizon Wireless getting its butt kicked by ATT


    "RBM" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    news:[email protected]...
    >I won't disagree, they do indeed suck. But they also have the best network,


    Boy, he bought the hype hook, line and sinker, eh? -Dave




    See More: Verizon Wireless getting its butt kicked by ATT




  2. #32
    SMS
    Guest

    Re: Verizon Wireless getting its butt kicked by ATT

    RBM wrote:
    > I won't disagree, they do indeed suck. But they also have the best network,
    > and at the end of the day, it's a phone


    Yeah, I don't understand those that fall in love with one carrier or
    another. I can list multiple issues with each carrier, from Verizon's
    crippling of handsets, to T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T's coverage issues.
    But at the end of the day, it's where your phone actually works.

    I think the reason that Verizon has been so much more successful than
    AT&T in signing up new contract customers is because indeed it is "the
    network" that is the deciding issue for more customers than any other
    consideration.

    Verizon has always had better coverage and better service than
    Cingular/AT&T. You can always find specific areas where on carrier may
    have coverage where another does not, but overall, when you look at
    every survey, from every independent entity, the facts are clear.

    Verizon is gaining more new contract customers than AT&T despite the
    lack of the iPhone, and despite a poorer selection of handsets.

    Here's a good article about the subject:

    "High-Value Customers

    Though it added 2 million subscribers in the fourth quarter, Verizon
    appeared to lose ground to rival AT&T Wireless, which grew its own
    subscriber base by 2.7 million customers during the same period.
    However, Verizon's net gain of 1.6 million customers for its post-paid
    plan easily exceeded AT&T's comparable post-paid numbers.

    The higher value of Verizon's post-paid gains becomes evident when the
    wireless revenue numbers of the rivals are compared. Verizon Wireless
    grew revenue by 13.3 percent to $11.44 billion during the fourth
    quarter, beating the comparable $11.36 billion figure posted by AT&T
    Wireless. Verizon also was able to claim bragging rights for having a
    customer turnover rate of just 1.2 percent. By comparison, AT&T's churn
    rate in the fourth quarter was 1.7 percent."

    "http://business.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=13000C09MD22"



  3. #33
    Dave
    Guest

    Re: Verizon Wireless getting its butt kicked by ATT

    > Verizon has always had better coverage and better service than
    > Cingular/AT&T.


    On what planet? At worst, Cingular was always just as good as Verizon.
    Speaking in terms of someone who has always worked jobs where he was
    required to travel all over the U.S. That is, cingular might be better in
    some specific areas, verizon might be better in some specific areas,
    overall they were always EQUAL. I've had to deal with outrageous billing
    errors with Verizon (errors that Verizon admitted to -in writing-, and yet
    refused to correct), never had that problem with Cingular.

    There are horror stories from both sides. The fact is, AT WORST, Cingular
    was always equal with Verizon in terms of both coverage and customer
    service.

    There is a PERCEPTION that Verizon is better on both counts, mainly because
    of all the millions of dollars that Verizon spends on television
    advertising. (money well spent, I'd say...considering how many people
    they've snowed with their ad blitz) -Dave




  4. #34
    Todd Allcock
    Guest

    Re: Verizon Wireless getting its butt kicked by ATT

    At 04 Feb 2008 12:02:46 -0500 Dave wrote:

    > Boy, he bought the hype hook, line and sinker, eh? -Dave
    >


    Not really, I'll give Verizon a slight edge for coverage, mostly because
    they
    still support analog roaming. That still gives a small edge in rural
    areas. I agree with your premise that AT&T/Cingular HAD roughly equal
    coverage when AT&T/Cingular was still TDMA/AMPS-based. The switch to GSM
    lessened the roaming capability somewhat.

    I do find it ironic, however, that the carrier with "The Network" is the
    only nationwide carrier without accurate street-level coverage maps ontheir
    website. (They've recently added "street-level" maps, but they are still
    "yes/no" coverage maps with no attempt to discern between strong, moderate,
    weak, etc. like the other carriers do.)






  5. #35
    John Navas
    Guest

    Re: Verizon Wireless getting its butt kicked by ATT

    On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:25:13 -0700, Todd Allcock
    <[email protected]> wrote in <[email protected]>:

    >At 04 Feb 2008 12:02:46 -0500 Dave wrote:
    >
    >> Boy, he bought the hype hook, line and sinker, eh? -Dave

    >
    >Not really, I'll give Verizon a slight edge for coverage, mostly because
    >they
    >still support analog roaming. That still gives a small edge in rural
    >areas. I agree with your premise that AT&T/Cingular HAD roughly equal
    >coverage when AT&T/Cingular was still TDMA/AMPS-based. The switch to GSM
    >lessened the roaming capability somewhat.


    Whether that was ever really true or not, expansion of GSM coverage has
    clearly long since surpassed D-AMPS/AMPS coverage, not in all specific
    areas (all carriers have coverage holes), but definitely overall.

    Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and most other areas I care about,
    AT&T has better overall coverage than Verizon.

    --
    Best regards, FAQ FOR AT&T (CINGULAR) WIRELESS:
    John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/AT&T_Wireless_FAQ>



  6. #36
    RBM
    Guest

    Re: Verizon Wireless getting its butt kicked by ATT


    "Dave" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    news:[email protected]...
    >> Verizon has always had better coverage and better service than
    >> Cingular/AT&T.

    >
    > On what planet? At worst, Cingular was always just as good as Verizon.
    > Speaking in terms of someone who has always worked jobs where he was
    > required to travel all over the U.S. That is, cingular might be better in
    > some specific areas, verizon might be better in some specific areas,
    > overall they were always EQUAL. I've had to deal with outrageous billing
    > errors with Verizon (errors that Verizon admitted to -in writing-, and yet
    > refused to correct), never had that problem with Cingular.
    >
    > There are horror stories from both sides. The fact is, AT WORST, Cingular
    > was always equal with Verizon in terms of both coverage and customer
    > service.
    >
    > There is a PERCEPTION that Verizon is better on both counts, mainly
    > because of all the millions of dollars that Verizon spends on television
    > advertising. (money well spent, I'd say...considering how many people
    > they've snowed with their ad blitz) -Dave


    Gosh, I didn't realize I was that stupid, to fall for an advertizing scheme.
    I thought I switched because my calls kept dropping with one carrier, and
    didn't drop with another

    >






  7. #37
    John Navas
    Guest

    Re: Verizon Wireless getting its butt kicked by ATT

    On Mon, 4 Feb 2008 18:48:40 -0500, "RBM" <[email protected]> wrote in
    <[email protected]>:

    >"Dave" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    >news:[email protected]...


    >> There is a PERCEPTION that Verizon is better on both counts, mainly
    >> because of all the millions of dollars that Verizon spends on television
    >> advertising. (money well spent, I'd say...considering how many people
    >> they've snowed with their ad blitz) -Dave

    >
    >Gosh, I didn't realize I was that stupid, to fall for an advertizing scheme.
    >I thought I switched because my calls kept dropping with one carrier, and
    >didn't drop with another


    All well and good for you, but that doesn't mean Verizon has better
    coverage in general. There are many others (including me) for whom
    Verizon has worse coverage than AT&T Wireless. It all depends on where
    you are. No one carrier has the best coverage in general.

    --
    Best regards, FAQ FOR AT&T (CINGULAR) WIRELESS:
    John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/AT&T_Wireless_FAQ>



  8. #38
    Dennis Ferguson
    Guest

    Re: Verizon Wireless getting its butt kicked by ATT

    On 2008-02-04, SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
    > I think the reason that Verizon has been so much more successful than
    > AT&T in signing up new contract customers is because indeed it is "the
    > network" that is the deciding issue for more customers than any other
    > consideration.

    [...]
    > Verizon is gaining more new contract customers than AT&T despite the
    > lack of the iPhone, and despite a poorer selection of handsets.


    You know, you keep going on about how wonderful Verizon's contract
    customers are, but if that made a big difference wouldn't you
    expect to see that somewhere in Verizon's top-line numbers? Verizon's
    ARPU over their whole service is $51.00, while AT&T's ARPU, including
    all those prepaid and wholesale deadbeats, is $50.28, a whopping 1.4%
    difference. AT&T's service revenue (the "R" in ARPU) is about 3% higher
    than Verizon's which, given that AT&T had 5% more customers and 1.4%
    less ARPU, is what you'd expect. If the only thing all those contract
    customers is getting Verizon is 1.4% more ARPU then I'd suggest you are
    drawing a distinction that makes no (well 1.4%) difference, and
    repeating it over and over again doesn't change that. Where's the beef?
    There's barely a hair of difference between the two companies' top line
    financial performance, and if you can't measure a difference in dollars
    then what does it matter?

    The only place Verizon excels compared to AT&T is in selling their
    crappy handsets: Verizon's equipment revenues were 34% higher than
    AT&T last quarter, this is the (sole) reason Verizon's overall revenue
    exceeded AT&T's by a bit. I can only guess at why this might be so,
    but I don't think the difference in contract customer numbers (11%?)
    is near enough to explain 34%, especially since prepaid and wholesale
    customers need handsets too and AT&T has more of them. My guess is
    hence that the difference between Verizon and AT&T is at least in part
    due to the fact that Verizon has a monopoly over the handsets that can
    be used on its network while AT&T's network is open, so AT&T has to
    actually compete for handset business with the likes of unbranded
    retailers and customers migrating from T-Mobile. I can hence see why
    Verizon's VP of Very Accurate Information (Sarbannes-Oxley Compliance
    Division) might respond to the suggestion of opening up Verizon's
    handset choice by blaming unlocked handsetsfor computer viruses,
    child porn, theft, high European roaming rates, and whatever other
    evil he thought up in this one

    http://preview.tinyurl.com/yufzwb

    at least before Verizon decided an open network was a great thing so
    they'll get around to doing something about it some time next year,
    maybe. Monopolies are excellent if you can keep them.

    In any case, I can't find anything in the top line numbers which
    would suggest that Verizon's customers are particularly wonderful
    compared to AT&T's, and it really seems like it's not the network,
    it's the handset (monopoly).

    Dennis Ferguson



  9. #39
    Dennis Ferguson
    Guest

    Re: Verizon Wireless getting its butt kicked by ATT

    On 2008-02-04, Todd Allcock <[email protected]> wrote:
    > I do find it ironic, however, that the carrier with "The Network" is the
    > only nationwide carrier without accurate street-level coverage maps ontheir
    > website. (They've recently added "street-level" maps, but they are still
    > "yes/no" coverage maps with no attempt to discern between strong, moderate,
    > weak, etc. like the other carriers do.)


    Would you call Sprint's maps "street-level coverage"? My house is in
    a coverage seam where all the carriers are crap. This shows up clearly
    as a several square block area of weak coverage on the T-Mobile and
    AT&T maps that I'm in the middle of, but on the Sprint map the whole
    city has excellent coverage (and Verizon says the whole county is covered).

    Dennis Ferguson



  10. #40
    John Navas
    Guest

    Re: Verizon Wireless getting its butt kicked by ATT

    On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:19:49 -0500, "Elmo P. Shagnasty"
    <[email protected]> wrote in
    <[email protected]>:

    >In article <[email protected]>,
    > John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
    >
    >> Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and most other areas I care about,
    >> AT&T has better overall coverage than Verizon.

    >
    >And therefore, AT&T is superior.
    >
    >Because after all, all that matters is areas YOU care about. Any areas
    >you DON'T care about don't matter, and are not factored into your
    >equations.
    >
    >It's nice to live in Navasworld, eh?


    Correct, on all counts.

    --
    Best regards, FAQ FOR AT&T (CINGULAR) WIRELESS:
    John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/AT&T_Wireless_FAQ>



  11. #41
    SMS
    Guest

    Re: Verizon Wireless getting its butt kicked by ATT

    Dave wrote:
    >> Verizon has always had better coverage and better service than
    >> Cingular/AT&T.

    >
    > On what planet?


    Check Yankee Group, J.D. Power, Consumer Checkbook (Bay Area), and
    Consumer Reports. All have done surveys with large sample sizes, and
    thus with extremely low margins of error.

    In the survey published in 2008 CR, Verizon was rated the best in
    coverage in 17 out of 20 markets, with Alltel ranked the best in three
    others. AT&T and Sprint were far, far behind.

    The markets I'm most familiar with are the SF Bay Area, New York City,
    and Southern California. In all three, my experiences confirm what all
    the expert surveys show.

    It actually goes beyond what all the surveys show though. The surveys
    are of users in metro areas, and while they do by default include
    coverage of users in their travels, where Verizon excels to an even
    greater degree is in rural areas, even without AMPS included. When you
    include AMPS coverage, which is still extensive in the non-urban areas,
    the advantage is tremendous. Even when Verizon and AT&T turn off their
    AMPS networks, rural carriers have indicated that they will leave their
    AMPS networks in place for the foreseeable future.

    I always bring along a phone on Cingular/AT&T when I travel, just to
    test the differences. Last year, in Oregon, far north California, the
    Sierra Nevada, and Canada, the advantage of CDMA and AMPS was
    significant. In many cases it was roaming onto other CDMA networks, and
    occasionally AMPS, but in most cases it was native coverage. In short,
    all the surveys and tests were confirmed.

    Where did you get the idea that Cingular/AT&T was anywhere near the
    level of coverage of Verizon. Do you have any citations or references,
    or are you pulling a Navas? I'd love to see some evidence to the
    contrary. I'm not married to any carrier. The best Cingular could do was
    the bogus "fewest dropped calls" so-called survey, where even the survey
    company said that their interpretation of the results was incorrect.



  12. #42
    Todd Allcock
    Guest

    Re: Verizon Wireless getting its butt kicked by ATT

    At 05 Feb 2008 01:28:44 +0000 Dennis Ferguson wrote:

    > Would you call Sprint's maps "street-level coverage"? My house is in
    > a coverage seam where all the carriers are crap. This shows up clearly
    > as a several square block area of weak coverage on the T-Mobile and
    > AT&T maps that I'm in the middle of, but on the Sprint map the whole
    > city has excellent coverage (and Verizon says the whole county is covered).




    By chance is the Sprint coverage in your area provided by a roaming partner
    (Verizon perhaps?) I've never used Sprint personally, so I can't vouch for
    the accuracy of their maps, but when I checked my area several months ago,
    I thought it showed a graded "good/better/best" color coding. (I may be
    wrong. I was checking to see if I wanted to fall for one of the SERO
    plans, but so far I've managed to resist.)

    T-Mo's map is pretty darn accurate based on my experience, but they have a
    disclaimer that roaming coverage is based on information provided by the
    roaming partner (and just gives a "yes/no" for roam areas.)

    AT&T/Cingular's map (correctly) showed piss-poor coverage in my
    neighborhood but recently started showing full bars- I haven't used them
    recently to test if they've actually improved coverage, or just
    recalibrated their map software! ;-)





  13. #43
    John Navas
    Guest

    Re: Verizon Wireless getting its butt kicked by ATT

    On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:11:24 -0800, SMS <[email protected]>
    wrote in <[email protected]>:

    >Dave wrote:
    >>> Verizon has always had better coverage and better service than
    >>> Cingular/AT&T.

    >>
    >> On what planet?

    >
    >Check Yankee Group, J.D. Power, Consumer Checkbook (Bay Area), and
    >Consumer Reports. All have done surveys with large sample sizes, and
    >thus with extremely low margins of error.
    >
    >In the survey published in 2008 CR, Verizon was rated the best in
    >coverage in 17 out of 20 markets, with Alltel ranked the best in three
    >others. AT&T and Sprint were far, far behind.
    >
    >The markets I'm most familiar with are the SF Bay Area, New York City,
    >and Southern California. In all three, my experiences confirm what all
    >the expert surveys show.
    >
    >It actually goes beyond what all the surveys show though. The surveys
    >are of users in metro areas, and while they do by default include
    >coverage of users in their travels, where Verizon excels to an even
    >greater degree is in rural areas, even without AMPS included. When you
    >include AMPS coverage, which is still extensive in the non-urban areas,
    >the advantage is tremendous. Even when Verizon and AT&T turn off their
    >AMPS networks, rural carriers have indicated that they will leave their
    >AMPS networks in place for the foreseeable future.
    >
    >I always bring along a phone on Cingular/AT&T when I travel, just to
    >test the differences. Last year, in Oregon, far north California, the
    >Sierra Nevada, and Canada, the advantage of CDMA and AMPS was
    >significant. In many cases it was roaming onto other CDMA networks, and
    >occasionally AMPS, but in most cases it was native coverage. In short,
    >all the surveys and tests were confirmed.
    >
    >Where did you get the idea that Cingular/AT&T was anywhere near the
    >level of coverage of Verizon. Do you have any citations or references,
    >or are you pulling a Navas? I'd love to see some evidence to the
    >contrary. I'm not married to any carrier. The best Cingular could do was
    >the bogus "fewest dropped calls" so-called survey, where even the survey
    >company said that their interpretation of the results was incorrect.


    Pretty much everything there is wildly fabricated.

    --
    Best regards, FAQ FOR AT&T (CINGULAR) WIRELESS:
    John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/AT&T_Wireless_FAQ>



  14. #44
    Todd Allcock
    Guest

    Re: Verizon Wireless getting its butt kicked by ATT

    At 04 Feb 2008 23:48:35 +0000 John Navas wrote:

    > >Not really, I'll give Verizon a slight edge for coverage, mostly because
    > >they
    > >still support analog roaming. That still gives a small edge in rural
    > >areas. I agree with your premise that AT&T/Cingular HAD roughly equal
    > >coverage when AT&T/Cingular was still TDMA/AMPS-based. The switch to GSM
    > >lessened the roaming capability somewhat.

    >
    > Whether that was ever really true or not, expansion of GSM coverage has
    > clearly long since surpassed D-AMPS/AMPS coverage, not in all specific
    > areas (all carriers have coverage holes), but definitely overall.



    I disagree. By the time the switch to GSM happened (in Cingular's TDMA
    areas) the network was 20-years old and about as fully built out
    (geographically) as it was going to get. Sure, towers get added to
    increase capacity or fill holes, but the footprint of the system hasn't
    really changed _significantly_ in some time for the legacy 800MHz carriers.


    > Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and most other areas I care about,
    > AT&T has better overall coverage than Verizon.



    Sure, because now you're using AT&T(Blue)'s fully built-out decades-old 800-
    MHz network and fobbed off the horrid old PacBell system on us T-Mo
    subscribers! ;-)





  15. #45
    Dave
    Guest

    Re: Verizon Wireless getting its butt kicked by ATT

    > Gosh, I didn't realize I was that stupid, to fall for an advertizing
    > scheme. I thought I switched because my calls kept dropping with one
    > carrier, and didn't drop with another


    I take it you are one of many who fled from nextel/sprint recently?
    -Dave




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