||| I FOUND THIS ARTICLE ON A BLOG ONLINE... I THINK IT IS INTERESTING |||
We see everyday commercials of phone service providers claiming that they are faster than everyone else, other have the best coverage, others have different type of network (3G or 4G) but really, what is better?
At the end, what counts are bare numbers, and this is the only truth about what services phone companies are offering as of January 10 of 2011 because just few days ago a big change in competition happened:
3G NETWORKS (Fastest First)
AT&T = 7,2mbps
~~~~~ 3G COVERAGE IN BLUE ~~~~~
--- --- ---
VERIZON = 6,0mbps
~~~~~ 3G COVERAGE IN RED ~~~~~
--- --- ---
T-MOBILE = 3,6mbps
~~~~~ 3G COVERAGE IN RED ~~~~~
--- --- ---
SPRINT = N/A
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
4G NETWORKS (Fastest First)
T-MOBILE = 14.4mbps
~~~~~ 4G COVERAGE IN PINK ~~~~~
--- --- ---
VERIZON = 10.2mbps
~~~~~ 4G COVERAGE IN BURGANDY ~~~~~
--- --- ---
SPRINT = 8mbps
~~~~~ 4G COVERAGE IN ORANGE ~~~~~
--- --- ---
AT&T = N/A
==== ==== ==== ====
While AT&T has truly the fastest 3G Network available in the US, we should really point at the fact that even if it’s just second for best coverage, the gap between Verizon 3G and AT&T 3G is something so big that AT&T can’t even be considered a follower to the supremacy of Verizon coverage.
AT&T thought that purchasing the 850Mhz network band all over the US would have guaranteed them the best coverage, but the plan did not work so well and while Verizon covers almost 70% of the country with their CDMA 3G, AT&T covers barely 40% of the US with their fast 3G network.
Verizon has for sure the best 3G coverage and even if they don’t have the fastest 3G network speed it still offers a good download speed and the connection reliability that AT&T can’t offer; but Verizon CDMA network is very limited in it’s capabilities: those who switched from AT&T to Verizon were not happy when they found out that they could not read an email while they were having a phone conversation, but really: how many times do you really need to receive an email while you are talking on the phone?
Don’t you normally hung up first?
I much rather chose a slower network that works all the time instead of a fast but scattered network.
Sprint did not invest anything in the 3G technology since 2009 and spent all the money on a 4G network that is barely faster than AT&T 3G and as far as coverage, is neither better or worse than AT&T 3G coverage, so after all we can really say that they are at the same level although they are called differently.
While AT&T, Verizon and Sprint were fighting about who was faster or who had the best coverage, T-Mobile was silently raising inactive antennas all around the US, mainly in the east coast: since mid 2009 everybody was wondering what those Germans where thinking since they were putting antennas everywhere and the 3G coverage was still inexistent, but the surprise answer arrived in December of 2010 when T-Mobile announced that soon there would have been a huge change with the new super fast 4G network.
And as they promised, on January 1st , T-Mobile flipped a switch and all those antennas started broadcasting a 4G network signal that runs at 14.4mbps leaving the closest competitor 4mbps behind, and all those customers that were complaining that their phone never had 3G coverage, suddenly saw a 4G icon appearing on the top of their phone screen.
The only problem is that T-Mobile runs on a network band that is not too common on cell phones sold in the United States (AWS 1700Mhz), but instead is very common in Europe where T-Mobile is from and rumors are that by mid 2011 T-Mobile will be the first provider that won’t make you pay intercontinental roaming charges if you go to Europe and considering that T-Mobile is present pretty much all over the north of Europe and UK, that could be a huge game change for the US phone market where roaming charges are pretty high.
I don’t know you, but when I travel to foreign countries, I always buy a pre-paid phone locally… can you imagine the advantage of not having to do that neither when you fly to another continent?
And the best part is that now T-Mobile has really switched all the cards in his favor: they have the best 4G coverage in the US and they have the fastest 4G network, so what used to be the anchors for AT&T and Verizon, suddenly became the anchors for a single phone company that offers it’s service even out of the nation.
Verizon is now running desperately to activate a 4G network good enough to compete against T-Mobile, but new regulations on cellular antennas and the available bands are pushing Verizon to use a very low frequency network (probably 700Mhz) that won’t be able to support such high download/upload speeds as T-Mobile 1700Mhz which instead claims that the presently offered 14.4mbps are just about little over half of it’s network capability.
Who is really scared now is just AT&T because considering the poor 3G coverage that they offer compared to Verizon and considering that they almost didn’t invest anything yet on 4G technologies, we think that the decision of Steve Jobs of starting to sell his iPhone with Verizon was something he had to do to save his product, and since T-Mobile is too happy working with Google and it’s Androids, he had to find a good competitor to keep his Apple name strong against the nice trick that T-Mobile has just played to everybody here in the US.
Now it’s only a matter of time: as contracts expire, where will people go to?
+++ +++ +++
comment by Crazyste:
personally i am seriously starting to think about switching to Tmobile, and this is for sure somethign that confirms that i should do that... plus they support a lot Android!!!
REGARDS
We see everyday commercials of phone service providers claiming that they are faster than everyone else, other have the best coverage, others have different type of network (3G or 4G) but really, what is better?
At the end, what counts are bare numbers, and this is the only truth about what services phone companies are offering as of January 10 of 2011 because just few days ago a big change in competition happened:
3G NETWORKS (Fastest First)
AT&T = 7,2mbps
~~~~~ 3G COVERAGE IN BLUE ~~~~~
--- --- ---
VERIZON = 6,0mbps
~~~~~ 3G COVERAGE IN RED ~~~~~
--- --- ---
T-MOBILE = 3,6mbps
~~~~~ 3G COVERAGE IN RED ~~~~~
--- --- ---
SPRINT = N/A
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
4G NETWORKS (Fastest First)
T-MOBILE = 14.4mbps
~~~~~ 4G COVERAGE IN PINK ~~~~~
--- --- ---
VERIZON = 10.2mbps
~~~~~ 4G COVERAGE IN BURGANDY ~~~~~
--- --- ---
SPRINT = 8mbps
~~~~~ 4G COVERAGE IN ORANGE ~~~~~
--- --- ---
AT&T = N/A
==== ==== ==== ====
While AT&T has truly the fastest 3G Network available in the US, we should really point at the fact that even if it’s just second for best coverage, the gap between Verizon 3G and AT&T 3G is something so big that AT&T can’t even be considered a follower to the supremacy of Verizon coverage.
AT&T thought that purchasing the 850Mhz network band all over the US would have guaranteed them the best coverage, but the plan did not work so well and while Verizon covers almost 70% of the country with their CDMA 3G, AT&T covers barely 40% of the US with their fast 3G network.
Verizon has for sure the best 3G coverage and even if they don’t have the fastest 3G network speed it still offers a good download speed and the connection reliability that AT&T can’t offer; but Verizon CDMA network is very limited in it’s capabilities: those who switched from AT&T to Verizon were not happy when they found out that they could not read an email while they were having a phone conversation, but really: how many times do you really need to receive an email while you are talking on the phone?
Don’t you normally hung up first?
I much rather chose a slower network that works all the time instead of a fast but scattered network.
Sprint did not invest anything in the 3G technology since 2009 and spent all the money on a 4G network that is barely faster than AT&T 3G and as far as coverage, is neither better or worse than AT&T 3G coverage, so after all we can really say that they are at the same level although they are called differently.
While AT&T, Verizon and Sprint were fighting about who was faster or who had the best coverage, T-Mobile was silently raising inactive antennas all around the US, mainly in the east coast: since mid 2009 everybody was wondering what those Germans where thinking since they were putting antennas everywhere and the 3G coverage was still inexistent, but the surprise answer arrived in December of 2010 when T-Mobile announced that soon there would have been a huge change with the new super fast 4G network.
And as they promised, on January 1st , T-Mobile flipped a switch and all those antennas started broadcasting a 4G network signal that runs at 14.4mbps leaving the closest competitor 4mbps behind, and all those customers that were complaining that their phone never had 3G coverage, suddenly saw a 4G icon appearing on the top of their phone screen.
The only problem is that T-Mobile runs on a network band that is not too common on cell phones sold in the United States (AWS 1700Mhz), but instead is very common in Europe where T-Mobile is from and rumors are that by mid 2011 T-Mobile will be the first provider that won’t make you pay intercontinental roaming charges if you go to Europe and considering that T-Mobile is present pretty much all over the north of Europe and UK, that could be a huge game change for the US phone market where roaming charges are pretty high.
I don’t know you, but when I travel to foreign countries, I always buy a pre-paid phone locally… can you imagine the advantage of not having to do that neither when you fly to another continent?
And the best part is that now T-Mobile has really switched all the cards in his favor: they have the best 4G coverage in the US and they have the fastest 4G network, so what used to be the anchors for AT&T and Verizon, suddenly became the anchors for a single phone company that offers it’s service even out of the nation.
Verizon is now running desperately to activate a 4G network good enough to compete against T-Mobile, but new regulations on cellular antennas and the available bands are pushing Verizon to use a very low frequency network (probably 700Mhz) that won’t be able to support such high download/upload speeds as T-Mobile 1700Mhz which instead claims that the presently offered 14.4mbps are just about little over half of it’s network capability.
Who is really scared now is just AT&T because considering the poor 3G coverage that they offer compared to Verizon and considering that they almost didn’t invest anything yet on 4G technologies, we think that the decision of Steve Jobs of starting to sell his iPhone with Verizon was something he had to do to save his product, and since T-Mobile is too happy working with Google and it’s Androids, he had to find a good competitor to keep his Apple name strong against the nice trick that T-Mobile has just played to everybody here in the US.
Now it’s only a matter of time: as contracts expire, where will people go to?
+++ +++ +++
comment by Crazyste:
personally i am seriously starting to think about switching to Tmobile, and this is for sure somethign that confirms that i should do that... plus they support a lot Android!!!
REGARDS
nice
