Cell service carriers

Can anyone tell me the good and the bad of AT&T. We have Verizon now but with the Direct TV deal our bill would be cheaper with new phones and unlimited data. Does the service suck, does it not work every where?

I'm looking for any RDP input.

Thanks,

Stay with Verizon. The end.

(yes, I have had both)

I've been very happy with AT&T when in urban areas. We road trip extensively and have been happy with the service. However, if you go off the beaten path, like our spot on the lower river, it sux balls. In fact I'm forced to turn it off at the river. I get zero service there. Before you make the switch, make sure it works where you visit regularly. Momentarily driving through a dead zone is not the same as days without service.

I travel all over Southern California occasionally to the Bay Area and to Havasu and Verizon usually always has great service. It's very rare I can't get a phone call out it's worth the money for Verizon.

Very happy with Verizon. Had Sprint before and switching to Verizon was the best thing we ever did

I have AT&T and its so-so in most areas, I am pissed about the lack of customer service and benefits, but im beginning to think thats just the norm these days. I hate cel phones and carriers in general anyway lol!

I have At&t now and it become horrible at my house in Temecula and my place in Parker... switching to Verizon soon as contract allows. I've had At&t for over 10 years and also DIRECTV.. their cell and customer service has gone to crap! Time to change for me!

When I lived in San Diego, I liked AT&T, but had to go Verizon when I moved to NorCal. My contract is over and I think I will be going back to AT&T. AT&T service was actually better when I did my test just not in some outlying areas. Verizon is way more pricey too!

never happy said:

I have At&t now and it become horrible at my house in Temecula and my place in Parker... switching to Verizon soon as contract allows. I've had At&t for over 10 years and also DIRECTV.. their cell and customer service has gone to crap! Time to change for me!

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I think AT&T bought Direct TV

wishiknew said:

I think AT&T bought Direct TV

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You are correct 👍

I have AT&T and DTV, cell is not perfect but neither of them are, AT&T has issues in some areas Verizon has issues in others

I switched to AT&T specifically because it was the only carrier to have great cell and data service out in the high desert in CA. You go to Jawbone or Dove Springs, and no other carrier has a signal but AT&T. It works great in Havasu and at the river In Needles. Can't say enough about how happy I am with the service. They are expensive but it works great. I switched from sprint - that shit was useless. Had a 4G signal everywhere but wouldn't work. I think Sprint somehow sets their junk up to show signal everyware knowing full well it doesn't work lol

Bigbore500r said:

I switched to AT&T specifically because it was the only carrier to have great cell and data service out in the high desert in CA. You go to Jawbone or Dove Springs, and no other carrier has a signal but AT&T. It works great in Havasu and at the river In Needles. Can't say enough about how happy I am with the service. They are expensive but it works great. I switched from sprint - that shit was useless. Had a 4G signal everywhere but wouldn't work. I think Sprint somehow sets their junk up to show signal everyware knowing full well it doesn't work lol

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AT&T does not work at Pirates or Park Moabi worth a shit

wishiknew said:

AT&T does not work at Pirates or Park Moabi worth a shit

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Mine works great? I only loose service about 1/2 mile before the gorge. Have service back again by the time I hit sandbar.

Bigbore500r said:

Mine works great? I only loose service about 1/2 mile before the gorge. Have service back again by the time I hit sandbar.

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Had a place in Moabi for 12 years had to get sprint then have an air rave to make it work

wishiknew said:

Had a place in Moabi for 12 years had to get sprint then have an air rave to make it work

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Air rave uses your internet to make calls so you actually aren't using sprint at all at that point if your on the Air rave. Shit - that's why I dumped Sprint - those bastards had to send me an Air Rave to use at my house in Los Angeles area! Service was a joke

Bigbore500r said:

Air rave uses your internet to make calls so you actually aren't using sprint at all at that point if your on the Air rave. Shit - that's why I dumped Sprint - those bastards had to send me an Air Rave to use at my house in Los Angeles area! Service was a joke

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I have one at my house in claremont also up on the side of a hill sprint sucks but at&t in park moabi was zero for me maybe it changed by now I dont know

wishiknew said:

I have one at my house in claremont also up on the side of a hill sprint sucks but at&t in park moabi was zero for me maybe it changed by now I dont know

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I've only had Att for last 10 months so maybe that's it.

wishiknew said:

AT&T does not work at Pirates or Park Moabi worth a shit

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Bigbore500r said:

Mine works great? I only loose service about 1/2 mile before the gorge. Have service back again by the time I hit sandbar.

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I've had AT&T for about 13 years now and have had many friends with Verizon, sprint, etc. Verizon and AT&T are very comparable in signal strength and performance most everywhere I go. Sprint sucks!! AT&T always did appear to be overall a little cheaper and Verizon would nickel and dime more so. As for customer service, I've always had the best results by going into the AT&T store and hashing out whatever my issues are in person.

When we moved to Heritage Ranch we noticed our phones had zero service in our house (Verizon didn't either). So we went into the AT&T store (not an authorized retailer, an actual company store) and talked to them. They told us if we bought a "microcell" for $150 they would waive the monthly and activation fees for it and it essentially acts as our personal cell tower using our high speed Internet.

We then switched TV from Charter to Direct and took advantage of the unlimited data and the discounts and saved ourselves about $50 a month.

Another thing to keep in mind when comparing service from one provider to another is the phone itself or cover or what not could be reducing the signal strength as well. I see it frequently on my work phone and personal phone. Both are AT&T. Work phone is a iPhone 6s and personal phone is a Galaxy S6 Active. Signal strength varies between the 2 and I've found the Apple tends to show service and not work fairly frequently as opposed to my galaxy.

So we pulled the trigger on ATT, we had been with them before but since we have direct tv we couldn't pass up the deal. We went from wife on 2gb, myself on unlimited and her iPad on 10gb (phones on Verizon and iPad on att) to all on att unlimited plan and a new iPhone 7 for me and our bill dropped 50 bucks a month! So far so good with service, the process was a bit of a pain in the ass, but we walked into a Verizon store to see if there was anything they could do to make us want to stay. We told them the deal and the response was "that's a pretty good deal" WTF. So we walked out and switched, I guess will see how the next two years go [emoji51]

Good Thread, have been wavering on this subject for months, Currently have 5 phones on my Verizon account (customer since '95 lately have noticed a serious increase in poor reception issues dropped calls etc in many areas I frequent including my shop and home, these are areas that previously had much better service , Verizon wants me to "upgrade" to repeaters or signal boosters, when I ask why I would need them when I didn't previously I got stonewalled with bullshit personally I think their $ have gone from infrastructure upgrades and improvement to advertising .. I own all my phones which are a combo of S6 and I phone 6 and have no contracts , recently bought a single ATT phone as an experiment and found it to consistently have better reception than my Verizon ATT quote for 5 phones and equivalent plan was 1/2 the cost of My current Verizon, Verizon seems to be less "hungry" and doesn't seem to care if I stay or go

Here's my .02 as a guy that works in the industry selling equipment to the carriers mentioned in this thread.

VZW is in the top spot right now as they always spend on building new sites and are working aggressively on small cells as well to increase data throughput in urban metro areas. ATT and VZW are always battling it out for the number one position but since ATT bought Direct TV and another mexican cell operator last year that put their build plans on hold a bit and this let VZW open up the gap between them a bit more.

Both ATT and VZW offer fast and reliable cell service across most of the nation. VZW however seems to work a bit better though in remote locations (river, desert etc) but they are a bit more expensive than ATT.

In regards to Sprint, they operate most of their carriers on the 2.5 band which needs a lot of cell towers to provide adequate coverage as that frequency does not propagate well. They are going to be rolling out small cells heavily in the near future but that is shaky as Sprint has had some financial issues over the past few years which is why Sofbank bought them up a couple of years back.

TMOB works well on highways and urban areas. Their plans are affordable but if you go to the river or desert or camping you are probably not going to have the best coverage out there.

Metro PCS was purchased by TMOB and Cricket was purchased by ATT in order to go after the cost conscious consumers and get quick access to additional frequency. I would not use either of these personally.

As a side note, if you guys ever have bad cell service at your house, call your provider and tell them you have been a loyal customer and that you want a cell signal repeater or an efemto cell for home use. They might kick this in for free or make you pay for it but it plugs into your LAN connection and will give you full bars at your house.

My biggest worry always is which carrier has the best service out on the lake. Service in metro and their outlaying urban areas I believe are basically equal for the most part.
Been with V for decades with a 2 yr hiatus to Tmob.
There are a few spots on Havasu that V doesn't quite function. If ATT works equally to V then it would probably be advantageous for me to flip to them since I have DTV already.
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So what do all you ATT users say about its coverage on Havasu? Outside of The Springs where no ones phones work, where else have you not been able to access the network?