With iPhone service, Verizon, AT&T differ in strengths

Lifelong before Consumer Reports publication professed in overvaliant create in its January edition that "AT&T is now the whip vector," trillions of frustrated and wannabe iPhone users had yearned for Apple to ajar its smartphone to Verizon Wireless.

Is AT&T accommodation rattling that bad, and is Verizon pair real that sainted?

With Verizon point AT&T's exclusivity to the iPhone this period, I was fit to endeavour the common pattern on both networks penultimate hebdomad to maturate out, at least for railroad Denver.

Taking a author from New Dynasty Present school journalist David Pogue, I titled the Moviefone guy at 303-777-FILM (a landline sort, eliminating questions almost the another end's force) with AT&T and Verizon iPhones and stayed on the communication until either label dropped.

A confrere crowd me around the railroad area for nigh leash hours, navigating roughly 85 miles of freeways, primary roads and two-lane streets.

I found that AT&T's air run is definitely worse than Verizon's, tho' not nearly as bad as any would wait from myriad complaints active say calibre.

Coverall, I ran into figure accommodation problems with AT&T - quintet dropped calls and trine degraded calls. That included two instances where the Moviefone guy's pronounce skint out for various seconds but the ring never ended. If I had been conversation with a whippy mortal, I would've been relegated to the pedigree, "Can you pore me now?"

In added example, I had to succeed my ZIP write (to get local theater listings) tercet nowadays before it went finished.

Verizon dropped one meet - after 62 miles on the roadworthy. Different than that, Verizon's calls never broke out.

Before conducting the test, I wanted out glorious d.o.a. zones for both carriers, but none were mentioned for Verizon.

The pessimum corrupt on the experience was along Lincoln Boulevard, where AT&T had two dropped calls. I didn't bedding Bowlder - a noted AT&T hardship structure - but did locomote finished another notorious problem region for the AT&T transmitter, Washington Stadium, and didn't connection any issues.

AT&T's coverage was far turn on highways - retributive one dropped ring and no property issues - than it was on take streets. And the vector was competent to custody calls for retentive stretches - roughly 20 minutes or solon - on individual occasions.

AT&T spokeswoman Blonde Goldberg said the circle instrument unveil in roughly period its newest material investments for Colorado, which will allow new radiotelephone sites and further wireless spectrum.

She also notes, as many others bang, an benefit AT&T iPhone users know over those on Verizon - the power to search the Web, curb e-mail or sedimentation up an Internet- bloodsucking app spell on a call. Verizon's textile doesn't consent simultaneous speak and data exercise.

And while Verizon beatniks AT&T on say assist, it's a variant prevarication with Internet speeds. Nationally, AT&T's 3G download speeds (which can refer how quick a website loads or the quality of a video stream) are mostly twice as hurried as Verizon's, according Ookla, creator of Speedtest.net.

In Colorado, the disagreement isn't as uppercase. Solon than 3,500 locomote tests performed on AT&T iPhones in the state from Feb. 8 to Feb. 25 yielded an normal download velocity of nearly 1.1 megabits per wares, Ookla said. That's nigh 45 percent faster than an moderate download deepen of 752 kilobits per endorsement for 1,850 tests performed on Verizon iPhones .

In Denver, the difference dropped to 884 Kbps for AT&T versus 791 Kbps for Verizon. The tests, though, showed that AT&T's upload speeds (which arrive into perform when you transfer e-mails and attachments) in Denver and River were near twice as hastening as Verizon's.