[leesmith]

Try setting up a business account with multiple iPhones! It's taken me almost a month to get an account with 9 iPhones set up properly - and it's still waiting on setup issues from AT&T! The only thing worse that AT&T's coverage is their customer service. The gross incompetence and lack of caring is the anti-Apple. I guess it's true, opposites must attract.

[consumer_x]

AndrewRodney said:

As much as I'm lusting for an iPhone, the AT&T issue is a deal breaker. I'm on Verizon, the coverage is fantastic. Even when I visit my buddy in Mendocino and everyone else can't get coverage, I can."

Ditto. I will stay with Verizon so long as they outperform the other carriers in service coverage. I travel all over the States - not just from city-to-city - and I get service with my trusty trimode Motorola in the middle of Nowhere (including secluded spots along CA highway 1, TN Appalachian mountains, NM desert), while my traveling companions without VZN are without signal. Of course if I was more of a world traveler I would be screwed with my cdma phone. ;-)

[concentric]

A limit on cell towers?! Has anyone seen the bazillion miles of unsightly telephone poles and wires that line our streets and highways? And we're limiting cell towers that can be made to look like anything from a palm tree to a national landmark? S-T-U-P-I-D.

[Peter Cohen]

ravemac said:

Your iPhone crashes?

Never seen it.

Mine has, routinely since the 2.0 upgrade. I've restored it at least a half-dozen times. And I've assisted others who have had the same thing happen to them. And no, we're not doing anything unusual.

The absolute worst time was when it locked up in the hospital ER waiting room, while I was waiting for news about a close family member. I had to wait until I got home to restore it before it would work again. Since then I've kept a bare minimum of applications on the iPhone, though I've bought dozens.

I can't wait to actually use the iPhone the way it's supposed to work. I presume it'll happen with some system software update or another at some point. But with 2.0 and 2.0.1, we're not there yet.

[daniel2828]

Tom_Diola....

I'm sure most did. In my case, my coverage status is "best." My calls drop continuously or callers are repeatedly sent to voicemail without my phone even ringing. And this IS a cell phone, meaning it should work in other areas listed as "good" or "best." It does not. AT&T signals only seem to work when outdoors. Indoors, at least just about anywhere here in the Midwest (regardless of what the coverage map suggests), AT&T signals are just plain bad. In fairness to AT&T, reception in my area got worse after the 2.0/2.0.1 update on my original iPhone. But it was never much to brag about to begin with.

[Peter Cohen]

What I said was that I was a Verizon Wireless customer who had fine service, and now I'm an AT&T customer with lousy service. So please, bottle your self-righteous indignation. How dare I, for wanting to live within my means! The audacity!

Verizon -- either by more effective placement of towers or because of the way CDMA coverage works, was capable of blanketing this exurban area with good coverage, and has offered the same for suburban areas around Boston. AT&T, again, either by less effective placement of towers or perhaps because of the way that GSM works, doesn't. It's as simple as that.

And for what it's worth, I was a Cingular/AT&T customer for about a year before I got an iPhone -- I experienced many of the same dropped call/garbled call issues with my BlackBerry 8700c, so I'm confident it's a network issue, rather than anything specific to the iPhone.

[Peter Cohen]

jeremyhanna said:

One might say that Apple is quite draconian in some ways, and I would have to agree. However, it is better than Verizon. Also, Apple is a juggernaut of a different industry with the clout to call different shots on applications, etc.

One of the most astute observations one of my old history professors had was, to paraphrase, that the best kind of government to live under was a fascist state, as long as you're on the side of the fascists. ;)

[NTropy]

RJWill

Looks like between us we have a lot of Orange County covered. I could say the same for Yorba Linda/Placentia/Brea/Fullerton and the northern parts of the county as well as the 91 heading for Corona. Some parts great, other parts like Peter described.

[Peter Cohen]

No, then it would have been "cingularly." :)

[waveracr]

I'm 30 minutes outside of Boston and I dreaded moving to AT&T from Verizon (which had been my carrier for nearly ten years). The funny thing is that my reception in some areas near where I live and commute is actually better since I got the iPhone. I'm not seeing any of the reception problems Peter is having, and am genuinely thrilled and pleasantly surprised with my year plus experience with the original iPhone.
I am happier with AT&T, mainly because the vast majority of the time, I don't have to deal with AT&T -- activation was through Apple, updates are through Apple, etc. The one time I had to deal with AT&T (a temporary visual voice mail hiccup), it was not great (I was warned I might be without voice mail for 48 hours, though the problem was actually resolved in a couple of hours).
Here's the point...the cell companies in general are terrible when it comes to customer service. Verizon was no better...in fact, it's a running joke that whenever there's an issue with one of the phones in our family (rest of them are still on Verizon), going to the Verizon store and desling with their personnel is one of the worst customer service experiences anyone could have-- something that should take ten minutes frequently takes two hours if not multiple trips, and contradictory answers from different people are not uncommon.
So this New Englander and longtime Verizon customer says phooey on the Verizon is much better than AT&T nonsense. All cell companies are awful, and thanks to Apple for trying to raise the bar, both in terms of hardware and a better customer experience generally.

[charolastra]

I've pretty much used every carrier out there, either for personal or business. But ATT is the worse. When I call my ATT friends, we have the worst communication. This goes beyond having better coverage depending of your area. There's just something about their network that isn't right.
As much as I've been Apple's biggest fan for over 20 years, I'm not considering the iPhone until it is with another carrier.
The real reason not to own an iPhone is ATT's lack of voice quality.

[Peter Cohen]

waveracr said:

So this New Englander and longtime Verizon customer says phooey on the Verizon is much better than AT&T nonsense. All cell companies are awful, and thanks to Apple for trying to raise the bar, both in terms of hardware and a better customer experience generally.

But the point is that Apple, for all of its benefits, doesn't have control of the network -- and the network is the problem for many of us, your experience notwithstanding.

[folklore]

Peter Cohen said:

But the point is that Apple, for all of its benefits, doesn't have control of the network -- and the network is the problem for many of us, your experience notwithstanding.

Exactly right, Peter.

Sprint's customer service is abysmal. Terrible. I've never gotten the same answer from two Sprint employees, regardless of what the question is. Yet I only have to deal with them once, maybe twice a year. Sprint's network is kick-ass (in my experience) and I have to deal with that every day.

[Roquentin]

Unless you're going to cite some independent, statistically meaningful surveys that measure and compare coverage and reception among wireless carriers (good luck with that), you're only offering shallow anectodal evidence, which you must know is going to differ from the experience of many others. If you want to post a meaningless little reader poll, then say as much; otherwise, how about saving such flame-baiting/trolling material for a twitter feed or something?