With all the excitement over the Verizon iPhone announcement, I’m not sufficiently moved to make the break. I admit, AT&T has been sloppy and at times downright incompetent. Who can forget the massive foul up when the first iPhone came out and literally millions of customers couldn’t get AT&T servers to sign them up? It happened again with the 3G iPhone and the iPhone 4.
There’s the really nasty rate of dropped calls, lousy or inconsistent reception, and how AT&T always seemed to put endless roadblocks before developers who wanted to use the iPhone in the way it was designed. Months of delays on the SlingPlayer app, no Wi-FI tethering, and more delays delivering a 3G tethering plan that was overpriced and forced you to give up your unlimited data plan. Oh yes, AT&T dropped unlimited data so it could start enabling some of those features that might force you to go over AT&T’s newly imposed limits. Nice. The list goes on and on.
Still, I’m staying. Here are my reasons:
- Big Fee to drop my AT&T plan. Way too much. $325 for those who purchased after June 1, 2010, and $10 off of that for every month of completed contract.
- Coverage. We all know that AT&T coverage is generally worse than Verizon, but AT&T ponied up and let me have a MicroCell device for free. It solves the ‘no coverage at home’ problem, and after some initial growing pains it works well
- Competition is good. I expect AT&T to step up and compete, not because they want to, but because they have to. Maybe there will be a reinstatement of unlimited data plans. Maybe FaceTime will finally work on 3G.
- Simultaneous voice and data are huge. I often fire off an email or web link when I’m on the phone. Going to Verizon means I kiss all that goodbye.
- Speed. At least here in Arizona, I get really fast data on the iPhone. Yes, the Verizon voice network is more reliable, but in local side by side tests on the data side, my AT&T phone really is faster than a Verizon smartphone.
- New iPhones. There will likely be a new iPhone this summer. I expect it will be a lot easier to talk AT&T into an upgrade than Verizon.
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Why I’m staying with AT&T originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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