“When Apple listed the providers who’d be offering tethering and multimedia messaging when the phone is available on Friday, AT&T was noticeably absent. In fact, when the wireless provider was mentioned during the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference keynote, the audience reaction ranged from snickering to outright boos,” Silverman writes.
“So what would an iPhone on Verizon’s network be like?” Silverman asks. “I had a chance last week to find out [by using a] Verizon MiFi 2200, [a] cellular modem with a Wi-Fi router.”
Sliverman reports, “In a major city such as Houston, I found the two networks performed about the same much of the time. AT&T’s network could be noticeably slower at peak times, such as during rush hours. But on a Sunday night, when network traffic was light, the two networks performed similarly… I didn’t take screenshots during peak hours, but performance was often – but not always – noticeably slower on AT&T’s network. Verizon’s network was predictably fast almost all the time.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Users of Apple iPhones dominate the mobile web, consuming many times more data that any other so-called smartphone users. We have a hunch that if you took all of the iPhone users off AT&T Mobility today and plopped them on Verizon’s network, Verizon’s network would suffer noticeably. Perhaps Verizon Wireless’ network is deemed to be more reliable and faster than AT&T Mobility’s because nobody uses it for much beyond voice and texting? Throw tens of millions of heavy data-consuming devices on Verizon’s network and their network would likely blow up.
The price of iPhone’s massive success is network saturation. That said, it does not excuse AT&T from reaping vast premiums from iPhone users and not investing properly in their network to deliver the premium service we deserve.
