“As Verizon has stepped up its efforts to portray AT&T’s data network as sparse and largely unavailable, AT&T has published information that shows Verizon isn’t telling the whole story,” Prince McLean reports for AppleInsider.
“Verizon began advertising its 3G coverage against AT&T’s in a series of ads poking fun at Apple’s ‘there’s an app for that’ iPhone commercials, presenting coverage maps of its own 3G CDMA/EVDO network in red against much more limited 3G service coverage maps for AT&T’s 3G network presented in blue,” McLean reports.
“The problem is that Verizon isn’t actually comparing the two company’s data networks; it restricts its comparison to ‘3G data’ because outside of 3G, Verizon doesn’t really have a data network; users revert to extremely slow CDMA 1xRTT service, which only provides dialup speed data access,” McLean reports.
Read much more in the full article here.
What is AT&T;smoking?
Wow – Verizon limiting the map to 3G coverage is indeed extremely misleading as to overall coverage. I can see why AT&T would sue over that.
Whose idea was this?
Joel, what r u smoking?
It puts the 3G map in the hole!!!!
EDGE isn’t 3G. Verizon is doing an apples to apples comparison of the 3G networks, not an apples and oranges to apples comparison.
Sorry if your come up short with SBC’s data network, I mean AT&T;’s data network, but that’s what you get with with SBC, I mean AT&T;.
So AT&T;just admitted that people in Nevada and Mountain Time Zone are not important to them. Nice!! That’ll win people over.
False advertising? There’s a hack for that.
Actually you really need to look at the speeds of the network – Verizon’s 3G in rural areas is SLOWER than EDGE is so it is just called 3G – it is only fast where they have EVDO which is limited,
Where’s the EVDO coverage map for Verizon then? On another note, I love the misfit toys ad Verizon made. That cracked me up.
Sarasota: EDGE isn’t 3G. Verizon is doing an apples to apples comparison of the 3G networks, not an apples and oranges to apples comparison.
What counts is the actual throughput and not the nominal label.
And EDGE is in fact pretty close to EVDO, which itself is left in the dust by UMTS.
See?
“There’s a misrepresentation for that.” I love it. Nothing like AT&T;giving Verizon a swift kick in the groin.
@karrde97
Most of the areas in the Mountain Time Zone without AT&T;3G coverage are primarily inhabited by cows and coyotes. Cows and coyotes don’t pay their cell phone bills so I’m not surprised they are a low priority for AT&T;.
From what I read from the article, it appears that Verizon is comparing all data speeds (from slow EVDO to “high speed” 1.4 Mbit 3G) on their network to a limited to AT&T;’s 3G only data networks (current 3.6 Mbit UTMS 3G to newest 7.2Mbit) while excluding the slower, but larger EDGE coverage. Not very truthful, misleading, and very desperate on Verizon.
It’s ashame that Daniel Eran Dilger has reduced himself to shilling for ATT just because of an exclusivity agreement. We know good and damn well that if the iPhone was a Verizon exclusive, he’d be singing the praises of EV-DO and its excellent coverage.
And is that population map supposed to be an excuse for the complete lack of ATT coverage in those regions? LOL. How about people who have to TRAVEL through those areas, Daniel?
Verizon cheats. Go to their site and check the maps. First, it is really difficult to figure out what is voice-only, what is slow data, what is broadband data. They hide behind their own naming for these services (“Voice and Messaging”, “Enhanced Services”, “Broadband and TV”), and it is really impossible only show the fastest coverage; they will only overlay that image on top of the slow network coverage, so there are fewer white spots. This is extremely, extremely low.
I took the time to capture this map (with fast network coverage), bring it into Photoshop and remove the colours representing slower, non-broadband network coverage. The end result isn’t all that great, has plenty of white space precisely in the same places as AT&T, and when you compare AT&T’s EDGE with Verizon’s slow network coverage, AT&T may even have an, well, edge.
AT&T’s law suit actually even may have merit here.
“Not very truthful, misleading, and very desperate on Verizon.”
Is that anything like the truthful “Get a Mac” ad campaign which portrays every PC as crawling with viruses and trojans?
It’s marketing, folks. The only reason you’re upset with the ads is because they’re effective and very damaging to the ATT brand, the same way every Windows fanboy gets his panties in a bunch whenever he sees Justin Long and John Hodgman standing together on a TV screen. But, again like the “Get a Mac” campaign, the only thing you’re doing is spurring Verizon to make even more commercials with the same successful theme.
Am I the only one having authentication issues for my .mac email on mobile me servers?
Can’t get my email on my iPhone, asks me to verify Verisign as the server for Mail program on my laptop and Safari can’t identify the server either.
@R2
We know good and damn well that if the iPhone was a Verizon exclusive, he’d be singing the praises of EV-DO and its excellent coverage.
So would 99 percent of everyone here, so what’s your point there, One Percenter?
@ 84 Mac Guy
” … Most of the areas in the Mountain Time Zone without AT&T;3G coverage are primarily inhabited by cows and coyotes …”
Interstate 70 (I70) loses 3G service 5 miles after you leave Denver heading west and is not available anywhere along the interstate until you reach Grand Junction over 200 miles away. Thousands and thousands of cars travel this interstate every single day bypassing Vail, connecting with Aspen, Snowmass etc. I agree it doesn’t have the population density of a major city (Thank God for that) but to summarize Colorado as low priority is short sighted.
Wait .. did I just defend Colorado? The Chamber would be proud of me!
*** “Verizon doesn’t really have a data network; users revert to extremely slow CDMA 1xRTT service, which only provides dialup speed data access” ***
That sounds incredibly slow. On my AT&T;wireline telephone, dialup speed is about 10 kbps, because the quality of AT&T;service is crap.
I look forward to the day that Apple announces the iPhone for Verizon, and AT&T;’s stock crashes. AT&T;is a skidmark in the underwear of the telecom industry.
And oh yeah – plus we’ve got Balloon Boy!;-)
@R2
You’re wrong R2, Apple on shows a single PC riddled with viruses… However if you’ve ever had the displeasure of working seriously on a PC then you KNOW! that they are inherently riddled with viruses. So Apple’s ad is not misleading at all. It’s common knowledge that PCs suffer horrendously from all sorts of malicious code. Some built-into the OS and others gleefully shared via the internet and well meaning friends.
All the carriers suck. I repeat, all the carriers suck.
@ twilightmoon:
No you’re not alone… I’m having trouble accessing my dotmac mail today too. My iPhone can’t access the server and my Mail client keeps spinning and spinning…
@ twilightmoon: btw, I’m in New York…