Data on Verizon - as bad as I hear?

[Axon]

I have a nice opportunity to switch to Verizon Wireless with a solid discount. I'm currently on AT&T. I live in NYC but travel domestically at least twice a month for business.

I have the new ipad on verizon and the LTE service seems solid. However, I've heard a lot of horror stories about verizon's 3G spectrum (e.g., their 3g works maybe 40% of the time, without exaggeration). I'll be getting the S3, but still, there are times when I will want to use 3g to save battery life.

Thoughts, opinions?

 

[jonny13]

I have a Verizon phone for personal use and an ATT blackberry for work and Verizon is on 3G more often than the ATT phone. I'm not familiar with any issues that you are referring to about their 3G works 40% of the time though. I've never had issues with their 3G service, although the speeds are slower than ATT's 3G/4G service. Verizon has stated that all 3G areas will be covered by LTE by the middle of 2013. Most cities (even small ones) should have LTE service later this year and the last sections will be the highway areas.

 

[RockinZ28]

Never heard of that. 3G works 99% of the time every where I've gone, and the coverage is all over, it's just slow as hell compared to LTE.

 

[CA19100]

Have an AT&T phone for work and a personal Verizon phone, both 3G. My service with Verizon has been far, far better. At busy locations like airports, the AT&T data is slower than dial up or completely dead unless I manually downgrade to EDGE.

I'm sticking with Verizon for my next phone, no question.

 

[Red Storm]

Verizon's 3G has very good coverage, it's just slower than AT&T or T-Mobile's 3G cause it's CDMA. That being said, their LTE coverage is so good I almost never see 3G anymore.

 

[Axon]

Thanks guys. NYC is always an odd bird because there are so many people, but that's good to know.

 

[podspi]

Ditto to what has already been said here. Verizon's 3G service is pretty good in terms of reliability. In terms of speed it feels like ADSL. Which isn't great, but is bearable for most casual browsing/web surfing.

That being said, their 4G is pretty much everywhere at this point, and will actually be everywhere soon.

 

[CA19100]

NYC is one of those areas where I've had bad issues with AT&T. Took literally five full minutes to get a short email out at JFK airport.

My experience has been that Verizon is faster in reality, even though on paper it's slower. Also much lower ping times on Verizon, making everything snappy.

 

[Axon]

NYC is one of those areas where I've had bad issues with AT&T. Took literally five full minutes to get a short email out at JFK airport.

My experience has been that Verizon is faster in reality, even though on paper it's slower. Also much lower ping times on Verizon, making everything snappy.

I've had issues with both in NYC, but Verizon's LTE always seems effective. The 3G on the other hand will often stop working.

 

[ImDonly1]

Not sure if its because I'm on prepaid but Att has unreliable data that doesn't work half the time in the city. I've heard the same from people who are on regular postpaid service from att but can't confirm.

Verizon has slower 3G but it at least works when you want it to.

 

[PowerYoga]

depends on your location. In Chicago the 4g coverage is excellent, and I never see the 3g. That being said, the 4g is so fast you'd be silly to use 3g, and the s3 has pretty good battery life anyways.

Get at&t if you want dropped calls.

 

[Chocu1a]

I get Verizon 4gLTE pretty much everywhere here in the greater Memphis,TN area. 3g is reliable here, but there is no reason if you get a 4g phone.
Granted, you go through a lot more data on 4g. I only really only use data while driving in my car, streaming Play Music & I use almost 3gb per month.

 

[s44]

Haven't tried AT&T LTE here, but the Verizon version is basically flawless. AT&T NYC 3G has been a congested clusterfuck forever, as I'm sure you know.

Verizon 3G here was solid but slow when I was still on it. Some congestion during peak hours but pretty reliable.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

AT&T NYC 3G hasn't been that bad for me. A little worse than SF Bay Area, but for me it's pretty decent. Foursquare checkins have never failed me. Do you guys know what's worse than NYC AT&T? Las Vegas AT&T. You can't even use 3G during the day. It's 2G all the way.

As for LTE, LTE is solid on AT&T. 40mbps in Las Vegas. I did fine at EDC while 3G completely died for every network. 27mbps at San Francisco.

I dunno. Verizon data isn't great IMO if it's 3G. It's significantly slower than AT&T 3G, and with bad reception it's 56k speeds.

 

[waggy]

Verizon data has been good for me. 3g is not the best but i always get a connection. Teh few places i get 4G the speed is insane.

its a damn phone. how fast a connection do you really need? pandora works great even at the slow speeds

 

[Thegonagle]

Verizon's 3G is very reliable in my opinion, although I've not experienced the service in NYC. NYC is a challenge for ALL of the carriers as I understand it.

The big complaint is that Verizon 3G is not that fast, but it is certainly the most widespread data coverage by far. At 1-2 Mbps on the average site that's not in NYC, it's not that slow either, considering that you're probably in the middle of nowhere if you're not on 4G. (Verizon's 4G roll-out has been amazing so far. AT&T is already scrambling to play catch up. They're all like, "WTF just happened?")

I say get the LTE phone on Verizon, since you already have the Verizon LTE iPad and know it works pretty well. Also, switching between 3G and 4G gets old, and doesn't even save that much power. Just leave it in LTE and keep a few chargers around.

I have the notorious Thunderbolt. I tried the "keep it in 3G" thing for awhile, but I decided that A) it doesn't help enough to matter much; and B) why did I buy a 4G phone if not to use and enjoy the 4G?

Now I keep a charger in the car (my office), in the bedroom, and at my TV watching chair.

 

[Axon]

Verizon data has been good for me. 3g is not the best but i always get a connection. Teh few places i get 4G the speed is insane.

its a damn phone. how fast a connection do you really need? pandora works great even at the slow speeds

I need ultra dependable and relatively fast. If I'm boarding a four hour flight and a critical 50 mb pdf (sometimes even larger) comes in, I can't have the 3g icon just rotating while no data comes in. I need that friggin' thing ASAP.

Streaming, movies, I could care less about.

 

[jonny13]

I need ultra dependable and relatively fast. If I'm boarding a four hour flight and a critical 50 mb pdf (sometimes even larger) comes in, I can't have the 3g icon just rotating while no data comes in. I need that friggin' thing ASAP.

Streaming, movies, I could care less about.

Again, I've never had the 3G symbol show up and not have data coming down. Not sure where you are hearing that from.

Also, other than a few small airports in the middle of Montana or North Dakota, pretty much every major airport has Verizon LTE, so that 50mb pdf will be downloading at 10-30mb/s.

 

[Axon]

Again, I've never had the 3G symbol show up and not have data coming down. Not sure where you are hearing that from.

Also, other than a few small airports in the middle of Montana or North Dakota, pretty much every major airport has Verizon LTE, so that 50mb pdf will be downloading at 10-30mb/s.

Happens all the time to me on my Verizon iphone 4 (company phone) 3g and AT&T iphone 4 3g. The little loading symbol just spins and spins and spins and nothing happens. Hell, sometimes I struggle to get a 250k email. Half the time, instead of the "3g" symbol on the verizon iphone, I get some random "o" symbol, which I assume is their 2g.

I live on the UES of Manhattan and frequently travel out of JFK and LGA, both major hubs. I have grandfathered unlimited on AT&T, which may play a role. I do not DL much, however, and have never received a throttling message. That said, I'm lucky if I can get 3g AT&T data at any time in JFK or LGA. Not kidding. If there's a spectrum choke point, I always seem to be caught in it.

 

[notposting]

I only have experience with Verizon's 3G...it maxes out around 2Mbps down. But, the coverage is pretty dang awesome...and considering they plan on adding full 4G LTE to their entire footprint...they even have it in the Upper Peninsula where AT&T just got 3G last year

Excellent rural coverage for sure...

 

[Aikouka]

I've been tempted to swap to Verizon (if the new iPhone has LTE, which is almost assured), because AT&T is just so slow at rolling out LTE. I think the last figures that I saw said Verizon had somewhere around 350 cities and AT&T has 30. The numbers might be slightly off, but I believe it was that large of a disparity. Verizon has my city, most of the neighboring cities in Alabama, and even my home city in New York.

 

[Lemon law]

It somewhat depends on where you live and where you are planning to travel to. But you can check in advance by looking at Verizon, AT&T, and other carriers coverage maps.

No carrier has universal coverage everywhere. In some areas one wireless telco may not have any coverage at all while another wireless telco does, and in other areas no wireless telco offers any coverage at all.

But in my rural area in Indiana, its Verizon that has the best coverage. And now that my Verizon 4G ship finally came in Mid April of 2012, 4 Mbits/sec down is a slow day indeed. As I usually get 8-12 Mbits/sec down with fast pings. But still Verizon is years ahead of most wireless telco's in deploying 4G.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

When I was in NY last Christmas 4G LTE speeds werent bad at all. It might of changed with more people jumping onto 4G though.

 

[Lemon law]

From another forum.

Verizon announced today, that its adding 34 new 4G markets and cities.

"Verizon 4G LTE launches in 34 new markets, 75 percent of U.S. covered

Starting tomorrow Verizon will be launching 4G LTE in 34 new markets, which will cover more than three-quarters of the nation totalling 371 markets. According to Chief Technical Officer Nicola Palmer the compay is ahead of schedule for their rollout and said they anticipate hitting their 400 market target in the “near future”. Check the list below to see if your area ended up getting 4G LTE service:

Verizon's new markets: Hot Springs, Ark.; Redding, Calif.; Valdosta and Waycross, Ga.; Centralia and Danville, Ill.; Parsons, Salina, and Topeka, Kan.; Alexandria and Monroe, La.; Pittsfield, Mass.; Battle Creek and Muskegon, Mich.; Mankato and Worthington, Minn.; Joplin and Sedalia, Mo.; Bismarck, Grand Forks, and Minot, N.D.; Chillicothe, Ohio; Reading, Pa.; Aberdeen, S.D.; Laredo, Odessa, and Texarkana, Texas; Brattleboro and White River Junction, Vt.; Charlottesville, Va.; Longview, Wash.; and Eau Claire, La Crosse and Manitowoc, Wis.

The expanded markets: Los Angeles and Santa Barbara/Santa Maria, Calif.; Orlando, Fla.; Macon/Warner Robins, Ga.; Bloomington, Champaign/Urbana, Decatur/Effingham, and Springfield, Ill.; Elkhart, Ind.; Des Moines, Iowa City, and Sioux City, Iowa; Dodge City, Garden City, and Great Bend, Kan.; Lexington and Louisville, Ky.; New Orleans, La.; Boston, Mass.; Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn.; Missoula, Mont.; Las Vegas, Nev.; Manchester/Nashua, N.H.; Las Cruces, N.M.; New York, N.Y.; Cincinnati, Ohio; Greenville/Spartanburg, S.C.; Sioux Falls, S.D.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Salt Lake City/Ogden, Utah; Roanoke, Va.; Charleston, W.Va.; and Green Bay, Wis. Additional areas include: Little Rock, Ark., expanding into Batesville, Ark.; Tallahassee, Fla., expanding into Thomasville, Ga.; Burley, Idaho, expanding into Twin Falls, Idaho; Chicago, Ill., expanding into DeKalb, Ill.; and Cedar City, Utah, expanding into St. George, Utah."

Meaning I will soon be taking a hypothetical trip from my area in Indiana to Northern Minnesota using now yet updated Verizon map. There used to be large areas with no Verizon 3G or 4G coverage, and I suspect these new markets will greatly reduce those areas of no coverage along that planned trip route.

 

[Bateluer]

From another forum.

Verizon announced today, that its adding 34 new 4G markets and cities.

"Verizon 4G LTE launches in 34 new markets, 75 percent of U.S. covered

Starting tomorrow Verizon will be launching 4G LTE in 34 new markets, which will cover more than three-quarters of the nation totalling 371 markets. According to Chief Technical Officer Nicola Palmer the compay is ahead of schedule for their rollout and said they anticipate hitting their 400 market target in the “near future”. Check the list below to see if your area ended up getting 4G LTE service:

Verizon's rollout of LTE has been nothing short of staggering. For all my complaints and irritations with Verizon, their LTE speeds and coverage is not one of them. In fact, its the biggest reason for me to stay with them.