June 30th, 2008
My other phone is on Verizon
How’s the AT&T coverage by you?
The AT&T wireless coverage in my area (southern New Jersey, close to Atlantic City) is atrocious. This is a problem for me as an iPhone user because I can’t get decent coverage in my house (1 bar tops) and my entire city is pretty much entirely dark (mostly zero bars). I complain about this all the time on the PowerPage Podcast and many people email me to say that AT&T coverage in their area is just fine.
I called AT&T customer service and they told me that my house is located in a “moderate” coverage area (which is supported by their coverage viewer) which should have “sufficient signal strength for on-street or in-the-open coverage.” But it doesn’t. I have one tiny spot in my backyard that gets one bar of signal but I usually get dropped within the first 10 seconds of any call.
Due to the horrible AT&T coverage in my area I’ve resorted to carrying two mobile phones and my other phone is a Samsung u740 (a.k.a. Alias) on Verizon Wireless. VZW gets excellent coverage in my house, my city and even the remotest parts of the beach and even out on the water. Verizon has the best coverage of any wireless provider, hands down. I wish Apple would have gone with Verizon for iPhone.
The Samsung u740/Alias is a capable handset, although it isn’t an iPhone. The Alias features a unique dual hinge design so that it acts like a standard flip phone when making calls, then it flips on the other axis to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard for things like SMS, IM and email.
I don’t really use the V-Cast music and video features but they’re available if you want them. Having real hardware keys to tap out messages is a nice change of pace compared to the virtual keyboard on iPhone, but the buttons are small and cramped. The compromise is that the QWERTY keyboard also contains the numerical keys, which means that they’re incredibly small. (Full review at CNet).
Loading ...How’s the AT&T coverage in your area?
Jason D. O'Grady is the editor of PowerPage.org, which has been publishing daily mobile technology news since December 1995. For disclosures on Jason's industry affiliations, click here or to view Jason's full profile click here.
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