AT&T has been railed on hard by Verizon for the past several months over its lack of 3G coverage. AT&T spokesman Mark Seigel, however, asserts that the company has improved its coverage a great deal in New York City and is working on improving coverage in San Francisco even more.
“We are working very hard in San Francisco and are not quite where we want to be yet,” said Seigel.
Citing third-party test results by Global Wireless Solutions, Seigel says voice services were 98 percent to 99 percent reliable in the New York City area in April, while data throughput has jumped from 50Kbit/sec. in 2005 to 600Kbit/sec. to 700Kbit/sec. Seigel was simultaneously critical of a ChangeWave survey that said that 4.5 percent of AT&T users reported having dropped calls in the past three months.
“That ChangeWave survey is qualitative research and seeking opinions,” Siegel said. “GWS is a quantitative study, and it actually measures the performance of the networks — not only ours but other carriers’ — in New York City over the last few years.”
While many industry experts have openly criticized AT&T’s wireless service, they continue to retain exclusive rights to the iPhone in the U.S. It is believed that a generous data plan offer for the iPad helped AT&T snag a six-month extension of their iPhone exclusivity, though Verizon might have an iPhone in early 2011.
Source: Computerworld
