Comments on: Here Comes the Verizon iPhone (?)

By: Bethany

Bethany — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:10:56 +0000

What I find interesting is the number of foreign vistors that complain about how America’s wireless services suck overall. All companies in the US are apparently terrible compared to Europe and Africa. I heard recently (probably NPR) that Japan has high-definition calling and the US is no where near having that technology for cell phones.
Are we already on the downward spiral of no longer being the world leader in science and tech?

By: Chris Mooney

Chris Mooney — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:03:57 +0000

Well it seems the news is now official, Verizon has the iPhone.

By: Sue

Sue — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 16:13:25 +0000

Personally I would NEVER use Verizon, after a particularly bad experience with them a few years ago. One of their reps convinced my then-husband (who was somewhat intellectually challenged) that she had a much better plan for us that really matched our usage and would save us money. So he agreed to switch (without consulting me); when I got the next bill, which was astronomical, I found out what he had done. This plan had 15 minutes of call time per month (!), orders of magnitude less than what we were using. They refused to cancel the plan, and it cost me $700 in early termination fees to get out (we had two phones and they charged us $350 per phone). I was appalled, and will never do business with them again (I’ve even switched our home phone service to Comcast; Verizon is the only other option in my area).

I’ve also used Sprint and AT&T and been happy with both (when my son mistakenly signed up for one of these $9.99/month services, AT&T canceled it and refunded three months worth of charges). Right now I am with AT&T because of the family rollover minutes, which are what we need right now. YMMV.

By: Solitha

Solitha — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 07:37:57 +0000

It’s been many years now, pre-smart-phones, but Consumer Reports did a study on cell phone service that I read while considering switching providers. They found that across the board, all service providers pretty much equally sucked. Although some were better than others, none had service and stability that could actually be called “good” on its own.

Just checked again; looks like they took another look a year ago. While Verizon came out on top, it’s still not exactly saying much when barely over half (54%) of overall respondents were “very” or “completely satisfied”.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2010/january/electronics-computers/cell-phone-service/overview/cell-phone-service-ov.htm

By: Chris Mooney

Chris Mooney — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 02:31:48 +0000

Huh. Here’s LA Times reporting that the iPhone may strain Verizon’s network. I’m not competent to judge

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-verizon-iphone-20110111,0,387478.story

By: Geran Smith

Geran Smith — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 01:39:28 +0000

I can tell you that Android phones use more data than the iPhone. Verizon carries a much larger burden of data usage as compared to AT&T. It is a combination of CDMA being more “efficient” with data and simply because Verizon has the capital to put in to a strong back-end network. AT&T blaming the iPhone for their poor service is a cop-out on their part.