we are new to pdx: verizon vs at&t coverage question

[Chris Hough]

I know this is a little off topic, however, considering we are all geeks and my wife and I are new to pdx, this sounds like a great place to ask this question.  If you currently use an iphone in pdx do you prefer verizon or at&t? how is your lte coverage?  have you used both providers?

My wife and I have been at&t customers for years, and are planning to buy the new iphone 5 this month.  Thinking of switching providers, but wanted to reach out for opinions first.  

Thank you for your help.

p.s. we are set on buying iphones, no need to waste time with droid or other phone model suggestions, thank you.  

[Davy Stevenson]

I have AT&T and am not super impressed with coverage. It does seem like my friends on Verizon have better and faster coverage. I'm also thinking of switching.

Davy

Sent from my iPhone

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[Jesse Cooke]

I've had Verizon forever & their speeds in the area are adequate. Their "Share Everything" plan is fantastic too.

There are a few spots where coverage is almost non-existent, one of those being SE 34th & Belmont.

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[Chris Hough]

@jesse @dave

both have share everything plans so I think they are equal on cost now. 

are your speed experiences on LTE, or just 3G?  

I am hesitant to switch if the experience is the same.  I know how much of a pain an error in porting the telephone numbers can be.  I used to work at AT&T for years.  

[Ralph Bodenner]

There's a pretty bad coverage hole in NE, north of Prescott around 40th. But otherwise I'm very happy with Verizon LTE coverage and speed around town. 

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[Ramiro Franco]

I found that coverage gaps are about equal with both services, ATT LTE gets me about 32mbps in SE portland, but only around 12 in downtown. I never had an LTE phone on Verizon so I don't know how the speeds compare. If for some reason you need to receive calls while tethering, that is a constraint the verizon iphone can't handle, so that's something to consider. 

[Chris Hough]

@Raplh @Ramiro

I completely forgot about the fact that with verizon you can not tether and receive calls at the same time.  Decision made.  

We will be staying with AT&T.  

Thank you everyone.

Cheers.  

[Fred Loney]

I threw in the towel on AT&T and switched to Verizon last month. Coverage improved from terrible to decent in the SW Multnomah Village area. Coverage differs widely by area, though. It's better to ask your neighbors.

Fred

[Judah McAuley]

T-Mobile will also be rolling out LTE this year and it is my understanding that it is supposed to be a faster implementation than either Verizon or AT&T. Portland has been an early market for T-Mobile in the past, so I would expect an early roll out here. They have attractive pricing and unlimited 4G data plans (for now), so might be worth being an early LTE adopter on their network once they get it going.

Cheers,

Judah

[Chris Hough]

@Fred true, I have sent this out to my neighbors as well.  so far, I think I am staying with AT&T b/c you can call out when tethered.  People are saying coverage is close for either carrier depending on where you live.  

@Judah Do they have the same problem as verizon? you can not make calls when tethered?  

We travel frequently and I know AT&T's 3G coverage is far bigger.

[Judah McAuley]

I'm not sure about tethering, honestly, I haven't used my phone in that fashion. I'm also on an Android phone, though my wife has an iPhone, so I'm not sure that my experience would be applicable to your situation or not.

As far as travel goes, I've had excellent luck with T-Mobile 4G coverage travelling, but it has been to big cities and my Samsung Galaxy S2 is using HSPA+, not LTE, so my not apply to your situation.  I just figured I'd mention T-Mobile's plans for LTE coverage as another data point to consider.

Cheers,

Judah

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[Sam Livingston-Gray]

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 12:05 PM, Chris Hough <chris...@gmail.com> wrote:
> @Judah Do they have the same problem as verizon? you can not make calls when
> tethered?

T-Mobile is GSM, on a different band than AT&T (this is one of the
reasons AT&T was looking at acquiring T-Mobile a while back; their
tech stacks are semi-compatible). As I understand it, the
calls-or-data choice is an artifact of CDMA, which is used by Verizon
and Sprint. Dunno how this plays out on either carrier's
implementation of 4G.

-Sam