Everyone has been following the stories on Verizon and AT&T’s 3G/4G platforms, especially those that are anxiously awaiting the official release from Verizon Wireless. In a recent interview between Information Week and AT&T spokesperson Seth Bloom, AT&T believes that Verizon’s approach will lead to customer service problems and that its own slow-and-steady speed improvement approach is superior, in their own opinion.
What would make AT&T have such an opinion? We have details of the interview to share with you that we found at Information Week.
According to IW, spokesperson Seth Bloom said in an email “Verizon is moving straight to LTE and not increasing their 3G speeds, so their customers will have a jarring drop-off in performance when not in an LTE service area – speed, sure, but also simultaneous voice/data, etc.” Bloom continued, “In contrast, because we are building LTE while at the same time continuing to increase 3G speeds, our customers can expect to have a much better experience when they’re not in a 4G area. This will be vitally important for the customer experience no matter the carrier.”
IW then gave their own opinion, stating that Verizon Wireless’ LTE network will reach download speeds between 5 and 12Mbps, and upload speeds of 2 to 5Mbps. While 12Mbps is surely faster than 3.1Mbps, IW thinks AT&T is overstating the performance issue a bit. Sure, speeds will drop as Verizon customers move between LTE and EVDO, but Verizon’s EVDO network is solid as hell, and fast enough for most professionals’ business needs when not under LTE coverage.
When IW asked Verizon for comments about plans to upgrade its 3G network speeds, Verizon Wireless spokesperson Jeffrey Nelson dropped this knowledge, “We have a proud history of meeting and exceeding market demands on our wireless networks. We build our networks for success right from the start and aren’t surprised when we succeed in the marketplace. And we constantly improve them. It’s just not enough to address your network problems by promising to do better down the road.”
Continuing on Nelson states “When choosing a wireless company, people want more than promises. Customers value our long-term track record for leading on network reliability, speed, coverage and capacity. By moving aggressively and becoming the first company on the globe to build a large-scale LTE network, we’ll gain first-to-market advantages in the US, with a head-start of at least 18-24 months.”
Will Verizon be upgrading the speeds of its CDMA EVDO 3G network? According to AT&T they don’t plan to. AT&T believes Verizon’s CDMA EVDO Rev. A network tops out at 3.1Mbps, and that’s where it will stay. What do you think of AT&T’s opinion. Do they have evidence to back up their own statements? Will their opinion be the actual outcome? Let us know your thoughts.
Source: Information Week