Will AT&T coverage in the Bay Area improve with T-Mobile acquisition.

[scottjsf]

I'm preparing to buy an iPad2 3G and live in Marin and work in San Francisco. The Bay Area has notoriously bad AT&T 3G coverage which my wife knows all too well as she has had an iPhone for several years and AT&Ts coverage is dismal. Based on the data plans and other features that AT&T provides versus Verizon, I would prefer to go with AT&T so long as their coverage is at least as good as Verizon's will be going forward.

I have two questions - does anyone have any idea what effect the acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T will have on coverage/speed in the Bay Area? Also, how does AT&T in the Bay Area match up against Verizon in terms of coverage and speed right now?

 

[k7lvo]

I'm not familiar with T-Mobile's coverage in the Bay Area, but my money says that the main reason for the acquisition was to gain bandwidth in the major metro areas, wher capacity, rather than footprint, has been most of the problem.

All that to say that I'll bet that things will improve once the systems are integrated.

 

[SweetPoison]

I'm preparing to buy an iPad2 3G and live in Marin and work in San Francisco. The Bay Area has notoriously bad AT&T 3G coverage which my wife knows all too well as she has had an iPhone for several years and AT&Ts coverage is dismal. Based on the data plans and other features that AT&T provides versus Verizon, I would prefer to go with AT&T so long as their coverage is at least as good as Verizon's will be going forward.

I have two questions - does anyone have any idea what effect the acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T will have on coverage/speed in the Bay Area? Also, how does AT&T in the Bay Area match up against Verizon in terms of coverage and speed right now?

I wish I could help! We do have a Mod that lives down in the city ~ I am sure he could be very helpful!

Hopefully ~ he will pop in!

 

[Tim SPRACKLEN]

One of the aspects of GSM that I find annoying is that, when you're *not* roaming you can only join your home network. So, if you're in the Bay Area with a local 'phone tied to AT&T, you don't get a choice. Worse than that - you don't get a choice even if the AT&T network isn't available.

But, when I fly in from the UK with my UK phone/iPad and I'm roaming I get the choice of all the networks!! You'd think there'd be an option - OK the carrier would charge extra - to 'roam' even at home.

I remember an occasion in the UK when my car had broken down. I couldn't get a signal from my cell phone's service provider, but I could 'see' several other networks - but couldn't use them. The only time, when your not roaming, that you can use another network is for emergency calls.

Tim
Scotland

 

[manticore999]

That's the whole reason I gave my Ipad 1 to my nephew and bought an Ipad 2 - to dump AT&T for Verizon. Couldn't be happier!

 

[k7lvo]

One of the aspects of GSM that I find annoying is that, when you're *not* roaming you can only join your home network. So, if you're in the Bay Area with a local 'phone tied to AT&T, you don't get a choice. Worse than that - you don't get a choice even if the AT&T network isn't available.

But, when I fly in from the UK with my UK phone/iPad and I'm roaming I get the choice of all the networks!! You'd think there'd be an option - OK the carrier would charge extra - to 'roam' even at home.

I remember an occasion in the UK when my car had broken down. I couldn't get a signal from my cell phone's service provider, but I could 'see' several other networks - but couldn't use them. The only time, when your not roaming, that you can use another network is for emergency.

Tim
Scotland

In the U.S. carriers make roaming agreements with other carriers where they don't have coverage of their own. They may or may not make agreements with more than one carrier in a given area and the agreements may be different. For example, AT&T had agreements with two carriers in man area near me. One agreement was voice only, the other included data. Also, I can't remember any GSM phone I've had that showed a signal when I couldn't use it.

 

[Tarkio]

I'm preparing to buy an iPad2 3G and live in Marin and work in San Francisco. The Bay Area has notoriously bad AT&T 3G coverage which my wife knows all too well as she has had an iPhone for several years and AT&Ts coverage is dismal. Based on the data plans and other features that AT&T provides versus Verizon, I would prefer to go with AT&T so long as their coverage is at least as good as Verizon's will be going forward.

I have two questions - does anyone have any idea what effect the acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T will have on coverage/speed in the Bay Area? Also, how does AT&T in the Bay Area match up against Verizon in terms of coverage and speed right now?

The acquisition hasn't even been approved yet and ATT's CEO says the acquisition won't be completed for 12 months. Don't hold your breath.

ATT is horrible in many parts of New England. I also got rid of my iPad 1 so I could go with Verizon and have useable data speed at my office in Boston. I'm very happy with the difference.