AT T Reveals Details About 3G Network Is Verizon Not Telling the Whole Truth in โ€ Thereโ€ s a Map for Thatโ€ Campaign?

Just the other day we showed you how Verizon has launched three new
commercials meant to continue their �There s a Map for That � campaign.
Verizon doesn t seem to care about AT T s lawsuit and keeps its guns at
AT T s 3G coverage. But is Verizon telling the whole truth?
After we ve seen the new ads and had a couple of laughs it s only fair
to AT T to show its side of the story too. One of the first things to be
mentioned is that Verizon doesn t compare the two companies data
networks as it focuses only on 3G coverage. But Verizon s CDMA 1xRTT
service is only capable of providing customers dialup-like speeds if the
faster EVDO Rev. A 3G network is not available.
On comparison, AT T has in place GPRS connectivity which offers dial-up
performances but it also has 2.5 EDGE deployed which offers download
speeds similar in performance to the low end of Verizon s EVDO Rev. A
network. AT T s 3G is actually a lot faster than Verizon s. While EVDO
Rev. A can offer download speeds of 0.6 to 1.4Mbps, the UMTS 3G
connection offers download speeds of up to 3.6Mbps and it s currently
being upgraded to faster HSPA 7.2Mbps.
So what did Verizon do? Apparently the company compared only the faster
portion s of both networks. Sure Verizon s 3G coverage is about five
times larger than AT T s. But AT T has better data speeds, at least in
theory, and its EDGE network can apparently compete with Verizon s 3G
network.
One other important thing to take into account is that Verizon is
advertising its 3G service as 5 times larger than AT T s but that number
doesn t mean that Verizon offers 3G services to 5 times more people. In
fact AT T says that its data network reaches 296 million users which is
98% of the population and its 3G service is available in 9,400 cities in
350 metropolitan areas in the USA.
So what do you think about the whole �There s a Map for That � campaign
now? Sure Verizon has a lot more 3G coverage but its network won t be
able to offer similar speeds to AT T s 3G network anytime soon. On the
other hand, AT T s 3G network, although speedier on paper, is not
sufficient to the needs of iPhone owners. That s probably why Verizon
keeps pushing its ads hoping to convince people not to buy iPhones from
AT T and purchase a Verizon smartphone instead. But analysts expect 8
million iPhones to be sold during the last quarter of the year and most
of those will probably be sold in the U.S. which doesn t sound that bad
for AT T.
Who will win the high-speed data war in the USA? There are a lot of pros
and cons for both networks so we ll be following closely this conflict
between the top two carriers in the USA. Will Verizon succeed in
stealing AT T customers this winter? What do you think?