Verizon is CDMA only. iPhone Verizon is a CDMA phone, not GSM.

you cannot use a AT&T iPhone on Verizon network.

Well, that changes things a bit then.

Verizon iPhone is CDMA - which apparently is used in Japan + China along with GSM. It will not work in Europe or with ATT.

I will be an angry fellow if the merger goes through. I've been pretty happy with T-mobile. I've NEVER been happy with anything AT&T has provided me. We switched our (land line) long distance carrier to Sprint just to get away from AT&T, even though it's at most $7 a month.

Plus, the girl at the T-mobile store that I frequent is pretty cute.

Glad I read through the thread before posting. That is exactly what I was going to say. My iPhone worked better in Europe than it does here. It doesn't work AT ALL in my office. I miss my Razr. It didn't play Angry Birds or make me breakfast, but it was great as a phone.

There is a good reason for this. Europe coverage is T-Mobile, aka Deutsche Telecom.

He11 yeah!!!!
I have been with T-mobile for something like seven years and just switched wife and daughter from Verizon and set up a family plan at T-Mobile... and now AT&T wants to assimilate them. :mad:

I dunno - we both have iPhones here, and we both habe ATT - it all seems to work great. Better at home, for sure, than our cordless landline phones. And yep, they work in Euro-land, but you got to remember to turn off data roaming, or you'll be smacked with huge bills.

Solution: At home, use a land line or make your local and/or LD calls via Skype or other internet phone. Remember, you're at home. And the monthlies are a lot cheaper too.

Recall the govt. broke up AT&T a few years ago due to monopolistic business practices? How many phone companies are there now? How many in a couple of years? Do you see a pattern re-emerging?

Let's see; in the US, AT&T has about 104M out of the 255M cell phones in use ('07 data). Multiply 104M by an average of $100/month. That's about $1B that AT&T grosses each month for not altogether great reception.

Sherwood

Again, the problem is not at home. I have a microcell and an Verizon Blackberry, so I have perfect coverage at home with all phones. The problem is that ATT sucks everywhere I go. I mean, I had no signal in BWI Airport last night, none in my office in downtown DC last week. It was ridiculous.

Meanwhile, I am running around btwn meetings in San Jose area and on ATT I am getting zero-to-one bars or "E" (2G) or both, at least 1/5rd of the time - this is not in the sticks, it is around various tech company headquarters' locations. But my VZ MiFi is working great, so I'm glad I carry both. I usually get fairly iffy ATT coverage in the Bay Area.

Wireless carrier choice - it is such a local decision.

That's how my ATT iPhone always is, almost everywhere. In the middle of the desert, I can sometimes understand. But I travel enough to know it's an ATT problem, not a location problem.

It's a capacity problem. Blame the iPhone and all of the people that must use them every waking moment of every day. If there are too many users on the tower closest to you then you get bumped to one further away, which means less signal strength. Plus, Iphones have lousy antennas, so you're double screwed.

I've used AT&T for more than 10 years, with zero problems. I have a very old phone, which gives me better signal strength and a battery life that an i-Phone user can only dream about. I don't get dropped calls. I don't have problems when I travel. I don't have problems at home.

As I understand it, AT&T will no longer have exclusivity with respect to the iPhone. Other carriers that will also be burdened with these things will get to share in the misery that AT&T has endured the last few years. Switch carriers carefully...

JR

The biggest problem I have with Verizon is messaging. There are times, for whatever reason, I get messages up to 12 hours late!

I travel between three homes on the east coast and have no problems with AT&T. We just got rid of our last Verizon phone and have been happy since. Verizon = bad customer support, slow texts and no travel range outside the US.

The technology is moving faster than the infrastructure needed to support it. I read that Apple is pushing to offer a cheap (like $0-50 + agreement) iPhone to lure folks considering the competition. I envision that in just a couple years nearly everyone will have a smart phone of some type. Hell I would say 50%+ of the students in my kid's middle school are sporting smart phones. Sorry son...no smart phone for you...yet...

I think Verizon > ATT at this point but GSM > CDMA and that is more important to me right now.

I cannot recommend sprint IMO they all suck. You can rule the suck with Verizon or have a giant sucky blanket with AT&T.