Is Verizon’s network better, or is it simply untested?

This article over a TechCrunch is putatively about the iPhone, but the take-away for me is that AT&T’s data traffic has grown 50-fold over the last 3 years:

(Slide is by Mary Meeker of Morgan Stanley)

It’s easy to complain about AT&T’s network, etc, because people like to bitch. But I am not aware of any data service that has ever scaled up that quickly.

And one wonders what Verizon’s aggregate data traffic looks like. I imagine it’s a fraction of AT&T’s, because Verizon just doesn’t carry handsets with the popularity and capability of the iPhone. It’s considered conventional wisdom that Verizon’s network is better, when in fact, it’s untested.

Comments

21 October 2009 4:51p Pacific #

I'm not an expert on mobile networks but:

1) Saying that you'd imagine Verizon's traffic is a fraction of AT&Ts is a pretty big assumption.  For one thing Verizon is the countries biggest network, so even if the ratio was lower the size may compensate.  Either way, if you want to make the claim you should probably back it up with some numbers.

2) I'm pretty sure dead zones don't really have anything to do with network use.  In fact, I think the real reason AT&T is having so much trouble is that their towers are not built with the correct ratio of distance between them for the 3G frequency.  They are currently trying to move the towers, but as you can imagine with zoning laws etc., this is a slow, very bureaucratic process.

3) Verizon's CMDA/EVDO network is a lot faster than AT&Ts GSM/EDGE network (based on the capabilities of the technology, not the coverage) so even if Verizon had fewer 3G users, those fewer users could also be using much more data than the other ones (admittedly speculation, but hey fight fire with fire right?).

So: It's coverage is undisputedly better than AT&Ts, it has more users, its network is faster and more reliable...fail to see your point.

Finally, you are claiming that the data service scaled extremely quickly.  This is also not necessarily true.  While I'm sure they've had to scale the service, just because it was only supporting X users doesn't mean it couldn't support 30X users or even 300X users...

Will |