

26% of AT&T iPhone Owners Going to Verizon - gatsby
http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2011/01/17/26-of-att-iphone-owners-going-to.html?ana=yfcpc

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bradleyland
I'll believe it when I see it. It's one thing to check a box on a survey, but
the outcome will be contingent upon a lot of factors, not the least of which
is the contractual situation that each of these customers finds themselves in.
Wireless carriers love contracts. More specifically, they love to keep
customers under contract.

Of the 26% that said they would switch, how many would do so if it cost them
an additional $100 in early termination fees? How about $200? Add in a $199
iPhone, plus activation, and you're looking at over $400 in some cases.

~~~
potatolicious
I don't think anyone believes that 26% will _actually_ switch. Surely the
actual conversion will be lower - but that's not the point.

The point is that 26% of AT&T's iPhone customers are so displeased that they
are itching to leave, and as you mentioned astutely, if they stay it's only
because they've been effectively chained down by a contract.

A business where a large portion of its customer base are involuntarily there
is a severely sick one, and will either fail out of its own accord, or
continue to hold back in the industry by propping itself up with monopolistic
behavior and paid-for regulations.

~~~
bradleyland
I don't necessarily disagree that ATT customers are grossly dissatisfied, but
I don't think they're alone. Sadly, I don't have any more recent numbers, but
the study linked below shows that 47% of all cell phone users would switch to
a competing provider to get a lower price if they didn't have to pay ETF fees.
At best, cell phone users feel no loyalty for their carrier. At worst, the
hate them almost universally.

[http://www.uspirg.org/newsroom/financial/financial-
privacy--...](http://www.uspirg.org/newsroom/financial/financial-privacy--
security-news/survey-shows-nearly-half-of-cell-phone-users-would-switch-or-
consider-switching-carriers-if-they-didnt-have-to-pay-contract-termination-
penalties)

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sabj
Dear AT&T customers, All the great things you hear about Verizon are lies.
Please, don't come over to this network - it's really horrible, I swear!
That's why I'm a lifetime Verizon customer. I mean, er...

Signed, A VZW Subscriber Panicked about AT&T Refugees

~~~
Retric
Exactly, I want to see what the AT&T network looks like the most heavy iPhone
users move on. For several years Verizon network had minimal smart phone
users, but after Android and iPhone usage ramps up they could have the same
sorts of issues.

PS: I want to stick with AT&T because Verizon has shitty reception around
around my parents house. But, where I live and work the AT&T data network is
heavy oversubscribed.

~~~
sudont
Well, the early release works to an advantage: the power users will be there
from February to June (when the iPhone 5 is released.) Meaning that anyone
willing to wait for the new one will get to pick a carrier in real-world
conditions.

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pavs
AT&T is just horrible. I am in Bangladesh right now and I jailbreaked my
iphone and I am using GSM from a local provider called "GrameenPhone"; I have
better network and internet speed here than I had in NY with AT&T.

Pathetic.

~~~
sliverstorm
FWIW, if you had a CDMA phone you couldn't have done that

(not an argument for AT&T, but for GSM)

~~~
pavs
I would never get a CDMA phone. iphone or not, AT&T sucks.

~~~
joeguilmette
Clearly someone is getting their alphabet soup backwards...

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stevenp
Better headline: AT&T Network to Become 26% More Reliable. :)

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onteria
Well, more specifically 26% of survey respondents said that. I think the
original article is actually a better read:

[http://www.investorplace.com/28029/impact-verizon-apple-
ipho...](http://www.investorplace.com/28029/impact-verizon-apple-iphone-
wireless-service-providers)

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daimyoyo
AT&T has repeatedly ignored the desires of it's customers. For proof of this
I'd cite the MMS debacle. The iPhone lauched in 2007 and iPhone customers
couldn't send MMS messages for more than 2 years after. As if people somehow
sending pictures of their cat to one another would cause the entire network to
melt. Another example of this is tethering. Tethering, like MMS was promised
for OS 3 but wasn't available for over a year in the USA because AT&T didn't
want it's customers to use it. And when they finally did, the cost was a high
one. They did away with the unlimited data plan, and restructured to a tiered
plan with an anorexic allotment of 2GB per month. If you still had your
unlimited plan, and wanted to use your phone to tether, you'd have to
permanently forfeit that plan in favor of the tiered one. And you also have to
pay a surcharge for the privilege. And the data you use while on tethering
would count against your normal allotment. Almost like AT&T engineered a plan
specifically designed to discourage users against using it.

Mabey AT&T is having financial difficulty and can't invest into the network as
a result? But according to
[http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/snaps...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/snapshots/2756.html)
they're not hurting for money. So despite making more than $10Billion in
profit, they simply can't let iPhone users use their phones the way they were
designed to be used.

Secondly, AT&T realizes the network sucks, they just don't care. Case in point
the AT&T microcell from Cisco. (See
<http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/24/att-3g-microcell/> ) It's a wonderful little
device that plugs in to your Ethernet to provide you a perfect reception in
your house. People in citys that have bad service, namely San Francisco, and
New York would really benifit from this but AT&T in their infinite wisdom has
decided that this magical technology must come at a price. And the cost of a
cell phone that actually works? About $150. Take a moment and reflect on that.
AT&T knows your service sucks, but unless you pay them, you're out of luck.
That's not telecommunication, that's extortion.

AT&T has long been able to abuse it's iPhone customers simply because they had
a monopoly on the iPhone. That ends next month. So I will be among the first
to switch and frankly I think the fact there will be more than one carrier
will benefit both. Verizon will be getting a massive amount of new customers,
and AT&T will have the bandwidth those customers would use freed up.

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anthonycerra
I was hesitant to switch to AT&T when I bought an iPhone 4, but I have to say
I haven't had any problems with them. In Chicago I have had more problems with
Comcast than I've had with AT&T. I'll be sticking around.

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kathishah
A lot of people don't know this: on Verizon, apps can't connect to internet
while on a phone call. I'll wait...

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abyssknight
They wish. And by they, I mean AT&T and Verizon. AT&T needs users to switch to
Verizon so the network can finally get some relief, and for the PR outbreak
that will happen when Verizon users finally realize the limitations of CDMA.
Verizon needs this to secure the revenue from iPhone users, as well as to
prove the resiliency of their network. Consumers are going to win this battle.
The carriers will lose.

~~~
IgorPartola
There is no way that AT&T is wishing to lose customers. Some of the AT&T users
may wish that others would switch. But AT&T will do anything it can to keep
the customers.

~~~
abyssknight
Unless they're the most difficult, ToS breaking, bandwidth sucking users on
the network. I think it was AT&T that showed us the stats on mobile data
usage. They stated that only 2% of mobile data users were consuming over 2gb a
month. They could make a lot more money for the same bandwidth by losing these
customers (and gaining different ones). Just playing devil's advocate here.

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FredericLL
I'm surprised people keep taking these Change Wave surveys at face value.

They don't even do random phone interviews but use a self-selected sample of
about 15,000 folks who signed up to take their surveys. And they brag that
those are early adopters and "professionals" - so not exactly a representative
group.

Also, just by default, I never trust a survey about consumers' opinions about
future purchase decisions. It's too easy to say you are going to buy something
in a survey and then never do it. Given that and the early termination fees
and the pure hassle of switching providers, these numbers just seem awfully
high.

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S_A_P
Hopefully that comes to fruition, I may get good service with less congestion.
I would consider the move if it didnt mean switching to CDMA. I use data +
voice often enough that this is a deal breaker.

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andrewcamel
Well AT&T certainly got off easy... I expected something closer to 60 or 70%

~~~
lallysingh
.. wait until at&t iphone users see verizon iphones perform next to them. I
can see a lot of vzw users telling their at&t friends to switch, so that they
can, you know, talk.

