Cell Service Ratings

[ScubaCinci]

Saw an article about this today. If you are thinking about switching carriers or curious as to who may be the best in your area - this gives the breakdown:

 

http://www.rootmetrics.com/rsr/ohio

 

At the top of the page, you can filter by city, state and at the national level. Bottom line for Ohio- Verizon is best overall and has the best reliability but AT&T has the faster network. This is also the case nationally. Sprint and T-Mobile are lagging significantly. Take it with a grain of salt though as I'm sure it varies greatly by specific locale and where you use the service the most.

 

I have AT&T now but will be switching to Verizon in the fall. We travel a lot and my wife has Verizon...she always has better service than I do and typically gets signals where I don't.

 

I originally saw this linked on the Ars Technica site and on there, a reader made an interesting comment:

Why is Verizon's network so great? Because the government made the big mistake of letting private companies purchase spectrum. Verizon (intelligently) purchased some of the most prime spectrum - which travels further and goes through objects better than higher spectrum like Sprint's 1900-2100mhz WiMax - and was able to lock competitors out of that spectrum as a result.

For example if Verizon and Sprint have the same number of towers in an area, but Verizon's is in the 700mhz range and Sprint's 2100mhz, Verizon will have stronger signals in buildings and across an area at least 1/3 wider.

 

That may or may not be accurate but if it is, it underlines why Verizon service is more reliable.

 

Looks like they have a ton of data, including a coverage map.

http://webcoveragemap.rootmetrics.com/us/

Edited March 6, 2014 by ScubaCinci

[YSR_Racer_99]

Good link.  Thank you.  The "cheaper than them" commercials for AT&T and Sprint often get me thinking about leaving Verizon, but we've been with VZW from the start (through all the name changes), and they really do have good coverage and service.  

[Tigerpaw]

I've travelled the country with Verizon & my cowworkers having all the other brands.  VZW has been by far the most reliable everywhere we go.  This has been my experience for the past 12 years and counting.

 

Verizon just works.  Period.

[blue03636]

Verizon has pissed me off beyond belief and we switched to tmobile. $60 a month cheaper and still works better than verizon where I live.

[r1crusher]

Just because you live under a rock doesn't mean VZW is bad.  

[blue03636]

Just because you live under a rock doesn't mean VZW is bad.  

Just don't see where it's worth the money. Plus zero signal at my house is unacceptable when every other carrier has full signal.

[YSR_Racer_99]

Just don't see where it's worth the money. Plus zero signal at my house is unacceptable when every other carrier has full signal.

Sounds like you made the right call for your circumstances.   Signal depends on where their towers are.  Maybe they see that everyone else has your area saturated, and the benefit doesn't justify the cost.

[PhilD'oh!]

Verizon Gobal coverage has worked very well for me, no complaints other than the cost.

[Connie14]

I travel all over the state for work in both rural and urban locals. We have tried all of the service providers. In our experience, Verizon is by far the best.

[BadTrainDriver]

Verizon since way before it was Verizon.

I wouldn't even consider another.

I've still got unlimited data usage too!

[blue03636]

Sounds like you made the right call for your circumstances.   Signal depends on where their towers are.  Maybe they see that everyone else has your area saturated, and the benefit doesn't justify the cost.

Thing is it was fine until last year when they upgraded to 4g. There response to my problem was to buy their network extender.