I just switched off of tmobile to verizon b/c I thought it incredibly unfriendly. They said I'd get 4g in Atlanta. But I didn't on 3 separate devices. I couldn't get service at all at my intown house which seems insane for a major city. When I tried to get out of my contract because they'd said I'd get service and I didn't they pulled up a map of their service area and said I was mistaken. I wrote letters I tweeted etc. They basically told me to fuck off.
Interesting. I've never been treated badly by any of their support staff, but I definitely have the "doesn't work in my own home" problem with them, as many other friends do. It perplexes me because AT&T works just fine inside my apartment, and I believe they are on close to the same frequency. Weaker signals perhaps?
AT&T has HSPA+ on 850MHz and 1900MHz, T-Mobile uses 1700MHz and 1900MHz, so the building penetration is significantly worse. However, due to the failed AT&T acquisition, T-Mobile phones can now roam on AT&T's 850MHz 3G spectrum, so most of the coverage issues indoors should disappear soon if they haven't already.
I didn't realize the frequencies were so dramatically different. If I remember my basic electronics, that's double the wavelength for the AT&T signals and that makes complete sense. Thanks.
