bigtom

It was a tri-band phone, but given she had to swap it out for another (refurbished) one, I'm willing to blame the device rather than Sprint (my N5 could latch onto LTE without issue whereas hers wouldn't budge from CDMA unless forced to). My friend had a Galaxy Nexus on Verizon - he loved it, so I thought it couldn't be that bad. I was wrong...so wrong. Hopefully when the next iPhone drops I can pick up a gently used 6 to get LTE-A and HD Voice and make the 5S a backup device.

It was my dad's Christmas present from me....never purchased a Samsung device since. And I've gotten the GF away from Samsung after her S4 was hot garbage for reception on Sprint....

I lived in Central NJ (Monmouth County - near Great Adventure). I worked for CBS Radio NY and would take NJ Transit into and out of the city, as well as drive in the length of the NJ Turnpike. Sprint had LTE along the NE Corridor line till you got past Princeton Junction, then it didn't pick up again till New Brunswick. Same for the Turnpike - between 8 and 9 was a 3G only zone. This was on a iPhone 5, and pre upgrades for many of the sites - when I got my Nexus 5, reception improved in the area but was still not as good as Verizon. Down the shore was better - Asbury Park/Neptune/Belmar all were fine for data and voice. The only reason I went with AT&T was that I had a hotspot thru them, as well as receiving a FAN discount thru work. So when I had to switch, I went with them. Plus, Verizon's EV-DO network was/is much slower than the HSPA that my AT&T hotspot falls back to whenever LTE is unavailable. Over the summer I drove from Eastern NC to NJ, then out to Northern Michigan (Cadillac), over to Central PA then back to NC. And outside of a few spots on Interstate 80 in PA, I had at least HSPA thru the hotspot (my GF has Sprint, and outside of metro areas, she had to use my hotspot for data - but I blame her device moreso than the network..she has a S4 that never gets good reception...even after getting the device swapped). On topic (somewhat) AT&T has started rolling out AWS in Wilmington NC - it is speedy when you can get it. Still some stretches of Highway 17 between New Bern and Jacksonville that are HSPA, but I think my 5S just doesn't have the same reception as my Nexus 5 did.

I would love a site simialr to this for AT&T network upgrades (I found this thread googling for one LOL). AT&T certainly isn't immune to issues - in my semi rural part of NJ it's Big Red or nothing, even after Sprint upgraded the towers in the area. I had a great expierence in and around Boston with Sprint, and even in NYC. But I moved to Eastern North Carolina, and Sprint unfortunately just doesn't have the tower density to serve my needs in this area - even using the RF beast that is a Nexus 5 and tower upgrades. AT&T serves me well, but at a cost. I'm hoping that over the next year or two Sprint can get to the next level in my area so that I can stop handing money over to the Death Star. My dad had Sprint in Houston - loved it, had great call quality & data speeds (even on the Galaxy Nexus I bought him)...same story as me. He moved to rural Central PA, and had dropped calls & slow/no data. Verizon isn't the king around here either - I have coworkers who can't use their phones inside the building, whereas I could even when I had Sprint. This past weekend I was at a music festival for work, and my coworker with VZW couldn't use data or make a call whereas I had no issue with either on AT&T. Marketing has a lot to do with this as well - Verizon has been hammering away for years about their network, even with LTE sites overloaded in major metro areas. But my friends still refuse to leave, even with poor reception and slow data. Thank you Robert, WiWavelength and others for this quality content on the site - well worth the money, and better than most other outlets.