Yesterday, we ran a story about a new AT&T app that will allow users to report dropped calls, and in that article I noted places in the City where AT&T’s coverage seems kind of crappy. For the sake of this piece, I’m going to define “kind of crappy” as two or fewer bars, OK?
In the story, I said that I currently do not have consistent service at
— Lincoln-Irving-Judah between 42nd and 43rd (basically, where I live, yay! This is why I never respond to texts sent to me on the weekend days, FYI. Also, I am a hermit.)
— Fell between Divis and Fillmore
— Almost all of Crissy Field
Commenter and friend Ced remarked
It’s not AT&T’s coverage, it’s your iPhone. If you had a phone made by a phone manufacturer, not a mp3 maker, then you’d get coverage.
Which, interesting point! I’ve had an iPhone since August, 2007, so perhaps I’m being unfair to poor little AT&T?
According to the map Sarah B. pointed out to us, the areas I was griping about as being sans signal offer “moderate” service, which I know is untrue for me and my iPhone.
So I pulled out and charged:
A new, only once-used Samsung Jack
A (heavily) used Blackberry Pearl 8100
A much loved and missed Sony Ericsson S710a
Here’s my plan: This weekend, I’m going to swap my SIM card into each one of those phones and try to make calls from the areas I noted above, as well as some of the other “moderate” areas I might pass through. Where else (in SF! I am too lazy to leave the city, and also, don’t care) do you know AT&T craps out? Tell me in the comments, and I’ll check it out with one of the other phones. Let’s settle this shit!
Update: a friend google reader shared this lifehacker article about deadcellzones.com, a site where you are supposed to be able to enter zip codes to get an idea of how coverage is, based on user submitted information. However, it’s not working for me right now, but I’ll keep on checking over the weekend.
