AT&T downgrades 2G service effectively telling you to upgrade

edge will only be fased out for 3g, and all is at the local level. So stop worring about your 3g handset relying on edge, cause this is going to expand and make the 3g coverage better. So instead of your phone making the switch to edge cause your at your house, or in the basement, or in the stix, or wherever, it will STAY on 3g, so NO need to worry about losing the freakin’ edge coverage if you have a 3g phone.

only people who should be complaining are the ones with edge only phones or people who don’t like 3g because of battery issues, but even then, expanding the 3g coverage will also make battery life better on 3g handsets.

THIS MAKES ME SO MAD!!!!!!!!!!!!! They have been telling us in our city that we’re going to get 3G for about 2 years now and still nothing. Now they are going to downgrade? What the %$&* is going on? Give us ALL the option of 3G and then cut back those people that don’t want to upgrade. I have had a 3G phone since they came out and have patiently waited but this is unreal!

Well, the State of Iowa has no 3G coverage… so EDGE is our one and only option. So there is no way I would buy the 3G iPhone and pay $15 more /month for a service I am not able to get.

THEY WILL NOT DOWNGRADE YOUR SERVICE IF YOU HAVE A 3G PHONE. YOU WILL START GETTING 3G NOW. STOP BEING SO PISSY AND ACTUALLY READ THE ARTICLE. IF YOU HAVE A 3G PHONE YOUR SERVICE WILL IMPROVE.

Not really surprising to me. I remember when I signed up with them, this was when they were just starting to roll out 1900 service in a big way. I bought a Siemens SX56 Pocket PC/Phone and got a great deal on it also (So I thought).

What they didn’t bother to tell me or anyone else that I know of was that they had discovered that the 1900 spectrum didn’t reach as far as the 850 band and that it would take as many as 3 1900mhz tower to cover the same area as the older 850 system. So they started converting 850 sites to fill in areas that 1900 couldn’t.

Unfortunately the SX56 was 1900/1800 dual band not 1900/850. Real nice of them to forget that fact when they sold me the phone.

I left them as soon as I could and haven’t looked back. AT&T sucks, “Get no bars for more money”

Can AT&T reception and customer service get ANY worse??? I going to switch to Sprint this week. I already did the math and I will save $62 a month with Sprint!! Besides they dont have reception issues and have the fastest and largest 3G network already! BYE BYE AT&T…Hello Sprint!

Verizon’s expanding without having to downgrade their 2G…AT&T is doing the same…spend money like Verizon instead of being cheap…that makes no sense when you’re trying to compete.

Any Angelenos out there? How’s your service?

I must be the only one getting great service in my TENTH year with AT&T. 3G speeds are consistently above 900kbps, and EDGE speeds are just under 200kbps…Doesn’t seem to matter what part of the day/night I do a speed test.

HOWEVER, when I go out to jog, visit friends, etc., it will vary greatly. 2 blocks north of where I am, it’s EDGE-ONLY! In yet other areas, no signal at all.

So…won’t the already overloaded 3G network suffer yet AGAIN with 2G customers being forced onto 3G?

Did anyone read the little work in the story? RUMOR?

There sure is a lot of thought and energy being used up on a rumor. Does anyone have any facts to share? Not like “I don’t have and never had 3G” but things like “I used to have better EDGE service then I do now? I don’t see any of that published in these comments.

Lets get some FACTS

AT&T isnt cutting the legs from under the EDGE network, its moving the 3G to the stronger bands so that it can boost its 3G coverage to make our lives better. EDGE isnt going anywhere, its the backbone of 3g.. GSM>GPRS>EDGE>3g

Here is my experience with att downgrading their service. I purchased the iPhone in Aug 08′, gave it the 30 trial and kept the service. The iPhone is incredible. Anyways, one day last month, I no longer had edge service at work. 3G was not strong enough, so i would switch over to edge to get service. Therefore i no longer had service while i was at work. I called att to report the signal issue. After a few days, they called me back to let me know they decommissioned a tower in the area (or did they move the edge to the weaker band?). So when i brought up the fact that i would not have kept the phone if this is the service i was going to have when i signed up for the service, i wouldn’t have kept it. The CSR told me that because this change in service was out of my control i would be allowed to break my contract with att. After a few more days i decided to cancel my service. And as stated, there was no ETF. I miss using the iPhone dearly, but what good is a phone that b you cant use at work. This might help anyone that notices a degrade in cell service due to att lowering the band on the edge.

I lost edge service at work because of this, and was able to terminate my contract with att with out penalty. Due to the fact that the signal degrade was out of my control.

The whole 3G concept is confusing at best to begin with. AT&T is supposed to be a GSM network, but their 3G service is pretty much dressed up CDMA service? I live in Louisiana and in most of the areas here, AT&T is the only reliable coverage available. I”d say less than 10% of the state is covered with 3G towers, so phasing out 2G service isn’t extremely practical or economical. Despite the CDMA background of their 3G, it’s laid over their existing 2G network. This isn’t like the digital takeover of analog service a few years back, but it does leave one to wonder: are we going to be at 19G by the year 2025? At&T’s coverage over Louisiana is wonderful. For the majority of us who want to just make calls and get a steady signal, why isn’t 2G enough? For my limited experience, AT&T’s 3G reception is quite inconsistent.