Verizon iPhone owners drop fewer calls than AT&T iPhone owners, survey finds

By on Apr 5, 2011 at 10:08 AM
mobile April 5, 2011

Market research firm ChangeWave on Tuesday released the findings of a recent study analyzing iPhone 4 owner experiences and owner satisfaction. The study pitted Verizon Wireless’ iPhone 4 against the same model from AT&T, and sought to compare consumer experiences with the device at each carrier. Following years of complaints regarding poor service and dropped calls on AT&T, the question on everyone’s mind following the iPhone’s launch with Verizon Wireless was whether or not service quality would improve. According to ChangeWave’s findings, the answer is yes. In a survey of 4,068 customers, ChangeWave found that over the past 90 days, Verizon Wireless iPhone 4 users have dropped approximately 1.8% of calls while AT&T iPhone 4 owners dropped 4.8% of calls. Of course Verizon’s iPhone hasn’t even been on the market for 90 days and calling habits and frequency were not taken into account, so the results do become somewhat suspect. What’s more, ChangeWave notes that its survey started “several weeks after Verizon began offering the iPhone 4,” so we could be looking at just over a month of anecdotal Verizon Wireless data being compared to three months of anecdotal AT&T data. ChangeWave also found that Verizon Wireless iPhone owners are slightly more satisfied than AT&T iPhone 4 owners, with 82% saying they were very satisfied compared to 80% for AT&T.

Read

Tags:
, , , , , , , , , , , ,
44 Comments

Related Articles

  • Bringit

    of course.

  • http://www.techno-update.com techno-update

    Dosen’t suprise me,Verizon destroys At&t when it comes to service.

  • Anonymous

    No big surprise there. Verizon is just cool like that.

    anon-tools.no.tc

  • http://www.droiddoes.com/ Norm

    Even though I hate Apple, I love Verizon and it’s no surprise that Verizon’s network is better than AT&Ts Swiss cheese crap network.

  • Phrough

    Not to sound like a troll, but the Apple really needs to do something about their reception and signal. My fiancee has a Verizon iPhone and works awesome on normal occasions. Last week was opening day for the Rockies and Denver was packed with people. We had a small group getting together and trying to meet up. 3 of the 5 people could not get a signal

    2 – ATT iPhone – no signal
    1 – Verizon iPhone – no signal
    1 – ATT Blackberry Torch – Perfect Signal
    1 – Verizon Droid X – Perfect Signal

    Now you tell me is it the network, or the phone???

    • http://twitter.com/WillieFDiazSF William Diaz ✔

      Its a cross between network and phone.

      On a flawed phone design, a more robust network with more sites and power MAY help.
      On a great phone design, the more robust network will help greatly, but a semi-great network will also have the perception of working.

      Ironically, BlackBerry prides itself on antenna reception issues, and Ive seen BlackBerry on all 4 major carriers, and never really seen an issue with them other than software issues or just plain old hardware overused go bad – like mine did on Sprint.

      I cant speak much for Motorola, but I can say that my Motorola Razr on T-Mobile held a signal longer than any other phone Ive used at that time of release. I would expect the Droid X to be designed similarly with regards to antenna design.

    • Generatione

      Exactly. My POS blackberry (company phone btw I would never buy a retarted blackberry!) has reception when my iPhone doesn’t. It is clear to me that the iPhone’s reception is also a problem. I would be nice if the survey pitted the iPhone against other phones on the Verizon network.

  • Anonymous

    Yet the Verizon sampling was a mere fraction of the AT&T one, that makes for fair results…

    • Anonymous

      actually if you read the full report, you’ll see that ATT sucks across the board, and Verizon rocks.

      Key points…
      1) ATT finally started getting it’s sh*t together in Aug/Sep/Oct. At the peak of the iPhone 4 rollout, it was dropping 6.0% of it’s calls across the board (iphone or otherwise). This correllates to a major upgrade in the alcatel/lucent systems that failed in June in advance of the iPhone4 rollout, but then was fixed in the 3rd quarter. Since then they’ve SIGNIFICANTLY improved service… dropping call drops down to 4.7% in 2 quarters… or in marketing speak “ATT has improved by 25% it’s connectivity”

      2) It’s not the phone. No changes to the phone and the connectivity improved. Phrough may beleive otherwise… and I don’t dispute his/her experiences, but my experience with a iPhone 3 and a 4 in Minneapolis is that where coverage sucks, the iphone sucks. Where coverage is decent, the iPhone 3/4 are rock.

      3) ATT is improving. If they get Tmobile bandwidth that can only help.

      4) for me… it’s all about the data rate. I still stomp all over verizon users in MPLS when it comes to download speeds. I agree calls drops are frustrating, but that appears to be an underengineering problem. YMMV.

      5) Voice + Data is how I work. I work that way at my desk, and I work that way on the road (my bus is my office for 45 minutes a day). Anything less well… isn’t a smartphone.

      • Anonymous

        Does not answer the sampling issues at all, even after the full read 1200-1300 person sample does not take in to account any variables that make this data accurate as others have stated.

        Last time I checked, each of these carriers have 90+ Million subs across 2g and 3g on many different devices and use patterns. This is one case where i think the carriers only have a true feeling for network performance and would never share it with us. AT&T Did not spend billions fixing their network on the back of this type of rubbish report. As always everyones mileage differs and yours 3k miles from me does not represent my experience.

      • KCRic

        It’s called getting an average – or a base number to compare. Since getting info from 90 million+ people is logistically not practical, you have to get an average.

        Yes, your experience may differ from another persons but we’re talking about the average dropped calls on one network vs the average on another. That doesn’t mean you will ever experience a dropped call. Regardless of the variables – 2G, 3G, how does that even effect this? If it does that still means one carrier has a crap network. Besides, calls are not made on 3G band ‘techjunkie’ they use ’2G’ bands for that, 3G is for data. Maybe you should consider changing your name….

      • Phrough

        I agree with you. My fiancee’s Verizon iPhone 4 actually gets better reception in our Condo than my Verizon Droid X does.

        When it comes to an overloaded network, my Droid X shines. Neither one of us could get data, but I was able to talk/text as much as I wanted to. She could do nothing with her iPhone. That doesn’t make sense to me, but it’s the facts and we were sitting right next to each other.

        Same network, so my conclusion is it has to be the phone.

        Don’t call me a fanboi either. I really like both the iPhone and Droids. I like to customize more so I have an android phone. Otherwise, I’d get an iPhone. Both are great phones IMO.

    • TruthBeTold

      don’t try to swing from ATT’s nuts…they’ve already got enough problems. Like having to purchase T-Slowbile just to claim rights to a sub par 4G Network cuz’ they were too busy pushing and riding the 3G Wave for FAR too long

      • KCRic

        Ah yes, because T-Mobile’s 4G is in no way faster than Verizon or AT&T ’4G’. Look, theoretical speeds don’t mean sh!t in a tech argument. My NIC card can ‘theoretically’ go as fast as 1 gigabit per second, doesn’t mean sh!t though does it? Since I don’t have a gigabit network to attach it to.

        So Verizon LTE *can* go up to 100Mbps, but you only get speeds of ~6Mbps. See how theoretical doesn’t hold up in an argument? T Mobile’s network is the fastest of all the networks. HSPA may only max out at 48Mbps but guess what? Its speeds are still higher than Verizon’s.

  • Djn151

    Verizon can kiss my butt. I hate their billing practices. Yes I do get more dropped calls on Att but at least I get the same bill every month with no customer service headaches. I really find verizons arrogance deplorable.

    • http://twitter.com/WillieFDiazSF William Diaz ✔

      I guess its all relative. Both AT&T and Verizon in my opinion have big heads and give terrible customer service. My friends call ME to handle their billing issues on both carriers because Im so used to dealing with Sprint. If thats any indicator, it means I get things done. But even I wont deal with those two for much longer, as their egos have got the best of them.

  • AndroidLover

    This is such a dumb post…..obviously since Verizon has a network 10 times bigger than att………BGR is one of the lousiest tech websites out there…..posting dumb stuff

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BHMB52ZFMATI5KS7D4JT6UU7NA Eric W

      Really 10 times bigger, you’re joking right? Do you really believe that?

  • Anonymous

    In the world of statistics, where the idea of meaningful population means something, this is complete tripe. A simple phone call to a random person asking if they have had a dropped call in the past 90 days does not equal a true representation of the current situation.

    **Note** I am not saying AT&T is better than Verizon or vice versa, just that this “study” is complete crap.

    • Bullet Tooth Tony

      Isn’t this critique true of all random polls? Politics comes to mind as the biggest one, yet all sorts of weight is thrown behind polling in that world.

      • Anonymous

        No, quite the opposite. Who someone voted for is usually a simple boolean answer with no mitigating factors. You could make the argument about geography e.g. “blue” states vs. “red” states, but provided you get an equal number of random participants from both areas the statistical population is usually sound. Now a random political poll on the streets of NYC or DC IS useless because of this reasoning but that’s a whole other discussion.

        The problem with this “survey”, at least according to the report above, is they didn’t account for call frequency and ownership length. Did the person who they call actually own an iPhone 4 for the full 90 days? If so, how many minutes a month do they average? The dropped call figure above could very well be the fact that the random AT&T customers polled use their phones 4 times more than their random Verizon counterparts. There’s also the issue that the Verizon iPhone hasn’t been out 90 days too so it’s not an equal sample size.

        This whole “study/survey” reeks of someone desperate for headlines thinking “hey, if I include Apple in my poll it’ll bring me a lot of exposure.”

      • Anonymous

        No, quite the opposite. Who someone voted for is usually a simple boolean answer with no mitigating factors. You could make the argument about geography e.g. “blue” states vs. “red” states, but provided you get an equal number of random participants from both areas the statistical population is usually sound. Now a random political poll on the streets of NYC or DC IS useless because of this reasoning but that’s a whole other discussion.

        The problem with this “survey”, at least according to the report above, is they didn’t account for call frequency and ownership length. Did the person who they call actually own an iPhone 4 for the full 90 days? If so, how many minutes a month do they average? The dropped call figure above could very well be the fact that the random AT&T customers polled use their phones 4 times more than their random Verizon counterparts. There’s also the issue that the Verizon iPhone hasn’t been out 90 days too so it’s not an equal sample size.

        This whole “study/survey” reeks of someone desperate for headlines thinking “hey, if I include Apple in my poll it’ll bring me a lot of exposure.”

  • Nate

    That graph does not state that 1.8% or 4.8% of calls were dropped. It says that of the people surveyed, 1.8% of those on Verizon and 4.8% of those on AT&T had “experienced a ‘dropped call’”. There is a significant difference in the two.

    • Gunther

      Wrong and wrong. Read the question. “Over the past 90 days, how frequently have you experienced a “dropped call” on your iPhone 4?”

      The question and resulting data pertain to frequency of dropped calls, no the number of respondents who said they had dropped calls.

      If you’re going to comment, please stop being dumb. Thanks.

  • http://robert.aitchison.org raitchison

    Interesting but I tend to discount surveys that rely upon consumer experiences. Many VZW customers are almost fanatical in their devotion to the big red. I would not count on them to objectively report any issues they might have. Much the same way that many iPhone users were more than willing to lay any blame for issues they experience at the feet of AT&T because it would be inconceivable that there could be an issue with an Apple product.

    I’d suspect that most VZW iPhone users right now are both iPhone and VZW fanboys, as most iPhone fanoboys would still be under contract with AT&T after getting their iPhone 4 and most VZW fanboys already picked up an Android device, right now you have the few who held out for a VZW iPhone or were compelled to break their contract or upgrade early to get a VZW iPhone.

  • http://robert.aitchison.org raitchison

    Interesting but I tend to discount surveys that rely upon consumer experiences. Many VZW customers are almost fanatical in their devotion to the big red. I would not count on them to objectively report any issues they might have. Much the same way that many iPhone users were more than willing to lay any blame for issues they experience at the feet of AT&T because it would be inconceivable that there could be an issue with an Apple product.

    I’d suspect that most VZW iPhone users right now are both iPhone and VZW fanboys, as most iPhone fanoboys would still be under contract with AT&T after getting their iPhone 4 and most VZW fanboys already picked up an Android device, right now you have the few who held out for a VZW iPhone or were compelled to break their contract or upgrade early to get a VZW iPhone.

  • Anonymous

    Zach, did you show this study to Jonathan S. Geller, who returned his Verizon iPhone 4 because [HE] didn’t get an improvement in voice call reception and claimed his dropped calls remained as high as they were on AT&Trash.

    • Booboolala2000

      Don’t forget, he likes to change phones often and thinks swapping a simple card vs dialing *228 was easier because dialing was so complicated.

  • http://twitter.com/blueshound Liquor Beer and Wine

    Nearly all of that 1.8% they were connected to AT&T users.

  • Tim242

    Over the past 90 days??? Interesting. The Verizon version has not even been out 60 days yet.

    • Jake

      I was thinking the same thing.

  • Digi

    My experience in WV and VA was that at&t was better and dropped less calls

    Just sayin

    • Mpossoff

      My experience in Philly is that AT&T and VZW are the same.

  • View4free2002

    One question – were the customers surveyed from similar locations?

    • Chut Pata

      Good question. Customers in remote areas would not even get a signal if they are in AT&T, whereas customers in megacities will have faster download if they were with AT&T.

  • http://twitter.com/Steelers7510 Ty Carlson

    I swear to god that idiot that wrote this article the most bias person toward AT&T I have ever heard! The question on everyones mind was not whether AT&T service would improve it was whether Verizon’s network could handle the pressure. Secondly if you didn’t think that the data was relevant because of the time period then why even bother publishing the article?!?! smh.

  • Mrwirez

    No kidding ….

  • Anonymous

    This story reminds me of the scene in Dumb and Dumber when Lloyd reads the newspaper hanging on the wall in the bar. “We’ve landed on the moon!”

    • Anonymous

      I thought you were going to reference the part where he takes off his seat belt and tells Harry that it’s okay – a majority of accidents happen within 25 miles of home (which means nothing more than that a majority of people travel within a 25 mile radius of their home on a daily basis). Since they had passed the 25 mile marker, that meant they were safe :P

      It’s clear that less people are happy with AT&T, but does the AT&T network suck? No way. They have almost as many subscribers as Verizon and the difference in the numbers in the chart are so minute it isn’t even worth mentioning. This whole thing is getting blown out of proportion by fanboys on both sides.

  • Anonymous

    This story reminds me of the scene in Dumb and Dumber when Lloyd reads the newspaper hanging on the wall in the bar. “We’ve landed on the moon!”

  • Froyo55

    that’t it, I knew Verizon is better than At&t. I felt it. Thanks BGR.

  • 1T2dirtnap

    This isn’t news, most of the US already knew this.

  • Anonymous

    LoL! Talk about Waaaay off!

    (1) First off, Verizon’s iPhones (and iPads) should be cheaper since you can’t use them overseas like the GSM ones.
    (2) Businesses will favor GSM idevices for this very reason.
    (3) Even with an iPhone 5 (or 6) running “4G LTE”, AT&T&T-Mobile (the pending monster) will have an advantage over Verizon since their idevices will have HSPA+/LTE which will be MUCH FASTER than the lame EVDO/LTE (US only) models that Verizon will offer.

    ChangeWave? More like FailWave! Do more homework boys. Sayin…

  • audidrvr

    i rarely have reception problems with my iphone. these people are talking crap.

blog comments powered by Disqus