I have been travelling this weekend and had the opportunity to borrow (not from Verizon) a Verizon Wireless MiFi 2200. The drive south from Washington, DC on I95 shows how far AT&T has to go before they provide the level of 3G coverage Verizon currently has. That said it does not mean that AT&T does not have coverage, they do but at the slower EDGE speed. This is where the Verizon ads are slightly misleading; I think most individuals don't make or understand the distinction between 2G and 3G. AT&T 2G coverage is as good as Verizon's.
I have no issues when I am in Washington, DC with AT&T, I love my iPhone and 3G speeds are good. Although I do have the occasional dropped call, overall the service has been getting better and better. My biggest issue is in my home office, my 3G signal is lousy and I have to manually switch to 2G. After talking to friends who have seen results of carrier network performance tests, they are convinced there are two major issues with the iPhone. First the chip set that Apple uses is just not very good and the AT&T base station configurations do not handle data bursts very well. The base stations are designed to provide high quality real time voice processing; data packets seem to arrive in burst and overload the base stations causing dropped calls. The bottom line is that there is plenty of blame to go around between Apple and AT&T. The iPhone issues are not AT&T's alone as many pundits claim, the problem are shared between Apple and AT&T; that is clear to me when my iPhone does not switch between 3G and 2G in my house. Apple controls the network programming on the iPhone and AT&T controls the network. Both have to work well together to provide a good user experience.
What is great about the MIFI 2200 is that I can use it with my iPhone on Verizon's 3G network even if I am in an AT&T 2G EDGE area.
The Verizon MIFI 2200 unit on my dashboard.
The Verizon MIFI speed test result via a WIFI connection on the iPhone in South Carolina.
A speed test result on AT&T EDGE network in the same Hilton Head Island, South Carolina area.
The bottom line; if you need 3G outside of major metropolitan areas then Verizon is currently the way to go, and for iPhone users a MiFi 2200 may be an excellent option. If you need only occasional 3G access Verizon has a day pass for $15; however you do have to purchase the MiFi at the full price of $269.99 vs. $79.99 with a 2 year commitment with a minimum $39.99 per month plan.
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