AT&T's reception problems seem to be mostly concentrated in a few large cities -- most notably NY and SV/San Fransisco.

I'm a longtime AT&T customer and recent iPhone owner. I've lived in Milwaukee and Phoenix, and their reception is on par with the other carriers in those cities. NY and SV are, in my opinion, the last places you'd want poor service (because it will be discussed nationwide), but I don't think that their reception is so terrible generally nationwide.

I agree that their customer service is pretty lackluster -- then again, I've heard plenty of Verizon customer service horror stories.

(Please chime if you're in another city and have unusual reception woes, my limited experience is not necessarily representative)

North Scottsdale was spotty when I lived their two years ago. Anything near the McDowell's is likely to drop calls or have no reception at all on AT&T, while Verizon was fine. I actually had no problem with AT&T (Cingular at the time), many years before, but it seems as data phones became more popular, AT&T's network quality dropped.

I've since moved to Seattle, and AT&T is atrocious. There is hardly a day where calls don't drop and I find myself on Edge in the middle of the city far too often.

I have AT&T/iPhone 3GS and live in SV and my service sucks. After I moved here though I asked some other coworkers what they thought about Verizon/T-Mobile and I mostly got the feeling that everybody sucks, and Verizon is maybe marginally better, but the people I know with Verizon phones aren't really happy with their service either.

This coincides with my experiences: travelling to NY or SF turns my iPhone into an iPod touch. However, it works flawlessly in the very flat region of Virginia where I live.

It's my understanding that GSM is more prone to geographic disruption, hills in SF and buildings in NYC, than CDMA.

Is Verizon any better in that respect? I remember Verizon getting slammed for mysterious data charges and famously it took them years to sort out their FIOS billing system. I don't think of Verizon as a company with a reputation for great customer support. I would actually consider switching to Verizon simply because AT&T can't seem to figure out how to make my auto pay work correctly. It fails every month. I wait for them to call and they assure me it will work next time and of course it doesn't. The last AT&T rep I talked to about this actually said "it probably won't work" which in a strange way was a satisfying answer to me. Better than the drone-like confidence in "THE SYSTEM" most of these support departments rely on.

Verizon Wireless and Verizon Communications (FIOS, landline, etc) are two very different entities. Most of the horror stories you (or at least _I_) hear are about Verizon Communications.

Verizon Wireless actually gives their CSRs a _lot_ of authority to take care the customer on the phone. While any company with the number of customer interactions that VZW has will generate some horror stories, on the whole, I think VZW is one of the better big companies out there when it comes to support.

Except that VZW's number one priority when they get a call is to upsell.

My friend took a job their for a bit after losing his previous job as a claims adjuster and absolutely hated it. The managers would listen in on calls and if you didn't try to upsell at least once, you'd get written up.