Seriously though, have any of you noticed degradation in service as bad as all of us here in town? It also seems to be on regular phones, and not the smartphone-type or other high-end devices. This is a lose-lose for those of us that JUST WANT A WORKING PHONE. At least that is what it seems like.

Could it also be that they are trying to put too many people on an overloaded system as it is? I remember some articles about that a year or so back.

First off I have no to less then none desire for iphone or ipad, Sorry I dont like Apple and never will. I am at TMobile because they had some of the best and most competative DROID devices going.

Second, ATT is a terrible carrier.. Everyone I know who has them hates them. Their costomer service is terrible and their network is overloaded… That is why you have data caps. Many TMobile users have our eyes on Sprint… I am willing to bet that once this merger goes through a good third will jump ship with a big number of us going to Sprint.

This could be a big win for Sprint… At least I hope because that is where I am heading..

I guess AT&T could pair that with the 700 MHz spectrum they already purchased, or with the 850 MHz they currently use for 3G. Maybe they are planning on a dual band rollout like they have with 3G now, which is both 850 and 1900 MHz? I hope they use more of the lower frequencies, as they will penetrate buildings much better.

I guess I was speaking more of the near future, because it will be at least two more years before AT&T rolls out LTE to more than a handful of markets. Until both Verizon and AT&T have LTE rolled out as their primary networks, we are stuck with AT&T as the only GSM provider in the US.

At that point, as Brandon said, we are still going to have differences in frequencies. Brandon, I have actually heard that AT&T will be using 700 MHz spectrum that they purchased at the most recent auctions to roll out LTE, similar to Verizon. This is good, as that frequency will penetrate buildings much more effectively. Let’s hope that is the case.

Here is one more thing to consider. While I am not an expert on cell tech, by any means, my understanding is that not all LTE implementations are alike. It can be used as Internet technology alone, or you can do voice over LTE, basically like VoIP as a next gen phone system upgrade. Neither AT&T or Verizon has committed to one or the other for the long-term future yet. In other words, both could be LTE carriers, but be different enough in implementation so that phones would not be compatible between the two. Considering how much both like having their own little sandboxes to play in, I would be shocked if AT&T and Verizon end up using the same tech going forward. This will be just another way of keeping consumers locked in and giving them fewer choices.

@Dimwit – We can only hope. The other concern with this will be supported bands on the devices. I believe Verizon will run on the 700 mhz band – AT&T on 1900 mhz so unless the phone supports both bands portability between carriers won’t happen.