AT&T vs. Verizon

So, one of the knocks in my earlier post on the iPhone was network speeds on AT&T. I know that many of you don't use data on your phones, but I live and die by it. I'm on the road a ton and I need to read and respond to e-mail, read attached contracts on my phone, read other blogs and (most importantly) demonstrate video applications on my phone. So, I'm pretty sensitive to network speeds.

Verizon just announced a wholesale upgrade of their EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimize) network to 600k bps (600 thousand bits per second) to 1.4m bps (1.5 thousand bits per second) downstream (downloaded) and 500k bps to 800 bps upstream (uploading). (Downloading is always faster because 90% of the traffic is being downloaded from the network. Uploading is usually only for e-mail attachments)

Compare that to AT&T who's EDGE network (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) only operates at 70k bps to 135k bps downstream.

Although AT&T just announced a deal to acquire Dobson Communications (owner of the Cellular One brand, which old McCaw Cellular users are familiar with) to give it better rural coverage, I spend my time in major markets and have never suffered from connectivity, even when I went out to call on Dobson in Oklahoma City! In fact, I just drove to Spokane, WA from Seattle for Hoopfest over the weekend and (while another parent drove) I was using my Verizon aircard and working on the Internet for more than half of the drive!