NetworkPerformance
Latest
J.D. Power: Verizon has best call quality nationwide, T-Mobile consistently below average
J.D. Power, that well known arbiter of human opinion in the United States, has just released its latest study on customer satisfaction with wireless carriers. It addresses such things as (the lack of) dropped calls, failures to connect, voice distortion, echoes, static, and late-arriving text messages, and ultimately churns out a rating out of five stars relative to the regional average and other carriers. In testing done between July and December last year, Verizon had the best or tied for the best satisfaction ratings in five of the six studied areas, while AT&T and Sprint traded blows for second and T-Mobile had to admit defeat as the laggard of the top four. US Cellular managed to score highest in the North Central region, but J.D. Power's overall assessment isn't very rosy for any of the carriers -- the stats collector says growing smartphone usage, heavy texting and more indoor calls are collectively causing call quality to stagnate, and even warns that "increased adoption of smartphones and wireless tablets may continue to compromise the quality of network service."
Verizon network reportedly handling iPhone traffic well
Verizon's vaunted network is handling the onslaught of new iPhones very well, according to a report published by web application performance firm Compuware Gomez. The report states that Verizon's mobile data performance seems untouched by the addition of hundreds of thousands of data-hungry iPhones to the network. There was virtually no change -- about four-tenths of one percent slower -- in the performance of the Verizon network in terms of browsing and page load times. The firm made measurements of data performance on the Verizon network on the first four official days of iPhone availability -- February 10 - 13. Based on estimates from Wall Street analysts, upwards of 500,000 Verizon iPhones may have been purchased during pre-sales, with another 70,000 - 100,000 users switching from AT&T to Verizon. Compuware Gomez believes that between 500,000 and 700,000 new iPhone users are now using the Verizon network. While that could be construed as causing additional demand for bandwidth on the Verizon network, many of the 500,000 Verizon iPhone pre-sales may have been to existing customers, therefore offsetting any expected increase in data usage. Compuware Gomez performs their tests by capturing data from a few thousand actual users spread across the US, so the numbers essentially mirror what real customers will see in the field. Sure, this study was done only four days into the life of the iPhone on a new US carrier's network, but it's good to see that the huge number of iPhones did not immediately cause the VZW network to take a dirt nap. It will be fascinating to see if that trend stays steady as adoption of the iPhone by Verizon customers continues.
