New Verizon Ad Hits AT&T Where It Hurts

I have an iPhone running on AT&T and the service is excellent except when I’m in downtown San Francisco during business hours, when it is pretty much non-existent.

However, here’s what Verizon is saying I should do to improve the experience:

- give up my iPhone, which is the best handset in the world, but cannot run on Verizon’s proprietary network

- give up all GSM phones, which represent 99% of the world’s phones, but they cannot run on Verizon’s proprietary network

- give up the ability to use my phone when I travel outside the US, for example to Canada (where I went to school) or Europe (where I’m from) because those places are outside of Verizon’s proprietary network

- give up simultaneous voice and data, which is not available on Verizon’s proprietary network

- give up the ability to sell old handsets to almost anyone in the world, for example I sold my original iPhone to a guy in Italy for $200 and bought an iPhone 3GS for $299, because the iPhone can run on any GSM network

- put up with whatever policies Verizon implements on their proprietary network such as no Wi-Fi, whereas I’ve had Wi-Fi in my phone for almost 3 years with AT&T, and many thousands of free Wi-Fi hotspots supplementing 3G

All so I can get a few less dropped calls? Riiiiiiiight. That’s as valuable as a check being in the mail.

The fact is, people want to choose their phone, not their network. They want to choose an iPhone just like they chose an iPod. They want the network to be standardized and work with any device. That was true even before the iPhone. The iPhone just made it abundantly clear.

It’s unfortunate that the US did not have a nationwide GSM 3G network when the iPhone launched. However, even with those growing pains, my experience with iPhone/AT&T over the past 2 years has been better than the typical Verizon user whose only smartphone choice was a Blackberry with no Wi-Fi. I use Wi-Fi for so many things, such as renting movies that download to my phone, it is ludicrous to say a Blackberry that can talk to Verizon and only Verizon for its entire life is a better value.