AT&T Mobility has announced that they have hit their goal of covering more than 300 million people with LTE service a few months early. Originally slated to reach that goal by the end of 2014, the carrier is now closing in on Verizon who currently covers 306 million.
Verizon has instead of further expanding its footprint, been concentrating its efforts on deploying XLTE service on the AWS spectrum, providing even faster service and ability to serve more bandwidth. They aim to complete that expansion by end of the year.
AT&T is also busy refarming their 1900 MHz PCS spectrum to deliver compatible advanced LTE service, and is buying up remaining 700 MHZ spectrum from smaller carriers to fill out their LTE footprint.
And consumers purchasing any new devices should confirm the device supports the new XLTE and AWS bands.
Recent Rootmetrics performance reports now rate both carriers very closely in reliability and performance. Verizon won in 112 metropolitan markets, and AT&T in 107.
In our experience over the past few months of crossing the country, we could even endorse AT&T as a solid single carrier contender for RVers to provide a fairly comprehensive & reliable nationwide network. We've received consistent and reliable service comparable to our Verizon service in speed and reliablity in most places we stopped.
Of course, Verizon still has an edge in pricing when you factor in the availability of the Millenicom Hotspot Plan that provides 20GB of data per month for just $89.99, and more readily available grandfathered in unlimited data plans. There currently is no compatible option for AT&T, and choices remain purchasing directly from the carrier on either a post or prepaid plan.
Mobile Internet Resource Center (dba Two Steps Beyond LLC) is founded by Chris & Cherie of