Verizon vs ATT
Does Verizon still have the best nationwide (lower 48) coverage in general or has ATT caught up?
Forum Discussion
A carrier's phone and data service often use different frequencies. This results in sometimes having great phone service but lousy data service . . . or it can be the other way around.
In most parts of the country that we've been they both work fine. We did stay at one state park where Verizon would not work at all (even for a phone call) and AT&T was great. We had to turn on WiFi calling on our Verizon phones and connect to the AT&T hotspot in order to make a phone call!
We travel quite a bit. As Web Administrator of The RV Travel Club, it's very important that I have decent connectivity wherever we roam. Thus, we have both AT&T and Verizon "true unlimited" (grandfathered) hotspot plans.
One HUGE difference between the two carriers is how they handle domestic roaming for data. Most carriers "partner" with other companies when they don't have towers of their own in a given area. This is called domestic roaming. It happens in the background and is transparent to the consumer.
However, effective July 31, 2018 AT&T started enforcing their domestic roaming data caps. Depending on your plan, AT&T domestic roaming caps vary between 100-400mb per month.
Verizon does not implement domestic data roaming caps. Fortunately when we hit the AT&T domestic roaming cap, we also had the Verizon hotspot and were able to regain connectivity.
Phone calls and texts are not impacted by this, only your off network data access.
Once you hit that cap, you no longer have data service until you either move to an area where you are using AT&T's own towers or your monthly plan rolls over.
In most parts of the country that we've been they both work fine. We did stay at one state park where Verizon would not work at all (even for a phone call) and AT&T was great. We had to turn on WiFi calling on our Verizon phones and connect to the AT&T hotspot in order to make a phone call!
We travel quite a bit. As Web Administrator of The RV Travel Club, it's very important that I have decent connectivity wherever we roam. Thus, we have both AT&T and Verizon "true unlimited" (grandfathered) hotspot plans.
One HUGE difference between the two carriers is how they handle domestic roaming for data. Most carriers "partner" with other companies when they don't have towers of their own in a given area. This is called domestic roaming. It happens in the background and is transparent to the consumer.
However, effective July 31, 2018 AT&T started enforcing their domestic roaming data caps. Depending on your plan, AT&T domestic roaming caps vary between 100-400mb per month.
Verizon does not implement domestic data roaming caps. Fortunately when we hit the AT&T domestic roaming cap, we also had the Verizon hotspot and were able to regain connectivity.
Phone calls and texts are not impacted by this, only your off network data access.
Once you hit that cap, you no longer have data service until you either move to an area where you are using AT&T's own towers or your monthly plan rolls over.
