B Sides: Get Your 4G Out of My Face, VerizonDespite my choice of media – radio, TV, the internet – I’m almost always met with a Verizon commercial. Short and claiming superiority, each is a 30-second slot of teasing, nonsensical marketing crap. I am a Verizon customer – have been since they bought out Alltel in 2008. But in those four-plus years of service, I have yet to experience the phenomena that is “4G.” I’ve never searched the web at head-whipping speeds. I’ve never been given a formal definition of “LTE” – probably because Verizon knows it’s over my Midwestern cell phone abilities. And yet I’m subject to your frequent nagging as to how amazing it is. With each telling ding, it’s like a chorus of na-na-nu-boo-boo.
Why Can’t I Get 4G LTE?
Your guess is as good as mine … and mine is they think us Kansas folk don’t need speedy service. That or the population isn’t dense enough to warrant extra service. Instead of receiving services heavily advertised in our area, we get spotty, sometimes non-working 3G.
Is 4G better? I have no idea. But if it’s going to be shoved in my face every few minutes, I’d like my fair shot of it without an expensive relocation. Just ask any table-height dog.
According to OpenSignal.com, I sit in a small bubble of red (strong signal), while being surrounded by weak-to-nonexistent areas of talking and data services. As for Verizon’s website, they tend to disagree, showing a saturated hunk of state. Various colors of the same shade are used, but don’t clearly define where 3G ends, and where 4G LTE Extended/4G LTE begins. It also fails to recognize known drop spots, and places where service doesn’t exist. (If you think 99 percent of Kansas is covered, let me take you for a scenic drive.)
Conspiracy?
I’m convinced Verizon has some type of kickback plan with Android. For every phone they sell, they must make a hundred or more Canadian dollars. Why else would their phones be urged so enthusiastically? Even when I told my local store I wanted an Apple phone, a squirly, excited man spent 20 minutes talking up Android’s services.
(I have no idea how that makes them want to limit their main advertisement, but the two can’t be a coincidence.)
Maybe if more people bowed down to the ways of Android, we’d be privy to Verizon’s upper level services. Don’t expect it to happen any time soon, though, Verizon. I’m much too cozy with my iPhone to make any hasty mistakes.
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