So, the same reasons regular people hate AT&T? Quality of service, pricing, speed, and lack of features.

But hey, More Bars and More places! (according to a single study of 15 people.

People hate AT&T like a redneck house wife hates her abusive husband. I mean they keep going back and pretending it's OK and that things will get better soon, but they wont. Hi, I'm Michael and I'm a AT&T Iphone owner.

@Michael Ortega: hahaha....awesome.

Thank you, Captain Obvious for telling everyone how come people hate AT&T. And I thought PC World was supposed to be a magazine about PCs. Branched out over the years, haven't they?

I'm sure that even though there are those haters out there who own an iPhone and are pissed at ATT, there's always one sucker out there who will buy it.

It still confuses me why early adopters get tweaked by having to pay extra for "cutting edge" tech stuff...or get angry when a new model comes out.

I mean everyone knows you pay a premium for the latest and greatest, whether its the newest car, phone, computer hardware, or a tickle me Elmo your always paying a premium...thats the price you pay and its always been that way.

As for the other points, yeah, their data network has sketchy performance and they have too many restrictions on apps...then again Verizon isn't really any better since they limit phone capabilities from the Mfg's directly or lock them down with horrible OS's.

Apple is very good a separating fools from their money...

AT&T is just a big bloated company who just likes pushing the smaller people around. Their service is terrible, along with their customer service, data plans, pricing, and over all the picture does not get better for them.

I love the iPhone and cancelled due to the fact that AT&T is just that bad. I work in New York and their 3G speed is less than 56k....and that is when I got 3G vs EDGE.

iPhone is worth the price...AT&T is not.

pc world got it wrong. iphone users hate at&t for 4 reasons:
1) the service sucks
2) the service sucks
3) the service sucks
4) the service sucks

Actually, it's not an abusive husband/wife...it's a bad Ménage à trois where the customer is caught between an iPhone-ATT sandwich and only one layer of bread is any good.

@Michael Ortega: Oh, ha ha, comparing a cell phone company to domestic violence, ha ha, clever.

iPhone owners hate ATT so much because that's the only network you can get the phone on in the US. If it were on Verizon or another network they would find just as many reasons to hate that network.

You would see high early upgrade prices on any network. Tethering probably wouldn't be allowed without a pretty big upcharge. Also, you can send pictures, ringtones, etc in an email, why bother with sending it as an MMS?

IMHO, AT&T is the perfect example of a company not listening to the market. The market has clearly spoken and bought the iPhone in large quantities. At the same time, AT&T has barely upgraded its network to take on the influx of iPhone users who love accessing the web and using apps like Skype and Slingplayer.

Thank you AT&T. You make it so much easier to argue that the market won't always work itself out.

If Apple built their own infrastructure they would take over the world!

Every cell phone carrier has problems and sucks in some way, but they all are also good in some ways (you can probably even extend that to all large companies). For me ATT has good reception, and generally suits me fine. For others it's Verizon, T-Mobile or Sprint. It all depends on your location, phone model, and bunch of other factors.
But, on topic, the only thing that really bothers me on that list is the fact that they are setting the rules for which app can use the network. With their decisions they severely crippled the functionality of these apps.

Huh. I used to use T-Mobile and absolutely hated them. I've been with AT&T for about six or seven years now and I've never had an issue. I got my latest phone for $100, no rebates required (AT&T Tilt), never had an MMS issue (though that seems to be iPhone specific), and only occasionally have service issues when driving through the more mountainous parts of town.

Not to mention the terrible time my dad had with Sprint and, again, my experience with T-Mobile, and AT&T's been nothing but fine for me.

As for all the iPhone people who say "I'm being forced to spend more money because I was an early adopter!" How about, um, not buying a new phone? No one's forcing them to buy the brand new iPhone, except peer pressure I suppose. I will never understand the iPhone fad, with the lack of the keyboard and MMS and other things.

Big part of the article that was reported here a few days ago"

If you plan on taking on a different route to paying the upgrade prices, AT&T will charge you around $175 to cancel your current contract and only 90 days later (after losing your phone number) you can sign up again for a new iPhone contract.

@Michael Ortega:

Sounds like someone's ready for a 12 step program since the first step is admitting you have a problem.

@milrtime83: sending isn't so much the problem. It is receiving them from other people. When someone send me a picture they took from their phone, I get a message saying "go to this website and enter this crazy password to view this picture. It's a convenience thing.

The company itself is fine. I just get pissed at the really lousy coverage in a major metro area (Chicago) and the flat out LIE that is the signal strength meter on my phone.

I am an iPhone owner, and I don't hate ATT (any more than I hate every other Cell Carrier).
* Sure Customer service could be better, but I have notice a marked improvement in the past two years. Show me a major cell carrier that has stellar customer service (like Apple, or NewEgg, or Zappos).
* Speed - Speed on my iPhone and Sprint EVDO are comperable. Where the iPhone falls short is the processing speed at handling Java. The new phone will hopefully improve this, butthis is a hardware limitation, not a deficiency of ATT's network (at least in my experience)
* Expensive upgrade for early adopters - And this is news how? Early adopters always pay more. Apple and ATT are not forcing users of current 3G handsets to upgrade to the new 3GS, and as a matter of fact, none of the features on ATT's side of things require the new phone.
* Apps development - The two examples listed I have mixed emotions on. Personally it would be great if these and other applications worked over the cellular network, but I also don't want to see my speed reduced when I am trying to find google map directions on my phone, or send an important E-mail by someone who is watching streaming video.

Signed a (fairly) happy ATT customer for 10 years

I hate ATT at the moment because MMS is not supported yet. I emailed them my complaint and got their copy and paste BS answer.

AT&T is the single reason I have yet to buy this device. If Verizon became an iPhone carrier I would buy an iPhone within the afternoon.

I'm an iPhone user and I don't hate AT&T. I get good coverage, and the occasional dropped call, but that's not a big deal. I also got dropped calls with Verizon, and the same with Cingular back in the day.

As far as all the other things that a lot of people dislike...I came from having a dumbphone, so I never had internet on my phone or tethering or used MMS to begin with, so I'm not really missing the features that I'm not getting right now, nor am I really annoyed that I don't have it. Would I use it if I had it? Yes, but I'm not getting all worked up over not having it precisely at this moment.

at&t customers today probably hate them for the same reasons I hated them. This company is a combination of two companies with awful customer service - the old at&t long distance division and SBC, a regional Bell operating company (RBOC or "baby Bell"). I had phone service with SBC/Southwestern Bell when I lived in Dallas. I originally had service with a competing local exchange carrier, but wanted DSL, which they couldn't provide. I called up SBC, who is the incumbent there and they told me I could get DSL but of course would have to switch phone service to them. I was disconnected on a Friday and didn't have dial tone again until the following Tuesday. The following week I got a call from a telephone tech who told me that hooking me up was going to require installing some new equipment (DSLAM I think) and management wasn't willing to do it. In addition, they gave me a new number and I kept getting fax calls on it, up to 18 a day.

Around the same time my father told me about getting p.o.'d at at&t long distance. He called them up to make a change to his service and was connected to someone overseas who he could barely understand. Then she tried to cross-sell him on something else and he got pissed and cancelled his at&t long distance and switched long distance to qwest.

If these experiences are typical of what you get with "the new at&t", then I can certainly understand why they are so hated.

@Darrone: Hated repeated marketing calls to my unlisted number after telling them each time to put the number on their Do Not Call list. Documented each call, finally threatened to sue, then they stopped (OK, they first told me it could take up to 30 days for my number to be removed and I told them it would be their problem). This is how AT&T permanently lost one potential customer. Don't care what gadgets or service they provide.

Just say no.

I don't have an iPhone, but I've had AT&T since they merged with Cingular. I've never had any problems whatsoever.

"Existing iPhone 3G customers, who endured those long queues last July, will have to shell out $599 for a new 16GB 3G S and respectively $699 for the 32GB model. Alternative upgrade pricing comes at $399 and $499."

Again, WHY is this an issue? How is it different from EVERY OTHER CELL PHONE COMPANY in the the US? If you buy a subsidized phone with a two-year contract, you can't go back in a year later and expect to get another phone at the fully-subsidized price! Have you people NEVER bought a cell phone before? I'm 15 months into a 2-year contract with T-Mobile. Some new phones came out recently. If I want to buy one, guess what? I pay pretty much the full retail price (I think they may knock $50 bucks or so off the price if I extend for another two years, but that's it).

And yes, I know Apple made some pricing concessions after the second version of the phone came out, but that was the exception--because the first phones didn't have subsidized pricing--not the norm.

Sure, the Jesus phone is a technical marvel, but it's a crippled mess:
1) It's too expensive to use it.
2) Apple & AT&T will make sure it can't be used properly.
3) Data network is slow & expensive.
4) AT&T is the sole provider of service.

I'll keep my cheap flip phone.

Aren't these more issues with the iPhone? I've been receiving and sending MMS on ATT for years, tethering works fine with my unlocked smartphone, internet sometimes exceeds my home DSL speed (for less money, too, guess my home internet sucks), and because I got an unlocked phone from eBay my contract was not renewed and I paid less than the price of a subsidised iPhone. It's not as pretty as an iPhone, but functionally I get much more out of it.

@nakedscience:

Nor have I. In fact, I spoke with an AT&T rep yesterday to see if I could get the discounted price on the new iPhone (I use a Motorola phone attm) and they were extremely helpful...yes, I am eligible for the discount. So 6/19 I will be part of the problem.

iPhone owners hate AT&T because they won't just let owners of old iPhones trade their old models in for new ones whenever they please for little to no cost. These whiny babies somehow beleive that they should be above legal contracts simply becasue they are super cool iPhone owners.

@ophmarketing: Wrong thread dude.

Now then, this justifies my previous rant posted earlier over AT&T's QOS and CSR reputation.

For The Record, I am not an iphone user, but have them as my ILEC and hate them every day for their monolithic corporate attitude towards their telecom users.

In the rural area where I live, AT&T is far superior to every carrier except Verizon - and then only on voice coverage, AT&T is the only carrier here with fast (greater than 2G) data services. In addition, Verizon is far more expensive. I have no complaints with AT&T, primarily because the other carriers' service here is so gloriously terrible. Sprint springs immediately to mind - while AT&T at least attempts to cover this area with 3G, and T-Mo and Verizon have Edge/EVDO, Sprint is still stuck in 1X. It's pathetic. But it's also unfair to say cellular carrier X is more/less evil than carrier Y because of their coverage in one area. Truth is, they all suck, every last one of them. The only thing you can really do is find the one that sucks the least in the area where you are. For me, it's AT&T.

I'm not saying AT&T is less evil than anyone else. I'm saying that I think AT&T is getting a bum rap just because the iPhone is the first smartphone widely adopted by non-business users, Apple's "wisdom" in shackling it to a single carrier notwithstanding. Apple should let Verizon distribute the iPhone too, so iPhone users can hate AT&T and Verizon equally.

@lvhotrain: agreed

@Geekybiker: And yet, what I don't get is the fact people aren't mad at Apple for not implementing MMS into the iPhone years ago. And NOW that Apple is finally implementing MMS into the iPhone AT&T owners are suddenly upset that AT&T wasn't ready for it?

It seems really backwards. They didn't cause this kind of uproar at Apple for /NOT/ having MMS, but now that they /do/ (or well in about a month) it's suddenly AT&T's fault?

Not only that, the iPhone didn't have tethering either.

I'm by far a fan of AT&T (I have an iPhone, too!) but I find all the hate and rabbling REALLY out of place given that this seems to all stem back to Apple. AT&T just hasn't enabled service for the iPhone yet on these features, but maybe there's a reason for that. I'm not defending AT&T, again, I just find the sudden hate really out of place.

Me? I'm made Apple didn't have these basic cellphone features working /two years ago/.

@Michael Ortega: Another stupid comment from a Facebook user. AWESOME.

Add: AT&T not only illegally spied upon, literally, tens of millions of Americans with no justification whatsoever, but only wrapped itself with the National Security flag so long as taxpayers were paying for the privilege of being surveilled without warrant.
THEN they cut off the criminal spying program, until Uncle Sam threw extra millions at them.
It's pretty damning: if justified, they shut off vital anti-terroristing for filthy lucre (and not even, say, keeping the program running while billing was worked out). If not justified, they should have been carted off to jail and split into multiple, too-small-to be-a-threat parts.
Either way, a double, heaping scooping of e-v-i-l.

The only reason I got an iPhone was because Best Buy would give me a refund on an HP Mini that I had in my hands for over 20 days. The only deal I could make was to purchase an iPhone... in March. I willingly bought it knowing that a new iPhone was on the horizon (ie this summer). Sucks doesn't it. More $$$$ to upgrade now.

@milrtime83: because the percentage of phones that can view MMS is much higher than the percentage of phones with email access making sending pictures between phones easier.

@juddcarlos2003: I meant that Best Buy would NOT give me a refund for the mini.

@Michael Ortega: Hilarious conflation of "redneck house wife" (sic) AND domestic violence AND substance abuse. Truly hilarious and original to close with "Hi, I'm ___ and I have ___."

@plim: That's the same with pretty much every provider though. =D

@winshape: My friends and I love sending each other silly picture messages, and two of my friends got an iPhone and could no longer get our awesome messages. Thanks AT&T for ruining friendships!

@chris_d: Your experiences clearly were not with the AT&T cellular division. But aside from that, I've gotten great customer service with AT&T with little wait times.

@ekthesy: Welcome to the dark side. Enjoy the cookies.

@lvhotrain: And if only Apple controlled the record labels and we'd never have DRM-laden tunes or the nonsense variable pricing that was recently forced upon them.
I welcome our mock-turtleneck-wearing, Zen-kissed overlords.

@thnkwhatyouthnk: AT&T has done a pretty good job of listening to the market. They recognized that iPhones will sell like hotcakes no matter what and that people will buy one (and thus be chained to AT&T) even if their network sucks. Therefore, they charge ridiculous monthly fees for access to a barely-functional network because they know that the market will bear it. The result? They make money hand over fist.

AT&T: WIN
iPhone Owners: FAIL

@plim: Couldn't agree more. I couldn't tell you the last time I actually completed a phone conversation on my iPhone. I've actually noticed that on all calls now (even landlines) I feel like I'm rushing to get to the point because I have no control over when the call ends.

I'm especially sick of having full 3G service (when the phone is not actually being used, obviously) and then having it drop to 1 or 0 bars as soon as a call comes in.