[hiroaki]

Verizon's network is better than AT&T's for two fundamental reasons:

- It operates mostly on the 850MHz band whereas AT&T operates on both 850Mhz and 1900Mhz band. Lower frequencies penetrate buildings better than higher frequencies. Lower frequencies also have less interference with other electrical devices.

- Verizon uses CDMA technology which intrinsically makes more efficient use of the wireless spectrum than the GSM technology that AT&T uses.

Consequently, AT&T needs to expend more resources on constructing cell towers to achieve the same level of coverage as Verizon.

[chrisbolt]

AT&T's 3G uses UMTS, which is based on CDMA.

[jsz0]

Wouldn't less towers equate to less potential channels of data? I'm not too familiar with how mobile broadband works but I'm thinking if you have one tower utilizing a X Mhz band covering 50 square miles that would be less bandwidth than 5 towers, overlapping X Mhz bands out of range of each other, each covering only 10 square miles. Could be totally wrong though.