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ChangeWave on Thursday released the results of a survey of 4,050 U.S. wireless customers, conducted just before this week's announcement that the iPhone 4 will arrive on Verizon's network Feb. 10. The survey indicates more customers want to leave AT&T than in any other poll dating back to June of 2009.
Of those surveyed who are AT&T customers, 16 percent said they would switch to Verizon if the competing carrier began offering the iPhone. And even without the iPhone factored in, 15 percent of AT&T customers said they would switch wireless providers in the next 90 days.
Solely among iPhone owners, an even higher number — 26 percent — said they planned to switch to Verizon to have the iPhone on the rival network.
By comparison, only 4 percent of Verizon Wireless customers said they planned to leave their carrier in the next three months. That was the best in the industry, beating the 10 percent who plan to leave Sprint, and 15 percent who want to ditch T-Mobile.
Of the customers who said they are likely to switch from AT&T, 42 percent said they planned to leave because of poor reception or coverage. Another 27 percent said the reason for their departure would be dropped calls. Just 17 percent said their main concern was the cost of AT&T's service.
ChangeWave said the survey shows that the launch of the Verizon iPhone is likely to have a "major impact" on U.S. wireless service providers. AT&T's exclusive arrangement for the iPhone after it launched in 2007 helped the company narrow the gap with Verizon in terms of total customers.
There was one bright spot in ChangeWave's latest survey for AT&T, as respondents in December indicated they experienced fewer dropped calls on the network. Of those polled, 4.7 percent said they had experienced a dropped call in the last three months, less than the 6 percent who said they had dropped calls in September.
But AT&T's dropped call rate is still higher than Verizon, where just 1.7 percent of customers said they had experienced a dropped call in the last three months.
Last July, a ChangeWave survey prompted AT&T to publish internal dropped call data in an effort to defend its network. AT&T's figures contrasted those reported through the survey.
But ChangeWave also found evidence last August that conditions on AT&T's network were improving, along with the reliability of Apple's iPhone. A survey of iPhone 4 owners found that Apple's latest handset experienced fewer dropped calls than those who own a previous-generation iPhone 3GS.
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Charles Martin
William Gallagher
Malcolm Owen
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Wesley Hilliard
77 Comments
I'm in the 60% category
Never believe what consumers say about their future purchase behaviour.
As a U.S. citizen who owns an iPhone in one of AT&T dead zone areas, I am planing to switch to Verizon at some point, however, I do not intend to do so in February. My hope is that the iPhone 5 is released this summer with LTE. If that is the case then I most likely will make the carrier switch then.
I've been extremely unhappy with AT&T and not just for the lack of an ability to make a call without issue. Their customer service representatives ? all the way up to the PR reps for the President of AT&T ? have told me numerous tall tales about improving service in my area and flat out refused to compensate me with a reduced plan rate for the months I've spent in an area only recently finally declared to be a 'non service area' by AT&T.
One thing that I do not like about Verizon already though is the simple fact that they have not released the full sheet of pricing for services to be available on the iPhone, especially the data plan rates. Verizon spent nine months preparing for the iPhone and yet won't reveal the data plan pricing structure. That seems a bit fishy to me.
Of those surveyed who are AT&T customers, 16 percent said they would switch to Verizon if the competing carrier began offering the iPhone. And even without the iPhone factored in, 15 percent of AT&T customers said they would switch wireless providers in the next 90 days.
So the Verizon iPhone has only affect 1% of AT&T?s total user base. I would bet that other phones on Verizon will be much more affected than that.
From most to least affected?
My hope is that the iPhone 5 is released this summer with LTE. If that is the case then I most likely will make the carrier switch then.
Not going to happen. Note that CES 2011 showed no LTE phones that are as small as the iPhone. Note that the original iPhone has ?2G? even though ?3G? on AT&T was much more built out than LTE is now, not to mention the other 4 countries in launched in that year. Note that Apple cares about battery life and performance, not about adding some marketing letters to a spec sheet.