I would like to add, that before end of 2012, I had AT&T. Must have been voLTE. Could surf and talk, but didn’t miss that feature, which is needed occasionally.
that would not have been VoLTE. AT&T first launched early VoLTE service (explicitly between AT&T users and only when both were VoLTE capable) in Nov 2014.
simultaneous data+voice is a core requirement for “3G cellular services” and has been part of all GSM networks branded with 3G (not sure when AT&T launched “3G” but the first general availability of 3G on GSM was in 1999, so quite a long time ago now). the CDMA carriers never fully adopted the 3G spec, I still personally take issue with them using the term “3G” at all since there is simply no such thing as a 3G CDMA network. alas marketing destroys technical terms for a living and so the same issue applies to 4G today (by the full definition we still don’t have a true 4G network in this country yet, but we do have the building blocks in place that will one day become proper 4G… by then it will probably be marketed as 5G or 6G though…)
Though need is a strong word, since you can always hangup, lookup, call back. .
you can also pull over, buy a map and highlighter, and then get back on the road… or sell the car and hire a taxi… i argue that the service differential is huge between the two. especially when using something like waze or google maps while on a handsfree call… for example getting live traffic updates and having the route be automatically altered to avoid traffic from a newly reported accident on the highway all while getting verbal directions from someone on the phone… that can be a big deal. for my work i sometimes use take conference calls while a passenger on long drives and simultaneous data+voice allows me to see the presentation while being part of a non-VoIP voice conference call despite being on the road. with one type of network these features work quite dependably, with the other type of network these features are entirely non-existent.
More importantly, AT&T regularly had dropped calls, something my clients with AT&T would also complain. . I wonder if the plague of dropped calls is something due to some implementation of voLTE. Could be 2012 phones too. .
as mentioned above, you weren’t on VoLTE back then. VoLTE will drop less often than circuit switched 2G or 3G calls on GSM - handovers between towers have fewer failure modes on VoLTE than on those older systems. CDMA voice drops less often than GSM’s 2G or 3G voice though (specifically due to having fewer failure modes, just as VoLTE does). AT&T went through a period of time where they had very high rates of dropped calls though, not necessarily due to the technology used but rather over burdened towers (they didn’t deploy enough infrastructure to handle the call volume and handing off from one tower to the next isn’t possible if every voice timeslot is already being used by the next tower(s) you are trying to use).
Does t-mobile drop calls?
all networks drop calls. sprint, verizon, at&t, tmobile. do you mean to ask if tmobile drops calls at a rate similar to at&t back in the 2010-2012 period of time? no, i dobn’t think any network is dropping calls at that rate today.
More curious, since incoming ringing, dead ones, voice roaming, service cost, is more important than dropped calls or data speeds.
not entirely sure what you mean by this
Ironically, as data speeds increase in America, the device productivity will go down. Sure, Patrick Henry is often quoted, “Give me 2g or give me death.” But, I doubt if he imagined the decay of America, caused by youtube, Facebook, Instagram, selfies, and Javascript.
what?
a joke, right? paraphrase of give me liberty or give me death? 2G is the most basic data service over cellular, can’t imagine ANYONE clamoring for that today (was barely usable when it was new on the market too).
i’m not entirely convinced that ‘productivity’ as a whole is truly declining as a RESULT of cellular data speeds increasing. most of my time-wasting isn’t done on mobile, and what i use mobile data for is generally to be more productive. i’m just one datapoint but i doubt i’m alone. yes, i’m sure there are burger flippers at mcdonalds churning out “food” more slowly because they have to instagram each patty on its way out, but there are also engineers completing designs, IT admins fixing server issues, and other more tech related workers being far MORE productive as a direct result of being always connected. hell, if i had to wait for windows to boot up just to check my work email i simply wouldn’t respond to any work emails outside of the office. ever. as it is today i triage work emails nearly in real time from my phone even outside of work hours - responding to critical issues holding up folks in other timezones (still in work hours) so that THEY are more productive also as a result of cellular data.