AT&T Invites iPhone Users to Flag Coverage Problems

December 7, 2009 By Geoff Duncan

AT&T's new Mark the Spot app for iPhone invites frustrated customers to report where they experience coverage problems.

It’s one thing to solicit feedback from customers, but AT&T may soon be getting more feedback than it bargained for: the company has just released AT&T Mark the Spot for iPhone users, and iPhone application that enables customers to submit reports on dropped calls and other issues they experience with AT&T’s network. The application can submit real-time reports with local GPS coordinates when a failure occurs, or (if customers can’t get any signal at all) send a delayed report later when a customer gets back into range of AT&T services.

Users can also send optional comments with reports—we’re sure AT&T is going to love reading those—and opt to receive an SMS message acknowledging the report was received correctly. The application also ties in with the iPhone Maps application so users can pinpoint where the failure occurred. (The app requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later.)

The move comes after a very public brouhaha between AT&T and Verizon regarding network coverage areas, with Verizon touting the size of its U.S. 3G coverage compared to AT&T, and AT&T responding with claims that its network offers greater bandwidth than Verizon’s. The companies even launched litigation against each other, but have since agreed to tone back the rhetoric rather than go to court. Nonetheless, the quality and availability of AT&T’s voice and data services has been a long-standing issue for iPhone users, many of whom have been frustrated by unreliable and spotty coverage. However, may iPhone owners (particularly in urban areas) don’t experience significant coverage problems.

Showing 2 comments

bob smith at 11:25pm 21st June 2010 Ft Huachuca AZ in Sierra Vista AZ has the worst coverage. My phone is most of the time grayed out saying Emergence only. I found out ATT sold all but one tower in the area and there is no 3G here. Military town that isn't big enough to worry about.
Carlos at 1:17pm 7th December 2009 It should be trivial for Apple to work with AT&T to generate a background app that does this automatically (with opt-in permission, of course). Most dropout's occur while driving - so you can't use "Mark the spot". And who remembers where the dropped out occured 20 minutes later when arriving at your destination.