Your comment makes no sense, since reusing those frequencies for more efficient newer technologies (4G) will improve their network.

The reason that 2G has better signal quality than 3G in your area is that the 3G signal is overloaded. Since 3G phones will prioritize 3G signals over 2G signals (since they are more efficient and capable of more bandwidth) and most people have 3G phones, most phones are on 3G signals.

AT&T are in a bind right now (as are most other cell providers). More people are trying to use more data over wireless all the time, which means that their cell networks are getting overcrowded and way oversold. They need to add more capacity, but that requires either more RF bandwidth (necessitating new phones/devices to use the new frequencies) or they need to replace their current services with more efficient protocols that are more spectral efficient (moving to LTE). This is part of the latter. By reusing the bandwidth that is currently in use for 2G as 4G (or shift 2G -> 3G, 3G -> 4G), they can add more capacity to their network, thus improving the network quality for everyone (except those still using 2G only devices).

Hell in Minneapolis, it hit 50+ twice in January, 4 days over 40, and half the month so far has had a high above freezing. December was about the same. It has been quite the warm winter here. This change to more seasonable weather has been welcomed by me, especially finally getting some more snow.

Also, I forgot to mention my ping times are usually between 200-400ms, but can get up as high as 8000ms (yes 8 second ping times) under high load. I do live down in a valley and have no line of site to the tower and need a 15dB antenna to get decent signal.

I have Alltel data service as I live in a rural area where the only alternatives are 24-36Kbps dialup or 400-700k satellite. I pay about $60 per month and Alltel is "unlimited," however with the Verizon takeover I'm not sure how this will affect things. I typically get speeds between 400-800Kbps, but have gotten up to 1Mbps on occasion. If you want more information about the various services look at www.evdoforums.com. Note that like any wireless technology, the total bandwidth at the tower is shared by all clients and as more people use the service, the speeds go down.

Personally, I can't wait to move and get cable or DSL.

Already been done and failed.