I started working as a cell phone tech in late '99 early 2000 for prime-co. The cell service with a pink alien.
It was started by bell atlantic north as a way to advance the THEN new qualcomm CDMA technology.
Prime-co, bell altantic north and GTE south merged to form Verizon, along with help of Voda phone.
At the time I believe sprint had a slight lead for CDMA network, just barely. But even then, they sucked.
ATT at that time was still TDMA. A *******ized cross of analog/digital (therefor not really digital).
Nextel was started by a guy/company that bought up unused cab radio licenses nationwide. I do not remember what cell technology they used previously, but probably tdma/analog as well.
Eventually some of the other baby bells merged and started cingular, using the GSM standard from europe (and really the rest of the world).
It still was based off of TDMA tech, and depending on whom you asked, was not truly digital.
Cingular later merged with ATT, but kept the ATT logo, of course.
What you have now is a near complete merger of all the baby bells, in the form of ATT and Verizon. Hows that for conspiracy material?
T-mobile uses the same tech as ATT currently. A mix of gsm, utsm, and...maybe lte... Im way dated on the new tech.
Sprint bought out nextel, boost mobile and clear wire.
Verizon bought out alltel,which used the same tech and channels as sprint and verizon.
Sprint is also bleeding money, and its possible they may not make it in the long run. They were known for horrible customer service for to many years.
The only thing nice about ATT is that you can surf and talk at the same time, IF you happen to be in a GREAT spot that other people are NOT talking and surfing in.
Other than that, I hate calling someone who has ATT, as I can rarely understand them over the horrible quality they have.