After hearing all about the “Grip of Death” associated with iPhone 4 and its ability to bring network signals and download speeds to their knees, and ultimately inspired by Marco Arment’s own testing, I decided I’d try it out myself. Rather than seeing slower download speeds, mine seem to get faster when covering the antenna gap.

A few points:

• Clear’s wifi is at times awesome and at times horrible. It was horrible tonight.
• In my particular environment, the “Grip of Death” appears to be quite invigorating for my download speeds despite a one-bar drop in signal. The average DL speed was virtually unchanged from when it was sitting there untouched.
• It looks like the worst thing I can do is a) use my home wifi, or b) hold my phone other than how I would normally hold it.
• I am an antenna.
• While writing this post, I noticed my bars alternate between two and five simply due to AT&T’s network peculiarities. I wonder to what extent this GoD problem is exaggerated simply because of signal strength variations that happen on their own.

There are a few Starbucks locations I’ve found in Chicago that seem not to have the customary two-hour limit on their AT&T wifi internet connection.

Webster/Clybourn, Chicago
Roosevelt/Wabash, Chicago (Update, 6/9/10: Seems to be limited to two hours now.)
Jackson/Wabash, Chicago (Update, 6/10/10: Seems to be limited to two hours now.)

If you come across another location that gives free wifi internet access for longer than two hours—not just in Chicago, but anywhere—get in touch with me and I’ll add it to the list.

I spent literally the entire morning on the phone with tech support for two separate companies. It wasn’t because I was on hold for an unreasonable amount of time or because the support people were like you might have initially suspected.

It was because AT&T repeatedly dropped my calls. It happened five or six times throughout the course of the morning—inconvenient, sure, but even more so because I never talked to a single human.

Then I got wise and I called them over wifi with Skype! And I called the second one over 3G with iCall! And neither of them dropped my calls! And the sound quality was perfect!

Why am I giving so much money to AT&T? I essentially have no need for their services at this point outside of data. It’s painful to be forced to pay arbitrarily for something that is so dysfunctional when free, clearly superior alternatives are out there. Between RCN and AT&T, it’s enough to drive this Chicagoan crazy.

The Nexus One looks amazing. The G1 looked amazing, the Droid looked amazing, the Droid Eris looked amazing, and now the Nexus One looks even more amazing.

The kicker is that it’s looking like you’ll be able to buy it without also getting a two-year phone contract to go along with it, albeit at a much higher upfront cost. But, given that Skype and Google Voice are readily available, that might not be such a bad thing.

Kevin Tofel, writing for jkOnTheRun, has a similar outlook, except using the now-Google-owned Gizmo VoIP service in lieu of Skype:

I’m betting on the Google Voice, Google Talk and Gizmo integration because if it comes to pass, it could be the beginning of the end for cellular voice plans.

Also:

Sure enough, I found the T-Mobile Total Internet plan, which is $39.99 a month and offers up to 10 GB of data per month. With the plan, you can make voice calls, but you’ll be paying by the minute.
…
These days, the voice component of a smartphone is more of a necessary add-on rather than the primary function.

Here’s a comparison of the cost over two years of owning a subsidized Nexus One with a phone+data T-Mobile contract ($79.99/month) versus an unsubsidized Nexus One with a data-only T-Mobile plan ($39.99/month), a Skype subscription for unlimited calls to mobile and landlines anywhere in the US and Canada ($2.95(!)/month), and a SkypeIn number ($30/year).

So, despite paying hundreds of dollars more upfront in buying an unsubsidized Nexus One, you’d recoup the initial difference in cost after just over 10 months, and after two years, you’d save $482 (even more after taxes)—well over the original price difference and nearly the cost of the phone itself.

I can’t believe I’m saying this as an iPhone owner and zealot (my wife won’t be able to, either), but I could easily see myself doing this in light of AT&T’s suckitude, my growing frustration with phone companies in general, and my near-complete dependence on Google Apps.