Not everyone in the US lives in San Francisco or New York, but a lot of the tech writers do. Those are the two areas where AT&T does worst due to massive subscriber growth in areas with poor infrastructure to support the users. More tech writers in bad areas = more articles about how AT&T is horrible.

The only problems I have seen with my various iPhones and AT&T happen when I'm in a crowded area like a convention. Outside that, the service has worked just fine. South by Southwest was even fine this year with all the additional infrastructure AT&T rolled in downtown.