I LOVE my iPhone. I just wish it were matched with Verizon Wireless, the carrier with the most envied reputation as fast, ubiquitous, reliable, nigh perfect.

Consumer Reports has just released its annual survey of cellphone service, and its respondents collectively agree with me about the rankings: AT&T occupies the bottom and Verizon, the top.

My sense of Verizon’s superiority is confirmed every time I see a “there’s a map for that” Verizon commercial, graphically showing how far more extensive Verizon’s 3G network coverage is in less populated areas. And it is reinforced when AT&T executives publicly confess  as Ralph de la Vega, the chief executive and president of AT&T mobility and consumer markets, did last week at an industry conference  that the company’s wireless service in New York and San Francisco was “below our standards.”

When I set about looking for independent data, however, to confirm the superior performance of Verizon’s network, I was astonished to discover that I had managed to get things exactly wrong. Despite the well-publicized problems in New York and San Francisco, AT&T seems to have the superior network nationwide.