During an televised interview with CNBC, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said Tuesday that his company’s efforts to repair its voice network have been paying off and that call quality is steadily improving. “We’ve been going hard at the voice quality issue,” Stephenson said, adding that AT&T’s network revamp, one which primarily focuses on particularly troublesome major cities such as San Francisco and New York, is nearly complete. Stephenson said AT&T customers can expect to use their phones as a phone by the end of the summer. Okay, that last bit was a joke. Sort of.

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The results of the recent J.D. Power and Associates wireless industry survey are in, and things could look a bit…better for AT&T. The carrier came in dead last in 4 out of 6 regional categories, and never rose above a 3-out-of-5 rating in any one race. Worse still, the survey includes results culled between February and June, which means that none of the recent iPhone 3G woes have been factored in. Verizon came in first, (as we’ve pointed out) followed by Alltel, with Sprint and U.S. Cellular coming in a tied 3rd and T-Mobile securing a 4th place finish. Beyond AT&T’s abysmal performance, this clearly indicates that, at least when it comes to call quality, CDMA still reigns supreme. Perhaps this should serve as a wake-up call to the GSM giants to shore up their networks and provide a real increase in call quality and coverage. How’s that sound?

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J.D. Power and Associates released Volume 2 of their biannual Cellular Call Quality Survey Thursday and it appears as if “Can you hear me now?” is a phrase not uttered by many Verizon Wireless customers. In every region of the country surveyed, Verizon was either the sole winner or tied for first place. The survey asked 22,000 customers from across the nation to rank their cellular provider based upon the frequency of dropped calls, static/interference, failed connection on the first try, voice distortion, echo, no immediate voice mail notification, and no immediate text message notification. Let’s take a quick look at how each region fared:

• Northeast Region: Verizon Wireless ranks highest in the region.
• Mid-Atlantic Region: Verizon Wireless ranks highest for an eighth consecutive time.
• Southeast Region: Alltel ranks highest in the region. Verizon wins this one by proxy since they are in the process of acquiring Alltel.
• North Central Region: U.S. Cellular and Alltel rank highest in a tie. Another win for Verizon through its Alltel merger.
• Southwest Region: Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless tie to rank highest in the region.
• West Region: Verizon Wireless ranks highest in the region.

Surprisingly, AT&T, the largest scammers US provider, does not show up anywhere in the leader board; not so surprisingly, neither does T-Mobile. We wonder, though, if these results will help or hurt Verizon as it seeks regulatory approval for its merger with Alltel. By scooping up Alltel, it really will become the nation’s largest network, both in sheer number of customers and in coverage. Psst, Verizon, some words of advice? You may want to sweep these results under the carpet and only boast about them after that merger of yours is approved. We’re just sayin’…

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