"It helps that AT&T ran into these problems first," Solis said. Among the lessons Verizon might learn from its rival's experience is to be prepared to divide cells in densely populated areas, putting up more base stations, though not necessarily more towers, he said.

Verizon can even take a geography lesson from AT&T, knowing that places such as New York and San Francisco are home to early adopters, so the networks there should probably be reinforced, said analyst Roger Entner of Recon Analytics.

Beyond that, Verizon should be able to simply estimate its iPhone sales, look at the network impact of its existing Android smartphones, and do the math, Entner said.

One way Verizon might not follow AT&T is in relying heavily on Wi-Fi to bolster coverage, analysts said. AT&T bought hotspot operator WayPort in 2008 and now has about 20,000 hotspots in locations such as McDonald's and Starbucks. Last year the carrier such as Times Square in New York and part of the waterfront Embarcadero in San Francisco -- not coincidentally, two cities where network complaints have been most common. AT&T says its network handled more than 100 million Wi-Fi connections in the third quarter of last year, more than in the whole year of 2009.

Tolaga's Marshall estimated that 20 percent of the data traffic from AT&T's mobile network goes through Wi-Fi hotspots.