Is this normal?

Okay I am getting to point where I need to decide if I am keeping this HTC Aria.  At work in the middle of tall building and concrete, the AT&T signal is great.  They have been there for awhile.  At home where the network is new, I can agree that their have delivered on their promise to be similar to the network I had before.  However if I go out of my home town just a few miles, the signal drops quickly to EDGE or GPRS.  It may be good voice signal strength, but I have to use my phone as my sole source for the internet when I am in that area for extended periods of time.  This area had Verizon 3G.  It might have been on their lower end of 3G, but I could easily use it without noticing a drop in speed.

Is normal EDGE speeds?

50 kbps down, 72 kbps up, 1188 ms

111 kbps dn, 88 kbps up, 1333 ms

111 kbps dn, 78 kbps up, 957 ms

122 kbps dn, 88 kbps up, 1095 ms

Are these normal 3G (HSPA) (selected results) speeds?

389 kbps dn, 129 kbps up, 388 ms (lowest test)

405 kbps dn, 97 kbps up, 256 ms

619 kbps dn, 97 kbps up, 389 ms

726 kbps dn, 92 kbps up, 542 ms

990 kbps dn, 131 kbps up, 423 ms

1212 kbps dn, 102 kbps up, 184 ms

1546 kbps dn, 136 kbps up, 1506 ms

1868 kbps dn, 114 kbps up, 356 ms (highest test)

For comparison Verizon 3G (selected results)

1751 kbps dn, 828 kbps up, 287 ms (highest test)

1555 kbps dn, 738 kbps up 257 ms

1202 kbps dn, 537 kbps up, 332 ms

985 kbps dn, 806 kbps up, 316 ms

880 kbps dn, 352 kbps up, 349 ms

594 kbps dn, 834 kbps up, 278 ms

428 kbps dn, 388 kbps up, 534 ms

244 kbps dn, 432 kbps up, 314 ms (lowest test)

126 kbps dn, 168 kbps 12 ms (I think this one was 1x)

All the speed tests were done with Ookla's speedtest.net app for android.

The download speeds seems to be about equal between networks.  The upload for AT&T is just SAD.  The ping latency on AT&T can vary a bit.  I only put one example of the 3G on here, but there were others that were in the 1000+ ms for tests.  The EDGE latency is just as bad. 

What do you as AT&T users think?

Can AT&T's signal range widely while been in one place?  I went from displaying three bars to zero in the span of minutes.  It will do this all day in my home.

Sorry for the blurry camera shots.  The other phone just couldn't focus that close.