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Many AT&T customers, including the legion of iPhone users out there, may be aware of some wonkiness with their wonder devices of late. Dropped calls, delayed voicemails, inability to access voicemail, inability to tweet their Muni woes, etc. It's been a shitty month or two, and it all comes down to the fact that Apple and AT&T struck that single-carrier deal a couple years back, and AT&T can't handle the data traffic anymore. As the NYT reports today (complete with slide show), AT&T is scrambling to expand their network.
But all you Crackberry and LG Touch users out there, don't feel all high and mighty just yet. The NYT is quick to point out, "Cellphone owners using other carriers may gloat now, but the problems of AT&T and the iPhone portend their future." Apparently New York and San Francisco have it the worst, because this where the highest concentration of iPhone users reside. And as evidenced during South by Southwest this year, the AT&T network completely breaks down when a few thousand iPhone users descend on a smaller urban area like Austin with an inferior telecom grid. This is apparently the reason Apple's been delaying the release of multimedia text messaging -- AT&T can't handle it yet. (Look for MMS to be released, complete with more network slowness, on Sept 25.) This all points to the fact that the iPhone should be available from other carriers just as soon as AT&T's contract expires, possibly in 2010.
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Even though At&T has made a ton of money on the exclusivity (and we wouldn't have an iphone if weren't for that deal in the first place) they may lose a lot of money once Apple goes multi-carrier because users will jump ship as soon as they can.
ATT is scrambling to upgrade their network? More like they're scrambling to figure out ways of raising their prices. I'm glad my ATT contract expires next month.
I can't wait to get a new carrier! Oh, wait, they all suck.
True that!
Love the phone, HATE the carrier.
AT&T charges a lot of money for very bad service. The iphone is nice but at this point, I'm ready to go back to T Mobile ,hacked iphone or not....Apple's really limiting itself and hurting its image by giving AT&T the exclusive iphone deal.
I thought Verizon sucked. Then I switched to AT&T. And now I have learned what sucking truly is.
Why is it that the Land of Milk and Honey is relatively Third-World when it comes to mobile telcom action? You can do so much more with your phone in Asia.
Because the telecom providers make giant gobs of money serving us poop and there is no outside force compelling them to do anything that results in an expenditure that diminishes profits.
The problem here is that 3G just doesn't pencil out. AT&T is going to spend 18 billion (with a B!) this year, primarily upgrading 3G. Divide that by 12 months and by $40 bucks, and to pay for it they need 37.5 million data service subscribers. Maybe, just maybe, they have that many total data subscribers including all "smart" phones, but the iphones make up probably around half that number. It's clear the existing network is woefully inadequate, and to pay for expansion they need way more users.
Then, along comes 4G. What does 4G do for you? In theory it provides faster speeds--never mind that 3G is like good DSL service, if the network actually has the capacity to deliver. So instead of ever giving us 3G at capacity, they're going to dangle 4G in our faces.
Thankfully, I have a palm pre on Sprint, but I rue the day that Sprint starts getting iphones--I'm sure the network will collapse. At the moment, Sprint isn't even making money off their 3G network, I'd bet.
Truth is, for wireless users to have a 3G connection with the network to support heavy use, we should probably be paying $60 a month, which really takes the whiz-bang factor out of it.
Apple should just outright buy Sprint. Their stock is in the $3.75 range.
Sprint isn't much better. When I lived in Kansas City I could be right across the street from their massive campus and I still would have problems with reception. In college they claimed that their lack of bandwidth was because they only counted the full-time residential population of the town, not the influx of students that more than doubled it and they tried to claim that they weren't to blame.
Capital expenditures are never factored out in a single year. Besides, you fail to account for tax write offs due to appreciation and other account gimmicks.
BTW, I would avoid Bump at all costs. Every time you use it, Bump's servers are receiving your name, phone number, etc. Do you really trust them with this data?
You can get a $25 credit towards your next bill if you complain about not being able to access data via your iPhone. Just email their customer service department via the webform on the wireless.att.com site.
It's not much, but it's something.
AT&T is too busy listening to my conversations
once apple allows different carriers access to the iPhone it'll be a complete "Peter Gibbons" w/ AT&T being the one without the excessive bogging down of the network since everyone jumped ship