Apple and AT&T Have Reportedly Worked Closely on 3G Network Performance Issues

[kdarling]

AT&T comes off arrogant and smug in the article. If they are so freakin' smart, why didn't they jump in and help their partner 2 years ago?

It's been reported that when the first iPhone radio was being tested by ATT for compliance, the secrecy was so high that ATT's engineers were brought to Apple and only allowed access to the radio hardware, not the body or the screen or UI.

Later, with the 3G model, Apple's baseband code turned out to have a bug in its power control code, which caused iPhones to overload UMTS towers and make other users drop off. This is so primary to WCDMA operation that it's unbelievable that it wasn't caught. Again, a black eye on ATT"s lack of testing.

It's good that Apple has started acting like a real phone maker, instead of an manufacturer of an iPod with a phone stuck in it... and that ATT is taking its network reliability more seriously as well.

 

[satcomer]

If you live in People's Republic of Boulder, then you should know how difficult it would be to convince neighborhoods there to allow the telcos to build anything as gaudy as a cell tower. Want the service but NIMBY!

The NIMBY is actually the major problem for most wireless carriers! Funny thing here is in Northern Virginia (North=Rich, South equal lower middle class) and the cell phone service in the North are dubious there at best. In the South of Northern Virginia you get great cell phone coverage, that goes for Verizon also. So NIMBY is a major problem.

 

[djrobsd]

Smoke And Mirrors

This is all just smoke and mirrors, press hype, and pure BS. I will believe it when I see actual performance improvements here in San Diego...

 

[diamond.g]

The NIMBY is actually the major problem for most wireless carriers! Funny thing here is in Northern Virginia (North=Rich, South equal lower middle class) and the cell phone service in the North are dubious there at best. In the South of Northern Virginia you get great cell phone coverage, that goes for Verizon also. So NIMBY is a major problem.

I'll say! I am pretty impressed with the coverage in Spotsylvania VA (pretty much as South as one could get of NoVA and still be considered NoVA). Right after our little county you basically lose 3G till Richmond.

 

[gretafour]

No improvement here in the Fingerlakes region of NY State. Despite always having full bars and reliable voice coverage, there must be something wrong with the EDGE here because it's ridiculous. I can get data maybe 25% of the time. Huge latencies... see screen shot. Both EDGE and 3G work fabulously in the nearby cities of Rochester and Syracuse... hooray for them.

 

[stainlessliquid]

Now maybe they should spend less on their ridiculously frequent commercials and more on creating a faster network. You would never see any other company advertise as much as AT&T does if they didnt have enough money to fix their product, hell you never see any company advertise as much as AT&T does period. You would think they have endless amounts of cash the way they piss it away during every single commercial break on every major channel.

 

[Rozee]

I had 5 drop calls in one week! I would like to leave AT&T but I like the rollover minutes they offer.

 

[oban14]

Good to know they are collaborating. Now how about I can actually make calls when my bars show 5 and full, and actually not have my bars go down over time at home?

This is what drives me nuts. I can accept coverage gaps. I can accept a bad network.

What I cannot accept is my phone lying to me.

1) STOP showing me five bars and 3G when I know the network isn't there. It's very aggravating to try getting my email, go to a website, use a network application only to see it fail.

2) STOP showing me NO NETWORK or SEARCHING... when I know that there is full coverage. As soon as I toggle flight mode, 5 bars and 3G (that actually work) show up.

3) STOP cycling between "Searching...", roaming, edge, 3G, 5 bars with no E/3G/roaming icon confused and anything else.

Seriously, **** the iPhone. I can't wait to switch phones and networks.

 

[RMXO]

The NIMBY is actually the major problem for most wireless carriers! Funny thing here is in Northern Virginia (North=Rich, South equal lower middle class) and the cell phone service in the North are dubious there at best. In the South of Northern Virginia you get great cell phone coverage, that goes for Verizon also. So NIMBY is a major problem.

My apartments complex in Charlottesville, VA happens to have bad ATT signal. But if i go to the next complex over, the signal is great. I sometimes have to move around my apartment to get a signal. I miss Bay Area, CA where I never had any issues with ATT's signal.

 

[oban14]

My apartments complex in Charlottesville, VA happens to have bad ATT signal. But if i go to the next complex over, the signal is great. I sometimes have to move around my apartment to get a signal. I miss Bay Area, CA where I never had any issues with ATT's signal.

You clearly weren't in downtown San Francisco.

 

[powers74]

Masters courses

Apple rejiggered how its phones communicate with AT&T's towers.

Rejiggered. So that is a, uh, technical term there I guess? Now I see what I missed out on sticking with a BFA.

 

[carlgo]

The NIMBY is actually the major problem for most wireless carriers! Funny thing here is in Northern Virginia (North=Rich, South equal lower middle class) and the cell phone service in the North are dubious there at best. In the South of Northern Virginia you get great cell phone coverage, that goes for Verizon also. So NIMBY is a major problem.

Locally, there was a big fight over a huge fake tree tower and the supervisors said Verizon didn't need giant towers and they had better coverage besides, so why couldn't AT&T do that? AT&T's response was that their technology covered a wider area...(?)

Are VZ towers different? Can the upcoming new technologies, G4 or whatever, be made to work on VZ-style towers, or will VZ be fighting anti-tower people also?

 

[Rocketman]

The comments in this thread are largely backward looking. Yes Apple had crude network interaction at first. Nokia warned them of that for goodness sake. AT&T was not as widely deployed on 3G as we all would have liked, but then that's why the first iPhone was EDGE, to eliminate that expectation out of the gate. The 2G and 3G iPhone had 3G because it was demanded and was an incremental improvement over 1G EDGE, so was accepted with all its limitations. AT&T has been investing tens of billions of dollars in network rollouts. There is a tower shortage in NYC and San Francisco and DC.

But even then, if Verizon were available it would have been a poor substitute because of the lack of simultaneous voice and data, and the dead end of CDMA. If Apple comes out with a CDMA phone, ever, it will be a known in advance dead end device.

The present is GSM. The future is LTE. Now that AT&T is installing LTE compatible hardware in all new 3G installs, there will be a day in 2011 when they flip a (proverbial) switch.

This future will include roughly compatible networks between Verizon and AT&T. AT&T had taken the high ground with Apple customer adoption and retention.

Verizon forsaked Apple and its vision. Don't forget that. Steve has not. Nor should he. Dance with the one who brung ya. Verizon will have to spend a couple of years as a second class citizen and in the supplier doghouse before AT&T has anything to worry about. Steve is all about loyalty.

It's time for Apple wireless customers to embrace AT&T and give them what they really need. Feedback on service outage and preference issues so the build-up they are aggressively persuing can have the detailed benefits real customers really need. They are indeed big and stodgy. Teach them about the benefits of customer feedback so they can deploy their massive teams of engineers and installers, making you happy.

They will.

Rocketman

 

[kdarling]

The comments in this thread are largely backward looking. Yes Apple had crude network interaction at first. Nokia warned them of that for goodness sake.

It wasn't just at first. It's taken Apple this long to stop screwing up ATT's network with constant drops and reconnects caused by Apple's desire to increase talk longevity without putting in a larger battery. Form over functionality, at the expense of other ATT users.

AT&T was not as widely deployed on 3G as we all would have liked, but then that's why the first iPhone was EDGE, to eliminate that expectation out of the gate.

The first iPhone was EDGE to save money on parts and to get the original low $20 data plan.

But even then, if Verizon were available it would have been a poor substitute because of the lack of simultaneous voice and data,

The original model iPhone didn't have simultaneous voice and data anyway. At least if Verizon had sold the first model, it would've had EVDO speeds. Instead, it had EDGE speeds, no incoming call notification while using data like CDMA has, and no simultaneous voice and data.

If Apple comes out with a CDMA phone, ever, it will be a known in advance dead end device.

Verizon says they might shut off CDMA around 2018 to 2020. That's about ten years. How long do you expect someone to use the same model phone?

The present is GSM. The future is LTE. Now that AT&T is installing LTE compatible hardware in all new 3G installs, there will be a day in 2011 when they flip a (proverbial) switch.

Putting UMTS+LTE gear into new installs doesn't help all the current 3G installs. ATT will also have to spend the money to overlay LTE gear over current cells.

Verizon forsaked Apple and its vision.

You may well be right that Jobs holds some kind of grudge for whatever reason, but Apple had nothing but a vague idea when they approached Verizon in mid-2005.

ATT knew about the idea six months before that, and still didn't sign a contract with Apple until mid-2006, well into actual design.

 

[Rocketman]

screwing up ATT's network with constant drops and reconnects caused by Apple's desire to increase talk longevity without putting in a larger battery.

Verizon says they might shut off CDMA around 2018 to 2020. That's about ten years. How long do you expect someone to use the same model phone

I have been on the larger battery rant on all Apple wireless products since day one. Partly because of known limitations, partly because it simply is the right thing to do with incremental 20% of device mass.

3 years. So yes, a "crippled" CDMA iPhone makes perfect sense for those of us who have a Sony/MS/PC mentality. You know, 85% of the market.

Rocketman

 

[Jaro65]

Good for Apple for trying to help AT&T! Now that praise is done - bring the iPhone to TMobile and Verizon!

I've used my unlocked iPhone on T-Mobile's network, but I was only getting an EDGE data rate. Thus my transition to at&t.

 

[phineas]

Next iPhone in June

Will it really be on Verizon's network or not? Guess time will tell. Allot of finger's being pointed at Apple for the dropped connections and other problems, fact is at least with my experience, that no matter what phone/pda I have had with ATT it depends on the area your in on whether or not your service will be great.

There still using signal boosters in the stores to show how good the signal is in the area.

I think ATT bought up way more that what it can be truly and thoroughly maintain, I've been at PENN station and had crappy service, go down a block and perfect service, down another block and NO service. Guess it all depends

IF verizon did not cripple there devices and have that ugly cheesy red screen interface, I'd port back over too them, but than again for what device? None IMHO worth it. And already having paid for some applications its smarter to stay where I am, unless of course Verizon picks up the iPhone Which could be great or a nightmare

 

[CubusX]

Huh??

What makes you think Apple wants to compete with Android? Apple has never competed against anybody for anything. They have always done what they want to do when they want to do it. Comments like yours are pretty funny sometimes.

Wow. They compete against Windows, Dell, HP, Google, HTC, Motorola, etc. It's called competition.

Learn to think before you speak.

 

[AllyAshantiBrow]

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) on AT&T's recent efforts to beef up its cellular network in the face of criticism from customers over performance. As part of the report, the Journal notes that Apple and AT&T have worked closely on addressing the issues, with Apple even going so far as to tweak how the iPhone connects to the network in order to reduce load.Apple rejiggered how its phones communicate with AT&T's towers.

 

[Magrathea]

Update - Boulder, CO case study 2

A friend came over on Sunday and she told me she had swapped her Android for an iPhone - she preferred overall feel of the iPhone over the Droid. She has a 3GS, I'm rolling with an older 3G, so I was comparing how fast pages loaded. I noticed that she had 3G turned off and being a smarty pants I informed he that she should use 3G as it's a ton faster. She then snapped back that she was told by a co-worker to turn off 3G as she was getting dropped / missed calls and I shouldn't turn 3G on!! Classic !!! My non techie friend who probably doesn't even know how to turn the phone off was schooling me in the ways of AT&T and our horrible service.

Incidentally , she lives closer to the main tower on the Vectra Bank Building her in Boulder and her service still sucks!!!

 

[drmacnut]

3G in all MacBooks and MBPs

What we really need is the option to buy MacBooks and MacBook Pros with built-in 3G (or whatever comes next). I just WISH I could have 3G inside my MBP so I wouldn't have to carry around my silly USB thumbdrive-looking modem to get onto the Net. I use a pay-as-you-go plan from Mobi here in Hawaii - and I love it! I pay about $35 a month.

I am hoping that Apple is now testing out the market with iPad coming in both 3G and non-3G flavours. I am hoping that we may see the 3G option come to other portables this year - 2010!

 

[drmacnut]

Forgot To Mention…

Silly me… I forgot to mention the point that ties my last post to the true topic of this thread!

I don't think we'll be seeing 3G appear in other Apple portables, however, until AT&T (or whomever else might be chosen) can get the huge amount of traffic on its networks under control.

Eventually, this HAS to happen. Don't you all think that the obvious direction for net connectivity is going to involve the cell providers rather than simple wi-fi? I mean, I like wi-fi, don't get me wrong; but wi-fi is only going to be cost effective in highly populated areas. Most of the world is going to need communications that can span a greater distance than mere wi-fi can offer.

 

[Jaro65]

Well, obviously something needed to be done with the impending release of an iPad. As more and more iPads get sold, people will likely start using some serious amount of bandwidth to watch shows, movies, etc. A good portion of that is likely to be done over WiFi, but the 3G bandwidth demand is going to be part of that growth as well. It will be interesting to see how the dynamics develop there. I know I'm waiting for a 3G iPad just because it offers the freedom of consuming media wherever I am.