Article Suggests iPhone is to Blame for AT&T's Network Failures

[apolloa]

Sorry AT&T users I would also blame your crappy network. In the UK on O2 I would have to say voice performance is the strongest part of the wireless signal.
I'm currently sat in a car dealers boared waiting for my car to have a check up and I have full signal and 3G.

 

[Maury]

Verizon is slower, does not offer concurrent voice and data (anyone who says that this is not really a useful feature clearly does not use the iPhone the way it was meant to be..

Yeah, I love the fact that the same people who claim the iPhone is useless because it doesn't multitask are the ones that are claiming voice-n-data isn't important. The irony could flatten my shirts.

Back in my university days I would haunt the FidoNet debating creationists. The argument always took this form: "Evolution can't explain X; Yes it can, here's a detailed reason why; [That reason is then ignored, as if it was never brought up] Evolution can't explain Y" Repeat.

The arguments against the iPhone have exactly the same pattern. It starts with the claim that the phone is useless and Apple are clueless because it's missing some feature X. The fact that you don't actually want that feature is ignored, EVERYONE uses it! Then they add that feature and suddenly everyone just forgets that they were arguing about it in the first place.

Case and point: MMS. The iPhone is useless because it doesn't have this MMS. Everyone else has had it for years, Apple is a bunch of clueless noobs who don't know what they're doing.

The fact that you could do the equivalent of MMS, and more, using e-mail was derided as fanboi posturing. The fact that most carriers charged an arm and a leg for MMS messages (mine charged $5 a picture - I'm not kidding) and no one used it as a result was also derided.

And then Apple added MMS. Suddenly the haters just stopped talking about it, as if they had never brought it up.

... Apple is clueless and the iPhone is useless because it doesn't multitask...

This pattern will continue, ad nausium. In the meantime Apple will continue selling more phones and being the only driver of innovation since RIM's original BB over a decade ago.

Maury

 

[phillipduran]

That doesn't excuse AT&T or put any blame on Apple or the iPhone. We AT&T users want to use the iPhone to its full capability and often times AT&T is the bottleneck. The finger gets pointed at AT&T because they are holding things up. This is as it should be.

I think more carriers need to have the iPhone so we can have some network usage distribution.

Now that other carriers under$tand how good the phone i$ for them, I don't them meeting Apple$ needs are going to be a problem $hould they adopt the iPhone.

 

[eastcoastsurfer]

"AT&T, more dropped calls in more places"

I have full 5 bars and drop nearly every call now. Any conversation that lasts more than 15 minutes is almost guaranteed to be dropped.

I may take my iPhone in and ask for a new one. I was at the apple store the other day getting a new battery (one I had start the exploding thing) and I watched 3 different people come in and complain about iPhone service and get a new phone on the spot.

 

[Rot'nApple]

Isn't that funny?

When the iPhone came out it was supposed to change the cell phone industry forever, but it's really just more of the same. A device that remains locked down to a single carrier's network in such a way you question if actually bought it or not, and focuses so much on it's multimedia functionality that it's dismal at the task on making and receiving voice calls -- the very reason it's named a cell phone.

Sounds like every other "phone" made in the last five to ten years. The difference is the iPhone actually does some of those non-phone functions well.

You want quality voice phone calls with a up time of 99.9% and no dropped calls... it's called a Landline!

"The Verizon landline network, which nationally processes more than 1 billion calls a day, with 99.9 percent reliability, is self-powered, with backup power in place, so customers can still make phone calls on a corded phone during a power outage..."


http://newscenter.verizon.com/press-releases/verizon/2008/verizon-landline-network.html

 

[arkmannj]

AT&T knew this would happen as the phone grew, you can't tell me they didn't project the aprox. amount of data usage, and all that the phone could do...

AT&T wanted the exclusive they need to stop whining about it, and stop making threats about capping data usage, etc. and just get their freaking network up to snuff. besides the iPhone is just the tip of an iceberg, a lot of other phones now have data usage capabilities now, and there sure won't be less of them coming down the pipeline in the coming years. iPhone is just forcing them to get their network ready for when that happens.

 

[RaZaK]

sounds like sour grapes

apparently some "independent researcher" is not happy about iPhone exclusivity going away some time soon (hopefully in time for the next iPhone launch )

lol

 

[kdarling]

I think more carriers need to have the iPhone so we can have some network usage distribution.

We see this comment a lot. But...

I'm not convinced that adding more USA iPhone carriers (verizon, tmobile, sprint) would cause any significant distribution of the load away from ATT.

I think it'd simply add more load to the new carriers.

Sure, a million people might switch away from ATT, but mostly we'd see many more million new iPhone owners who never left the other carriers in the first place.

 

[*LTD*]

The point is that your beast has serious technical flaws which causes problems for entire network.

Except for some reason those "technical flaws" don't exist in Canada.

 

[sjo]

Aren’t there some 30-35M iPhones out there as of the end of Apple’s 2009 fiscal year? And a little over half are from the US that makes for at least 15M? If so, when compared to AT&T’s 82.5M subs as of November 2009 that is 18% of AT&T’s market. I think I’m lowballing the numbers so they could be much higher.

you forgot that millions of the phones sold in the us were exported. mostly into china, but also to russia and india. that's why the official iphone sales have been lacking in those countries (you can read all about this in other discussion about the articles concerning iphone sales in eg china).

also several iphone users have updated their phone at least once, many a couple of times. so the number of iphones in active use in the us might be as little as 4-5m, less than 5% of att users.

 

[Carniphage]

A British iPhone users wants to know:

What is a dropped call?

C.

 

[*LTD*]

A Canadian iPhone user answers

What is a dropped call?

C.

I assume it's like dropping your phone or having it fall off a table?

I'm just guessing here . . .

 

[KnightWRX]

It did, obviously.

"Feature phones" that used to sell for hundreds of dollars, like the RAZR, are now given away free because no one will pay money for anything other than an iPhone. My daughter's free phone was a model that used to be $199 before Telus got the iPhone two months ago.

The RAZR is what now ? 4 years old ? 5 ? Heck, I bought my GF a KRZR like 2 years ago for 50$ new from a carrier. That should show you how much BS you're spouting.

Blackberries are still anywhere from 200$ to 500$ with a 3 year contract everywhere, same as the iPhone. Same for other high end Windows Mobile or even dumbphones.

Of course some phones are free and featureful, they are last years and the year before that models.

As a result, all of the major handset makers are on the ropes as they slit their throats trying to lower prices in a race to the bottom. Sony-Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia are all handing out one bad report after another, and all freely point to Apple as the cause of their problems. Some of these reports basically suggest they have no idea how to compete, and the companies are just going to go after the low end instead. Good luck with that.

Uh, not following the market are you ? Motorola just released the Droid, which Verizon is happy to sell for 199$ with a 2 year contract.

Nokia just released the N900, which they sell for a whopping 599$ without contract (no carrier subsidy yet, since it uses T-mobile frequencies, and Wind Mobile/Videotron in Canada which has yet to launch).

And Sony Ericsson just announced their Android offering, the Xperia X10 (a continuation of the Xperia family that used Windows Mobile). The phone is way higher end than the iPhone 3GS, using a Snapdragon 1 GHZ chip, 8 MP camera with led "flash" and Droid like higher resolution screen. The phone is also expected to sell for a higher price than the iPhone after subsidy, since it's retail price has been fixed to about 750$.

Low-end right ? Stop being ignorant and spouting BS. The iPhone isn't the end all be all of Smartphones. It's 3rd in market share, behind NOKIA and RIM. You know, the same Nokia you just said didn't know how to compete and the same RIM that was behind the iPhone in market share last year (yes, they caught up and passed the iPhone in sales this year).

The iPhone is a great phone and all, but it's not the greatest thing since sliced bread. It's just another phone on the market.

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As far as the article is concerned, it's a load of crap. Even when Rogers had the exclusivity of the iPhone, their network didn't crap out (I'm a rogers subscriber). They even offered MMS and Tethering when it became available, and the Tethering was included in your data plan (so no extra cost). So much for the argument that AT&T isn't to blame here.

 

[Carniphage]

The smart MVNO

I just found an old article about Apple's plans to create a smart MVNO.

The handset would be able to pick from several carriers. This would happen at dial time. The phone would pick the best carrier to handle a call.

You pay Apple for your calls and data - and Apple would have agreements with multiple carriers. Perhaps paying by the minute or the megabyte.

Imagine a world where carriers competed amongst themselves to take your call, instead of just competing by trying to retain customers with contracts and bad service and exclusivity deals.

The current contract model means there is really no financial incentive to resolve over-taxed networks. The carrier get your money whether the call is dropped or not. That is the downside of "unlimited".

But if every call were negotiated on the fly. Then there would be a strong financial incentive for all networks to upgrade those cells which were under performing.

I doubt whether such a scheme would be allowed to happen. It's just too sensible!

C.

 

[aucl]

I'm just not buying this... iPhone passed qualification by all the necessary testing agencies, and AT&T undoubtedly tested it before it shipped. If it were such a threat, AT&T shouldn't have let it on their network.

my thoughts too

 

[bdkennedy1]

They didn't finish the story. iPhone may be responsible for AT&T's network failures only because AT&T's network sucks in the first place.

AT&T's arrogance allowed them to rest on their laurels. Their network was never prepared to handle the iPhone's demand.

 

[kingtj]

That may be true, but ....

It doesn't explain why so many VOICE calls get dropped or have issues. My big issue with AT&T is with huge amounts of dropped calls. For a LONG time, my iPhone would often report "No Service" and not function at all, for random periods of 5-15 minutes in length, throughout the day, while I was at my workplace. They *finally* did something with the tower in this area and addressed that problem satisfactorily. But it took about 3 years of complaints.

AT&T can't keep up with the saturation of data from iPhone users.

If exclusivity were with Verizon, the same issue would be occurring, and might even be worse.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

Wouldn't that suck for AT&T- to have a network that's fine, but the number one phone that can't call?

I'll stick with my iPod touch.

 

[Rocketman]

And the iPhone itself may not be so great after all. Its design is contributing to performance problems.

Roger Entner, senior vice president for telecommunications research at Nielsen, said the iPhone’s “air interface,” the electronics in the phone that connect it to the cell towers, had shortcomings that “affect both voice and data.” He said that in the eyes of the consumer, “the iPhone has the nimbus of infallibility, ergo, it’s AT&T’s fault.” AT&T does not publicly defend itself because it will not criticize Apple under any circumstances, he said.

It appears there is a firmware/hardware issue with Apple's cell interface that needs a serious upgrade and optimization. If Apple were to both fix it substantially, and let it slip the newest handsets are "200% better", there might be a wave of upgrades and they can send all the older handsets to China.

Rocketman

cites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Um_Interface

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Mobile_Telecommunications_System

http://www.tiaonline.org/news_event...s_New_Standards_for_UMB_TDD_Air_Interface.cfm

and lean forward . . .

http://www.freshwap.net/finder/LTE+...r+Interface+Technologies+and+Performance.html

 

[alent1234]

I just found an old article about Apple's plans to create a smart MVNO.

The handset would be able to pick from several carriers. This would happen at dial time. The phone would pick the best carrier to handle a call.

You pay Apple for your calls and data - and Apple would have agreements with multiple carriers. Perhaps paying by the minute or the megabyte.

Imagine a world where carriers competed amongst themselves to take your call, instead of just competing by trying to retain customers with contracts and bad service and exclusivity deals.

The current contract model means there is really no financial incentive to resolve over-taxed networks. The carrier get your money whether the call is dropped or not. That is the downside of "unlimited".

But if every call were negotiated on the fly. Then there would be a strong financial incentive for all networks to upgrade those cells which were under performing.

I doubt whether such a scheme would be allowed to happen. It's just too sensible!

C.

and how long did it take Apple to drop the price of the original iphone? until we get a very cheap smartphone you can buy without a contract for $100, the current contract model will rule

 

[alent1234]

It appears there is a firmware/hardware issue with Apple's cell interface that needs a serious upgrade and optimization. If Apple were to both fix it substantially, and let it slip the newest handsets are "200% better", there might be a wave of upgrades and they can send all the older handsets to China.

Rocketman

cites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Um_Interface

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Mobile_Telecommunications_System

http://www.tiaonline.org/news_event...s_New_Standards_for_UMB_TDD_Air_Interface.cfm

and lean forward . . .

http://www.freshwap.net/finder/LTE+...r+Interface+Technologies+and+Performance.html

supposedly it's the infeneon chips that are the problem

 

[jclardy]

The point is that your beast has serious technical flaws which causes problems for entire network.

I think the problem is people actually use their iPhones way more during the course of the day than other smartphones. I had an HTC touch that I would pull out if I absolutely HAD to look something up, but I pull out my iPhone randomly to check weather, twitter, facebook, email, websites, anything. On my HTC Touch I would use email because opening any web browser was slow and typing an address was even slower.

Now iPhone comes along and makes web browsing easy for non-technical users and more people use it. Go figure.

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

It doesn't explain why so many VOICE calls get dropped or have issues. My big issue with AT&T is with huge amounts of dropped calls. For a LONG time, my iPhone would often report "No Service" and not function at all, for random periods of 5-15 minutes in length, throughout the day, while I was at my workplace. They *finally* did something with the tower in this area and addressed that problem satisfactorily. But it took about 3 years of complaints.

I have an iPhone for my personal use and a BB for work. Both on ATT. I have noticed my BB gets full signal here at work and is perfect but my iPhone suffers horribly. I said a while ago in one of these the iPhone is God posts that I think the iPhone has a technical flaw. Im not saying ATT is perfect because they are far from it but this might actually make some sense.

 

[diamond.g]

It doesn't explain why so many VOICE calls get dropped or have issues. My big issue with AT&T is with huge amounts of dropped calls. For a LONG time, my iPhone would often report "No Service" and not function at all, for random periods of 5-15 minutes in length, throughout the day, while I was at my workplace. They *finally* did something with the tower in this area and addressed that problem satisfactorily. But it took about 3 years of complaints.

Because voice and data share a connection. Overload one and the other suffers. Verizon wouldn't suffer from the same problem as the voice and data are separate.

 

[SeattleMoose]

Air Interference??????

LOL!!!!! "who cut the cheese?"

Wow, what a lame excuse.

Hopefully in 2010 Apple will get a divorce from that decrepit dinosaur company and make the iPhone available with other service providers.

Until then, AT&T doesn't get a dime of my money.

Until then....I bide my time.