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AT&T Offers Video Update on iPhone MMS and Cellular Network Issues
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Have any of you worked for a Fortune 100 company for more than a month or so? I thought so: there are a reasonable number of people here who realize that the wasted internal powerpoint time alone is enough to fix a significant fraction of ATT's network problems.
So what does it say that management tries to solve the problem by putting up what they consider a stereotypical technogeek to hawk solutions on YouTube? Someone who's having a worse hair day than me (that's going some, I'm over 50)? To inform the public that the 1's and 0's consumed by smartphones significantly exceeds that for phones engaged in audio transmission alone?
Sorry, this is just a badly calculated marketing statement and not much more.
I'll be just as cynical as the people who approved this approach: could we please build a better network or let the Apple exclusivity quietly expire?
So what does it say that management tries to solve the problem by putting up what they consider a stereotypical technogeek to hawk solutions on YouTube? Someone who's having a worse hair day than me (that's going some, I'm over 50)? To inform the public that the 1's and 0's consumed by smartphones significantly exceeds that for phones engaged in audio transmission alone?
Sorry, this is just a badly calculated marketing statement and not much more.
I'll be just as cynical as the people who approved this approach: could we please build a better network or let the Apple exclusivity quietly expire?
Verizon could not know it would be successful, especially since Apple's history with phones and PDAs was not very good.
Verizon never got to see the iPhone. They only knew that Apple wanted to do their own phone. The only other semi-Apple related "iPod" phone, the ROKR, had just come out and was not selling well.
Apple also wanted extra money for it. Apple didn't want to let it be sold in other stores like Best Buy or Walmart. Apple didn't want to share warranty decisions with Verizon. Apple didn't want it open to apps.
Overall, it's easy to understand why Verizon would say no to something that sounded so vague and consumer unfriendly.
Nothing wrong with Verizon at all. That's why Apple tried to go with Verizon for almost a year. Finally they gave up and went along with ATT's lengthy exclusivity demand.
In return, ATT was willing to do a couple of odd things. First, they gave each customer's monthly subsidy allotment to Apple (aka "revenue sharing") for the first year. Second, they were willing to sell a model with no 3G, something Verizon would've objected to.
One man's opinion
With regard to the original post.....What a bunch of crap. AT&T has been a 2nd rate player from the get-go with regards to the iphone. Lets not forget
1. The total screw-up when the 3G phones were sold and orders could not be placed or phones activated because their systems were failing.
2. For two years they denied their network was over-taxed then...Surprise!...they need to fix their networks in many major metropolitan areas including San Francisco and New York.
3. We continue to wait for the fixes of item 2, above, and they are not in place yet. Its all a bunch of Corp-speak.
AT&T is the weak link in the iphone. To me, it is like having a great web browser like Safari 4 on my MBP and only be able to use it on a dial-up connection.
If Apple does not offer an alternative to AT&T next year when my AT&T plan is up, I will probably migrate away and buy a Crackberry.
With regard to the original post.....What a bunch of crap. AT&T has been a 2nd rate player from the get-go with regards to the iphone. Lets not forget
1. The total screw-up when the 3G phones were sold and orders could not be placed or phones activated because their systems were failing.
2. For two years they denied their network was over-taxed then...Surprise!...they need to fix their networks in many major metropolitan areas including San Francisco and New York.
3. We continue to wait for the fixes of item 2, above, and they are not in place yet. Its all a bunch of Corp-speak.
AT&T is the weak link in the iphone. To me, it is like having a great web browser like Safari 4 on my MBP and only be able to use it on a dial-up connection.
If Apple does not offer an alternative to AT&T next year when my AT&T plan is up, I will probably migrate away and buy a Crackberry.
That's is ridiculous to say. I shouldn't have to do research for a flipping cell phone service I used to have verizon and man am i upset i switch I got service EVERYWHERE! Now with AT&T I get it nowhere, and I really don't think I had to do research in this day in age i shouldn't have to go to the highest point everywhere I am just to get one bar.
Yes, god forbid we be responsible consumers and do our due diligence by learning about what we're buying before we buy it. I mean, I don't know about you, but I enjoy blindly throwing my money at stuff!
do we get a refund check for services not offered (mms, etc) while we were paying the full internet fee?
I think that if ATT was knowing holding back features while charging customers the full rate, that we should get some kind of refund....or class action lawsuit
I think that if ATT was knowing holding back features while charging customers the full rate, that we should get some kind of refund....or class action lawsuit
Isn't that just hilarious!
I traveled with two separate 3G iPhones both purchased in the New England area. Both had excellent voice coverage and indicated 3G service for all of the trip, but I was lucky to be able to connect to the internet at ALL for the majority of the trip.
In town, on the strip, in hotels, the same story ... MAYBE I could connect and surf or send/receive email. Power cycled the phones more times during the vacation than I care to remember - with little to no change in service - poor, in summary.
The phones worked normally when I arrived back home. You tell ME ... I couldn't figure it out ... Whatever bummed my phones in Vegas STAYED in Vegas. Hooray for you ... but I was not impressed with AT&T there.
No, it isn't the exclusivity contract ATT has that is the problem.
The problem, which has existed in the US since the mid 1990s, is the fact that the cell phone companies have been building out their own networks, and saying their own technology is the standard, instead of using the global standard that already existed since that time, which was GSM.
Since 1997, the US providers have been making their own network, and telling the phone manufacturers to make phones for their network. That way, they have you until you switch, which you'd need to buy a new phone altogether. In Europe, Australia, etc., you could take your phone with you when you go. Not so in the USA.
Case in point is with Spring in 2000. They told Nokia (biggest phone maker at the time) to "make phones solely for our network, or we will never sell your phones again!" Nokia gave them to **** off, and stopped making phones for Sprint. They still haven't to this day.
Until the US companies, exception being AT&T and T-Mobile get off their respective arses and use the standard, there will ALWAYS be these exclusivity contracts that keep you bound to them.
I happen to like AT&T. they've done me well over the past 6 years (can't say the same for Sprint, and my SO can say MUCH WORSE for Verizon). What I don't like are locked phones, as I would prefer to take my phone with me should I ever change carriers. You should not have to buy a new phone each time you switch carriers.
DELLsFAN said:
Define 'in town'. I live in Summerlin, work in Summerlin, go to school at UNLV, bowl in Henderson, have relatives in Kingman and St. George, and up US-95 and I-15, I've had no degradation of service. In fact, the only places I've lost service at was going up SR-157 to Mt. Charleston, and driving through the Virgin River Gorge in Arizona. At my data center downtown (across from Fitzgeralds), I've had no problems.
In the hotels you may have issues because you're dealing with each hotel having their own power substation there and then some! But from Lake Mead to Primm to Redrock Canyon to Virgin River to Indian Springs, I haven't had a single problem.
BL.
ATT is the weak link in the iPhone chain. They have made a ton of money off of the iPhone but can only complain that they need extra service. In France, the courts forced Apple to give the iPhone to multiple carriers. The result: usage went from 15% to 40%. What is needed here in the US is multiple carriers. Additionally, I think other carriers would cast a better actor in their videos!
The guy reminds me of aliens or heavenly spirits that come to earth and take the form of something we can relate with. Just pretty hilarious how blatant ATT was in their approach of calling him "the (token) blogger guy".
I really think Apple needs to abandon ship with these guys. They are scrambling to improve their network to accommodate MMS?!? How are they ever going to keep up with Apple? Apple needs someone who will get the job done. 3G is old news. If AT&T was planning for the future they would be putting in 4G networks.
*grumble grumble*
*grumble grumble*
I think this was a great attempt at pacifying vocal Internet users whose complaints have so far fallen upon deaf ears.
I wish O2 in the UK would provide us with similar information about how they're bolstering their flaky data network and minute 3G footprint.
I wish O2 in the UK would provide us with similar information about how they're bolstering their flaky data network and minute 3G footprint.
That's true, but those networks were paid for using billions of Euros in public taxpayer's money... as in, massively subsidized, just like GSM was before it.
Do you really think that would be the case if Orange, Vodaphone and others had to pay for it with billions of their own money??
So if you're pi$$ed, write to your senator and ask him for a tax increase to cover the AT&T buildout!
Actually your are very far from the truth. Yes Orange, Vodafone did pay for their network with their own money.
In most European countries the telephone companies have to pay a heavy license fee to the government just to get a 3G license and further more agree to a specific network rollout with in a fixed timeframe.
In my country, Denmark, 4 licenses were sold to a price ox aprox. 190 million dollars per license and All the operators have to cover at least 80% of the population within 6 years.
Translated to US terms a company like AT&T would have to pay uncle Sam around 10 billion dollars in license fees just for the license.
Yes the GSM system was subsidized with public taxpayer money - but not the network rollout. The european governments funded the development of the GSM system and made laws so only GSM phones were allowed in the 900 Mhz spectrum thous banning every other techonology to gain momentum.
Anyway - I feel sorry for all you American iPhone users. I only get an average of 3 mbit/s of download with my local carrier... in primetime. Dropped calls? Never heard about it. MMS - worked from day one.
Ahh, but the NSA knows exactly who you call and what you say...
And according to AT&T's site, there hasn't been an update in Michigan yet this year.
And the cell phone companies HAVE gotten tax payers money before to expand and update their cell phone networks. They always come to congress on bended knee saying they will expand and need money for it, and then once they have the money they claim that it just can't be done and they get to keep the money. Seriously... Get money for nothing. High paid lobbyists have turned government into a cash cow for industry.
Bill Moyers did a show a few years ago about how the telco companies were given MILLIONS and perhaps BILLIONS of dollars for rural internet access and swore up and down that they could bring Gigabit speeds to mom and pop potter in rural Iowa. Well, then they said that their 'reach exceeded their grasp' and asked that they not have to return the money. Well, perish the thought, DeeCee said they could keep the money, for doing nothing.
And people wonder why our country is in such the crapper for deficits and why we don't have gigabit, or terrabit fiber to our homes. Well, we PAID for it, we just didn't get it. Thanks to lobbyists and the revolving door in DeeCee, oh, and gutless politicians...
We've paid for better phone and internet service. Paid for it and then not gotten it. The fleecing of America. It happens all the time...