I would be happy just being able to make a call. AT&T sucks in SF. The amount of time calls just go straight to VM.
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Behind the Scenes of the Apple-AT&T Relationship
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I would be happy just being able to make a call. AT&T sucks in SF. The amount of time calls just go straight to VM.
You are wright in CT it's become a real problem when I start to loos very important call,
now I don't realy care CDMA or GSM
just let me the chance to finish or just get a call without drop it in the middle or just not get it, and still pay over $300 amonth
Why not just throw LTE at every international frequency in there as well to be forward thinking. Oh, and WIMAX too. Yes, and when it its three times as thick because it has an antenna (or 7) to support every carrier in the world they can call it the "iPhone BRICK".
Yeah, cause I wanna live in Arizona...
Signal
Guys Guys,
move up to Canada. The signal is not an issue. Also, we're pretty good folks to.
Guys Guys,
move up to Canada. The signal is not an issue. Also, we're pretty good folks to.
Guys Guys,
move up to Canada. The signal is not an issue. Also, we're pretty good folks to.
It's true. We have buildings made entirely out of cell transceivers!
Cingular - AT&T
Cingular was 505 owned by SBC & 50% owned by Southern Bell. The parent AT&T spun off AT&T wireless. At which time after some bidding with Vodaphone, (a 45% owner of Verizon Wireless), Cingular purchased AT&T wireless.
After this SBC purchased Ameritech (Chicago area Bell spin off), then it purchased the parent AT&T. Then just before or just after that purchase they purchased Bell South. This meant that they now owned 100% of Cingular. At this time they chose to use one name for the complete company, AT&T. The parent is dead, the off spring has taken their parent's name & have continued the family phone business.
That's a little closer to what happened. I'm sure that someone else can fill in the details a little better.
Cingular was 505 owned by SBC & 50% owned by Southern Bell. The parent AT&T spun off AT&T wireless. At which time after some bidding with Vodaphone, (a 45% owner of Verizon Wireless), Cingular purchased AT&T wireless.
After this SBC purchased Ameritech (Chicago area Bell spin off), then it purchased the parent AT&T. Then just before or just after that purchase they purchased Bell South. This meant that they now owned 100% of Cingular. At this time they chose to use one name for the complete company, AT&T. The parent is dead, the off spring has taken their parent's name & have continued the family phone business.
That's a little closer to what happened. I'm sure that someone else can fill in the details a little better.
Well you have to remember that the federal government broke up those companies originally for abusing their monopoly power and now SBC started buying back up all the pieces to form the mega company that was broken up.
At some point I would not be surpised to see them break up the wireless carriers for becoming to big and powerful. They already are starting to abuse their power.
The USA pays among the HIGHEST wireless cost in the world. I want to say the US is 2nd or 3rd in western world.
Canada is one of the few countries whos people are getting screwed over more than US citizens by their wireless carriers.
AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, etc.
Being a 26+ year Mac User & iPod Touch owner the iPhone would seem to be a natural way for me to go. But I do not want AT&T cell phone service. The lack of openness in the iTunes App Store has helped. Then AT&T announced their data plan price increase less than 60 days after the big iPad $30/month no contract amount. But that plan is gone already.
Being a 10 year + Verizon User I was trying to wait for Verizon to change enough for them to operate with the lack of Verizon control that a smartphone needs. The Motorola Droid showed that they could do it. Then Verizon made the announcement that they would probably follow AT&T with their data plan pricing.
This made me change my mind at the same time that the new Motorola Droid X is out for sale. With my son & daughter & their families all on Sprint I choose to go that route. My local Sprint Store happened to have 2 HTC EVO 4G phone available. My wife & me now have Sprint cell & data unlimited service. Tethering is a $30/mon option with 5 GB of data/mon on 3G & unlimited data on 4G. I've had good 3G service for the less than a week that we have owned them.
I tied in my mac.com & gmail.com email accounts. This also synced my .mac telephone book to my Sprint phone. The only program that I want is a spreadsheet program that I have on my Palm, iPod Touch & now my Sprint 4G phone.
Tethering can be done on a month to month basis for up to 8 devices. The data amount is now twice what AT&T's & Verizon''s is. When we visit our daughter in Chicago we have unlimited tethering if we have it connected that month.
I know that the iPhone may be nicer in many ways. But the 43" screen on our Sprint phone makes running the data part of the phone so much easier. And wasn't the data part the reason why I purchased the new phones for my wife & me.
Only time will tell as to what months we turn tethering on. But it is here now. Not something that I have to wait & wait & wait for. AT&T & Apple has both combined to have lost at least our 2 iPhone purchases.
So far the Android market is good enough for me. Not as slick as Apple's iTunes App Store, but not as many controls either. I have not been able to connect to my protected Mac network with my iPod Touch. That also gave a negative iPhone point.
To make a purchase a person is not always allowed to purchase the best that is available. Also sometimes that is not necessary. The items for a cell phone is which one gives cell phone service that is good enough to live with. Sometimes that may not be AT&T, Verizon or Sprint. Then onto data. What is the speed &/or availability in areas that one may be traveling in? Price for these items come in here somewhere, for some earlier than for others. The HTC met those requirements. My time with Sprint has been very nice. The sales people here have been much nicer than the ones I have met with Verizon. AT&T with its poorer cell phone service in my area has not been tested by me. My Android cell/data phone does what I need it to do. So far it has done a good job integrating with my Macs.
Apple's one model fits all has probably lost more than my business. And these decisions can last for years if not decades.
Being a 26+ year Mac User & iPod Touch owner the iPhone would seem to be a natural way for me to go. But I do not want AT&T cell phone service. The lack of openness in the iTunes App Store has helped. Then AT&T announced their data plan price increase less than 60 days after the big iPad $30/month no contract amount. But that plan is gone already.
Being a 10 year + Verizon User I was trying to wait for Verizon to change enough for them to operate with the lack of Verizon control that a smartphone needs. The Motorola Droid showed that they could do it. Then Verizon made the announcement that they would probably follow AT&T with their data plan pricing.
This made me change my mind at the same time that the new Motorola Droid X is out for sale. With my son & daughter & their families all on Sprint I choose to go that route. My local Sprint Store happened to have 2 HTC EVO 4G phone available. My wife & me now have Sprint cell & data unlimited service. Tethering is a $30/mon option with 5 GB of data/mon on 3G & unlimited data on 4G. I've had good 3G service for the less than a week that we have owned them.
I tied in my mac.com & gmail.com email accounts. This also synced my .mac telephone book to my Sprint phone. The only program that I want is a spreadsheet program that I have on my Palm, iPod Touch & now my Sprint 4G phone.
Tethering can be done on a month to month basis for up to 8 devices. The data amount is now twice what AT&T's & Verizon''s is. When we visit our daughter in Chicago we have unlimited tethering if we have it connected that month.
I know that the iPhone may be nicer in many ways. But the 43" screen on our Sprint phone makes running the data part of the phone so much easier. And wasn't the data part the reason why I purchased the new phones for my wife & me.
Only time will tell as to what months we turn tethering on. But it is here now. Not something that I have to wait & wait & wait for. AT&T & Apple has both combined to have lost at least our 2 iPhone purchases.
So far the Android market is good enough for me. Not as slick as Apple's iTunes App Store, but not as many controls either. I have not been able to connect to my protected Mac network with my iPod Touch. That also gave a negative iPhone point.
To make a purchase a person is not always allowed to purchase the best that is available. Also sometimes that is not necessary. The items for a cell phone is which one gives cell phone service that is good enough to live with. Sometimes that may not be AT&T, Verizon or Sprint. Then onto data. What is the speed &/or availability in areas that one may be traveling in? Price for these items come in here somewhere, for some earlier than for others. The HTC met those requirements. My time with Sprint has been very nice. The sales people here have been much nicer than the ones I have met with Verizon. AT&T with its poorer cell phone service in my area has not been tested by me. My Android cell/data phone does what I need it to do. So far it has done a good job integrating with my Macs.
Apple's one model fits all has probably lost more than my business. And these decisions can last for years if not decades.
The chip physically supports it. Apple didn't enable it in software.
Ah. Then either I misread something or was fed misinformation. As far as I know, though, the pentaband chip covers American frequencies and European/Asian frequencies.
The moment the iPhone was revealed, AT&T and Apple were already having spats in public because of Jobs' claims that AT&T bent over for them:
Apple, Cingular claim victory over each other
Not to mention the lack of trust, since Apple wouldn't give AT&T fully functioning prototypes to test.
Later, when the 3G came out, each blamed the other for why calls were dropping.
Then there was the FCC inquiry about Google Voice, with AT&T making it clear that Apple was solely to blame for it not being approved... after Apple pointed fingers at AT&T for their "don't use 3G advice".
Apple appeared to diss AT&T again in the 2009 WWDC intro of the 3GS, where they pointedly left out AT&T in a high profile tethering chart.
Both CEOs seem to like each other (at least at first), but there appears to be friction below that level.
Same here. This is almost as bad a celebrity gossip.
Apple has a phone, AT&T has a network. They put in a show, people loved it, they cashed in. Those that complained about it were ignored.
Going back about five hundred years ...
Shakespear had a play. Henslowe had a theater. They put in a show, people loved it, they cashed in. Those that complained about it were ignored.
Of course, it's one of Apple's few partnerships where both companies are responsible for servicing an end user, many of their goals directly contradicting one another. There's bound to be friction as the relationship is more than just lowest price for goods/labor/services.
Also as another example, where I am, nowhere near Canada or the US, the iPhone doesn't drop calls either. Sure if you truly go into a dead zone like a tunnel then nothing works but the rest of the time the iPhone works brilliantly with extremely good call retention and data speeds.
Umm do you have any idea how much miss information and BS is in there in what you just said.
Verizon nothing to block GPS on their smart phones. Please note NOTHING. Any app can access the GPS in those phones. Their none smart phones I believe can install apps that access the GPS and can use it for navigation.
Minus the iPhone on ATT all their phones have bundled crap apps on them and some branding. The branding on phones is about the same. A few spots but nothing big. you see it on the splash screen at start up and that is the end of it.
I know on Rogers and others in Canada they bundle apps on all their phones (other than the iPhone) when they sell them. Those apps can either be deleted or delt with how I did it on my AT&T blackberry. I shoved them all into a folder call junk then made it a hidden folder never to be seen again. If new apps get pushed to my phone I just dump them into that folder.
You bash Verizon for going with CDMA but yet it had the advantage of being able to go 3G with just a software update to their towers. Compared to a hardware update AT&T did. AT&T also has issues of dealing with phones switching between W-CDMA and Edge TDMA network. I also have read that had plans to add the ablity to do surf and talk like AT&T 3G but scraped it and instead choose to focus on LTE which they will have it on.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/07/ff_att_fail/
full article is now up
The way Apple handled the relationship may also explain why we haven't seen an iphone on another US carrier
full article is now up
The way Apple handled the relationship may also explain why we haven't seen an iphone on another US carrier
Could this be the reason that people in other countries have better coverage than the US?
3g + 4g
From my research, 4G is pretty over-hyped in most instances. The WiMAX coverage is pretty limited, and even in cities that do have WiMAX, the reception can be spotty at times.
Normally, I keep my phone on EDGE, and only switch over to 3G if I need to get data faster for Google Maps or a YouTube video. Otherwise, EDGE works fine for most of my tasks.
I stuck with Cinguar/AT&T because they were the sole carrier for the iPhone in the U.S., but that really bites if one lives in a more rural section of the country that doesn't have AT&T (such as Montana). In such cases, Verizon at least has the coverage, and if the other players like AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, etc. can't expand their network and officially cover all 50 states, then perhaps Verizon should get the iPhone next.
From my research, 4G is pretty over-hyped in most instances. The WiMAX coverage is pretty limited, and even in cities that do have WiMAX, the reception can be spotty at times.
Normally, I keep my phone on EDGE, and only switch over to 3G if I need to get data faster for Google Maps or a YouTube video. Otherwise, EDGE works fine for most of my tasks.
I stuck with Cinguar/AT&T because they were the sole carrier for the iPhone in the U.S., but that really bites if one lives in a more rural section of the country that doesn't have AT&T (such as Montana). In such cases, Verizon at least has the coverage, and if the other players like AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, etc. can't expand their network and officially cover all 50 states, then perhaps Verizon should get the iPhone next.
I gave my 1st Gen iPhone to my girlfriend and I have an EVO. Basically, I don't know if its just my area or what but she needs to go outside to make calls. I have 2 bars of 4G.