In Defense of AT&T

[jbg232]

I'm a verizon customer and don't have an iphone but I do want to say something about Apple and AT&T:

If Apple is having this many problems with dealing with only ONE carrier, it will be 10x worse if they have to deal with many carriers.

While I want the iphone to come to verizon just like everyone else, I can rest assured that verizon isn't some godly company that doesn't have any technical problems especially when it will try to handle possibly 100's of thousands of pre-orders on one day (imagine all those AT&T customers who are sick of AT&T + Verizon customers). Obviously Apple and AT&T had this thing planned out more so than if there were 4 other companies in the equation and although it isn't working out, adding more complexity to the situation would likely have made it worse. Now, at least in trying to find a fix to the problem they only have to deal with one company instead of 5.

Just my thoughts.

 

[MacBone]

I'm a verizon customer and don't have an iphone but I do want to say something about Apple and AT&T:

If Apple is having this many problems with dealing with only ONE carrier, it will be 10x worse if they have to deal with many carriers.

While I want the iphone to come to verizon just like everyone else, I can rest assured that verizon isn't some godly company that doesn't have any technical problems especially when it will try to handle possibly 100's of thousands of pre-orders on one day (imagine all those AT&T customers who are sick of AT&T + Verizon customers). Obviously Apple and AT&T had this thing planned out more so than if there were 4 other companies in the equation and although it isn't working out, adding more complexity to the situation would likely have made it worse. Now, at least in trying to find a fix to the problem they only have to deal with one company instead of 5.

Just my thoughts.

i think that Apple's problems stem from the fact that it relies on AT&T's systems. If Apple was selling the iPhone through Verizon, the experience would depend on Verizons' systems (if they used the current model). They should probably do "disconnected" preorders like Best Buy is aparently doing. If they did these say a month in advance then things would probably run smoother. At any rate, I believe the problems do stem from AT&T. They either need to upgrade their system, or change the whole philosophy for preordering. Apple certainly has some responsability to know how good or bad the process will work.

 

[jbg232]

i think that Apple's problems stem from the fact that it relies on AT&T's systems. If Apple was selling the iPhone through Verizon, the experience would depend on Verizons' systems (if they used the current model). They should probably do "disconnected" preorders like Best Buy is aparently doing. If they did these say a month in advance then things would probably run smoother. At any rate, I believe the problems do stem from AT&T. They either need to upgrade their system, or change the whole philosophy for preordering. Apple certainly has some responsability to know how good or bad the process will work.

I completely agree with you that these problems would be avoided if they did disconnected pre-orders, but my thoughts are that if they don't and they do want to put up with the hassle of finding out each individual customer's rate plan upgrade eligbility, it would be much harder dealing with five companies than one.

However, it is true that as you said, both Apple and AT&T must take responsibility for this fiasco, but when people claim that "this wouldn't happen with verizon" they are sorely missing the point in my mind.

 

[Mliii]

There are SO many other ways to do the whole pre-order process, it's just absurd that we have this happen every time.
How about in the week leading to the pre-order date, customers get 'validated' with some kind of processing number so there doesn't need to be the volume of interaction between the AT&T servers & Apple during the pre-order period. Just one of many possible alternatives.
But the bottom line is that the process is a mess and Apple AND AT&T share the blame.