September 3, 2009 10:14 AM PDT
Customers angered as iPhones overload AT&T
AT&T's network is straining to meet iPhone users' demand, resulting in dropped calls and delayed messages.
(From The New York Times)
The story "Customers angered as iPhones overload AT&T" published September 3, 2009 at 10:14 AM is no longer available on CNET News.
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mms coming sept 25
I'm just happy that they finally had the balls to give us an actual date. This "late summer" business was just foolish, especially when they cannot meet their articulated deadline.
I thought the whole point of fine print and legal disclaimers was to prevent them being held liable and sued. So if they cannot meet the obligation set forth in their own fine print, then why shouldn't it be legally actionable. I had to sign a contract with AT&T to get my iPhone. Part of that was unlimited text that included MMS and unlimited voice/data.
Legally speaking, LATE SUMMER does not mean EARLY FALL... sure it may be 4 days, but a legal disclaimer is a legal disclaimer. If a company is going to be shady and use fine print, the least they can do is honor it.
In Europe, they have had many millions more smart phones on their
3G and 4G networks without any real issues. The North American
cell providers are behind the times, and now they are attempting to
blame a single device (the iPhone) for their cell phone infrastructure
issues. Get real guys (AT&T).
In Canada, ROGERS appears to be supporting the 3G network just
fine. The 3G infrastructure is still fresh to boot.
There are other 3G devices being sold, so I doubt AT&T can ball up
all of the 3G congestion issues to only iPhones.
The customers will use their devices to do what anything that it
allows them to do. If one of their APPS generates high traffic loads
on the network, that's just too bad. Users doesn't count their bytes;
that a thing of the past.
Maybe the AT&T marketing people have outmarketed (oversold) their
technicians?
:-)
It's annoying that on some days, it takes me 10 minutes just to listen to a VVM. What's the point of having voice mail [visual] if I can't check it?
ATT's network in Los Angeles was garbage BEFORE the iPhone, and it really stinks now. Many of my friends deserted Verizon to get the phone. I can see their caller ID, but almost never actually have a conversation with them before the signal breaks up or the call drop. I tell them to call me when they get to a landline.
I do not know how to tell if a text is late, though. Will the time show up as the time sent or the time received?
However, I can't comment on 3G. I've got a 1st gen iPhone which is a bit slow, but very reliable. I routinely get a data connection in areas that ATT doesn't even offer cell service.
Maybe I'm just lucky. This might be a good time to buy a lottery ticket. :)
But I know people in the bigger cities and it does sound pretty awful for them.
I think ending the exclusivity would help everyone (except AT&T). The loads on the combined carrier networks might be more manageable overall.
iPhone customer satisfaction outside the U.S. is very high because those users simply don't have as many problems with their carriers and service levels are very high.
U.S. cellular customers (regardless of what phone they use) have every right to be p*ssed off by their provider's price-performance value. Americans pay way too much for mediocre service.
The same goes for broadband Internet. In many countries, people are getting 5-10 times the broadband speed for $20-30 per month.
No matter what is going on in other countries, we live in the very large, very fragmented USA cell market. And in this market, if Verizon had the iPhone, we would be hearing about the SAME problems, but in different cities. If T-Mobile had it, nobody outside of major companies could even get one. If Sprint had it, the complaints would be even worse.
Actually, neither jr24ds or you (ikramerica--2008) is right.
That's why this article was written by Cnet.
U.S. cellular carriers blow. The rest of the world gets better, sometimes far better cellular service. There are other countries where there is no carrier exclusivity.
Americans are letting our technological superiority slip away. Actually, we are hemorrhaging it away.
And people like you seem to think this is normal.
You are dead wrong.
Your comments, though completely VALID, are IRRELEVANT to his post, so it made little sense for you to respond with them.
Your comments are like responding to a question about which congested highway to take in Los Angeles with information about the lack of highway congestion in Perth Australia. While it may be true, how does it matter to people in Los Angeles?
Then you are going to have problems with mergers and so on... for instance, SunCom was very reliable where I live, but the moment they made the switch to T Mobile (who was not in my area) the service went down hill. If you did not have a T Mobile phone, you were bound to have dropped calls, roaming, delayed text messages and so on. Personally, I don't think you should have to buy a new phone in a merger situation... they should provide you with a replacement. It's not your fault as a customer that your phone/sim card is not as compatible with their switches and network. Altel and Verizon are having a lot of problems here as well. Altel was the best rated carrier in my area years on end. But Verizon seems to be screwing over Altel customers left and right and many of them are leaving. It's going to be interesting because AT&T will be picking up some of Altel's customers and areas where Verizon is not allowed to tread... so it will be interesting to see how they will handle CDMA and GSM in those cases.
The iPhone did not make the AT&T network suck. AT&T's network sucked before the iPhone was released. AT&T simply isn't putting in much (perceived) effort in improving their network.
AT&T is struggling to get basic 3.6Mbps 3G service reliably running in major metro areas like NY, LA, SF, etc., let alone deployment of the higher speed 7.2Mbps HSDPA upgrade (which is scheduled to be completed in 2011). In contrast, Japan and Hong Kong already have 21Mbps HSDPA networks in service today. Basically all of Asia and Europe already runs 14.4Mbps or 7.2Mbps HSDPA service.
AT&T is literally three iterations of cellular network speed behind.
http://hspa.gsmworld.com/networks/
I was in the western suburbs of Chicago and I swear everyone has a iphone.
Ok, I want to know the data study that was used to come up with that statement. A Hummer USES more gas in traveling the SAME distance than most other vehicles. Does the iPhone really use MORE DATA bandwidth doing the same things OR, as I suspect, that users of the iPhone actually use their iPhones for more DATA BECAUSE it provides a much more useable data experience than most of their competitors...
Also, AT&T's network has had issues for years and years... While users of the iPhone probably put more strain on the network because they use their iPhones for more data... This is a trend that is going to continue and will not be limited to the iPhone, so the carriers better get serious about increasing their network capacity... This is like blaming Alexander Graham Bell for the lack of a nationwide telephone network in 1880 because he came up with the telephone in 1876... Where is the logic?
All of the companies are now selling laptops as well. this will become even a bigger nightmare for regular phone users because some guy or girl who wants to show off rather than the business people who actually gain something from it use too much data of the total capacity.
If you used the European model of the same phone your experience would be vastly different.
Having said that, I believe all service providers should prioritize their bandwidth right now while they have the opportunity, and reserve a chunk of bandwidth specifically for voice and text. These two functions are the main purpose of cell technology, and to have voice and text users suffer because smart phone owners are over using their devices (or because the service provider over sold the bandw idth, which ever you prefer) is not acceptable.
I'm surprised there has not been any class action lawsuit over this issue in the US. You'd think some money grubbing lawyer would be looking for a payday here.
On the topic of AT&T having some major issues with the iPhone, well, I have to agree. It took until almost 2 months after I got my iPhone 3G S until I could get a semi-reliable 3G signal. I actually had to leave it on 2G mode or the thing would not get a signal at all! Recently I've been able to leave 3G on and at least the phone switches to 2G mode when needed instead of hanging on to a useless 3G signal. Considering that there have been no radio software updates in that time, this was an AT&T issue without a doubt. I still think their 3G network is a bad joke. On launch here in central Denver, T-Mobile had a far, far superior 3G network. It actually worked most places I went. But I wanted an iPhone so I now have the worst cellular service I've ever had. Cingular service here wasn't that bad 4 years ago and even Nextel never dropped calls or didn't complete calls as much as AT&T has in the past 2 months. In fact, I've had more dropped or non-completed calls with AT&T the past 2 months than I had with T-Mobile over 5 years. If it keeps up I may have to eat the ETF and go with a different phone and provider. I love my iPhone but I love having reliable service even more. I'm holding out for the 3.1 update that hopefully will resolve some issues. If not, well, I'll have to start saving and go somewhere else.
USE logic people!!!!