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AT&T 3G Upgrades Degrade 2G Signal Strength
Timothy R. Butler writes "Much to the chagrin of owners of various 2G cell phones on AT&T Mobility's network, including the highly visible (and originally highly expensive) first-generation iPhone, we have discovered that AT&T has been quietly adjusting its network in ways that degrade 2G network performance as it has sought to build out its next-generation 3G network. Many of the phones affected, including BlackBerry devices, are still well within their two-year contract period."
Its the way people do business now.
Sad and immoral, but true.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Hey guys, marketing mismatch.
AT&T's "2G" network was the pre-GSM TDMA network. The iPhone works on the 3G GSM network.
What is happening here is degradation of the stronger 900Mhz spectrum of the 3G GSM network which has twice the distance but half the capacity, because north america's UMTS runs on the 900Mhz band, so they can't expand the UMTS without degrading this.
Those hipsters won't know because the mass media won't advertise this. Even then, will they care? Most people don't even know what 2G is. Unless a big campaign is started, there's not gonna be much happening.
Normally I would agree with your premise.
"Edge users are equivalent to VHS users. The technology has moved on, you need to move on or deal with slightly degraded service"
That isn't really a valid analogy. If VHS players suddenly couldn't fast forward, rewind, or record, and could only play some parts of a tape, then yeah. That's not the case here though.
In this case there seems to be a large group of people still under thier original contracts. INAL but sounds like 1. Breach of contract (Degraded services) 2. Bait and switch (oh if you want it to actually work properly you need to upgrade to G3) 3. Fraud (Offering and contracting services you have no intention of providing - which is where the purposely degrading comes in)
Edge users are equivalent to VHS users. The technology has moved on, you need to move on or deal with slightly degraded service.
Except my tapes don't stop working in my VCR just because the VCR company started phasing out VCRs.
What evidence do you have that ATT's current customer base is primarily 3G? ATT especially has been a laggard in 3G deployment; I would guess that most of its current paying customers are on the losing end of this decision.
There is still a business argument that it is better to prepare for the future than to support the past, but it's a questionable one.
Ah, but the courts have ruled that they can still step in and force a class action lawsuit even with arbitration clauses in the contract, so don't give up hope. Judges *HATE* being told what they can and cannot do like that.
The simplest explanation for that is that there are more people using EDGE in your area, and AT&T hasn't increased capacity to handle it.
Then you should have stopped selling 2G service when you knew you weren't going to support it properly, but that would be denying a potential income stream. Or you could have at LEAST warned customers that they were going to be locked in to a contract that won't provide the services as advertised (oh, they might be within the contractual fine print, but it's not what the guy on TV told you it was going to be), but that would be bad PR. So the sneaky underhanded method works out the best... for you (as a representative of AT&T).
Caveat Emptor is good advice for consumers, but it makes a really nasty corporate business plan.