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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 ----
Just a few months ago, I upgraded to the AT&T version of the Palm Centro. I was a little disappointed to learn that the AT&T version of the Centro doesn't support 3g while the Sprint version does. If AT&T was going to upgrade to 3g at the expense of 2g, they should have made as many 3g offerings available as possible. I've noticed as well that my signal strength has seemed poorer in many areas of Missouri lately than it was when I first purchased my Centro, but I'd never associated it with anything AT&T had done.
Where I live, AT&T has both Edge (2.5G) and 3G deployed - I only have the first gen iPhone so I cannot speak to 3G quality here, but over the past couple of months I have seen an improvement in 2G coverage and quality. My house used to be on the edge (hah!) of an Edge dead zone - but now we get nearly full bars and no missed calls.
In NYC my 1st Gen iPhone has become unusable. It's so obvious I'm glad someone else is noticing.
- Pandora for the iPhone used to work, now it doesn't (Too slow).
- Loading map searches on google maps takes a minute plus.
The constants are my apt location and my desk location at work. I haven't changed a thing, but the network has definitely slowed down with the same "signal strength"/Bars.
Does this only affect at&t 2G phones? Even if-so, should this not fall under the jurisdiction of the FCC? Is a company allowed to create devices/systems that use the spectrum in such a way that they interfere with other devices created by the same company?
Clever contract wording or not, this just doesn't seem like it should be allowed.
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.
You do realize that the "many" are currently 2/2.5G phone users? Users locked into a contract that means you can't upgrade (without paying a pretty nasty chunk of change)?
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
I had my 2G (quad band) phone in Europe. I only ever got EDGE once, and that was in the complete sticks.
The rest of the time, I only got GPRS. This is because that's all that was offered, GPRS and 3G.
So far from being an idyllic solution, it seems in Europe the outcome is even more decided for you.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
This is nothing new. When AT&T and Cingular merged, They started "not repairing" the AT&T towers. When I called about the problem, I was told that when Cingular took over the towers, they were not given the passwords to maintain them (an obvious lie), but that if I wanted to sign a new 2 year contract, I could start receiving a signal again with a plan that had less minutes and cost more per month. After much arguing, they eventually just let me cancel my current plan with them and I moved to Verizon. (Yes, I know that they are evil too.)
I found it unbelievable that anyone would pay more, receive less, and sign a new contract with a company that just failed to live up to their old contract. Unfortunately, my pessimistic view of the general public was once again shown to be overly optimistic.
1 - These damn 2-year contracts make "getting with the times" a real pisser.
2 - Pulse dialing for land lines still works fine... right? Well there are some systems that *never* supported it, nasty phone trees and VOIP providers and whatnot, but it works on every POTS network I've ever plugged into. Flick the little switch on the back of your phone and try it, or, if you've got rhythm, just tap out the numbers using the cradle switch! Weee, fun!!!!
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.
I'm not sure if any of you have actually tried to test AT&T's network coverage, but this http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/ is a very generous map for where you can get "good coverage" in the middle of the country. If you want a better idea of where you're get good coverage, zoom in one level from the furthest out. A lot of that partner coverage is subpar. Then look where their 3G coverage is. That's really where you're going to get a "great" signal. For two examples look at Wichita, or Omaha: the cities are fine, but as soon as you go outside of it, you're SOL. Same for most of the mountain-west. I just hate seeing AT&T maps with orange coverage everywhere when really, it's not. Such a crock.
"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."
100% wrong.
Marketingwise, AT&T called the TDMA network "digital". (Which is a poor term but that's what they used.) They did not call it 2G.
iPhone *3G* works on a 3G UMTS network. There is no 3G GSM network. GSM is classified 2G, or some call it "2.5G" as long as EDGE is working. The older iPhone doesn't use 3G anything. If anyone does talk about "3G GSM" they are either talking about UMTS or just technobabbling a bit.
There is no 900mhz service in the US, 900mhz and 1800mhz are used in Europe (for GSM). 800mhz and 1900mhz bands are used in the US (for whatever they want.)
800mhz spectrum penetrates buildings better and goes a bit further than 1900mhz spectrum. This isn't always considered an advantage in the city though, they tend to have to tune the transmit power so neighboring sites don't interfere with each other.. if they have a lot of cell sites in an area, they will just have to turn the transmit power down at 800mhz so that extra range doesn't cause interference.
There's no capacity difference between "900mhz" (i assume you mean 800mhz) and 1900mhz spectrum. You get x channels in y mhz of spectrum either way. In fact, the 800mhz spectrum was given out in 25mhz chunks (12.5mhz up, 12.5mhz down) (2 chunks per market) versus 1900mhz being more often 10mhz or 20mhz chunks (6 per market), so an 800mhz band actually has more capacity than a single band of 1900mhz.
Finally.. UMTS runs at both 800 and 1900mhz in the US, it's up to AT&T to decide where to put it. Since UMTS is allocated in 5mhz pairs though, you use 40% of the 800mhz spectrum for each block of UMTS.. meaning it has room for 2 channels of UMTS, with the remainder left over for a little GSM.
And the row here seems to be that AT&T is moving exessive amounts of GSM from 800mhz to 1900mhz and not setting the transmit powers and such right, so coverage is reduced. They would move this GSM to 1900mhz to make room for 800mhz UMTS -- either the first channel, or a second additional channel if they already had one at 800mhz.
Just wanted to clear this up.
You're right, AT&T locks you into a service. But you're wrong about the phone aspect. You can not just go in and get a new phone by signing a new 2-year agreement. You need to have had your old phone for a certain period of time (that varies by the type of plan you're on).
FishWithAHammer was saying that you can't upgrade without paying full retail price to AT&T, or by saving a bit of money buying it online. Either way, you're out a large chunk of money unless you're eligible to upgrade.
If you read your contract with ATT, you will realize that any such lawsuit will have to go to arbitration, with a phone-industry appointed panel of phone industry lobbyists.
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
It's funny, I noticed this a month or so ago in Shreveport Louisiana. I live in an area where Shreveport is the closest 3G network. At home we have horrible signal fluctuations, but when it works Edge is mostly fine. Before Shreveport went 3G I would get 5 bars and Edge was pretty good (for Edge anyway).
After the 3G switch, I still get 5 bars of service, but the Edge symbol almost never comes on, instead I get the weird little 'dot in a circle' that tells you you are one GPRS, and with a 1st gen iPhone that means no data whatsoever. Calls are great though.
Occasionally the E will appear for a short time, and when it does it is like the Edge network that was there before 3G came. But it only lasts seconds, or sometimes maybe minutes, then goes away again.
At least with this setup I know out of the gate I'm not going to get service when the edge icon is completely missing.
The first time I noticed this I was with some people who had 3G iPhones. With the 3G disabled their phones were doing the exact same thing, so I know it isn't my phone being weird.
This is one of the few times I feel lucky to be nowhere near 3G service, as it would make my fully functional phone not work properly, and I'd be 'incentivized' to upgrade. Now I can keep my working phone, and slightly less expensive data plan for the time being.
Shawn's Tech Articles
There are a lot of identical prices/features in the plans the major 4 providers offer, so much so that it seems like an odd coincidence if this is truly a competitive market between non-collusive entities.
For example, say I want to buy a laptop cell-phone modem, and buy a wireless data plan. There are four providers who will sell me that, so you'd think I might have a choice of packages, maybe some carriers offering higher data limits for a higher price, others structuring their service with multiple tiers, etc. Instead, every provider offers exactly one plan, and all four have identical terms and prices: $60/mo for 5GB of data.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Instead, every provider offers exactly one plan, and all four have identical terms and prices: $60/mo for 5GB of data.
What in the world are you talking about? I went to check your facts and the very first carrier that I checked had a $50/month data card plan with unlimited data.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Why is it only the trolls who know the difference between loose and lose?
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
I stand corrected; T-Mobile's offer is reasonably good, and gives the others some competition.
AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon all do offer only the same $60/mo, 5-GB limit plan for data cards, though. Well, Verizon also offers a useless 50-MB limit one, for $40/mo.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Here in Cambridge, MA, I'm seeing 59.99 / 5GB for sprint and AT&T. T-mobile is offering 49.99 for unlimited.
Perhaps pricing variants are dependent upon the market, and some markets are more competitive than others?
The ______ Agenda
T-mobile tries harder than the others, but t-mobile is blessed with the worst network coverage. T-mobile survives by having the best customer service, and enlightened data plan policies.
The customer service folks are actually helpful, they will discuss how to configure unlocked iphones and other phones on t-mobile. They also unlock t-mobile purchased phones in 90 days, even sooner in most cases, etc.
AT&T has the absolutely worst customer service. All the other carriers ('cept for T-mobile) are pretty evil. I would not be surprised at any informal price fixing... everyone is locked in anyways. But network quality is very important also, and T-mobile doesn't do well there.
I only switched to T-mobile when they allowed their phones to do calls over the wifi network as well as the cell tower network. The coverage isn't great, but you can supplement it by placing wifi points where you use the cell phone the most... it actually is better for use in some rural areas. But my blood pressure is much lower whenever I deal with customer service, that's priceless!
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.
For me I choose AT&T over technology. I have no love for the company but GSM/UMTS is a worldwide technology, and for better or worse I am backing the standard. Verizon, and Sprint both deal in proprietary technology, which in my opinion is the real problem in the US. The FCC has allowed companies to use cell technology, nasty contracts, and DRM technologies (SIMLOCK) to provide customer lock-in. IMHO the FCC should dictate the technology, and it should be the same path most countries are on, GSM/UMTS/LTE. They should also disallow the contractual lock-in, and SIM locking.
The government picking a technology standard that enables US customers to have real choice is a good thing.
I miss T-Mobile a lot. The coverage around here sucks (I spent half my drive to work with no signal) but the pricing and customer service can't be beat. I was getting 1,000 minutes for $40/mo.
Now I'm on Verizon. Somehow they manage to occasionally beat T-Mobile on the customer service ratings. How that happens is beyond me. Verizon customer service is very hit or miss -- sometimes you'll get a great CSR and other times you'll get some pissed off miserable SOB that hates his job and takes it out on you. I've actually gotten to the point now that I'll just hang up and call them back if I think I might have one of the CSRs that falls into the latter category. It's just easier than arguing with them and trying to get the call escalated.
How I miss T-Mobile :(
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.