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Apple and AT&T Sued, Again, Over 3G

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the overly-litigious dept.

Macworld is reporting that Apple and AT&T are being sued, again, for the lack of delivery on their 3G network. This follows a long line of other lawsuits in San Jose, San Diego, Alabama, Florida, Texas, and New York "The lawsuit charges the companies with Negligence, Breach of Express Warranty, Breach of Implied Warranty of Merchantability, Unjust Enrichment, Negligent Misrepresentation, Violation of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act and Other Similar State Statutes, and Breach of Contract. Dickerson is seeking to force Apple and AT&T to correct its labeling and advertising, as well as to recover compensatory, statutory and punitive damages."

6 of 230 comments (clear)

  1. Yup by JimboFBX · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The problem with AT&T's 3G is that the connection from your phone to their tower is fast but their tower's connection to the internet is 14k baud dial-up or something. Some towers don't even have internet connectivity, I was on a mountain with 5 bars of 3G, parked, and had no internet connectivity whatsoever. I drove down a small town nearby and it worked fine, except of course for that slow page loading issue.

    1. Re:Yup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The iPhone has absolutely destroyed AT&T's network. They were simply never built to support that amount of data traffic, and the large-quota / unlimited data plans they sell with the iPhone have crushed them.

      The reason blackberrys are more attractive to networks than the iPhone is because they have compression, on-demand loading and data-chunking abilities. The iPhone has none of these things, and the result is AT&T's network speeds being ripped up.

      (Anon because I know too much about this.)

    2. Re:Yup by TheMeuge · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They knew that this was going to happen though. AT&T had their hands full with the 2G iPhone, and knew exactly the kind of demand they were going to get when it went 3G.

      But instead, they chose to continue charging outrageous fees (and FORCING you to get an overpriced data plan)... without doing much to upgrade their network.

      Furthermore, I believe that AT&T is deliberately throttling speeds to 3G iPhones, because I get much higher speeds using the Samsung Blackjack in the same location, both using AT&Ts service. As a matter of fact, most of the time, the Blackjack is 2X faster (400-1000kbps vs. 200-600kbps).

      Now I really like my iPhone and it still does work very well, even despite the slower speeds. Within a year or two, the network will probably receive some upgrades... just like it happened when I first got the Blackjack 3 years ago. Then, I would hardly get 3G anywhere, and when I would get it, it'd never go above 400kbps. Before I got the iPhone, I'd easily get 800kbps 3G virtually everywhere, including places where I had trouble getting EDGE a couple of years ago.

  2. Re:WTF? by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You see the bit in the summary/article "Breach of Express Warranty, Breach of Implied Warranty of Merchantability, Unjust Enrichment, Negligent Misrepresentation..."? This isn't about whining that it sucks. It is about them misleading you about how bad it sucks. By then, you are already nailed to a contract. If you think this is "ok", I have some free time and an ice pick handy...

    --

    "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
  3. Heck I'd settle for 1 G... by DaSpudMan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You people on the coasts are so spoiled. Up here in ND, I'd settle for a choice of cell phone companies that provide coverage in most of the state. IPhones are an unkown commodity up here.

    Time to break out the Bag Phone or a Brick.

    --
    > > >We don't need no steeekin'.....oh wait, my wife says we do.
  4. AT&T is waiting for bailout money by debrain · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The Economist had an interesting article last year that predicted that the US telecom companies were waiting for bailout money to invest in infrastructure. With this new stimulus package on the horizon, I'm sure some evidence to support their argument (i.e. irate iPhone users) that it's necessary would go a long way. AT&T has every incentive to get taxpayers to foot the bill, and they'd effectively be punished if they spent their own money on it (it's not like they'll get reimbursed).