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iPhone Straining AT&T Network
dangle writes "More than 20 million other smartphone users are on the AT&T network, but other phones do not drain the network the way the nine million iPhone users do. Because the average iPhone owner can use 10 times the network capacity used by the average smartphone user, dropped calls, spotty service, delayed text and voice messages and glacial download speeds are the result as AT&T's cellular network strains to meet the demand. AT&T says that the majority of the nearly $18 billion it will spend this year on its networks will be diverted into upgrades and expansions to meet the surging demands on the 3G network."
All this time, I thought the iPhone was just an overhyped, overpriced smartphone that explodes. Now I see that, incredibly, it is doing some good: a major cell phone company is actually upgrading its network, after all these years of the US falling behind other parts of the world!
Palm trees and 8
The iPhone users pay an ungodly sum for the privilege. The least AT&T can do is make the network adequate for the purpose.
We get so accustomed to bad customer service and lousy throughput and high prices that it doesn't even dawn on us that the problem isn't the usage patterns of iPhone users but rather the consistently half-assed network implementations by American MOs.
As more and more technology floats up into the Cloud, we are going to need more bandwidth to access it from anywhere. If the MOs can't keep up and implement a network that will support the kind of massive usage that is currently envisioned, there will be a massive breakdown akin to what AT&T is experiencing now.
Don't blame the vehicles for bad roads. Blame it on the DOT.
I honestly can't remember a time when the USA came even close to Poland's or Germany's mobile networks. I don't think the USA even came to close to a 90% coverage like many other countries either.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
If it's all the iPhone's fault why was service with AT&T crap before the iPhone came out? It's easy to point a finger but the truth is the service had needed upgrades for many years. One of the biggest things holding back iPhones IS that AT&T carrier. It's the primary reason I never got an iPhone.
wouldn't it be nice if network operators charged a fair price for Used bandwidth rather than taking $$$ for Jesus-phone "all-inclusive" deals. In suppose all the want is, err, as mucg of our money as they can get, and that's the way they get it. But if their price model would encourage thrifty bandwidth use by iUsers and iAppcoders, that would make it interesting for me, maybe getting a smartphone (more probably G than i) for less than a £35 contract here in the UK.
Maybe if they stopped pricing text at thousands of dollars per megabyte it would free up enough voice traffic that this wouldn't be a problem.
AT&T says that the majority of the nearly $18 billion it will spend this year on its networks will be diverted into upgrades and expansions to meet the surging demands on the 3G network
Oh no! They're being forced to spend most of their network upgrade budget on upgrading their network! How will they possibly cope?
on our side of the pond we have cities with more cell towers than your entire country and we want coverage in every little corner in the US even if no one lives for miles around
In a busy area you have several cell towers to choose from. In a sparsely populated area you're just hosed if your one available tower gets overloaded.
For ages now, but they keep adding towers to extend their coverage. The problem however is the backhaul, they have not been upgrading those, and while sure everyone will now have perfect tower signal, they still have crappy connections since the traffic is congested on the backhaul.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
on our side of the pond we have cities with more cell towers than your entire country and we want coverage in every little corner in the US even if no one lives for miles around
That's funny because here in Sweden we are in the process of upgrading to the mobile network to 150Mb/s service in the metro areas and 80Mb/s everywhere else across the country. That's in a country the size of California with a population of 9 million people. What's your excuse?
Corollary: send a mirror copy of all data to fbi.gov. See if we can cause two incidents at the same time.
That won't be necessary since if you're using AT&T a copy is automatically sent to the Feds.
AT&T says that the majority of the nearly $18 billion it will spend this year on its networks will be diverted into upgrades and expansions to meet the surging demands on the 3G network.
If they had 18 billion ear marked to spend on their networks what else would they be spending it on besides upgrades and expansions?
I see three possibilities. First, AT&T hasn't invested in their network enough. That's a given. Second, iPhone users are just network hogs, I don't think so.
So that leaves us with possibility three: the iPhone is the first phone that isn't an incredible pain to use.
I think that all other smart phones are artificially low in bandwidth usage because they're hard to use. The IE5 based browser on Windows Mobile (I know they recently improved it) in my experience was a total joke and almost unusable. The browser on BlackBerries, in fact the UI as a whole, is not designed to ease of use at all, it's "here's an empty button we can use". That only really leaves non smart phones, and even IF you had a data plan, I'm sure we all know how easy browsing with those things was.
Basically the iPhone is the first device it's possible to easily surf the web without wanting to throw the phone into a wall.
When you give your customers something that actually works and is usable... they use it.
Go figure.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
We have tons of dark fiber in the US. We just need large ISPs to pay to light it up. Remember the work done by Qwest (before they bought US West)?
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
Ok, so how about Sweden and Finland then? The population density in the part of Sweden I live in (JÃmtland is about 3.3 per km with most people living in a few cities/towns, and despite this I have perfectly good GSM/GPRS coverage practically everywhere (3G tends to drop off if you're out in the woods somewhere).
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
AT&T needs to spend that 18 billion on the "last mile". That 3G network is fine and dandy, but they are neglecting to serve millions of Americans who don't have anything better than dialup.
Yeah, I have DSL now - but my sister in law just a couple miles down the highway still can't get it.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
1900mhz has rain fade? For real or does that have more to do with their cheap deployments? I've deployed outdoor wireless networks at 2400mhz that don't have any issues with rain fade. The only time I've seen issues with rain fade is when you can't get a clear LOS and have to deal with foliage or other obstructions.
I don't understand why they can't leave a few channels on 850mhz for voice services. I understand the desire to use some of it for data but you'd think they'd have enough to go around, particularly since they were allowed to shut down the old AMPS network. 850 is a life saver for people in rural areas or structures that block out 1900.
do something stupid like leave the old hardline on the tower and use that instead of running new waveguide for the 1900 install.
That's pretty pathetic. They really do that? I knew they were cheap but not that cheap. Ugh, Verizon looks better and better all the time. Say what you will about them but they do seem to invest a lot of money into their network and I've never had issues with it. The crippled phones and crappy customer service are another issue entirely of course....
You know who I really miss? T-Mobile. They don't have the same footprint as AT&T or Verizon but when they decide to build out in an area they do it right. In the areas that they have service their network is competitive with Verizon and way better than AT&T. It's even more impressive when you consider the fact that their whole network is 1900mhz and they usually manage to have the same indoor coverage (in my experience anyway, YMMV) as Verizon or AT&T.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Why invest in infrastructure that will attract $40/month customers when you can build infrastructure that will attract customers willing to pay almost anything monthly for the latest technofashion device.
Zoom in a bit and it starts to look not so good.
Sorry, but this is bullshit. I've got data for 2005 only, but according to it there were 176000 cell phone towers in the USA back then, and about 95000 in Germany. So USA had not even twice the amount of cell phone towers being 27 times larger and having 3.5 times the population.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I don't know if more vendors for iPhone will improve things in the short to medium term. I live in Chicago and 3G here is very spotty. If's crappy frankly. I just came back from a trip to Morgantown WV and low and behold from Pittsburgh and throughout the Morgantown area the coverage as excellent. Several collegues here (Chicago) are using Verizon 3G cards with their computers and their reception isn't any better than what the rest of us get from AT&T. (One has an iPhone and has done some direct comparison. He finds them equally spotty.) I think the U.S just has crappy cell coverage resulting from crappy cell infrastructure. As long as we have competing incompatible technologies and local monopolies, I don't see things improving.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
Now THAT'S interesting. AT&T's cellphone network competes in a money-per-bandwidth market with a transmitter network which covers the area redundantly with the competitors'. And when they choke on their own soaring sales, they race to upgrade capacity, so they can deliver the bytes faster and bill for them.
Conversely, when they're selling bandwidth to homes, they're in a divided and conquered market, which pays on the buffet model, so they have an altogether different solution to capacity problems.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Translation: "Now we have to actually spend money to satisfy our customers." Cry me a river.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Why invest in infrastructure that will attract $40/month customers when you can build infrastructure that will attract customers willing to pay almost anything monthly for the latest technofashion device.
Every iPhone thread. There's always someone who thinks they have to share the oh-so-perceptive insight that the iPhone is largely a fashion accessory.
Meanwhile, back in reality, the reason AT&T is apparently having these problems? They brought onboard a device with a featureset which (despite apparent inferiority to half a dozen other devices I'm sure you can find slashdotters to tell you about) has essentially resulted in a huge explosion of actual mobile data usage.
AT&T's problems have nothing to do with the fashionability of the phone. They have everything to do with its features and the typical telco avoidance of actually building out service whenever they can get away with it.
Tweet, tweet.
What would be nice is if the iPhone automatically detected when 3G was oversubscribed / unusable and automagically failover to EDGE without user intervention.
I got a taste of this at Maker Faire. I wanted the PDF of the schedule, but 3G was completely bombed. Manually failing over to EDGE meant that I could slooooowly download it (it took about 20 minutes).
If all those iphones had failed over to EDGE, all it would have done is resulted in EDGE being useless, too. With a hole that size in the bucket, another drop isn't going to matter.