Analyst Estimates AT&T Needs To Spend $5B To Catch Up

itwbennett writes "The public's perception of AT&T's network is poor and declining, apparently because of real shortcomings when compared with Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel,' says Gerard Hallaren, director of research at TownHall Investment Research. 'AT&T's capital expenditures on its wireless network from 2006 through September 2009 totaled about $21.6 billion, compared with $25.4 billion for Verizon and $16 billion for Sprint (including Sprint's investments in WiMax operator Clearwire). Over that time, Verizon has spent far more per subscriber: $353, compared with $308 for AT&T,' Hallaren said. 'Even Sprint has outspent AT&T per subscriber, laying out $310 for network capital expenditure.' All this means AT&T has a choice, says Hallaren: 'spend or suffer.'"

Comments

Sprint?

[LordLimecat]

Pretty sure nobody needs to catch up with Sprint / Nextel.

Re:Sprint?

[Logical Zebra]

'Even Sprint has outspent AT&T per subscriber, laying out $310 for network capital expenditure.' All this means AT&T has a choice, says Hallaren: 'spend or suffer.'

Or maybe it means that Sprint-Nextel's network was such a steaming pile of crap that they had to outlay an irresponsible amount of capital to bring it up to snuff. Last time I checked, Sprint is losing thousands of customers a week.

Re:Sprint?

[jra]

Wait; what? You mean all that "Those people in Operation Chokehold are just blowing blue smoke out their ass; we're just as good as the other guys" press releasing was just *posturing*?

Say it ain't *so*, Joe!

In fact, while Nextel's *coverage* sucks in the Tampa market, their customer service has come *way* up, and I say that having been a customer 10 years now.

Re:Sprint?

[jra]

> I've figured out what's wrong with life--other people.

Sartre fanboi.

Re:Sprint?

[bcong]

I've never understood while Sprint get's bashed every time they are compared to other providers. I've been with Sprint for ~10 years and they have always provided me with good service and coverage with reasonable rates. I can not remember the last time I had no service or a call was dropped. Maybe it's because I live in a metro area, but I have nothing bad to say about them.

Re:Sprint?

[Anonymous Coward]

nice uid bro

Re:Sprint?

[LWATCDR]

Have you used the Sprint network lately?
My guess is that you have not.
Sprint used to be bashed because of customer support and rightly so but they have made a lot of effort to improve in that area.
Sprint used to have a not great selection of phones. Right now they have a few really good phones like the Blackberry Tour, the Samsung Moment, the HTC Hero, the Palm Pre, and Palm Pixie.
Their prices are cheaper than Verizon and AT&T and the didn't cripple their phones like Verizon did as far as Bluetooth, WiFI, and even loading software.
They are CDMA which is a downer if you are going to travel outside the US but so is Verizon.
Oh and you get to roam on the Verizon network. I have never been without service on my phone for more than five minutes anywhere in the US.
I would say that unless you MUST have an iPhone or you really want a Droid that Sprint is a really good choice.
The crappy old Sprint has been gone for a while but then you will find people that hate every carrier.

Re:Sprint?

[jra]

And I find I want to clarify, in case there are any Nextel engineers reading this (and understand, I'm diagnosing as someone whose done it for TCP networks for 15 years)..

The problem isn't *RF Coverage*; I have good signal almost everywhere.

But that doesn't keep me from dropping calls to "Service Conflict" or "Out of Dispatch Coverage", or just plain not being able to hold a conversation because the backbone gets confused; I can talk to my partner, but he can't talk to me because I'm "busy in DC".

Yup. Talking to him.

And don't even get me started on "The Nextel subscriber you're trying to reach is being located."

And this isn't my phone; it's happened to me on my present 8350i, but also the 7100i, i730, i95, and i1000plus that it replaced, in various guises.

As good as Sprint's CS has gotten, I cannot *wait* for Verizontal to deploy 700LTE, and for RIM to make a (PTT capable, preferably PTToC) handset for it. Or, for HTC to make a Nexus One with a PTT button, and decent high-audio.

Re:Sprint?

[Anonymous Coward]

But Sprint has plenty of 3G coverage where ATT doesn't. The real America, you know the one between either left coast.

Re:Sprint?

[GSMacLean]

I couldn't agree more. I've been on Sprint for five years. I also can't remember the last time I had a dropped call or no service, and the "everything" plan can't be beat. I talk to the Apple fanboys at work toting their iPhones, and they try to compare who has the least number of dropped calls - they can't believe that I don't have any at all, ever.

Re:Sprint?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sprint purchased/"merged" with Nextel. Nextel has always been the bottom-feeder network when it came to infrastructure. Sure, they are in more places, but that's because they snatched up all the "going under" real estate from failing telco's before they went away. It's a cheap way to build (or have others build) your network, but the quality was inconsistent, in disrepair and only really looked good on paper. The only real reason why Nextel did as well as they did is because they had that all-important "Push To Talk" button, which was a very simple interface for specialized marketplaces. Fleet vehicles, remote staff, servicemen, etc. relied on that feature, so the network was basically a non-consideration as long as it worked "most of the time". Both Sprint and Nextel had very strong and secure reputations in the marketplace, but for VERY different underlying reasons.

Sprint needed to invest quite a lot to upgrade the equipment from Nextel's acquisitions, but now that they have, they have an amazing, demonstrable footprint of coverage. To say that Sprint gets bashed, they bought that reputation honestly through acquiring Nextel. Both companies ultimately benefited from the merger, but it was and is a long and expensive road for them both.

Re:Sprint?

[QuantumRiff]

Forgot to mention that Sprints unlimited plan is much less than other providers, even still, and they have had it for a year.. (nice of ATT and Verizion to have Unlimted talk and data, but not text!)

The Only reason I left Sprint was because the house I was renting had no coverage. It was in the middle of a depression, out in the boonies, so it was understandable.. I went with USCellular, a much smaller company (#6) but they have free incoming calls and texts. But, they have no data network really, and old, not as fun phones.. which I'm fine with.

Re:Sprint?

[Logical Zebra]

You will also find people who will defend any carrier.

I saved so much money by switching to AT&T that it was actually cost-effective to pay Sprint's early termination fees. Plus, I no longer have to deal with them screwing up my bill every other month.

You say Sprint's customer service has changed, and that's great. But you couldn't pay me to ever use them again. Plus, the iPhone, IMO, is a much better phone than all of the Sprint phones you listed.

Re:Sprint?

[GooberToo]

My big complaint with Sprint is cross carrier SMS and MMS. Everyone I know finds Sprint extremely unreliable about sending or receiving anything which comes from or goes to Sprint's network. I've literally waited an hour for text message to appear on the phone next to me. They also seem to drop a huge number of messages; again, cross carrier. At one point, I'd guess perhaps as high as 80% drop rate - though that high is not what I'd call typical.

I don't know if other carriers are purposely causing problems for Sprint or if Sprint is purposely causing problems for other carriers, or they are just well beyond their capacity. But, unless things improve and you SMS or MMS heavily with people on other carriers, I could never recommend Sprint.

Also, one last note, Verizon has not crippled any Android phone features. While Verizon has a terrible history here, thus far they've been true to their word on Android. Now hopefully Verizon's upcoming Android 2.1 update will fix various bugs and incompatibilities vs every other Android phone available. If not, then I'd recommend people staying away from Android+Verizon.

Re:Sprint?

[pleappleappleap]

My Verizon plan has unlimited text.

Re:Sprint?

[jra]

No, let me clarify here.

Nextel's network was *necessarily* built from the ground up, because *it is not Cellular*. It's not licensed as cellular by the FCC. It's on frequencies completely disparate from cellular.

Nextel was created and expanded by buying out Specialized Mobile Radio licensees in the mid 80s, and using their freqs to build what is, effectively, a digital trunking radio system (iDen) with autopatch capabilities.

> Sure, they are in more places, but that's because they snatched up all the "going under" real estate from failing telco's before they went away.

That? Just didn't happen. Nor anything that remotely resembles it.

> Both companies ultimately benefited from the merger, but it was and is a long and expensive road for them both.

And they're not done walking it. While I disagree with you on the technical points of how they came to be, it is in fact the case that they out-expanded themselves, growing their footprint without expanding their backbone to match.

At least, that's my diagnosis, and until someone with facts steps up to contradict me, I'll continue to tell people that.

On reflection, I guess I'm saying they have to take *even more* of the blame for their current state -- and it's not just me; I have 8 customers who've ditched Nextel in the last 10 years; big ones; some 25 radios -- than your "cobbled together from people's leavings" assertion would justify.

Re:Sprint?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have unlimited texting with ATT and have for at least two years. What are you talking about?

Re:Sprint?

[QuijiboIsAWord]

I also recently switched to sprint and I've been really satisfied with their service. I got an unlimited data plan for a lower price than anyone else, and they had 3G in my town while AT&T still doesn't. I'd prefer to be on a GSM network, but theres absolutely no tangible difference to my day to day use. Their customer support has been pretty decent, but that might be because I'm working through a corporate account rather than a normal one.

Re:Sprint?

[TheKidWho]

Yes, and you pay how much for it?

I pay $69.99 for my Palm Pre's plan with unlimited data/texting and unlimited mobile-mobile(Carrier agnostic) and 450 minutes for landlines.

Re:Sprint?

[msgyrd]

I don't know why Sprint is hemorrhaging customers, just go to the various sites and compare plans and prices. Verizon is a better network but often 40% more expensive for equal services (and Sprint gets to piggyback for free if needed), T-Mobile is close but not quite as good, and AT&T is currently considerably worse in all respects except offering the iPhone.

Unless you're an international traveler, refuse to use subsidized phones, or obsessed with the iPhone, Sprint is the clear winner.

Re:Sprint?

[BloodSpite]

Technologically speaking Spring is well behind the times in their actual communication equipment. Touted as "CDMA 2001" most of Sprint systems are old Ericcson/Qualcom BTS systems that have not been in production in over. Unfortunately that's the cost of doing business when you outsource your entire network to a supplier. They have expanded a few BTS sites in the major city areas to the Nokia CMDA system, but other upgrades to my knowledge have not taken place. Not to say they haven't, I just don't know about them. GSM, CDMA, UMTS upgrades are what I do for a living. I've been working in Tennessee for the last year installing new UMTS sites for AT&T meanwhile we have not seen a job for Sprint since late 2003. Which by the way, the UMTS systems used by AT&T? Made by Ericcson. Sprints largest problem came is after the Nextel merger they were blindsided by the cost to upgrade Nextels network as well as their own. Thus what happens is when a upgrade takes place for them, 8 times out of 10 its on a old Nextel site to bring it half way to where the sprint locations were at the merger or it's upgrading a pre-existing Sprint location to generate revenue to do the former. Coverage wise, they still are not competitive. While they do cover most metropolitan areas and cities, their rural coverage puts them in to much lower end of the spectrum in the "big dog" carrier competition.

Re:Sprint?

[LWATCDR]

I would love to see what plane you got. Not one for the iPhone for sure.
The iPhone is a very good phone with lots of very good apps. I have an iPod touch and a Samsung Moment. My wife has a Palm Pre so I have access to an Apple device, Palm Pre, and Android.
Apple has a better app store than any of them.
The Pre I feel actually has a better UI than the iPhone and the cards are really nice. The new SDK really seems to have opened up the possibilities on the Pre so I expect to see it doing really well. The Pre has a keyboard and a lot of people really like that.
Android is good, the app store is better than the Pre's but there is too many versions of Android right now. Everybody really needs to get up on 2.1 and Google really needs to add multitouch to the softkeyboard and browser.

Re:Sprint?

[RKThoadan]

I know my company offers a corporate discount on Verizon which frequently makes them more competitive. We're also on an older plan that is cheaper than anything they currently offer. If we ever need a data plan we'll probably go somewhere else though.

Re:Sprint?

[Darnocobra]

What I know is that when Sprint and Nextel first merged, my service with Sprint went down the tubes. I was living in a small town at least an hour away in every direction from a major city. With Sprint I could get coverage everywhere, even the places that no one else could. Then they merged and my service went from the best to unusable. I started dropping a lot of calls. There were actual places along the road that I would drop a call every time I passed it. And it always seemed I was on the phone at that point. I called Sprint to complain. Apparently during the switchover it caused a problem with the closest tower to drop 93% of the calls throughout the area. It took them months to fix. They refused to let me out of my contract, even though I could hardly use my phone. I used to think that I would never switch from Sprint. That experience left such a bad taste that I will never go back to them. I couldn't even get one of the letters from Sprint saying that they didn't want me as a customer anymore, even though I had called and complained on numerous occasions. http://news.cnet.com/2300-1036_3-6195014-1.html

Re:Sprint?

[bmwEnthusiast]

Your last time was not short enough ago to count anymore. Please read this article as to quote its subscriber rate will be flat for the first time since mid 2007 :) http://online.barrons.com/article/SB125998006760077993.html I love my sprint plan and phone.

Re:Sprint?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Have you used the Sprint network lately?"
No, because their customer service was horrible and I went somewhere that it is less so. They lost my business.

They _did_ cripple the functionality of their phones, you couldn't add, install, or use anything that they didn't sell you and they even modified simple power connectors so that otherwise identical phones couldn't be charged by non-Sprint devices.

Maybe they changed in the last eight months, I'll look at them again in five years to check.

Re:Sprint?

[Mongoose Disciple]

You know, I've been with Sprint for ten years now and I don't think I've ever had a dropped call. The only place I ever had problems getting coverage was in the middle of the Mojave Desert where the only radio station caters to people driving through because basically no one lives there, and even that was 7-8 years ago.

At my current job, none of the developers with AT&T phones have coverage at all, and mine's great. I'm downtown in a city of over half a million people -- that just shouldn't happen.

Obviously that's all just anecdotal but having seen/heard the problems other people have in contrast with my total lack of them, I'm not sure why I would ever switch.

Re:Sprint?

[bkr1_2k]

I, on the other hand, live in the DC area and had nothing but crap coverage where I need it most. The best coverage I had with Sprint was when I was traveling, which wasn't that often back then. I'm sure it's improved significantly since then, though.

Re:Sprint?

[jra]

I pay $99 a month for my Nextel Blackberry, and everything is included except *international* LD.

MMS, DC, airtime, CONUS LD. You name it.

But when LTE700 shows up, it will probably be $60 or 70 a month flat.

Re:Sprint?

[StormyWeather]

I was a sprint customer for over 10 years, I live in Amarillo TX. I switched to ATT for 2 reasons. 1 I wanted an iPhone, 2 Sprint didn't drop calls, they didn't get them to me. I have a small business and they would send people calling me right to voicemail. At first I thought maybe it was my treo or something, but then I noticed I would go to my friend on sprints voicemail without it ringing. I would call back sometimes 3 or 4 times before it rang him. It wasn't that he was out of coverage, they were just not completing the calls.

I was happy with ATT, but now I notice that they are also dropping incoming calls about 1 in 30. It's not nearly as bad as sprint got, but it still pisses me off to no end. I guess this is how providers get around dropped calls, they just never connect the call at all.

Re:Sprint?

[sessamoid]

My big complaint with Sprint is cross carrier SMS and MMS. Everyone I know finds Sprint extremely unreliable about sending or receiving anything which comes from or goes to Sprint's network. I've literally waited an hour for text message to appear on the phone next to me. They also seem to drop a huge number of messages; again, cross carrier. At one point, I'd guess perhaps as high as 80% drop rate - though that high is not what I'd call typical.

I had the same problems when I was on Sprint, though it's been a while. Some texts just wouldn't get through, and even when they did they'd be delayed by minutes to hours.

Re:Sprint?

[lewiscr]

I laughed the whole time my iPhone owning carpool buddy tried to join a conference call. He'd dial the number, type in the meeting number, speak his name, and the call would drop. Repeat at least 3 times. I finally had to hand him my sprint phone, so I could concentrate on driving.

Re:Sprint?

[Vancorps]

What makes you think that Sprint didn't expand their backbone? They are one of the largest Tier 1 bandwidth providers in the U.S. and own the majority of long haul fiber.

Most people that bash Sprint and Nextel had it in rural areas or in areas that were fairly new. Sprint's biggest problem has always been that they move slowly so you get new phones only periodically and only periodically they expand coverage. When they do expand coverage they provide proper coverage. Also, if you move to an area that doesn't have coverage they will let you out of your contract.

Besides that Sprint has a tendency to cost a little bit more but over that last two years that has really dramatically improved. For the business side they are still very pricey though, so much so my company switched to AT&T and now we're battling with dropped calls and inconsistent reception. Good fun! Problems we never had with Sprint but we're saving a couple of grand a month on service.

Re:Sprint?

[stfvon007]

I was with sprint for 2 years. Half my calls dropped, My phone wouldnt even ring some of the time. the customer service was horrid, they tried to charge for over $250 in download services i never used (The said i used it when i was in denver when i have never been west of the mississippi, not to mention how i got from denver to making a call in new york in about 1 hour, I must have a concord availible to me!), it took over 8 hours on the phone to get the charge canceled even though it was obviously bogus. In my opinion sprint deserves every piece of its crappy reputation and more. I am with verizon now.

Re:Sprint?

[GooberToo]

The worst I've seen is seven days. Happened only once.

More recently (within the last 45-days) I received a SMS from a Sprint user at 4-something am in the morning. I wasn't happy about that. I asked the sender why they sent it at such a time. Turns out they had sent it at ~6:00pm the previous day. They were actually annoyed I hadn't responded sooner.

I don't know what the deal is with Sprint and SMS/MMS, but something needs to be done.

Re:Sprint?

[LWATCDR]

Well I text my brother all the time. He is on tMobile and I am on Sprint. I never have had an issue with delay of texts.
I had a friend on Virgin that would text me often and no real problem.
Where I have seen delays is from non phone texts like from Yahoo and Twitter but that has been much better of late.

Re:Sprint?

[ckaminski]

I haven't used the Pre store since I brought mine back to the Sprint store on July 5th. The phone was fighting for signal, either a Spring cell, or roaming on a Verizon cell - I could never reliably make calls from my home (where I use it the most, it's my only phone).

But I find it better than the crap that is Android, and yes, between Synergy and the Card interface, I think Apple could be in for an upset if Palm can get decent market penetration. The whole iTunes issue underscores just how much Apple fears the Pre/WebOS, if you ask me.

Re:Sprint?

[LWATCDR]

The new WebOS sdk now offers the ability to add "native" modules. You are starting to see real games like Need for Speed on the Pre and they are fast and pretty. The whole javascript+Dom+HTML development model was DOA but this seems to have fixed.
The Card interface is very nice.
I don't hate Android at all. The UI just isn't as polished as WebOS or the iPhone but it is better IMHO than Blackberry or WinMo. Also I have high hopes that they will improve the UI over time.
The iPhone I actually really like except for the requirement to use a Mac for development and the cost to be a Dev. That and the lack of multitasking and the cost of the carrier.
No phone is perfect but we have a lot of great options.

Re:Sprint?

[LWATCDR]

What phone? I had the Samsung A900 and a Sanyo before I got my Moment. I have been on them for about 8 years now.
I could load lots of none Sprint software on the A900 and Sanyo including Opera and other Brew software.
They had the Sanyo and Samsung chargers but that was a manufacture thing and not Sprint.
What phone are you claiming was crippled and couldn't load apps?

Re:Sprint?

[AvitarX]

I have T-mobile (yeah, not a great network, and terrible 3G, but it was the only carrier with good voice where I needed it for some reason).

unlimited everything is only $79.99, but I don't get phone subsidies.

I thought it was a good deal, as the phone subsidies rarely break $400 for 24 months, and the plan was $99.99 with them.

They also let me split a phone into 20 payments on my bill, and let me out of the contract I had to switch (6 months left). All in all, I like T-mobile, with AT&T for voice roaming, it's not so bad in coverage either, just the data.

Re:Sprint?

[jra]

Did you hear me say "Nextel"?

The session holding time/timeout is quite different in iDen backbone traffic than it is in "hot potato route it to the PSTN from the MTSO".

I have always been a Tampa/St Pete market customer; we're something like DMA14.

If they can't make it run right here -- and the 9 clients of mine who've dumped them over the last decade for call phones, customers whose use patterns were *right* in their wheelhouse, say they can't -- then they can't make it run *at all* anymore.

My perfect DC call rate is about 40%; my perfect voice call rate no higher than 80%. I expect better for a service *specifically aimed* at business users.

Re:Sprint?

[LordLimecat]

Ive been on Nextel for the last 4 and their reception is awful, their phones are awful, and their data is awful. Its now sprint / nextel, but the service remains awful.

Is there any particular reason reception has to drop to 0 on the capitol beltway, or driving up the BW parkway? Its not exactly the boondocks....

Re:Sprint?

[LordLimecat]

Im bashing spring / nextel from the NoVA / DC area, not exactly rural, and where i sit from my house I have no reception. I get out on the beltway, and i have no reception. I go into a DC office building, and I have no reception. The calls drop about 1% of the time (which, given average daily call volume, is really a lot), and data is awful (a few kbps at best).

Maybe its unfair of me to blast them so strongly because the nextel side is so terrible-- several clients with sprint seem to do OK-- but as Nextel is now a part of their company, I think Im justified in blaming Sprint for Nextel's continued failures, not to mention how infuriating it is to be put through a phone-system labyrinth as they shuttle me between the Nextel and Sprint customer service sections.

Re:Sprint?

[ckaminski]

I have a Pre+ in my hands, and after a day of using it, I'm ready to take it back. It's polished and pretty, but it's not as snappy, and the UI doesn't seem as consistent as the Touch.

And the $9.99/m Verizon wants to change me for access to Navigator? I was better off keeping the one on Sprint.

I might just take the Pre+ back and get a MiFi. I don't make a lot of calls a month - maybe Skype on the Touch will be good enough for me?

I'm with you on the development bit, which is why I might just get an Android. Then again, most of my apps are webbased, so I might be able to get by with Apple Webapps.

I don't get it

[Maury Markowitz]

Bell and Telus collectively spent about $1 billion rolling out 7.2 Mbps GSM across Canada, and did it in about one year. Canada is larger than the US, and has 1/10th the population. That means it costs a lot more to provide bandwidth on a per-person basis. Backhaul links are less available as well, further increasing difficulties.

So why is this going to cost AT&T 5 times as much, especially when they already have the towers and the problem is (apparently) backhaul - which is cheap.

What am I missing here?

Maury

Re:I don't get it

[Rogerborg]

Bell and Telus collectively spent about $1 billion rolling out 7.2 Mbps GSM across Canada

For certain patchy values of Canada.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Bell and Telus collectively spent about $1 billion rolling out 7.2 Mbps GSM across Canada, and did it in about one year. Canada is larger than the US, and has 1/10th the population. That means it costs a lot more to provide bandwidth on a per-person basis. Backhaul links are less available as well, further increasing difficulties.

So why is this going to cost AT&T 5 times as much, especially when they already have the towers and the problem is (apparently) backhaul - which is cheap.

What am I missing here?

Maury

Canada's people tend to be compressed into a band hugging the U.S. -- so your "Canada is larger than the US" doesn't quite fit. I doubt Bell or Telus has service on Ellesmere Island

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

1. AT&T let the US wireless service fall behind and they didn't put money into it - they concentrated on their land line stuff.

2. Bell and Telus collectively spent about $1 billion ... - notice the collectively. It wouldn't surprise me if Telus paid most of it.

3. Things are worse here in the States, therefore they have to spend more money.

Re:I don't get it

[0racle]

Well you're missing that 90% of Canada's population lives within 300 miles of the US boarder. So they didn't have to (finally) upgrade their network over all of Canada. I also doubt that they rolled it out to ever part of the small part of Canada they have to either.

Re:I don't get it

[maxume]

Canada's population is pretty lumpy, so I'm not sure the infrastructure costs per subscriber are hugely different, and presumably, the U.S. providers have to service about 10 times as many people (or maybe 6 times as many, depending on the assumptions you make about redundancy).

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

"handful of cities along the US border" != "across Canada"

If 99% of your population lives in 5 cities, it's pretty easy to give "everyone" cell phone coverage.

Re:I don't get it

[Shatrat]

AT&T doesn't like to go outside the company for backhaul, now that it has a wireless company and a transport company under one roof.
As their old transport contracts are expiring they are rolling those circuits onto their own network.
They are focusing on cost savings this way instead of spending their efforts on bringing new cell sites online.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't passing those savings onto the consumer...

I really don't see how they can get away with charging the same as Verizon, especially for data. I've been with all the carriers other than T-mobile in the last 5 years, and I consider ATT to be the worst value of the 4.

Re:I don't get it

[evilbessie]

Yes, just between the 49th and 50th parallels...

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd be wrong. Check a Telus coverage map of Alberta. HSPA+ was rolled out all over the Province, including dinky little places like Fort McKay and Vulcan.

Re:I don't get it

[Syberz]

You have to keep in mind that these numbers mean absolutely nothing.

If company A spent 100$/client to bring you service X and company B spent 75$/client to bring you the same X, it just means that one of them got a better deal.

Conversely, if company A spent 100$/client and brought you service X and company B spent 100$/client to bring you service Y (which is half as good as X) it just means that they both spent the same amount of cash.

And again, just because someone spends more on you, it doesn't mean that it's necessarily better. In Quebec for example, our govn't typically spends 35% more on road repairs than our neighbors, yet our roads still suck.

Re:I don't get it

[Skuld-Chan]

Executives like money?

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Something like 80% of Canada's population lives within 93 miles of the United States and/or an urban center.... covering this small (relatively speaking) area of the country alone would probably please a large chunk of the population... now there's the other 6 million plus that don't fit into that category... what's their service like?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada#Demographics

Re:I don't get it

[ColdWetDog]

And again, just because someone spends more on you, it doesn't mean that it's necessarily better. In Quebec for example, our govn't typically spends 35% more on road repairs than our neighbors, yet our roads still suck.

I would expect bilingual roads to be more expensive. At at 35% price differential, you're apparently getting a bargain....

Re:I don't get it

[ThatsNotPudding]

That's a perfectly cromulent sentence.

Re:I don't get it

[ceoyoyo]

They did a pretty good job of it. I have a friend back home (north of the 55th parallel) who wanted an iPhone but couldn't get one because Rogers didn't have service out where she lives (you drive an hour on the two lane primary highway from the nearest major city, population 30k, then turn onto the secondary highway and drive for fifteen minutes, then turn onto the gravel....). She's now got a Telus iPhone and has service, no problem.

If she's got Telus/Bell GSM then they've probably rolled it out pretty much everywhere they serve.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

So why is this going to cost AT&T 5 times as much, especially when they already have the towers and the problem is (apparently) backhaul - which is cheap.

Spectrum allocation. Its costs increase with the number of users served per unit area. No problem in Canada, big problem in New York.

AT&T should've spent more money at the FCC auctions over the past several years, because as things stand now, they're pretty much fucked.

Re:I don't get it

[Syberz]

Thanks, I didn't realize that bilingual asphalt was more expensive than unilingual asphalt...

Re:I don't get it

[AvitarX]

My memory of Canada (it was a while ago), has all the signs bilingual except Quebec.

Quebecois are worse than the French in pretending to not speak English too.

Buh bye AT&T, enjoy history's dust bin

[Anonymous Coward]

AT&T's little game a while back where they decided that they were going to blame and overcharge iPhone users for their problems pretty much guaranteed I won't be looking into AT&T for service any time soon. I think the iPhone is a silly and largely pointless thing, like most Apple products, but that was just ridiculous.

"Oh gee, we sold a whole bunch of phones that are built to be and advertised as mobile media platforms, let's blame the users of those phones using them as mobile media platforms for all our network's problems".

Okay, AT&T. Lemme know how that works for you.

Re:Buh bye AT&T, enjoy history's dust bin

[afidel]

Besides that with ~9M iPhone subscribers they are pulling in over $630M per MONTH meaning even if the $5B figure is right they have to spend less than 8 months revenue from just the iPhone to upgrade their network that they have neglected for years.

Re:Buh bye AT&T, enjoy history's dust bin

[afidel]

Wow, stating facts is now considered trolling?

efficiency

[drougie]

These numbers are misleading. AT&T doesn't need to spend as much money to be as productive in infrastructure expansion as its CDMA competitors because their engineers can talk and surf at the same time.

Re:efficiency

[elrous0]

I'll tell you what my grandfather said on his deathbed 20 years ago. "Kid," he said. "Never trust a Wilson brother to give you advice on your telecommunications needs." I've heeded those words ever since.

Re:efficiency

[Creepy]

Talk and surf can be done on any GSM network, not just AT&T - lack of it on Verizon networks is a byproduct of CDMA technology. CDMA itself has bad spectral efficiency and is essentially being killed off in the 3GPP and 4G, so I expect Verizon and Sprint will need to extend or replace it. That said, AT&T's data rates are pretty shoddy according to my brother - he likes T-Mobile better (I don't have a data plan, so I have no idea).

Re:efficiency

[nbvb]

It's the other way around.

CDMA's air interface is quite efficient, actually.

So efficient, in fact, that the 3GPP's 4G standard (you know, LTE, Long-Term Evolution) is much, much more CDMA-like than TDMA-based GSM. (CDMA and LTE are both spread-spectrum technologies -- GSM/TDMA divide signals on a carrier frequency based on timing.)

Keep in mind that the cdmaOne product family is what's not being evolved any further --- the actual air interfaces developed under the CDMA banner are really the path forward. What's being 'killed off' is the TDMA-type technology that underpins GSM.

Re:efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

The spectral efficiency of CDMA technology is just fine. If not, why would it have been chosen for all 3G implementations? It's for other reasons that LTE uses OFDMA.

Re:efficiency

[Dare nMc]

Can anyone with a droid confirm if the "can't surf and talk" is true? The droid features on Verizon specifically state that the multi-tasking OS "does" "Make a call, take a picture, answer a IM, and switch between up to 6 apps at once". So I guess that AT&T really means is what a black-berry doesn't?

Re:efficiency

[drougie]

Sounds right to me -- provided you're also on wifi.

Re:efficiency

[aztracker1]

I'd say it's more likely a business decision. When I (G1) or my wife (Cliq) use voice, the data access cuts of. Since they use the same tech as AT&T it's more likely a business decision to cut down on bandwidth usage for data + voice at the same time.

Re:efficiency

[ElSupreme]

As far as I know google/telecom versions of Android will only turn on one radio (exclusive of bluetooth) at a time. For battery, and instantanious power draw.

But Verizon CDMA network won't let you send data and talk at the same time. Not that being able to talk and surf at impossibly slow ATT speeds at the same time is really worth anything.

Re:efficiency

[Skuld-Chan]

One word - Qualcomm - they are really the reason there's such a divide in standards with 3G technology in the US (and elsewhere, but its more pronounced here).

Re:efficiency

[CharlieHedlin]

And AT&T has been killing the TDMA part for a while now. In many areas they have more spectrum allocated to UMTS (WCDMA) than TDMA based GSM.

Re:efficiency

[TClevenger]

My Touch Pro 2 has no problem sending/receiving email while on a call while in 3G. If it's not working, maybe you're out of the 3G area and the handset has fallen back to EDGE?

Re:efficiency

[sorak]

These numbers are misleading. AT&T doesn't need to spend as much money to be as productive in infrastructure expansion as its CDMA competitors because their engineers can talk and surf at the same time.

Heh...As an honest question, who gives a rat's ass if you can talk and surf at the same time? How would you find time to steer?

Re:efficiency

[NateTech]

All CDMA is created and licensed... by Qualcomm. They're not efficient at rolling out new things, and the chipsets are an order of magnitude more expensive due to licensing.

$45 is "far more"??

[bagboy]

Seriously, that is far more?

Re:$45 is "far more"??

[Anonymous Coward]

It's almost 15% more. And, when you include fixed costs, and consider that Verizon's subscriber base is significantly larger... yes. It's 'far more'.

Re:$45 is "far more"??

[Anonymous Coward]

No - it's just more. Far more would be significant. 15 percent is what you leave for a tip.

Re:$45 is "far more"??

[i_ate_god]

15% tip is FAR MORE if your service sucks and the tip is required. You know, like AT&T.

Re:$45 is "far more"??

[Dynedain]

That's almost 15% more, per subscriber

I know I'd consider a 15% raise a pretty big one.

Re:$45 is "far more"??

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, that is far more?

If there were only 1 or 100 subscribers I'd agree with you but putting it into context and relatively speaking, yeah, $45 per subscriber with millions of subscribers... yeah, that's a LOT.

Maybe you're filthy rich and to you this is pennies but to me... that's a LOT do money.

Re:$45 is "far more"??

[stonefry]

15% more per subscriber = 15% more

Why emphasize that it's per subscriber?

Re:$45 is "far more"??

[Anonymous Coward]

So, I paid them $2400 ($50 * 12 months * 4 years) and their network expenses were in the $300 range? The phone might have been $300.

It sounds like once they have the 4G network up an can live without changing it for 30 years, we would see a drop in monthly prices if competition worked in corp America.

Re:$45 is "far more"??

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be 30% more for half of the subscribers. duh

Re:$45 is "far more"??

[jargon82]

I read it as, they spent about $300 per subscriber on new equipment and such. There are other costs, like paying people to (mis)bill you, to give you the wrong answers when you call for assistance, and to mail your bill to the wrong address. These things are not free.

Wasted research...

[Zantac69]

Most AT&T users could tell you that AT&T really needs to get their shit together. No need for expensive research.

Personally, I am with AT&T now because:
1 - I had to have a GSM phone (CDMA FTL!)
2 - T-Mobile's covereage sucks where I live in Atlanta (or at least it did 18 months ago)

I am pissed and dont have much of a choice - its MaBell of Tmob. Not much is out there that would drive me to the shackles of CDMA hell with BigRed.

Re:Wasted research...

[i_ate_god]

Most AT&T users could tell you that AT&T really needs to get their shit together. No need for expensive research.

Personally, I am with AT&T now because:
1 - I had to have a GSM phone (CDMA FTL!)
2 - T-Mobile's covereage sucks where I live in Atlanta (or at least it did 18 months ago)

I am pissed and dont have much of a choice - its MaBell of Tmob. Not much is out there that would drive me to the shackles of CDMA hell with BigRed.

If CDMA is faster than light, then why did you go with AT&T?

Re:Wasted research...

[NotBornYesterday]

Because the FTL technology requires a transmitter with one of the universe's highest SAR ratings.

That, and the fact that the FTL causes temporal distortion, meaning that the person you talk to via FTL hears you speak before you say anything. We've all regretted saying things a split second after saying them. FTL CDMA means you might end up saying something you shouldn't have even before you say it.

Re:Wasted research...

[QuantumRiff]

I'm kinda interested in whats going to happen when both ATT and Verizon go to LTE.. That could get very, very interesting..

Re:Wasted research...

[tepples]

If CDMA is faster than light, then why did you go with AT&T?

Because when you rearrange the letters, it spells Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Re:Wasted research...

[caladine]

1 - I had to have a GSM phone (CDMA FTL!)

I personally find this hilarious on two counts:
1.) GSM and EDGE are TDMA technologies that are inferior in every way to the CDMA waveform.
2.) Your 3G service through AT&T is based off of CDMA. (All GSM carriers use W-CDMA for 3G service. See also #1.)

Re:Wasted research...

[radish]

1.) GSM and EDGE are TDMA technologies that are inferior in every way to the CDMA waveform.

Except the whole international roaming thing. And that's a pretty significant "way".

Re:Wasted research...

[nbvb]

.. of course, a phone with dual radios such as the BlackBerry Storm, Samsung Saga, HTC Ozone, HTC Touch Pro2, etc. will work anywhere. My BB Storm works here in the US, in Europe, in the Caribbean, just about everywhere ...

Re:Wasted research...

[jwinster]

I'm fairly certain AT&T considers their network problems a public relations problem, not an actual network problem. This seems fairly evident given their recent style of ads.

Re:Wasted research...

[blackchiney]

For the love of $DIETY.
CDMA != WCDMA. You might as well be saying you can't connect to the internet unless you have RJ-45

Re:Wasted research...

[danielsfca2]

Too bad that on the "dual radio" phones, Verizon locks the GSM radio to only work with its own overpriced roaming SIM cards ... which aren't even included, you have to BUY one from Verizon and then pay Verizon through the nose for roaming. (the same way you pay for everything with Verizon, usually described as either "pay through the nose" or "pay out the ass").

Real GSM carriers will unlock your phone for you if you tell them you need it unlocked for travelling, and then you have the option of getting a cheap prepaid SIM with minutes wherever you are visiting, and then you don't pay roaming.

Re:Wasted research...

[Zantac69]

Exactly - which is why I am stuck with Tmob or MaBell. /sigh

Re:Wasted research...

[danielsfca2]

I feel your pain. I'll never go back to CDMA. But it would be nice to have more choices. I can't wait for LTE... but I'm sure in America we'll get f**d in some way that will still prevent us from just buying a phone and carrying it to whatever provider we want (and by whatever i mean "more than just 2 choices").

Fortunately i am one of the silent majority who don't ever have serious issues with my iPhone on AT&T.

Re:Wasted research...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are other ways? *Name withheld to protect the identity of the smart ass making this comment*

Re:Wasted research...

[caladine]

No kidding. Since you obviously don't understand where the CDMA in W-CDMA came from, I'll explain it. The WCDMA standard, for all intents and purposes, is just CDMA in 5 MHz bandwidth rather than CDMA's 1.25 MHz bandwidth. Sure, there are some goodies for interop between WCDMA and GSM (and some portions twiddled to lower royalties and such), but the tech is the same. The point of my original post was to show that GSM was a dead end technology as soon as CDMA was developed.

Re:Wasted research...

[nbvb]

Verizon will unlock your phone as well. Both my and my wife's BlackBerry Storms are unlocked. By Verizon. No different than any other subsidized phone from any other US carrier ....

They got lazy and slothful

[TheHawke]

They rested on their laurels with the iPhone along with retarding their capital expenditures to beef up their stock price when earnings season rolled around. They are paying for that dearly now with major issues with infrastructure and bandwidth issues.

Major mistake, playing to the stockholders instead of their customers.

Re:They got lazy and slothful

[cob666]

Because they have a fiscal responsibility to the shareholders, customers are just a revenue stream.

Re:They got lazy and slothful

[SydShamino]

They have a fiscal responsibility to their long-term shareholders, too, not just those looking to cash out after a few quarters of artificial pumping.

Re:They got lazy and slothful

[Dare nMc]

I do wonder how much of this is Apples fault. Apple forced AT&T to spend on updating their voice-mail system so that it would be search-able, and other make it look cool features. Apple also siphons off a bunch of the per user revenue of customer they bring in, and bringing in a bandwidth hog onto the network. Had apple chosen to tell AT&T what bandwidth to have instead of what shiny features to have, then the customers would have been happier with AT&T, but the iPhone wouldn't have been the cool thing. So Apple may have forced AT&T to take all the blame, and can soon leave them with all the stink when the exclusive contract is up, but that doesn't mean they weren't to blame.

Re:They got lazy and slothful

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely off-topic but...your sig caught my eye. I think that quote (Do What Thou Wilt) is rightfully attributed to Francois Rabelais...

Re:They got lazy and slothful

[ArhcAngel]

Major mistake, playing to the stockholders instead of their customers.

Major mistake, playing to the customers instead of their mobile subscribers.

FTFY

Obligatory car analogy:

3 lane highway with several hundred cars == mild congestion

same 3 lane highway with several thousand cars, buses, 18 wheelers == #!$^WTF@#$%

Re:They got lazy and slothful

[WiiVault]

Yeah but what happens when the iPhone leaves AT&T thanks to their lack of forward thinking?

Re:They got lazy and slothful

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple. AT&T will make a few superficial improvements and then "accidentally" run across the iPhone at the grocery store, at which point AT&T will try to convince iPhone that he's *changed*. iPhone will most likely fall for it and decide to go out to a club Friday night with AT&T, but while there, AT&T will drop her calls every time a cute device walks by. At the (abrupt) end of the evening, iPhone will finally have enough, toss her drink at AT&T, and go to call a cab. As she waits for the taxi, Verizon will walk up (in his designer threads from that hip store in the mall), smooth-talk her, and end up hooking up.

Re:They got lazy and slothful

[danielsfca2]

LOL. Your story is hella cute, at least up until the part where you compared Verizon Wireless to something besides a nasty, controlling, ass-rapist who would stab his own mother to make a buck.

Re:They got lazy and slothful

[Anonymous Coward]

Theyre stock price is almost unchanged year over year, with only small fluctuations over the last 52 weeks. Thats how most high dividend yield stocks trade, they dont go up or down very much. So youre wrong.

Re:They got lazy and slothful

[ckaminski]

Unfortunately, without those customers, there *IS* no revenue stream.

This meme of fiscal responsibility to the shareholders has to end. It's not true, never has been, never will be. Once a company IPOs, that money is effectively the companies. They are under no obligation to ever pay it back, except through bankruptcy litigation, and then actual creditors are given first whack at the money.

Re:They got lazy and slothful

[Dare nMc]

I figured it was more like AT&T & Verizon tries to pick up iPhone, iPhone says don't worry about speed, spend all your money on making you email pretty and search-able, marketing and give me lots of your money. Verizon says no, AT&T does it. iPhone says thank you and hooks up with AT&T, but immediately starts blaming AT&T for doing everything iPhone asks of it. Eventually iPhone wakes up and sees the mess she has made of AT&T, and sees how much nicer Verizon is for not listening. She now dumps AT&T in a really messy brake up with lots of blame. Now she sees Verizon is so much better off for listing to others, and tries to hook up with Verizon, only to hear that Verizon has a new friend Google and won't give her anything but a pity hook-up.

5600

[drainbramage]

Nice catch.

Re:5600

[jra]

I do my best. And yes, I've been doing it for a while...

biznatCh

[Anonymous Coward]

vitality. L1kE an

Of course they need money to upgrade their network

[Anonymous Coward]

...they spend most of their budget on wiretapping for the NSA!

The analyst must not be an MBA

[drainbramage]

I suspect AT&T feels that those numbers represent a cost per subscriber rather than an investment per subscriber.
Now how about a big round of executive bonus...

They're spending all right...

[dasunst3r]

... on Luke Wilson. My solution to public perception issue? Less on marketing and more on infrastructure upgrades and support (engineering, equipment, installation, customer support, etc.). I strongly believe that beyond an initial marketing push, if a product is truly good, it can sell itself.

Re:They're spending all right...

[elrous0]

And if you're going to spend so much on a PR campaign, at least spring for Owen.

Re:They're spending all right...

[jc42]

I strongly believe that beyond an initial marketing push, if a product is truly good, it can sell itself.

Well, we do have the computer field as a major counterexample. The best-selling computer system for a long time has been MS Windows, which has always been the crappiest product available. They're a prime example of an old business guideline: The best way to be a major vendor is to have the biggest advertising budget. If you have that, there's no point on paying extra money to have a good product, because it won't get you a significant increase in sales. Only a tiny part of the market understands how to judge quality, and you can safely leave those sales to the small companies that will never be large.

Of course, the telephone business has long worked on a different basis. Their business plan has always been to make deals with governmental authorities to get a local monopoly wherever possible. Then quality doesn't matter because the regulators will guarantee that you always have a profit and no competitors.

At present, there is a small amount of competition allowed in the recently-developed wireless phone market. But this is only a temporary situation. The phone companies are hard at work on mergers and acquisitions, plus "campaign contributions" to reestablish regulated local monopolies. So we can expect that fairly soon they'll be back to their normal non-competitive situation. AT&T's only real problem is management that hasn't heard about the competitive market. But this is only a temporary situation.

"We're the Phone Company. We don't care. We don't have to."

Re:They're spending all right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Verizon has truly slapped AT&T in the face with the map ads. The weak response by AT&T with Luke Wilson is laughable at best. The commercials are truly pathetic. Great...you can talk and surf the web with AT&T as long as you are within the tiny limited 3G coverage area. Know what.....fuck you Luke! Join your brother and attempt suicide.

Re:They're spending all right...

[danielsfca2]

Dude, it's not a tiny area. Grow up. Just because VZW has towers in the middle of nowhere doesn't mean anything to the 95% of people who DO live in an AT&T 3G area. What the Verizon ads are doing is hilariously the same as the people in 2000 who waved the red/blue maps around and said, LOOK! A SEA of red! when in fact only about 30% of the people in this country live in "red states." Similarly, only a vanishingly small fraction of cell subscribers live or work outside the AT&T 3G areas. This is a fact. Verizon ignores that fact.

Also, Verizon's map is lies. My area is red on those maps but around my house, Verizon phones are not on EV-DO.

Re:They're spending all right...

[Weirsbaski]

I strongly believe that beyond an initial marketing push, if a product is truly good, it can sell itself.

Well, we do have the computer field as a major counterexample. The best-selling computer system for a long time has been MS Windows, which has always been the crappiest product available.

Logically, that's not a counter-example. It's possible that truly good products and crappy products can both sell themselves.
Inverse vs converse vs contrapositives and all.

Stockholders will make it painful

[Coopjust]

After resting on the success of the iPhones and what they had, AT&T now has to spend the money to catch up.

Expect the majority of shareholders, who are ridiculously short sighted, to hate AT&T for it and decry it as a waste of money, just like how all the Verizon stockholders were whining about the investment per household for FiOS.

Goodbye AT$T

[wooferhound]

AT$T just keeps getting worse and worse. They were overcharging me a lot 10 years ago and I changed my service to Bellsouth and I was so much happier. Then AT$T bought Bellsouth and so I unhappily had AT$T again. Deciding to give them another chance I stayed with them. But then came the unexplained fees and hugely overcharging me for $899 for long distance service that should have been less than $20. So at the beginning of this year I discontinued their service again for a Cable phone service that is great and $10 less a month.

I will never again let AT$T into my life !!

Re:Goodbye AT$T

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how you use $ instead of &.

I would call to complain

[elrous0]

But my iPhone would probably just drop the call.

Re:I would call to complain

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with AT&T at the moment is it is facing an expensive fight on two fronts concurrently.

On the one hand, it needs to update its infrastructure to support the ever increasing bandwidth
consumption of the wireless market. It's not going to get any better, so they're going to have to
start upgrading it instead of wishing for a magic fix that will make it all right.

On the other, they're trying to compete in the video market at the same time with their U-Verse
rollout. Every DIME is being poured into that project because it is one of two areas that will provide
them with income for the foreseeable future. Video and Wireless are it. Landlines are on the decline
and the numbers are growing exponentially. Soon, it will be rare to see anyone with a dedicated land
line for phone use. Thus, the urgency to shift their income maker over to something that isn't on its
deathbed.

Since the company unlikely has the capitol to pay for both at the same time, they're in a pickle of
sorts. They need to get them both upgraded and rolled out as quickly as possible, but the lack of
available cash is keeping that from becoming a reality. The company already has cut as many
expenses as they can ( short of executive pay and bonus of course ) but it isn't enough.

It's my opinion they are going to have to pick one or the other for the immediate future and deal with
the fallout. It's a pretty good case for the " You can't have your cake and eat it too " argument.

Re:I would call to complain

[cheesybagel]

Landlines are still very useful for data services. It so happens that voice is just another data stream. It is treated differently merely for historical reasons.

There are some niceties in the traditional telephone model. Running on the power of the telephone line itself meant it was more resilient to disasters than a VOIP phone. But I guess we have mobile phones for that. Err... providing the battery does not run out.

Re:I would call to complain

[NateTech]

Hell, most of the cell sites are down if the power's out anyway. The FCC tried to mandate a minimum amount of generator coverage for a percentage of the sites, but the carriers via whining and paying off politicos got that indefinitely postponed.

Why not wait?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother with doing 3G only?

Why not wait and deploy the next generation and 3G at the same time?

If your going to do all that work and visit all those sites, it would make more sense to LEAPFROG Verizon and the other carriers while your at it.

Follow the money

[jimicus]

OK, who paid for this and what's in it for them? I've yet to see a piece of so-called "business research" of this nature which was produced with no ulterior motive.

The most obvious thoughts that spring to mind are:

• AT&T paid for it. They want an excuse to be able to add another "extra" onto the bill of all their customers (or get a government subsidy).
• Verizon paid for it. They want to be able to say "Don't use AT&T, their network is obsolete and they can't afford to upgrade it".

Any others?

Re:Follow the money

[swb]

What I found strange about the "story", which incidentally, I also thought read like a successfully placed bit of corporate propaganda, is that AT&T is currently running commercials that capitalize on their data network being faster than Verizon's, and IIRC there have recently (last 3-6 months) been multiple stories from multiple sources (Engadget/Gizmodo, some cellular research company) that have BOTH released the same results -- AT&T's data network is faster than Verizon's.

My own personal datapoint as a customer who switched from Verizon to AT&T in the last 9 months is that I get *better* coverage with AT&T in my primary area (Twin Cities), fewer dead spots and the data service on my iPhone is faster than it was on my Motorola Q on Verizon.

My complaints about AT&T are really centered on the coverage in rural areas of MN and North Dakota -- I'm lucky if I get a solid 1x, many no service areas, and wifi is needed for any data services you'd normally expect to use on 3G. But I think that whole area is pretty much Alltel territory and nobody uses anything but Alltel up there. Verizon roams there just fine and there's decent EVDO coverage in many places AT&T wheezes on a weak 1x signal.

Re:Follow the money

[CharlieHedlin]

1x is a CDMA technology (1xRTT). I assume you are referring to EDGE which has comparable real world performance to 1x.

I believe 1x was upgradable to EVDO without replacing as much equipment, and certainly doesn't require splitting up the spectrum to run two networks. UMTS, AT&T's 3G network, has to be build out with additional equipment and requires dedicated spectrum. As a result, AT&T has to spend a lot more money for each cell, and will leave most rural coverage with the good enough EDGE.

Where I live AT&T is ok. My coverage at my office has recently declined, but AT&T has coverage (edge) in places where Verizon and Sprint don't have any.

Axe grinding time

[bobetov]

Ah, another satisfied iPhone user.

Fiber/T1s?

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw wireless, AT&T's wired backbone is by far the worst in the world. Their Manilla tech support is probably the worst that I've ever spoken to. No one has a good wireless network. I wait all day on Verizon too...they should fix the infrastructure and their business model first before blowing all of that money on their network. They still have the iPhone...neat.

I read this as $58

[Anonymous Coward]

and wondered what the problem was

Between Verizon and AT&T

[Pojut]

I chose Verizon. There is no point in having a fast network or browsing while calling if I can't freakin' connect to the network.

I'm quite happy with my HTC Ozone and having at least two bars reception no matter where I am, even in the elevators at work.

We have seen this game before.

[Steauengeglase]

When this becomes a more serious problem they will beg/demand/get massive tax breaks and claim that it will go to infrastructure building. Then they will pass the majority to their stock holders. If anyone complains and suggests regulation concerning either the tax breaks (outside of suggesting more tax breaks) or how the additional revenue should be spent will be branded a socialist and an enemy of capitalism.

We saw this under both Clinton and Bush and we will see it again under Obama, because there is one simple fact that no one in government can understand. You cannot bribe businesses. You can sign contracts where they provide a service for a price, you can enforce current legislation and if you are willing to waste the time you can write new legislation, but you will never get anything done with bribery (ie. tax cuts).

Re:We have seen this game before.

[ianare]

It's not that the government doesn't understand that, they certainly do. After all, many in government used to be in business. It's just that you can bribe elected officials very effectively (ie campaign contributions).

Re:We have seen this game before.

[Steauengeglase]

Then I guess the real question is why do voters fall for it? If we swapped out tax cuts with welfare benefits and large corporate entity with welfare recipient, voters would howl. We place restrictions on what someone can or cannot buy with their food stamps, why not do the same for tax cuts that are specifically targeted for infrastructure building?

Re:We have seen this game before.

[ianare]

Ah, well that's the $64 million question, isn't it ? Part of it could be voter apathy. Another part is certainly what you've mentioned in your fist post, namely that many think placing any kind of limit on business is anti free-market and socialist. As has been proven many times, there are situations in which regulation is the only way of ensuring effective competition.

Website needs clue injection to catch up

[argent]

<title>Analyst: AT&amp;amp;T needs to spend US$5B to catch up | ITworld</title>

That title is so &amped it goes to 11.

Hear hear!

[rutledjw]

My service was always good on them as well. The issue came when I was laid off and when I started contracting I needed my own smart phone and coincidentally my personal phone died. At the time I was less than impressed with Sprint's offerings (about 1.5 years ago). And this is a personal thing - I hate Blackberry's...

Anyway, I bit the bullet and bought an iPhone. In the Financial District in downtown SF I couldn't make a call consistently much less anything else! I was livid.

To make matters worse, my work gave me a Blackberry. A SPRINT Blackberry, and it had better coverage in SF, Denver, and DC. sigh...Unreal.

I still can't believe I pay MORE to AT&T for this honor...

AT&T spend or suffer?

[BigSlowTarget]

I think it's clearly spend or make your customers suffer and there's plenty of evidence which way they'll probably go.

considering the 3g maps

[C_Kode]

If you look at the differences in the US 3G coverage maps shown in the Verizon commercials, I think $5B is freaking cheap!

Re:considering the 3g maps

[slimjim8094]

Those are wrong, or at least misleading. AT&T's 2G (called EDGE, 2-300kbps) is as fast as Verizon's 3G. And AT&T has EDGE coverage across it's whole area.

AT&T's 3g coverage (shown in the map) is HSDPA. That's up to theoretically 20mbps, but I've seen real-world speeds of 3mbps/300kbps.

Long story short, Verizon's comparing gold to tin, and poo-pooing AT&T because there's less gold than tin.

Re:considering the 3g maps

[gimmebeer]

Not that I don't believe everything I read on Slashdot, but do you have a link with more info on this?

Re:considering the 3g maps

[Above]

You sir, are just plain wrong.

Wikipedia: Enhanced_Data_Rates_for_GSM_Evolution

Evolved EDGE improves on EDGE in a number of ways. Latencies are reduced by lowering the Transmission Time Interval by half (from 20 ms to 10 ms). Bit rates are increased up to 1 MBit/s peak bandwidth and latencies down to 800 ms using dual carriers, higher symbol rate and higher-order modulation (32QAM and 16QAM instead of 8-PSK), and turbo codes to improve error correction.

Wikipedia: Evolution-Data_Optimized

These changes included the introduction of several new forward link data rates that increase the maximum burst rate from 2.45 Mbit/s to 3.1 Mbit/s. Also included were protocols that would decrease connection establishment time (called enhanced access channel MAC), the ability for more than one mobile to share the same timeslot (multi-user packets) and the introduction of QoS flags. All of these were put in place to allow for low latency, low bit rate communications such as VoIP. In the United States, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel have migrated 100% of their EV-DO Rev.0 networks to EV-DO Rev. A.

In a survey (Gearlive) Verizon's 3G had an average download speed of 1,940 Kbits/sec (about 2Mbps/sec). Compare that to AT&T edge speed tests (Engadget) where AT&T's edge network ran 264Kbits/sec.

Thus, as far as I can tell from a theoretical perspective (based on the technology) Verizon's 3G is three times faster (3Mbps compared to 1Mbps) than AT&T's EDGE. In the real world the difference is worse though, with Verizon showing over 7 times faster performance (1940 Kbits compared to 264 Kbits). As someone who has used both, let me say that matches with my own personal experience.

Re:considering the 3g maps

[LearningHard]

VZW is on EV-DO Rev. A which supports 3.1Mb transfer speeds NOT 2-300kbps and is MUCH faster than EDGE. HSDPA actually supports up to 18Mb not the 20 you claim. However as seen below you will never see anything close tot hat in the real world.

Also PC World did a piece in June comparing REAL world transfer speeds (http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=167391&page=1&zoomIdx=1)

AT&T averaged: 717 Kb/sec
Sprint averaged: 745 Kb/sec
VZW averaged: 890 Kb/sec

For reliability...

AT&T: 66%
Sprint: 84%
VZW: 83%

Please get out of here with your misinformation.

Re:considering the 3g maps

[Anonymous Coward]

If this is true, apparently my girlfriend lives in Beirut and not Aurora, IL since she typically cant make a call from her house and those she does manage to make are almost always dropped within a few minutes. Maybe Aurora is just too small of a city for AT&T (2nd largest in IL, you know to Chicago), or maybe its just every phone she has had (i think this is her 4th) are crap. Its not just at her house, it happens all over around the chicagoland area as well. A few other friends who had AT&T up until very recently had identical experiences as well.

Meanwhile my phone on Verizon never drops below 2 bars. Verizon may be "comparing gold to tin" but if you cant make a call while having gold I would rather have tin (or dirt for that matter if it allows me to make a call when I need to).

This is just my opinion and is nothing more then my friends and my own experience.

Re:considering the 3g maps

[Skuld-Chan]

Source? I benchmarked Verizon's network tethered to a laptop and get constantly around 1.5 megabits per second - which is way waster than 300K.

Re:considering the 3g maps

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are wrong, or at least misleading. AT&T's 2G (called EDGE, 2-300kbps) is as fast as Verizon's 3G.

That might be theoretically true, but I recently dropped the tethering feature from my AT&T phone (EDGE) and went with Verizon's mobile broadband (3G). Tethering on AT&T's network had become painfully slow and unreliable, but Verizon's mobile broadband is quite usable.

Re:considering the 3g maps

[supermank17]

AT&T's 2G (called EDGE, 2-300kbps) is as fast as Verizon's 3G. And AT&T has EDGE coverage across it's whole area.

I'm pretty certain that's wrong.
According to Wikipedia, EDGE hits around 240 Kbps.
EVDO Rev A, on the other hand (which is what Verizon and Sprint use) can hit 3.1 Mbps. Which means EDGE is off by about a factor of ten for speed.
ATT is meanwhile in the process of rolling out 7.2 Mbps HSDPA - previously they'd been using 3.6 Mbps, which is pretty darn close to EVDO Rev A for speed.
To make things worse, it seems like real world testing shows wildly varying download speeds on ATT's 3.6 HSDPA, depending on the user load, etc. Which seems to be a common complaint amongst iPhone users.
For references, see http://www.gearlog.com/2009/05/att_rolling_out_hsdpa_72_faste.php or any of the various Gizmodo / Engadget articles about ATT's 3G rollout. You can also check Wikipedia's articles on EDGE and EVDO for bonus points.

(Anecdotally, I've noticed significantly faster browsing on my Spring HTC Hero compared to my HTC ADP1 running on both T-Mobile and ATT's EDGE networks.)

Re:considering the 3g maps

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you seriously inferring that PC World is an authoritative figure on cellphone facts and testing? Really? Really? Wow, you probably should get out of here too then...

Re:considering the 3g maps

[Digicaf]

My 2 cents...

I'm a software consultant, averaging about 80% travel with a typical meantime of about 2 weeks before changing locations. I've been doing this for about 6 years. For the first two years I was desperate for a mobile data solution because (most of the time) hotel internet connections are absolutely horrendous.

For the last 4 years I've tried both AT&T and Verizon for mobile data, and I've got to say Verizon has beat AT&T into the ground in every respect. When I was on AT&T, I achieved an honest-to-god HSDPA connection for a grand total of three wonderful weeks. But three weeks out of a 2 year span do not make for a happy consultant.

With Verizon, I've consistently received a 3G connection time and again. The only time I didn't receive a 3G connection was when I was stuck for two weeks in the middle of northern Wisconsin.

Verizon's 3G IS slower than AT&T's 3G, that much is true. But unless you live in one of the very few areas that AT&T chooses to bless with its almost mythical HSDPA, its not worth it. Verizon's 3G has a vastly superior coverage and maintains about 800Kb/sec. AT&T's EDGE (2G) will get you about 100Kb/sec if you're lucky.

What???

[rutledjw]

Really? How in the world did you find a Sprint plan costing more that AT&T using the iPhone? Especially when the Sprint "everything" plan is $99/month? That's quite a feat...

You can say Sprint's customer service sucks, and yes, lots of folks had issues there. But as far as cost of plans go, I'm by NO means on the high end AT&T plan, and I'm nowhere near my Sprint bills...

Re:What???

[SvnLyrBrto]

When I switched from Sprint to Pacific Bell (which later became part of Cingular which later became part of SBC which later became part of AT&T); I went from paying $70/month to $40/month, got about 4x the airtime, and got a phone that would actually keep working if I ventured into the East Bay or more than a couple of miles from the freeway on the peninsula. That and my bill was finally charged correctly and consistently and I didn't have to deal with Sprint's appalling idea of customer service anymore.

Granted, this was well before the iPhone. And after years and years of hemorrhaging customers they've gotten desperate and slashed their rates below most of the other carriers. But they used to be a stupendous ripoff... playing the "we give you lots of ANYTIME minutes" game, when the gobs and gobs of night and weekend minutes I got when I switched were (and still are) much more useful to me.

And yeah... their customer service sucks... even AFTER you've cancelled your service (And six months later they decide you owe them some 10-cent fee and start sending you past-due notices that cost them more in postage than they're trying to collect.).

Re:What???

[LWATCDR]

That was a very long time ago like 10 years ago.

if wishes were horses

[fermion]

Then simply looking at per subscriber spending would be a valid metric. That way the vendors could buy as much blow as they wanted for the acquisition department and then bill it through higher bids.

As it is, verizon is no longer the absolute leader. Sprint, ATT, even some of the small guys like boost and cricket have competitive products. All verizon can say is they have the premium product, and use the higher fees to maintain the premium product.

I suspect the issue is not spending, but the free space in cell towers and new cell towers, which I understand are not as easy to set, since everyone wants a cell phone, but no one wants a tower in the neighborhood. In places like NYC I can imagine that just finding real estate, much less real estate that one is allowed to attach to, is a major issue. It seems like at 15-25 billion, everyone is spending as much as they possible can.

Re:if wishes were horses

[Anonymous Coward]

As it is, verizon is no longer the absolute leader. Sprint, ATT, even some of the small guys like boost and cricket have competitive products. All verizon can say is they have the premium product, and use the higher fees to maintain the premium product.

Boost: Owned by Sprint
In addition, Boost Mobile, Sprint's prepaid business, is being refocused to compete aggressively for customers impacted by the current economic environment with a lower per-minute rate and other attractive pricing options.

Cricket: Partnered with Verizon
"Inter-carrier agreements such as that between Cricket and Verizon Wireless are necessary for seamless picture messaging interoperability across the country," said Jim Straight, vice president of wireless Internet and multimedia for Verizon Wireless.

cheaper by a dozen

[slonik]

I do not think that $ by $ comparison is valid here.
Actually, GSM networking equipment for AT&T's network is cheaper to buy that similar CDMA equipment that Verizon and Sprint uses. GSM market is sooo much larger than CDMA so that the economy of scale plays nicely here. You might get further with 21B$ upgrading your GSM network than with 25B$ for CDMA.

UMTS

[justleavealonemmmkay]

Well at least they're running a real GSMA network, not some chauvinistic USian version of it.

Luke Wilson lied to me.

[gimmebeer]

That's what I'm getting out of this article. Why Luke, WHY!?!?!

Analyst? Needs to be fired...

[Anonymous Coward]

AT&T has over 80 million wireless subscribers. They made $3.6 billion in the third quarter from wireless alone. They are doing fine.

AT&T's real choice

[Anonymous Coward]

Naive:

All this means AT&T has a choice, says Hallaren: 'spend or suffer'.

Correct:

All this means AT&T has a choice, says Hallaren: 'spend or collude with "competitors" to ensure they have as much time as they need to catch up (because after all, if a silly matter like technical prowess can beat ONE big company, it could very well beat the others, too, so they have a vested interest in making sure this doesn't happen until they're ready for it) and lobby congress for legal assistance to keep anyone new from taking advantage of this situation'.

So which one's cheaper?

700 Mhz anyone?

[sneakyimp]

So whatever happened to the much-ballyhooed 700 Mhz spectrum? Didn't AT&T & verizon both invest in that bit? So far I haven't seen hide nor hair of any 700mhz devices nor any announcements about wireless service using this spectrum.

Re:700 Mhz anyone?

[jra]

Oddly, there was a webcast on this topic from Verizon *an hour ago*. I missed it too, but no, they're starting their Block C rollout this year; my city's pretty high up the list.

Re:700 Mhz anyone?

[balbeir]

LTE (aka 4G) is where Verizon's 700Mhz spectrum will be used. It's being trialed in Boston and Seatlle I believe

Re:700 Mhz anyone?

[Wireless Joe]

AT&T's 700mhz spectrum is reserved solely for LTE.

In the future, AT&T's 700 MHz spectrum holdings will provide the foundation for deployment of next-generation wireless broadband platforms such as HSPA+ and LTE.

i can has competition?

[AP31R0N]

Can we get some real competition between cellphone providers. AFAICT they are all the same company, offering the same shoddy service for the same insane price. The cheapest plan you can get is $40/mo and 450 minutes. Can we have a plan that doesn't assume i'm a twelve year old girl who must constantly yammer? Most of my calls are less than 5 minutes and i make a call about every two or three days. The pay as you go plans (inaccurately called "pre-paid") are often monthly plans in disguise because you can lose your number if you stop paying. Most of those systems are gimped and cost more per minute than a plan. It's not a real option.

Howabout divorcing hardware and infrastructure? i buy a phone. i connect the phone to my credit card. i dial a number. i select the provider that gives me the best combination of coverage and price. If X network is strong there but charges more than Y, but the call is trivial... i'll go with Y. If the call is important to me i can pick X. The companies would trample each other to provide good AND cheap service.

Howabout making it a utility? There's no real competition in the US, so why pretend there is? i buy a phone. Associate it with a credit card and call/text/surf until my thumbs are tired or my bill gets out of control. With no stockholders to please the prices could stay low. Or hell, just have a public utility option (wink). The state could compete against companies.

Howabout recognizing that companies benefit from people being able to access info and shop. The model works for Google, maybe we can apply it to telecom. Folks that are selling something fund the system that makes those sales possible.

AT&T wireless is hilariously funny...

[Anonymous Coward]

especially their new commercials whinging about being able to talk and surf the web at the same time or slightly higher download speeds(WTF downloads with a phone?!) which somehow makes their deficient coverage go away.

Anyways, I noticed that AT&T and most other wireless providers had crappy coverage compared to Verizon about 8 or so years ago when my parents were thinking about getting a cellphone to take with them when they travelled by car around the US & Canada. Pretty much every wireless provider excepting Verizon ONLY had coverage around major cities and larger towns. Most had no coverage in Canada or, again, only around large cities and town(FAR fewere of those in Canada especially the middle section of the country).

All of this meant to me, that even though Verizon was a little higher in monthly pricing than their competitors it was the only realistic option outside of GROSSLY expensive satellite phone for them. (I had Verizon for years before I even bothered to check this and had already noticed that when camping way out in the middle of nowhere(100s of miles from even a town with a population of 75k or more... which also brings up the funny incidents of all the little villages with almost as many bars as houses... :O ;)) Verizon phones still had signal while other people's phones if they got signal at all were roaming -> obscene charges.)

Anyways, AT&T will have to spend money(realistically they all do anyways) but they will whinge and moan about it as *shock* they might have to cut back on the big bonuses and spend them on the company itself to actually keep from running their company into the ground.

Different issue

[MikeRT]

The US has significantly more large, densely populated cities than Canada, and AT&T also has to hook up a lot of small towns. There are over 270 cities in the US that have at least 100k people living in them, and AT&T doesn't stop there with trying to provide full 3G service; I routinely get it in places like Harrisonburg and Warrenton in Virginia where the population is about 50k.

Re:Different issue

[Cwix]

Warrenton Virginia is only 40 miles from Washington DC, and only 10 miles or so from the interstate, I expect them to have decent coverage. Harrisonburg is located right on the interstate, I expect them to have 3G. I happen to think those are poor examples. Others?

Verizon has...

[PPH]

.. a large land line customer base from whom they can squeeze cash while providing piss poor service.

Re:Verizon has...

[ckaminski]

So does AT&T. AT&T is compromised now of at least two of the former Baby Bells, just like Verizon.

Around the holidays...

[my_left_nut]

all of a sudden, AT&Ts 3G service was unavailable for days (not hours) at a time. This was not in a remote area, but in a suburb 25 miles due west of Philadelphia, PA. At the time, signal bars were up at 5. Go figure. 3G service eventually did return, though.

I like the iPhone, but if their 3G service is so spotty, I might eventually be forced to switch providers.

AT&T are you listening?

Not to worry...

[Anonymous Coward]

... AT&T will simply collect it from their clueless customers with some added hidden fees, or by using promotions to sucker people into getting dependent on their service and reluctant to break away when the honeymoon is over.

Money

[WilyCoder]

AT&T already spent their all of their money on marketing against Verizon's map ads...

cost analysis

[Anonymous Coward]

This analysis of whos network has the most coverage, or who is upgrading the most, by comparing the money spent per customer or overall even, is a very bad one. It does not take into account 1. how many towers / square feet of coverage they have already, 2. how many customers they have, 3. are they spending the money on more towers or network capacity upgrades, 4. the price of their plans and how much money theyve made over time, etc. Much more specific information and math for cost analysis could clear up some of this. I have the feeling that at&t is raking in the dough almost more than sprint and verizon is doing the poorest of the 3, judging by what they are charging now for unlimited voice. AT&T & Sprint are charging 99 flat for u-voice, and verizon only 70.