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Rumor — AT&T Losing iPhone Exclusivity Next Week
MojoKid writes "An inside source over at HotHardware reports that AT&T will lose their iPhone exclusivity on 1/27, coincident with Apple's upcoming press event next week, though it's not yet clear what other carriers will be stepping in to pick up the iPhone. For anyone who has followed the saga, you may notice that you haven't seen AT&T fighting to extend their original exclusive agreement as of late. In fact, they have spent most of their time fighting Verizon's negative ad campaigns. This may not be all that surprising. Inside of AT&T, word is that the iPhone is causing more trouble than ever before. On some level, having the iPhone is hurting AT&T's image. Do you remember hearing about AT&T's 'horrible network' before the iPhone? The iPhone itself doesn't really handle the switch from 3G to EDGE very gracefully, so calls that are in-progress tend to fail whenever 3G connections aren't optimal and the phone attempts to step down to EDGE. It seems that AT&T may finally be tired of taking the heat."
The iPhone is nothing special, this is even more true now that there are many Android based phones to choose from.
"iPhone, you phone, we all phone for iPhone"
Well, maybe before AT&T's woes.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
...a fair amount of other countries already have multiple carriers for the iPhone. Let's hope this stirs up some competition.
Of course I didn't RTFA.
If Verizon gets the iPhone, I'll be there next week.
That's GSM's fault, not the phone's.
If I wanted to hear asinine and completely unsubstantiated rumors, I'd head over to a shitheap like TechCrunch.
Let's leave this sort of crap over there, okay? Even if it's a slow news day, it's better to post nothing at all than to post useless nonsense like this.
I work in NYC and have the choice between Verizon and ATT for my "company" phone service. I use the data features fairly frequently and when our group of 40-50 folks sits down and chats (we're pretty equally divided between ATT and Verizon users) it seems to me that ATT data service is usually faster and more reliable. Of the people who are most vocal about their Verizon support there, they seem to be mostly voice users and only casual data users.
As far as the iPhone goes, I'd MUCH rather have a Nexus One if I was in the market for a fancy smart phone.
My AT&T contract is up on July 12th. I tell you, I am going to have a very difficult decision on that date if a Verizon version of the iPhone hasn't been announced or released by then. While I love my iPhone, the AT&T service is just not reliable at all in my experience in New Hampshire, especially if you get out of the major cities. You pretty much have to be in a deep cave to not have a Verizon cell phone signal here.
My thinking is if there is no sign of a Verizon version of the iPhone by July 12th when my contract is up, I may very well switch to a Nexus One or Droid. It is sure going to be tempting.
Howdy, I worked with AT&T/Cingular right at the release and that is when "it" happened. From what I was told, AT&T reduced the range of their network to make data transmission more "reliable" for the iPhone, and in so doing, they pissed off a number of end users. We had so many complaints from people about their service no longer working in their homes, work, etc. I was there for the switch to 3G in OH and though the service is fast, the batteries don't last (heh); my phone(s) would be dead with very limited surfing. Oh well, maybe AT&T will rebrand again - back to Cingular and become completely Open Source... and monkeys might flight out of my butt. Bye iPhone.
In Soviet Russia, road forks you!
The iPhone itself doesn't really handle the switch from 3G to EDGE very gracefully, so calls that are in-progress tend to fail whenever 3G connections aren't optimal and the phone attempts to step down to EDGE.
Given that carriers test phones on networks, it would not be the least surprising to learn that AT&T technical staff evaluated the iPhone (or already had experience with the 'modem' it uses), told management about the problems, and management decided what was more important was the couple of years of revenue from people who wanted iPhones regardless of the network.
I've been a customer of AT&T since the "AT&T wireless" days (pre AT&T, pre "cingular", etc.) and I can count the number of dropped calls on one hand. I currently have an original iPhone, jailbroken/unlocked, on a very old AT&T Wireless account. $30/month for a regional plan = awesome (as is having one device to surf the web where I can get Wifi, play games, listen to music, and make phone calls.)
Living in New England, I also haven't heard many complaints from 3G iPhone users. Seems to be mostly NYC where people are screaming (yes kids, NY and NYC are not "New England.")
Please help metamoderate.
if this goes through i really hope germany will be freed from t-immobile next..
AT&T hates the iPhone now? Why?
Perhaps because they know Apple does not intend to renew its contract with AT&T?
Because they are the only company to carry it, and it's such a data hog, it's largely to blame for AT&T's network troubles. We don't remember hearing about AT&T's "horrible network" before the iPhone--do you?
Doesn't matter. AT&T made an agreement with Apple, they made contracts with users - really one sided contracts - to handle this. To blame a product and consumers for AT&T's short sightedness, mismanagement, and desire to squeeze every last penny out of their subscribers and their system is ridiculous.
AT&T got the business and they didn't live up to their end of the bargain.
Period.
So why didn't you wait till next week to publish a verified fact?
I wonder if it'll finally be possible to get an unlocked iPhone(in USA) without paying $600+ for it now.
It's high time Apple did that. AT&T does not have the bandwidth to support the pretty significant data needs of iPhone users. iPhone demography is still somewhat different from BlackBerry's(though, it's changing over the past few months), and IMHO the data requirements of that demography is much higher than the typical corporate user. This should benefit all(ok, may be not)
My fiance works for an AT&T reseller and just verified that they are losing exclusivity this week.
In theory, you could take an AT&T iPhone to T-mobile, as they are also based on GSM, but I remember a couple weeks ago when the Nexus One launched, people pointing out that AT&T and T-Mo use different frequency bands for their 3G service, and so the Nexus One could only be used on AT&T with the slower 2G data channel. I'm guessing the same issue would be in play here, going the other way? That is, you could use an iPhone on T-Mo, but you'd not be able to get 3G data speeds?
I have a Droid on Verizon and my girlfriend just got an iPhone on at&t. Nearly all my friends have iPhones and honestly I've always wanted one. However I didn't want to carry two att phones, as my work provides me a phone. So I've stuck with alltel/verizon for my personal phone. As a self proclaimed nerd I really enjoy what I can do on my android device and I see a ton of potential in the future but as far as end to end experience goes, the iPhone's interface is a lot cleaner/smoother. As far as apps go on android I've found just about everything I want as far as apps go. Even most of the ones my friends have on iPhone. One thing I really like about my droid is the quality of the calls both on speaker and on the hand set. Sounds really nerdy but I have a friend who works for a bank and he also has a droid, before he got it if he was in his server room on the phone I could hear the noise from all the servers and other equipment...Not with his droid, it sounded DEAD quiet. I kept asking him if he was really in the server room and he kept laughing at me saying he was. I like at&t and the iphone, I also like android and verizon. When it came down to it for me I wanted something new, not what everyone else had.
You sure can smell it can't you? The smell of troll bait in the morning ...
/. as many have pointed out ... but most of the replies are trolls who feel it's their duty to point out how much the iPhone sucks, the users are idiots, or if only it ran Linux wouldn't the world be a whole lot better?
The iPhone is fine, so fine it's sold 10 million units. It works just fine.
Before the iPhone we had the choice between crap and crappy and a decent RIM device. Please don't tell me about your Treo.
After the iPhone we have a few choices of very good, very smart devices.
The post is a rumor which doesn't suit
I can't wait for the announcement to see what new device or new services are potentially opened up. I don't care to prognosticate but it'd be nice to have open carrier choices among all handsets -- but this has never really been the case. Thanks to innovation and a little more pressure from Google openly stating this as their goal it may happen. Just like DRM and iTunes where so many needed to blame Apple, call the service shit, call the device shit, it's happening with ATT, carrier lock-in, and the iPhone.
Troll bait hoo-ha-ha!
Maybe due to the US-implementation of GSM, but GSM can handle this just fine.
You don't see this problem in Europe.
The iPhone launched in the UK as exclusive to the O2 network. In the last few months it's become available on two of the other four biggest networks Vodafone and Orange (who have announced that they will merge with the other big four, T-Mobile). The pricing and plan are practically identical.
To get the iPhone, I would need to sign up for a VERY expensive and long term contract. There is no way I'm spending a thousand dollars a year for a friggin phone. To get the Nexus One I can buy a prepaid sim from T-mobile and pay $100/year, using WiFi for network connectivity. This price advantage alone is enough to give the Nexus One an enormously larger market than the iPhone.
I have an iPhone and it's OK in the Boston area, but I'm fairly often in central New Hampshire, and AT&T sucks big time. A few months ago, I had to take my wife to the emergency room, and wait for several hours. Inside the Laconia hospital, my iPhone signal was zero, zippo, nada. My wife's Verizon phone had a 4-bar signal strength. While both AT&T and Verizon have dead zones, AT&T's seem to be much more prevalent.
I laugh when I see AT&T's claims of having the "fastest" network. It's not very fast when you have NO SIGNAL AT ALL!
I believe Telstra in Australia has both 3G and EDGE or something very similar and i've never had a dropped call on any of my 3 different gen iphones.. (granted the first went from edge to 2g but still). I dont think its an iphone specific problem and i think Telstra coverage (which is nigh on perfect) here might be just a tad better than AT&T from what i've read on the intertoobs.
Apple should start selling iPhones optionally unlocked, at a higher price if need be. People will STILL queue up to buy it, that's how popular it has become. Those who may have shunned it because of AT&T and who also couldn't be bothered with the jailbreak hassles would return to buy it.
And they have no hope in hell of significantly penetrating other more open markets(like mine, India where we've long since been accustomed to buying our phones at full price independent of any operator restrictions) unless they do so.
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
I have wondered if ATT is a victim of their own success with 3G congestion. They largely sold the iPhone on the merits of all the cool data features and these users consume a lot of wireless data. 3G networks aren't designed to handle many concurrent heavy users. So I wonder, if Verizon gets the iPhone and folks make the switch, will the situation just naturally improve for ATT? Will Verizon suddenly feel the pain of all those heavy users?
I don t hear about this nonsens.
My contract is set to renew, and I wanted to get a new iphone 3gs, and the ATT site doesn't even offer the iphone as an option.
I suspect that not only did they lose exclusivity, they may not even be worthy of distributing iphones anymore.
I am open source, and Linux baby!
When your friends dumped their iPhones (and perhaps the ATT contract), what hardware/carrier did they switch to..and why, besides the "cool" factor like you were mentioning. There must be at least some technical specification thought go into their next phone purchase, even if it is secondary to new and shiny.
Just wondering, especially on the handset switch, I do prepay only, no more long term contracts, I don't want to feed that particular telco business model, for the same reason I stick to OTA TV broadcasts and won't go to satellite (or cable, which I can't get anyway). Just don't need nor want more long term contractural debt. I can either pay for something right then, or not interested.
I have the option to switch from my blackberry to the iphone... the only thing holding me back is whether or not a new one will be announced next week... Would you buy now or wait? If the rumors are true, OLED, 5MP camera, flash but the ship date wasn't until June would you wait or just get it now?
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
> The iPhone itself doesn't really handle the switch from 3G to EDGE very gracefully, so calls that are in-progress tend to fail whenever 3G connections aren't optimal and the phone attempts to step down to EDGE.
since the voice and data decks are separate; the voice isn't *going* over the data connection, so a roam there shouldn't affect a voice call.
Now, that doesn't mean that it's not having *other* problems roaming from cell to cell; I just don't expect that to be the cause.
The iPhone launched in the UK as exclusive to the O2 network. In the last few months it's become available on two of the other four biggest networks Vodafone and Orange (who have announced that they will merge with the other big four, T-Mobile). The pricing and plan are practically identical.
So buy a second hand phone on ebay, unlock it and stick a PAYG SIM in it (or whatever contract works for you)...
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Time to buy Apple and short AT&T.
"you may notice that you haven't seen AT&T fighting to extend their original exclusive agreement..."
When did we EVER see AT&T fighting to have or to keep the iPhone?
"We don't remember hearing about AT&T's "horrible network" before the iPhone--do you?"
YES, I do. AT&T uses the world standard GSM technology. GSM was rolled out much more slowly and less uniformly in the USA than was Verizon's CDMA. However, for years, both Verizon's and AT&T's networks used to suck. In January 2007, when the iPhone was introduced, people were already complaining about AT&T. And if the shoe had been on the other foot, they would have been complaining about Verizon instead.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I was merely making an observation regarding how Apple are evidently keeping such tight control over the iPhone that there is no room for the networks to compete on pricing.
I'm aware of the alternative options of acquiring an iPhone, but my desire to own one is negligible. You can buy one with a PAYG SIM legitimately on Tesco Mobile.
" The iPhone itself doesn't really handle the switch from 3G to EDGE very gracefully, so calls that are in-progress tend to fail whenever 3G connections aren't optimal and the phone attempts to step down to EDGE"
GSM is the Standard ATT uses to place all voice calls, EDGE and UMTS(3G) are the data side hence why an ATT phone can easily use the data and voice side at the same time...How does data handoffs affect voice calls i'm very confused. Plz keep in mind i worked at ATT at the time they implemented gsm/edge 2.5G is there something different about the infrastructure now that the data side can now supersede the voice part of a call? Or is the arcticle trying to find causation is the chaos?
I live in Atlanta, where AT&T Wireless' headquarters is located. Before it was AT&T, it was Cingular -- and it was always terrible.
I have a friend who took a picture of him holding an AT&T branded phone in front of AT&T's headquarters. No bars. His friend with Verizon, and his other friend with Spring, held their phones. Full bars.
This was before the iPhone.
The iPhone is not the cause of AT&T's poor network, The iPhone exposed the poor network.
Nevertheless, while living in England my wife and I owned iPhones on O2's network. I will say I had a much better time running it in EDGE mode than 3G, so I would not be surprised if the transition between 3G and EDGE was a problem. (It always seemed to have more problems when I would dip in-and-out of 3G coverage. This was the 3G phone.)
Still, while I am excited about the iPhone coming to other networks, I'm no fool. The iPhone will expose other networks' flaws. The only question is whether those flaws are as bad as AT&T's.
"Regress towards the mean".
AT&T is in the mindshare chart because of the iPhone. I went from T-Mobile and zero service, to Sprint with terrible service, on a brick phone that did nothing interesting and still clunked the battery.
I wanted to be part of the GSM theme, even though I knew Verizon was reputed to be slightly better service in my area.
So I switched to AT&T and the iPhone. My service went from "Terrible" to "Yucky". I decided that my usage habits for phones were opposite than the desktop, so I with with the current "game changer".
So to reverse my above reasoning, someone will have to uncork something new and exciting.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I had a Motorola phone on Verizon that was crippled when compared to the same phone on other networks. It couldn't play non-Verizon mp3s unless you hacked it, it could use non-Verizon ring tones unless you hacked it, wouldn't sync contacts unless you hacked it. I hate to think what they'd do to the iPhone.
I haven't seen much talk about this, but it seems pretty potentially ground shaking to me that they could use something like this GSM/CDMA chip that has been in testing since 1998. Even though some articles suggest availability of the Qualcomm chip wont be until 2011, do any of you think this shines light on the possibility of Apple pulling something like this off early?
OK, I know I am not the typical slashdot cellphone user, I keep a phone for 4-7 years and have been with T-Mo since voicestream days. I have a moto razr version 2 and transfer music all the time to it from the usb connection. Do phone companies really restrict this simple capability?
Why do you think that anytime you walk into an at&t store, you can't go 3 feet without running into something associated with the iPhone? AT&T is trying to get as many customers (suckers) to opt for a long term contract, because they know there will be a hoard of people going to t-mobile or whoever else sells the iphone.
The other providers have Android, which is probably harder on the network than the iPhone since everything is tied into Google and other providers.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Actually, I'm not even sure this counts as a rumor. I mean jeez, somebody's speculation about what somebody else didn't say?
Why is it that "we have been led to believe by an inside source" gets the same kind of headline for Apple as hard news about any other company? Rhetorical question: we all know it's because of the fanboy culture that surrounds all things Apple.
Apple has its good points (and its bad ones), but this endless "What did Bradgalina have for breakfast" tone really gets old.
As an owner of three blackberry devices before the iPhone came out, my reason for not complaining about the network was twofold...
1) Blackberry devices weren't good enough to be anything better than the bottleneck. They didn't do video, streaming audio, and until the 8830, couldn't even render a fucking <table>.
2) I was too busy complaining about Blackberry itself with its terrible speed problems, UI problems and interface inconsistencies. (Tip to the 8830 users: you can set the side button to go to the app switcher, which can function as a "get me the fuck out of this back-button-loop" button.)
....The iPhone itself doesn't really handle the switch from 3G to EDGE very gracefully, so calls that are in-progress tend to fail whenever 3G connections aren't optimal and the phone attempts to step down to EDGE..
Seriously, this makes no sense at all.
Your voice connection is not over IP, thus EDGE has nothing to go with it. InterRat handovers (3G - 2G) are not an easy thing to do. All phones implement this in more or less the same way. That way would be what the core spec says!
EDGE is only for data. Just like GPRS.
It's obviously related to signal strength, the capacity of the network or how the handovers from one tower to another are handled. It always surprises me how people think the size of the surrounding nation affects things like broadband availability and cell phone coverage. Don't give your carriers a free license to suck based on some misplaced nationalistic pride.
Oh really? At which mall kiosk is your finance a clerk? Did (s)he get this insider info during his/her weekly power lunch with Ralph de la Vega?
NEWS FLASH: New England is a sparsely populated area, and EVERY carrier has about the same coverage- many of them are on the same fucking physical tower. Also, if you place your phone in a cradle or use a bluetooth handset and put the phone on the seat or the center armrest, it shields it quite a bit from the car. There are also car windshield heaters and aftermarket tint that is murder on RF.
Do what my father did: buy an RF amplifier/booster with a rooftop antenna. It works great with any phone- there is a transceiver that faces the backplate of the phone. As long as I could get ANY signal without it, putting the iPhone in the cradle gave me almost 5 bars- and in areas where there was no service, I'd often get plenty to make a phone call. In both cases, crystal-clear calls with no cutouts in the conversation, instant reception of text messages, etc.
Please help metamoderate.
Your wireless account has nothing to do with network quality. Secondly, you have illegally voided your contract, ruling you out from any legitimate apples to apples comparison.
Yeah, that's it, I meant that my account affected network quality and I'm a complete moron, hey did you know that planes fly because angels push up on the wings?
Or I could have been saying that, gosh, I've been a customer for almost A FUCKING DECADE and haven't noticed any major problems compared to all the emotechtards that bought iPhones and expect to magically be able to place (and continue) a telephone call anywhere on the planet.
So you're saying that between New England and NYC, your user report has been that more people that you have seen have been complaining in NYC than New England. Again, not a great statistical analysis which networks truly need.
http://www.google.com/search?q=NYC+iphone
Idiot.
Please help metamoderate.
Why do people insist this is carrier specific? I had a friend who had Verizon and lived in NH. When he was driving he'd regularly say "I'm going to lose you in the next minute or so." Sure enough, bam, gone. And Verizon supposedly has awesome coverage.
NEWS FLASH: New England is a sparsely populated area, and EVERY carrier has about the same coverage- many of them are on the same fucking physical tower. Also, if you place your phone in a cradle or use a bluetooth handset and put the phone on the seat or the center armrest, it shields it quite a bit from the car. There are also car windshield heaters and aftermarket tint that is murder on RF.
Do what my father did: buy an RF amplifier/booster with a rooftop antenna. It works great with any phone- there is a transceiver that faces the backplate of the phone. As long as I could get ANY signal without it, putting the iPhone in the cradle gave me almost 5 bars- and in areas where there was no service, I'd often get plenty to make a phone call. In both cases, crystal-clear calls with no cutouts in the conversation, instant reception of text messages, etc.
I wish I had mod points to give you a 5 Insightful. The fact of the matter is you sound around my age [40] and grew up with Radio Shack, Frys and other electronic places that once held Hamm Radios and much more to adapt your products when the retail product wasn't adequate. Today's kid thinks all that crap comes in a pocket size case as if it's going to pick up signals from China.
Rumors about AT&T losing it's iPhone exclusivity have been circulating for a couple of years now and still, if you want an iPhone, you have to sign up with AT&T. Since Apple has repeatedly said that they have no interest in building a phone that will operate on the soon-to-be-obsolete CDMA networks and it will be at least two more years before any other U.S. carrier will roll out a next generation LTE network, AT&T will retain it's U.S. exclusivity by default.
These rumors could very well be FUD circulated by some other carrier (Verizon) in an attempt to cause people considering switching to AT&T for an iPhone to wait just a little bit longer.
This ain't rocket surgery.
Finland, for example, has two times lower population density than the US. And they beat you handily when it comes to coverage.
So, also, I can imagine one carrier can easily be better than the rest, if the generally cut corners as much as they can get away with.
One that hath name thou can not otter
I can confirm this. I was winter backpacking with my father last weekend in the White Mountains of NH. Normally, with AT&T, I get no cellphone reception whatsoever there (with the one odd occurrence of 5 bars near Wildcat-- but I suspect that both Mt. Washington and Wildcat have antennas on them), so upon reaching the parking spot in Franconia Notch and confirming that I had no signal, I just left the phone in my Jeep. However, that night at our campsite at Kinsman Pond, my father realized that he had forgotten to leave his phone in the car. For fun, he flipped it on, and, hey-- three bars! My mom was treated to a MMS picture of a deep woods winter wonderland. My dad has Verizon.
When you consider that the trees around us were covered in nearly a foot of ice and snow, and we were sleeping in a shelter with several feet of snow on top of it, we really were in a cave. Amazing.
Part of the problem is that when other companies have something big to announce, they shout it from the rooftops months in advance. (see: Microsoft) News about Apple, by contrast, has to be gathered from elsewhere, sometimes by uncooperative means, like mining access logs and scrutinizing parts orders.
Add to this the usual collection of attention-mongers and black-hats trying to get a good laugh, and the end result is what the phrase "media circus" was invented to describe.
My ATT / Blackberry Bold actually drops a call every single time I walk into work and move from a 3G network to a 2G one. Pretty annoying.
that everybody had given up on them. Used to be the 'leader' by a long shot - My first phone was a 6110i (I think). Then a 8210 - "so so small". 6310 - "Indestructible and a battery that lasted forever". Then it all went a bit wrong.. the Nokia UI aged. I switched to Sony Ericsson (T28, P800, K800 - maybe some others I've forgotten about) and then to HTC windows devices right up until my current Nexus One. I was a 'Nokia person' and then other companies took the lead. For a while I could ignore the features, I 'liked Nokia' - but eventually I took the plunge and jumped ship. Load of other people I knew remained Nokia people for longer - e.g. my Mum and Dad. Eventually it reached the point when I didn't know anybody who actually went to look for a new phone with 'Nokia' anywhere on the requirement list (OK, they still have one of my sisters).
N900 is lovely (ish) - the problem is that the market they're trying to sell it to isn't even thinking about Nokia any more. Majority split between Blackberry/IPhone. Minority with bit more geekery in their pocket are currently deciding between a re-skinned WinMo (e.g. HD2) or Android (Nexus1, Droid).
There are still a large number of people wanting Nokias, the problem is that the people they've left themselves with just want a phone that makes calls. N900 is lovely, just I can't think of a single Nokia in the last 5+ years I've even considered purchasing. If anything the blind loyalty of the die-hards and 'premium' they've charged for their handsets has tainted the brand. I've had many conversations over the years trying to convince people to try some new brand when I've been asked for advice and the Nokia love has driven me up the wall. No idea how to illustrate this further, but I guess it's like your aged relative continuously buying the same brand of 'previously good' car, merely on the name and ignoring the plummeting quality of the car (Cadillac for Americans?).
If AT&T looses iPhone exclusivity it would really hurt them
I disagree. Actually the loss of exclusivity would help AT&T a lot, as a number of people might well jump ship to other carriers - thus freeing up bandwidth and ending the perception of AT&T as less reliable than other carriers, because the data load would be spread out more equally.
The damage to AT&T was one of lost opportunity, if they had put everything they had into expansion of network they might have been able to keep on top of growth and not had so many people chomping at the bit to get out. Nothing they can do about that now, so the best thing for them is to get immediate network relief for the network they have.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you look at a population map of the US you'll notice that the south-east third of New England is very densely populated. In fact Rhode Island, Mass, and Connecticut are the second, third, and fourth most densely populated states. Even including the less densely populated areas the overall population densely is pretty close to California's.
So no I would not call New England a sparsely populated area, not by any measure.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Yawn. Unless someone has T-mobile, I don't see what the fuss is. Iphone is a GSM phone. Verizion is not going GSM till LTE, which would be doubtful to see this year. Spring is not GSM. Apple went with AT&T because no one's GSM network was big enough in the USA. I'm not saying it's not going to happen, but unless you're carrier is GSM, you won't be using an iphone any time soon.
I'm cheap and have had Bellsouth/AT&T for years and never had any major problems with AT&T and people I know with it don't seem to have any problems, my take is I guess it's where you live. Our company sells equip to multiple vendors and the story we're getting is AT&T has the bandwidth, it's the backhaul from the base station to the RNC that's the problem. A lot of steps from your handset to the network, it's a moving target.
My main complaint with using my iPhone with AT&T is that they force you to pay for an unlimited plan. If you read the contract AT&T defines unlimited as free usage as long as it is not excessive.
www.dictionary.com defines unlimited as: not limited; unrestricted; without any qualification or exception; unconditional.
This is the definition I have been raised to use for the word unlimited. I don't think it is ethical, or even legal, to be able to redefine a word in contract.
Even with AT&T's restricted use of the word unlimited they are still complaining about how much data iPhone users are using. I'm sure there are many AT&T/iPhone users that would not be using as much data if they were not forced to purchase an "unlimited data plan".
But, I'm going to wait and see which providers, if any, start supporting the iPhone. If any of them allow for true unlimited data, at a reasonable rate, I will likely go with them if their coverage area is adequate in my area. Also, I do think unlimited data should not restrict tethering but I would be willing to pay a nominal fee for the ability to tether with a true unlimited plan.
A similar situation happened in the early introduction of commercial Internet services. Monthly plans were restricted by time, then by bandwidth, and then even the big players were forced to provide TRUE unlimited access at a reasonable rate. You do have your bandwidth hogs and power users but when you look at the big picture the majority don't even use a moderate amount their unlimited service. It's the law of large numbers.
I'm glad AT&T is suffering from iPhone usage. I didn't like the exclusive deal in the first place. If I could have my wish answered then on Wednesday Apple would allow any carrier, that uses a sim, to use and sell the iPhone and that AT&T allowed people to get out of their contract periods to get the iPhones off their network.
But, if wishes were horses begers would RIDE!
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
But pointing the finger at others was traditional at Ma Bell in the old days and it has not changed. In my years in radio and networking prior to the AT&T breakup, no outage was EVER their fault.
Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer, Retired
You are right on. We have 3 iPhones we use, and 1 since they 1st came out. We can run virtually all the Apps we want, even w/o 3G.
If you have WIFI and EDGE, 3G is just a luxury you pay more for (not worth it for us). Our phones continue to be up-to-date with the
just fine GPS, videorecorder, 5MP camera, iCam and hundreds of Apps, none of which existed when we bought our iPhones. However,
it may be time to more to a iPad (iTablet) next week, but our 3 iPhone will just "Keep on Truckin" just fine for a lower monthly fee than
others on 3G. Yes! so far Apple has made a product that continues to be upgradable, which is like a gift that continues giving.
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
AT&T's 3G network is a proven joke, but not a funny one. These 'unprintable' 'unprintable' are charging for 3G service but under-delivering a measly Edge 5 times a day, in the 21st century, in America. The Attorney Generals should be taking action and clawing money back from these crooks.
Hallowed are the Ori
Was informed a week ago when I was canceling my Sprint contract. Spring has been really hurting wih the 'get out of contract ETF-free' thing. The reason for the contract change is to accommodate the launch of the iPhone.
It's part of the Jan 27th announcement by Apple.
based on my personal experience and that of people immediately around me. Even then I don't consider my phone purchases to be in any way representative of the majority of purchase dollars.
I guess if I had to make some points:
I think Nokia have lost the clear lead they used to have in 'Making the best phones'. I've been collared by a few market survey things over the last year which were clearly paid for by Nokia and seemed to acknowledge as much (and seemed hell-bent on making me think Nokia were some world leader in hand-held GPS). That's not to say Nokia make bad phones - just can't really think of many that stand out/push the envelope like that 8210 I got oh so many years ago.
What a smartphone is has massively changed over the last few years. I don't actually know myself. Pretty sure it's not a twitter or facebook client. Maybe Exchange Support... An RDP client.. GPS? I've really no idea. There's a pretty smooth gradient of features served over all price points, with no clear mark as to where the phone becomes smart.
Oh and I was wrong - I did nearly buy an N95. Wasn't the features that put me off, but seemingly was a little bit buggy at first (guy who lent it to me to play with, tried to offload it on me).
is they seem hell-bent on making things 'around' the phones. Ovi, music subscriptions, that god-awful games console thingie etc etc.
They're clearly absolutely rubbish at it - and I'd just wish they'd stop trying (or at least burn all their money trying).
In my mind Nokia should make phones - that's where their skill lay. I remember those god-awful early Samsungs and the other Korean phones made out of silver plastic. I remember the lousy interfaces on them (and Motorola phones). Nokias stood out then. Now they don't. I guess maybe it's just Nokia were out the gate first and kept ahead for a while, now everybody else has caught up and has better PR.
Across all the articles in Slashdot, first posts are usually redundant.
Your voice connection is not over IP
Who's to say he didn't mean VoIP calls?
Change happens fast. I stay on the bleeding edge of like seven year old tech. Looking forward to my cheap smart...err..will be dumb phone soon.
Where ever they go, I kind of hope that they raise the unit price, bind me to a 5 yr commitment and don't allow me to upgrade unless I sign a new agreement again, oh and nickle and dime me to death with useless apps that really waste my time , but they are only .99 cents ec so nvm..
"The iPhone itself doesn't really handle the switch from 3G to EDGE very gracefully, so calls that are in-progress tend to fail whenever 3G connections aren't optimal and the phone attempts to step down to EDGE."
Calls are not handled by EDGE, which is just an upgrade to GPRS in radio channel. When 3G (UMTS) signal quality is low and 2G (GSM) coverage is good, the phone should handover a voice call to GSM. Some phones have problems with that - this is true.
Correlation != Causation.
Just because you see the little menu bar icon change doesn't mean thats whats actually going on.
Rapid signal drop as you walk into a building would not just effect 3G/Edge transition but also your phone trying to find a new tower with enough signal to actually stay in contact.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
A) there would be no reason to tell her anything
B) Unless they are breaching their contract, the 5 year deal isn't over yet so this is all just bullshit.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
So this is non-news in the U.S., because GSM = AT&T and T-Mobile. T-Mobile isn't good enough to handle an onslaught of iPhone users.
Unless there's a CDMA chipset/RF section version of the iPhone in the works. That would get Verizon, Sprint, and others into the fray.
+++OK ATH
fixed that for you
At my desk in downtown Houston I can't get reliable voice from AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint but T-mob works fine. Data is fine for all of them. In the rest of the city t-mob sucks (for me) and I get very reliable voice and data from the other 3 carriers, including specifically AT&T. But non-corporate customer service sucks for all three.
Well with the phone companies saying what they can do compared to the next company and vice versa. I don't see the iPhone or any phone achieving it's full potential in the US until either one or several carriers decide to provide coverage in the US like the carriers are able to do in Japan. Both AT&T and Verizon have big faults when it comes to their abilities. Verizon says their 3G coverage covers the entire country but their speed stinks. AT&T claims their speed is tops, but their coverage stinks. The companies are still trying to get 3G coverage throughout and until that happens the latest smartphone will always not run at its full capabilities.
The problem is that the phone and/or tower drops the call too quickly. Almost inevitably, you have a strong signal within a second after dropping a call, so the problem is a failure in the call handoff. If the towers would just hold on a little longer, you'd experience a couple second glitch and then you'd be talking again.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
You don't see this problem in Europe.
yeah, but you do see a lot of Europeans there.
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Take care all.
S G.