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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."
"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.
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.
Have you actually tried both?
Android's fine for geeks who don't like fuild usability, but it'll take another generation or two for Android to catch up.
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.
Man you are dumb.
For one the market share for iPhones is still much much larger then all the Android based phones out there. It is second only to RIM Blackberries.
Most mobile application/web development is primarily tested for the iPhone So right now iPhone as more apps.
The iPhone is the standard that all the other phones need to set the bar against.
It isn't about features or technology it is about mindset. Right now the iPhone is still the winner (next year who knows bur right now they are the winner)
AT&T got a lot of new customers just because people wanted the phone... For the most case this is opposite... People search for the plan they want and get the phone. If AT&T looses iPhone exclusivity it would really heart them. Well lets go with the other ones instead they may have better coverage or faster network. Spring G4 iPhone would be cool. Perhaps Verizon my have a cheaper Service. Perhaps t-mobile will allow tethering.
Android is still second fiddle... I for one like to see it grow and give apple a good run for its money however you have to be an idiot to think the iPhone is irrelevant.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
So why didn't you wait till next week to publish a verified fact?
Was thinking the same.
This bit from the post: he 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.
That is enough for me to delay my purchase until I see something really good.
Home of The Suki Series
My fiance works for an AT&T reseller and just verified that they are losing exclusivity this week.
In what way is that "GSM"'s fault?
As far as I understand it, the older version of the EDGE protocol that's being used on many a tower doesn't include a procedure for passing in a call that was being handled by 3G, so it just drops.
Admittedly, it is easier to design a simple fluid interface when you can only run one application at a time. It removes one level of complication that most of the other smartphones need to deal with.
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.
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 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?
No wonder, when the whole country population is about a half of NYC (5.5 vs 9 millions)
No one in the US (except for TMobile customers?) gets a discount on the actual service if they buy their phone outright. From recent postings on other cell phone threads - and my own personal experience with ATT - once your "contract" is up, where the subsidy should disappear... it doesn't. We get to pay the same rates as if we were still subsidizing a phone.
Karnal
The USA really has extremes in population density. We have NYC and we have North Dakota. This is why CDMA was, at one time, the favored technology here in the U.S. GSM cell sizes are fixed at 45km. CDMA can go much larger (for greater coverage area, less capacity), and of course, can also go much smaller (for higher capacity).
It is no wonder that Verizon has the best coverage in North America.
Of course you can make a reliable GSM network that covers a vast area and has high capacity. It just costs a lot of money.
Are you just trolling? It's right on their front page as the 5th flash advertisement. If you click on it it goes to:
http://www.att.com/wireless/iphone/
They also have a "quick link" in their menu right to the iPhone 3Gs page.
People don't want them here in Europe, either, at least on the countryside. People don't care about them in the cities, I think. At least I never heard somebody even talking about these towers here in Munich, except if the reception is bad.
There was a very funny story a few weeks back here in Germany (I'm citing off the top of my head, maybe I don't get it 100% correct, sorry for that): A company erected a new cell tower and people began to complain about health issues like headaches that they directly blamed to the tower. After a few weeks there was some kind of meeting between the people and company officials where the people demanded that the tower gets switched off immediately because of their health problems. Turned out the company switched the tower off three weeks before said meeting due to some technical problems :-) Fine example of a negative placebo, IMHO.
You see the thing is, a carrier in Finland only has to compete with another carrier in Finland. In the U.S., you have to cover the whole country if you want to compete. Are there any carriers who offer the same level of service for the same price no matter where one goes in Europe?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I have never, ever had this problem on my iPhone, and I live in an area of the UK with mixed 3G and Edge/2G coverage - my house is in an area with no 3G, and driving a couple of miles down the road gets you into the 3G zone due to the town nearby. I have never had an issue with dropped calls due to going in and out of 3G coverage.
Whether this is due to the network (I am on O2 in the UK), or the phone I am not certain.
Put it this way, that sentence makes an assertion about what the iPhone does when it tried to fall back to Edge. My own experience is different. The truth is therefore likely somewhere in between, and the call issue may just be related to AT&T and may affect android phones in the same way.
I also think that the "who cares?" post is a little bit naive - clearly a lot of people *do* care, since they are selling iPhones hand over fist. I welcome the introduction of the Android phones - more competition will drive the market (hopefully) to be better for all consumers, but outside of the most hardcore of geeks who have some sort of axe to grind about Apple, the iPhone is still a long way from a "who cares?" device. Proponents of Android that treat the competition that way would do well to be careful (and vice versa - Droid-based phones are going to offer some serious competition to 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..
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.
Actually, Tmobile's new unlimited plans do provide a break to those who pay up front. Their plans are $10/mo more with a subsidized phone with a 2 year contract compared to paying for the phone and having a month-to-month plan. If you look at their phones and the amount of the downpayment with a subsidized plan, it's clearly a better deal to just buy the phone and go MTM.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
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.