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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.
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.
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?
My fiance works for an AT&T reseller and just verified that they are losing exclusivity this week.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.