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AT&T Wireless Data Still Growing At 1000%
jfruhlinger writes "AT&T's wireless network came under a microscope when it seemed unable to handle the massive data use boost that came when the iPhone arrived on the scene. The company has since put money into its infrastructure, and that growth rate has slowed somewhat, but it's still gone up 30 times over the past three years."
I just asked my friend who works with Verizon, he says if AT&T data usage was at 1000 GB, 1000% more is just (1000GB + 1000GB/1000%) = 1001 GB, so I don't see what the problem is.
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Or any telco, but especially ATT. When the iPhone/ATT first earned its reputation as a horribly unreliable phone, ATT said they were going to invest $15 billion in the next year to fix the issue. A year later, they boasted that they'd spent $2 Billion in the last year, yet somehow it still wasn't enough. Huh. Pretty sure the ball got dropped somewhere between engineering's requirements and yacht hookers for executive yachts. Just like when the US government handed out tens of billions for infrastructure upgrades that the telcos translated into record profits and third world Internet speeds. Telcos and cable companies enjoy taking the money, see, but the part about investing some of it seems pointless, given their government supported monopolies.
"As much as I loathe Verizon I've never seen them make changes to their network that dicked over existing customers. AT&T has done so on numerous occasions."
Absolutely. Here's some examples:
Analog -- the phone cos (that had 850mhz spectrum) were required to keep analog running until recently. AT&T would keep the *bare minimum* 1 channel running, even in areas where that channel was consistently busy from either analog roamers or TDMA phones still in service. They also didn't maintain the equipment so some of these channels actually didn't work, didn't have the proper transmit power, or were noisy. Verizon tried to maintain the same level of service for analog as for their current services -- if an area had heavy usage they'd run more analog channels, they kept the equipment maintained, and so on, up until the shutoff point.
EVDO -- they made a point of not compromising voice service. In areas where they need plenty of 850mhz voice (CDMA 1X) channels for reliable service, it means they'll have like 1 850 EVDO channel and the rest at 1900 -- it's better to have data slow down at the fringe than to have calls start dropping constantly.
LTE -- they've publicly said they'll keep 1X running until at least 2020, even though LTE will be completed by 2013-2014. (They haven't said anything about EVDO, but once a lot of traffic shifts to LTE they could probably keep 1 channel of EVDO going and it'd be plenty for the remaining EVDO devices) This gives 6 to 7 years for people to switch.
Contrast this to (pre-merger) AT&T Wireless and Cingular, which BOTH quit selling TDMA phones (switching to GSM exclusively) BEFORE they had even finished building out their GSM network. And contrast it to the current situation, where they keep reducing the service levels for GSM-only customers to improve 3G (reducing number of GSM channels, and moving them to 1900 to free up 850 for 3G), while continuing to offer numerous models of GSM-only (i.e. *non*-3G) phones. When I looked a month or so ago, 50% of the models they had on the web site didn't have 3G! THIS is the root of AT&T's present problems -- it's like, if you want people to use 3G, quit selling non-3G phones! Cost isn't an issue any more, there are cheap and basic 3G phones for those who don't want something fancy.
I should note, AT&T's excuses really are excuses -- Verizon's data traffic has been increasing FASTER than AT&T's, to the point that it's predicted VZW will carry MORE traffic than AT&T by sometime in early 2011. Android phones use more data than IPhones, and due to huge Android phone sales, there's more of them too.