“The carrier has had trouble keeping up with wireless data usage, leading to dropped connections and long waits for users trying to run programs on their devices,” Svensson reports.
MacDailyNews Take: That’s messy. Programs – or apps – run just fine; it’s those requiring network access via AT&T’s network 3G or EDGE that might cause users – iPhone or otherwise – to wait.
Svensson continues, “AT&T is upgrading its network to cope, but its head of consumer services, Ralph de la Vega, told investors at a UBS conference in New York that it will also give high-bandwidth users incentives to ‘reduce or modify their usage.’ De la Vega didn’t say exactly how or when the carrier would change its policies, but he said some form of usage-based pricing for data is inevitable,” Svensson reports. “Right now, the carrier has a monthly usage cap of 5 gigabytes on its data plans, the same as other carriers.”
Svensson reports, “Just 3 percent of ‘smart’ phone users are consuming 40 percent of the network capacity, de la Vega said, adding that the most high-bandwidth activity is video and audio streaming. Several applications on the iPhone provide nonstop Internet radio.”
MacDailyNews Take: Radio? What’s that? Hey, now that baseball season’s over, at least we’re not streaming full game video and audio every night.
Svensson continues, “De la Vega also defended the network’s performance, saying testing showed that AT&T’s third-generation, or 3G, network was faster than that of competitors, and that major problems are concentrated in New York and San Francisco, which are packed with smart phone users.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: No U.S. network could have handled what iPhone’s thrown at it over the last 2+ years. While immensely irritating, it’s no wonder that AT&T never turns on the iPhone tethering they’ve been promising us for over a year.
What’s the point of offering all these video and audio streaming apps if ATT isn’t going to allow you to use them at your leasure? Apple needs to have a serious talk with ATT if they don’t want to have disgruntled customers in the near future.
“No U.S. network could have handled what iPhone’s thrown at it over the last 2+ years.”
Awwww, poor ATT.
Apple should stamp that as a disclaimer on the back of every iPhone sold in the US.
I cannot imagine watching a video or listening to a radio broadcast via the 3g network on my first generation iphone.The 3g network speed is intolerably slow and I seldom use it. I use it at home to surf the net via the wifi connection.
So just charge 30 cents to send a mms… or even better charge 15 cents for a sms that says “Hi”
Yes AT&T;, blame your customers for wanting to use your network. Good business model!
so it will be just like Verizon’s 5GB unlimited data oxymoron.
AT@T sucks. Just use a jailbroken iphone without the data plan and save big bucks. WIFI is where it’s at, not some stupid monopolistic phone carrier.
This is the attitude from corporations I find most irritating: You’re using the service you’re paying for more than we expected! Now you must be punished!
Instead of looking at it from the customer’s point of view, and saying: Wow, look what they can do now that they could not before!
Yes, I understand if response is overwhelming. But, the response is NOT to blame the customers for that, but to admit you’re overwhelmed and outline the steps you’re going to take to fix that situation. Not talk about gouging people and antagonizing your customers needlessly. They should be proud to have people stretching what they’re capable of doing. And what did they expect in SF?
“No U.S. network could have handled what iPhone’s thrown at it over the last 2+ years.”
The problem looming is not present overloading of bandwidth…it is the future. More and more people are going to smartphones and a vast suck is inevitable. While some “rationing by price” may be inevitable, the only long term solution is vastly increasing bandwidth capacity.
dave smith:
Jailbreaking the iPhone won’t make any difference, other than letting you install applications not in the App Store.
To avoid AT&T’s data plan, you’d have to terminate your contract early (and pay early termination fee), then switch to the ordinary voice plan. No jailbreaking, unlocking or anything.
If you wish to use that iPhone on T-Mobile, you’ll need to unlock it first. 3G won’t work, though, since T-Mobile uses different frequencies.
your 1st gen iphone doesn’t use the 3G network, Edge is pretty slow, I agree, but that was no surprise. I recall several people holding back on first gen iPhone because it was not able to have 3G, which while not perfect, is still significantly more useable than Edge.
I stand by the Verizon ad. My coverage in San Francisco is simply abysmal and AT&T;should be ashamed of their spotty coverage.
I can’t even answer the phone in my house.
Oh— and another thing— I’ve never had any network performance issues really, my problem is finding and staying connected to the network at all.
@ macrick: I cannot imagine watching a video or listening to a radio broadcast via the 3g network on my first generation iphone.
Ummmmm… first-generation iPhone doesn’t have 3G. Only Edge. That might be your problem right there.
Contrary to MDN’s take, plenty of people listen to internet radio. I have several stations that I listen to off and on that have large mixes that I could never afford to buy; in some cases music that probably isn’t available to buy in the US; I know a lot is not available from iTunes.
Further more, I listen to types of music I would not let take up space on my iPhone, much less buy.
I know this piece is not generally about radio but about video, but I’d be careful about blowing off existing uses of bandwidth you don’t care about. Some uses you DO care about might be next.
Predrag thank you for your comments. I have not bought an iPhone because of the data prices. But I notice the data prices are the same everywhere. I will take note of this and buy a new iPhone next year after the new ones come out.
Apparently I’m one of those few people who has no problems whatsoever with my AT&T service. It works just fine wherever I am. I try to recognize that not everywhere is this fortunate, but honestly, some of the hyperbole you guys use starts to sound a bit unbelievable.
@ Ron Robertson – This is the attitude from corporations I find most irritating: You’re using the service you’re paying for more than we expected! Now you must be punished!
That’s exactly what irritates me, too. They’re advertising “unlimited”, and yet they’re shocked that people are using it in an unlimited way! What did they expect? And caps are not the answer. We’re paying them a lot of money they ought to be using to make their network better, not just to make sure their top execs can buy another yacht.
@Predrag
Simply terminating your contract with ATnT to avoid a data plan won’t work. They “require” a data plan with the iPhone and if they detect that you are using one on their network without one, they will add it back on. And supposedly… they really can detect it.
I would rather use T-Mobile and the WIFI actually to avoid the costs. Jailbroken iPhone here I come..
I’m not the most educated in history, but from what I understand, this is no different then roman empire. An emperor had to go to highest to wow the people for popularity and each one following had to do much better because the masses always wanted bigger and better. We’ve progressed too fast for the telcos to keep up to the highest demand for the public. I love new technology and innovations. My New year resolution will be to try to expect too much too fast.
Oops I meant to say I will expect less and be less demanding haha. And a second resolution will be to proofread before I touch submit
The only way to force ATT to get their act together is to keep hammering their network without relent until they have to upgrade it to the point that it can really handle all the traffic. Incentives to “reduce or modify their usage” just enables ATT to keep running their network on cheap, subpar equipment. As long as you can dissuade your customers from using very much bandwidth, you can afford to remain inadequate.
3 percent of users who need to get a life!
Yeah I also like the we made a boatload of money from your data plans but we don’t want to give you the data you’ve paid for thought. How about we’re going to upgrade our network to be better than everyone else’s?
But but i thought Luke Wilson Wilson said in the ATT commercial that we wouldn’t have ‘headless’ 3G? What a bill of goods..
@ Predrag–
You’re wrong about jailbreaking.
Installing unsupported apps is only one benefit of doing so.
Another benefit is having the ability to turn off Edge and 3G, for the purpose of saving money. Buy a used iPhone from Craigslist or eBay, jailbreak it, pop in your sim card, and turn off Edge and 3G.
It works very well if you don’t mind crippling your phone for the sake of saving $30 per month.
Isn’t ATT situation similar to the SF bay area bridges. As the population has grown more and more people use the bridge, particularly at rush hour. Gridlock ensued but raising the tolls has helped limit the traffic. Charging more for multiple axle vehicles and now they are looking to have higher rates for the busiest times, lower rates for less busy. If it truly is just 3 percent using 40% then 97% should be happy to have less traffic on ATT bridge. Do you folks think it is possible for any phone company to just snap their fingers and increase bandwith instantly. It is taking 13 years to build new bridge accross the SF bay. So many want instant gratification. I am part of the 97% who would be happy to see limits in high traffic areas. Just sayin’
Most of you are missing an important point.
I’ll make an analogy that is close but not perfect, but most of you will understand.
20 guys live in a frat house. They all chip in money for beer. Then on Thursday when they decide to start the weekend early they only find half the beer in the fridge. One guy admits to drinking half of the beer earlier in the week.
His comment to all the other guys, “Hey I paid for the beer too, I can drink as much as I want when I want.”
Now that is not a perfect example but you get the idea. AT&T;stated that 3 percent of the users were using almost half of the bandwidth.
There is only so much bandwidth in the telco lines and backbones. What do you think happens when a T3 is saturated? It grows another line? No! When the pipe is full, you get a busy signal or no signal at all.
Too many iPhone users that have no concept of the network behind the scenes.
So go back to the beer analogy, what should they do to solve the problem?
Buy 5 times as much beer so the one guy has enough for himself?
No.
Cut the one guy off at his share of the beer and make him pay for any extra he wants.
No one wants a beer mooch. Hope this helps.