

Heavy Data Use Puts a Strain on AT&T Service  - geezer
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/technology/companies/03att.html?hp

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chrisbolt
_Shazam, an application that identifies songs being played on the radio or TV,
takes so long to load that the tune may be over by the time the app is ready
to hear it._

Shazam runs straight off the iPhone. Its load time has nothing to do with
AT&T.

~~~
jodrellblank
Unless it means download from the app store.

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physcab
Boo hoo. AT&T is offering a product just like any other business. They don't
get special sympathy just because they have millions of customers. When I pay
my ghastly $100/month bill I expect to get the service I paid for (access to
internet whenever I want) and as long as I'm getting that coverage, I'll be
happy. Sorry NYTimes, I don't buy it.

~~~
likpok
AT&T has more of a scalability problem than most businesses. Usually you don't
have the laws of physics coming in to interfere quite as strictly.

~~~
stcredzero
If they could fix Austin by bringing in some temporary cells, then they're
facing something besides the laws of physics, at least for that one town. How
does the denisty & bandwidth use compare with Tokyo, Japan?

~~~
gojomo
And how does the red tape required to add a tower/antenna compare?

~~~
chrisbolt
The iPhone has been out for over two years now. There isn't _that_ much red
tape.

~~~
gojomo
Have you been to a community meeting about adding new cell antennas in (for
example) San Francisco or Berkeley? It ain't pretty. See for example:

<http://www.antennafreeunion.org/>

<http://www.no-celltower.com/>

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windsurfer
Title could just as easily be:

AT&T Doesn't Provide Purchased Service

or

AT&T Networks Oversold and Underfunded

~~~
stcredzero
_“It’s been a challenging year for us,” said John Donovan, the chief
technology office of AT &T. “Overnight we’re seeing a radical shift in how
people are using their phones,” he said. “There’s just no parallel for the
demand.”_

Couldn't they just have spoken to telecoms in Tokyo? Then they could've
benefitted from their _hindsight_.

~~~
hedgehog
Their world view goes something like this:

(subscribers + news subscribers - churn) * average rev. per user (ARPU, like
"arr-poo") = $$$

How do you increase profits? A few options:

\- Get more subscribers. Costs money in marketing $$$, only helps a little
bit. Requires more infrastructure.

\- Reduce churn. Customer satisfaction has been in the toilet for some time
and will be for the foreseeable future. Multi-year contracts w/ termination
fees help keep it under control.

\- Sell more stuff to your existing customers (you have lots of those) as long
as it doesn't cost you much (SMS, ring tones, ...). Minimal infrastructure
requirements.

In this view, crappy phones with expensive additional services like SMS,
roaming, ring tones, for-pay WAP, for-pay instant messenger, music stores,
push-to-talk, etc., all make a ton of sense. Your incremental profitability is
great because you don't need too much gear to support these things and you're
already billing the customer. On top of that you can negotiate content deals
and pretend that customers care about the exclusivity (mMode, VCAST,
whatever).

This stuff is what carriers meant by "data services" a few years ago. What's
happening now doesn't fit this model; rolling out better infrastructure costs
a lot of money and one person can use a lot more capacity in data than voice.
1000 minutes of GSM audio is only about 200MB and costs about $60, meanwhile
the same price gets you 5GB of data. Worse, porting a number is often a big
hassle but nobody cares what my IP address is. Imagine a world where your
company just moves bits and the government is starting to question your key
protection against churn (ETFs). If you're an exec at a phone company this is
unattractive. Their attitude is "we don't want to be a pipe" (actual quote
from a C-level).

So it's not that they didn't know, they just dragged their feet a little bit.
To be fair, AT&T in particular cobbled their network together out of a lot of
acquisitions so they probably have had a hard time of it.

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fuzzmeister
As an aside, my life goal is to have a room like the pictured operations
center.

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tesseract
Sorry to stray so far off topic, but:

Miniature computer: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IPhone_3G_S_sides.jpg>

Minicomputer: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pdp-11-40.jpg>

I suppose this is in the same class of usage error as (e.g.) saying 'ordinary
bicycle' when you mean a typical one.

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ajg1977
1) It sounds like AT&T badly need to invest in some form of packet shaping for
their wireless data that prioritizes cell phone data (calls+text+voicemail)
over regular traffic.

2) The iPhone should have the option to use Edge for calls, regardless of 3G
signal, if there's congestion. Heck I'd probably choose to use Edge all the
time, it's so much more reliable in SF.

~~~
cliff
Re #1: Calls+textmessages are already completely segregated from data.

I'm calling bullshit on this article. HSDPA (3g data) runs on completely
different channels than voice calls. Saturation of HSDPA channels will -not-
cause calls to be dropped, poor call quality, or delayed text messages.

It will, as you might expect of a well designed system, instead degrade the
quality of other data connections.

That's it.

You'll notice that in the article, no one quoted blames the data usage on
dropped calls, except one random 'systems administrator' who owns an iphone.

Thanks for playing, NY Times.

~~~
ajg1977
Shrug. All I know is that 3G = calls dropped, 2G = calls solid (irrespective
of displayed signal strength). Repeatable on pretty much any Saturday
afternoon in downtown SF.

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w1ntermute
_“Whether an iPhone, a Storm or a Gphone, the world is changing.” Mr. Munster
said._

Gphone?? I'm not sure Mr. Munster is exactly a reliable source…

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paul9290
I've been using Verizon' MiFi router and my friends old iPhone with no issue.
For me (not much of a phone talker) this works great using text mssge, Instant
messaging, email & social networks to communicate w/inner circle. Have Skype
on it too, though don't use it too much. Verizon's 3G everywhere router is a
bit pricey $60, but cheaper then iPhone's $70 i was paying & getting junky
svc.

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taitems
Is this entirely Apple and AT&Ts fault for trying to achieve a greedy
communications monopoly? (Foreigner here, I believe AT&T is the only one
offering the iPhone apart from outright?)

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gojomo
There were reports months ago AT&T has started testing home microcells -- that
plug into your home broadband, and create a tiny cell zone for voice/etc
traffic that's then routed over the internet.

Has anyone seen or tried such a thing?

~~~
wmf
Since we're already paying for service, femtocells seem like an insult (unless
they're free, which I doubt).

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JunkDNA
Not only should they be free, in my opinion they should discount my monthly
fee if I handle traffic for phones not on my account. That would give people
an incentive to set these things up all over the place.

