Is AT&T fix too little too late?
AT&T, long the bane of an otherwise ethereal iPhone experience, claims to be solving part of the problem by rolling out their 850MHz 3G band service. Too little, too late?
AT&T says that they have begun to roll out their 850MHz 3G spectrum wireless network service this week, and has plans to move that service from a test-bed in Atlanta to more than 350 service areas nationwide. They also say that the plan will take over a year to complete, meaning that many of us will not see any improvements, if such are to be had, until late in 2010.
AT&T is arguably the worst of the large American wireless carriers, by almost any measure that one chooses to use. There are uncounted complaints about dropped calls, spotty coverage, lack of MMS and tethering, and even that their weak network is causing iPhone batteries to drain prematurely while desperately seeking a solid connection to a cell tower, according to a PCWorld story.
Earlier this week, there was even a smartphone satisfaction survey released by ChangeWave in which AT&T got one of the few negative mentions in the iPhone results, and it could have been all of the negative results if there is any credence to the rumor that AT&T is causing iPhone batteries to drain so quickly. As it was, the iPhone got a 99 percent satisfaction rating in the ChangeWave survey, the highest rating that they have ever seen. Without AT&T in the picture, if could have easily been 100 percent.
The real question is, will iPhone customers be mollified by a system upgrade that should have been performed at least a year ago, and which still does not address the tethering and MMS issues? When they finish the upgrade to the 850MHz system and then a planned upgrade from 3.6 Mbps to 7.2 Mbps, they will still be more than a year behind Verizon. They will have, in fact, just caught up to the needs of the iPhone today, and those upgrades will not be complete until after a new, and probably faster, iPhone handset has been released.
Yes, then, it probably is too little too late. AT&T has simply laid back on whatever laurels it may have gained in the past and raked in the profits from the best smartphone on the market. The only real drawback to the iPhone is the wireless service, meaning that AT&T is the leading drag on the growth of iPhone sales. If the iPhone were available on Verizon, many people would feel that it was worthwhile to pay a fee to get out of their contracts early just so they could get some reasonable service. Please please, Barcack, do not bail out AT&T.
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