AT&T – No iPhone sales in New York City
After a confusing night and morning, it is apparently still true that AT&T is no longer taking orders for the iPhone online if you live in New York City, though the reason is being spun this way and that.
The first source of this somewhat mind-boggling news was bloggers, who reported that it was because AT&T simply could not handle any more iPhones on it’s battered and ancient New York City infrastructure. There was even confirmation of that from several bloggers who called AT&T and were told that was actually the problem. More recently, there appears to have been some AT&T corporate attempt to spin the sales ban into something having to do with fraud in New York City, as if online fraud was something that was based locally.
Regardless of whether you are buying into the spun or the un-spun version of the story, the sales stoppage has renewed discussions about whether or not AT&T’s network can handle the high traffic generated by iPhone users, especially in markets like New York City, according to a Wall Street Journal story. Owners of the iPhone tend to use the Internet a great deal more than other wireless customers. AT&T contends that mobile networks are not designed for such heavy data traffic, although all that has been proven to date is that the problem applies to AT&T’s own network.
AT&T has offered up the following very lame reasoning behind the unwillingness to sell the iPhone in the New York City area: “We periodically modify our promotion and distribution channels.” They have also offered up some equally lame excuses about problems with fraud. What is for sure and certain is that you can’t buy an iPhone from AT&T today if you’re a resident of New York City. I would find it especially interesting to know what Steve Jobs and company are talking about in Cupertino this morning and whether wireless networks other than AT&T are a part of those conversations.
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