O2 network suffering AT&T-like ills
It seems that maybe AT&T in the U.S. is not the only wireless carrier suffering from bandwidth-itis, as the O2 system in Great Britain is showing some of the same signs of failure over there.
Users of Apple’s iPhone network partner in the United Kingdom have been suffering from a surfeit of dropped calls and poor call quality. This is apparently happening with more frequency in high-density areas like London than out in the countryside, as is the case with AT&T in the United States, although AT&T also has more issues with coverage as compared to other U.S. carriers. Both O2 and AT&T have a relatively high percentage of iPhone and other smartphone users, which will obviously increase the strain on a wireless network.
O2 CEO Ronan Dunne was very straightforward about the problems, saying, “Where we haven’t met our own high standards then there’s no question, we apologize to customers for that fact. But it would be wrong to say that O2 has failed its customers en masse.” Dunne went on to lay out the steps his company was going to take to solve the problem, according to a MacObserver story. O2 is planning to add about 200 additional mobile base stations in London in order to increase the amount of bandwidth available in that densely populated city. hey are also working with their software partner, Nokia Siemens to get a better handle on the problems. Third, they are consulting closely with Apple, Research in Motion, and other handset manufacturers to find out more about the applications that are being run on these phones in order to better understand the way network usage is evolving.
The apology and quickly assembled plan of action by O2 is in stark contrast to the reaction of AT&T to their network woes. The biggest responses by AT&T have been to tell smartphone (and especially iPhone) users to stop using so much data and to at least temporarily stop selling iPhones in New York City. That is no way to run a railroad or a wireless network.
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