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AT&T Fails The SXSW iPhone Test

businessinsider.com

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Re: AT&T Fails The SXSW iPhone Test

#4
Too bad AT&T doesn't have a femtocell product that can route iPhone traffic over local internet connections.

Oh, wait, they do! It's in testing with their own employees. See:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Femtocells-in-2009-99...

Not deploying a few to SXSW would seem a major blunder and lost opportunity -- unless the units are currently so awful they'd be even worse then the current complaints.

Re: AT&T Fails The SXSW iPhone Test

#5
It's still baffling to me that Apple chose to tether themselves to AT&T. They built a mobile browsing device that almost 2 years later is ahead of the competition (at least for now) then tethered it to the worst data network available. It's like they built a Ferrari with wheels that fall off at 65 mph.

Re: AT&T Fails The SXSW iPhone Test

#6

It's still baffling to me that Apple chose to tether themselves to AT&T. They built a mobile browsing device that almost 2 years later is ahead of the competition (at least for now) then tethered it to the worst data network available. It's like they built a Ferrari with wheels that fall off at 65 mph.

I am guessing they didn't have a choice. When they approached carriers, they didn't show them the phone. It was a "trust us, this will be awesome" situation. If you remember, when the iPhone was announced, a VP at Verizon bragged about passing up the deal. It seems that AT&T was the only carrier to trust Steve, much to their credit.

Apple also had stipulated very strict and unusual terms regarding revenue. AT&T was smart to see the upside potential of a radically new device causing users to switch to their network -- again, something that Verizon ignored. You have to give AT&T credit. Even though they have a horrible network, they are very strategically savvy.

Here is the whole story: http://thewickedwoman.com/2007/07/08/why-apple-chose-att-for...

Re: AT&T Fails The SXSW iPhone Test

#7
I have both the iPhone and a blackberry on verizon and I can confirm hands down that verizon is far superior to att (I'm writing this on the iPhone now and it's auto complete turned att to AT&T... Lame). FYI, I live in NYC but when traveling nationwide have had the same experience.

Re: AT&T Fails The SXSW iPhone Test

#8
post #4

Too bad AT&T doesn't have a femtocell product that can route iPhone traffic over local internet connections. Oh, wait, they do! It's in testing with their own employees. See: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Femtocells-in-2009-99... Not deploying a few to SXSW would seem a major blunder and lost opportunity -- unless the units are currently so awful they'd be even worse then the current complaints.

It would also be cool if AT&T had some kind of VoIP/mesh software for the iPhone. That would allow them to benefit from the mass assembly of their customers, and maybe even reduce their infrastructure requirements for the event (rather than increase them).

Re: AT&T Fails The SXSW iPhone Test

#9
post #4

Too bad AT&T doesn't have a femtocell product that can route iPhone traffic over local internet connections. Oh, wait, they do! It's in testing with their own employees. See: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Femtocells-in-2009-99... Not deploying a few to SXSW would seem a major blunder and lost opportunity -- unless the units are currently so awful they'd be even worse then the current complaints.

AFAIK a femtocell can support fewer than a half-dozen phones; you'd need a ton of them to handle the Austin Convention Center. It's not even clear that such density is possible from an RF engineering perspective.

OTOH, T-Mobile is fine and the wi-fi works well (which is impressive with ~3,000 simultaneous clients).

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