There ‘s been an awful lot of controversy surrounding AT&T lately:
- ‘Operation Chokehold ‘, the quasi-protest quasi-organized by (presumably) quasi-serious Fake Steve.
- Reports/rumors of AT&T planning to incentivize users to use less bandwith; possibly by charging additional fees for unlimited bandwidth or eliminating the unlimited plan “ the rumors abound.
- Gizmodo posting documentation stating that AT&T has been dropping capital expenditures on network infrastructure ever since the iPhone ‘s introduction.
A pretty bad picture for AT&T being painted here, to be sure, but one thing sticks out in my mind “ what expectations DID AT&T have when the iPhone was introduced?
When the iPhone was introduced, there were only a limited number of apps, no App store, and only one app that did any kind of streaming “ YouTube “ and at low quality (bandwidth) at that. There was no Pandora, no Google Earth, no MLB At Bat. In fact, I ‘m pretty confident that the discussions that Apple and AT&T had at the time likely centered around the expectation that the iPhone would consume somewhat more bandwidth per customer than, say, a Blackberry “ but I don ‘t think they ever imagined in their wildest dreams that a) the iPhone would take off as fast and furious as it did and b) that one day, apps that eat bandwidth like there ‘s no tomorrow would be on just about all of them.
Consider that the stock original iPhone:
- Was Edge only (although they assuredly knew a 3G version was planned)
- Had one streaming video app and no streaming audio apps (save for links from Safari)
- Had no VOIP apps
- Did not readily support uploading pictures and other comparatively large files
- Did not permit iTunes downloads except over WiFi
As a networking professional, I understand capacity planning. At launch, the iPhone must certainly have seemed ‘safe ‘ to AT&T ‘s networking folks “ they probably expected it to sell roughly as well or perhaps a bit better than your average Treo; in other words, from a cap-planning perspective, nothing to get terribly excited about. Unless you watched YouTube 24×7 (and really, two years ago, most videos on YouTube weren ‘t terribly enticing), your data usage was likely pretty low. Sure, you emailed, surfed the web a lot, and looked up stuff on Google Maps; but that was low bandwidth, intermittent traffic. That ‘s what mobile data was before the iPhone, and that ‘s what AT&T was likely counting on.
The App Store changed all that.
Fast forward again to the present, and now there are apps that are constantly using bandwidth that are being run for hours at a time. Compare the bandwidth used for an hour ‘s use of Pandora versus an hour of web surfing and it ‘s no contest; now multiply that times the number of iPhone owners and you begin to get an idea of the huge difference between what AT&T likely expected and the reality that they now face. And it ‘s not just Pandora, of course, but Facebook and Twitter and Google Earth and all the other popular apps that use data.
Think about how often an iPhone was actively used in late 2007 (once the novelty wore off) versus how often it was put away, then compare that to now. If you ‘re like me, you are indeed using a lot more bandwidth now because there ‘s a lot more to DO online now with the iPhone. Back in 2007, we couldn ‘t listen to or watch a 3-hour long baseball game — or listen to Sirius or XM all day at work. I ‘m willing to bet that AT&T was willing to bet that we wouldn ‘t be, either.
‘So, build up the infrastructure! ‘ comes the next pointed barb. Sure, that ‘s the obvious solution “ throw more hardware and bandwidth at it. The concept is simple, but, as they say, the devil is in the details. Undertaking something of this magnitude is measured in years, not months. Even with an unlimited budget, AT&T still must secure permits, identify and arrange for sites, coordinate frequencies, test and physically install equipment, and the other myriad tasks associated with retrofitting old cell sites and installing new ones. It ‘s far from an overnight process; rather, it ‘s extremely time consuming. Further, we ‘re discounting any obstacles, such as problems securing permits, NIMBY-ism over cell site locations, etc.
So while AT&T can fairly shoulder the blame for voice call issues (which are pretty much inexcusable since every customer in a given area is affected), I ‘m not sure that we can hold them totally accountable for not having all the bandwidth required to handle both the mammoth success of the iPhone nor the advent of the App Store. Yet.
Check with me in two years.
Continue reading:
- Everything New Apple Just Announced (Septembe
- Apple Watch Pre-Order
- Apple Research Kit launches with 5 Apps
- Apple TV now only $69
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