The Consumerist is reporting that AT&T isn’t selling iPhones to the good people of NYC via their online store, at least for now anyway. The reason AT&T gives (according to TUAW) is that they have seen a recent spike in fraudulent purchases. The Consumerist reports the reason for this sudden halt in sales as “network congestion.”
It appears iPhone is still being sold to NYC customers through both AT&T and Apple brick and mortar stores, as well as Apple’s online store.
This is a curious development for sure. I suspect The Consumerist is right. If this really was about fraudulent purchases in NYC, AT&T would still find a way to sell iPhone. That’s simply too much market share to miss. I have no way of proving it, but AT&T is doing this because their network simply can’t handle the traffic.
If Apple had an legitimate alternative to AT&T they would dump these jokers. Verizon isn’t it, simply because they use a different network frequency (which isn’t an international standard like AT&T’s is), which would require a special Verizon specific iPhone to work. Apple could take this route, but I see it as unlikely, especially since they have been bashing Verizon in their own ads at the height of the recent AT&T/Verizon spat.
The only other large network provider that uses the same frequency as AT&T is T-Mobile. While T-Mobile does host the iPhone in several EU countries, it isn’t a huge carrier here in the States. Again, Apple could take this route, but that too seems unlikely because of the smaller network size. I do see this as a more likely alternative to Verizon however.
This just confirms my previous beliefs. AT&T is at best, inept.
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