Apple and AT&T: network problems and the Verizon option
Wired has a great article up detailing the borderline relationship between Apple and AT&T, how both feel the other has failed them, and how both just can’t leave.
The two corporations have argued about almost everything. Jobs has been apoplectic about the state of AT&T’s network and what he views as its slow-footed upgrade efforts almost since launch day three years ago. One Apple source says that Jobs has discussed dropping AT&T at least half a dozen times.
AT&T executives aren’t so crazy about Jobs, either. They complain that Apple hasn’t accepted its fair share of the blame. They say — and Apple sources confirm — that the software running the iPhone’s main radio, known as the baseband, was full of bugs and contributed to the much-decried dropped calls. What’s more, Apple had chosen to source the radio from Infineon, whose hardware was used widely in Europe but rarely in the US, where cell towers are placed farther apart and reception is therefore less forgiving.
There are lots of zingers, threats of escalating to Steve Jobs, threats of Jobs screaming at AT&T CEO de la Vega, and threats to go to Verizon. Scott Forstall and an Apple team reportedly examined the Verizon option from a technology point of view, and collaborated on that hybrid Qualcomm GSM/CDMA chip we heard about back during CES.
For their part, AT&T is spending billions, building out their network, while at the same time capping data and introducing tiers that seem comfortable now but will become a huge constraint as LTE/4G and wireless video and other data-heavy technologies take off.
Check out the full article via the link below. Well worth the read.
[Wired, thanks Doug and everyone who sent this in!]
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Don’t be thinking A Verizon phone would be a better option. It would probably be worse. But competition in general would be good.
Makes me think that ATT started the whole antanaegate thing just so Apple would get a black eye, or at least, humble a little bit. Its like when two superstars on a sports team can no longer co-exist(kobe and shaq); its the beginning of the end for this relationship.
Hmm, nah, the capped data will become a huge pain now that you can multi-task in the background. Listening to Pandora/Slacker in the background while your doing other things where you couldn’t before iOS4, now you will see more usage than you did before. That is why the data AT&T shown before were very low because you couldn’t get access to all that data in the background.
The solution(s) submited but no response - Mark Papermaster Senior Vice President of Devices Hardware Engineering Apple Inc.
By fax: 408.974.8086
Dear Mr. Papermaster:
Micro-Ant is a small privately held company that specializes in antenna solutions for commercial, consumer and military applications. We employ antenna engineers who develop and manufacture antennas for a variety of customers including sellers of handheld SAT phones including TerraStar, ICO and SkyTerra all of which required antenna design that factored in the hand and the head of the user as opposed to traditional free space design.
While I imagine that you are inundated with offers of improved antenna solutions, I can assure you that our design processes will maximize antenna performance in “hand to the head” use.
James D. Francis CEO jamesfrancis@comcast.net
Verizon had their chance in the beginning to have the iPhone first, but said no because they wanted more control than Apple wanted to give. Fine. Whatever, they’ll be on Verizon eventually.
Funny how at D5, Jobs sat down next to Gates and talked about how he wished that Apple played better with its partners in the beginning and maybe that’s a reason why they lost the market share wars. Now today he is still doesn’t play well. I guess he never learned.
I will say this though, and I am sure that I will find many people opposed to my thought process, is that AT&T will be the carrier in the US best suited for future data networks. They are spending a lot of money building their infrastructure and they also know first hand what massive data usage does. T-Mobile doesn’t seem ready, Verizon hasn’t experienced X000% data usage increase, nor has Sprint.
Play with others Steve or else you will fail again.
I’ve said a long time that a verizon iphone wouldn’t necessarily be a home run for Apple.
They make AT&T bend over. They have full control of marketing, support. They forced AT&T to develop full displays away from other phones…a sort of mini apple store in each AT&T store. They get heavily subsidized by AT&T.
They’ve turned AT&T into the dumbpipe and pretty much have left it to users to deflect much of the criticism to AT&T concerning dropped calls, to have tethering or not, to have apps on 3G or not, etc.
Yes, AT&T benefits but they’re also hard pressed to do much else. How do you introduce and market a new phone such as the Pre Plus with all these constraints? Or the Captivate?
And AT&T takes the hit for the all the dropped calls. Most love apple while the reverse is true for AT&T. That’s not the result you want if you’re AT&T and yet Apple isn’t helping that at all with vague comments like Verizon “might be” an option.
Will Verizon give all this to apple? And if not, then is it even worth it to apple to then lose this control from AT&T? I could see tmobile or sprint willing to do more though.
@ghostface147 – Agreed!
AT&T’s network is easily the most data-ready network of the big 4. I have an iPhone 3GS; and I get dropped calls. And even though I get frustrated at times, I know that there’s no other carrier that could maintain an iPhone’s bandwidth usage like AT&T. I signed up back in 2006 when they were still Cingular; and I don’t remember dropping anything when I had a regular phone. And before that, I had Verizon – which was great. It wasn’t until I started using an iPhone last year that I started experiencing these problems. So one doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. The problem is the iPhone! It drinks more data than a Hummer does petro! The article mentioned the iPhone’s baseband being the possible culprit; and I’m inclined to believe it. All in all, I look forward to the exclusivity contract ending. Put the iPhone on other carriers and see what happens!
“They say — and Apple sources confirm — that the software running the iPhone’s main radio, known as the baseband, was full of bugs and contributed to the much-decried dropped calls.”
This looks total crap to me, unless Apple is feeding us (non-US residents) with an updated and non-bogus baseband… I have not had 1 dropped call since I bought my first iPhone.
And, I doubt both parties have right to whine (if they do, which I doubt more) as they all knew each other very well when they decided to get married.
+1 i have had maybe one dropped call in the year i have had my iPhone and i live in western north carolina. we just got 3g in december and i am pretty sure i havent had one dropped call since then. Its the ones that point the finger most that is hoping no one is looking at them. who cares who fault it is? they are both getting black eyes from it and need to do whatever it takes to improve the customer experience. customer service seems to be the last thing they are worried about.
Competition is good!
Apoplectic? Really?
I read T-Mobile probably won’t be around much longer. Supposedly, they’re dying along with Blockbuster, Kmart, and others.
You’ll flame me for this…. But I don’t think Verizon would take iPhone now. They’ve invested an ENORMOUS amount into their Droid brand. So much so that success of Android on other carriers is directly related to Verizon’s campaign.
And since – let’s face it, this is about business – taking down the competition is goal 1, Verizon not taking iPhone strengthens Verizon’s position. That would force Apple to go to Sprint (notorious reception & financial problems) or T-Mobile (good service generally but a small network). These are documented facts.
In view of that, Verizon would live on with Android while AT&T (their closest competition) struggles to gain customers if Apple left. Apple’s only viable option would be T-Mobile. But the network is too small.
This scenario I’ve just played out is probably why neither has terminated the relationship. AT&T needs Apple as much as Apple needs AT&T.
…Now if they Apple made the iPhone available on all 4 carriers as well as regional carriers…. Now we have a ballgame.
@Tallbruva: Your scenario is possible, but unlikely. Verizon has publicly mentioned that they are ready for the iPhone and have told Jobs themselves they want it. Many Verizon customers want the iPhone and will get it once the carrier does. I think we won’t see it until 2012, which is when the exclusivity between AT&T and Apple legally expires. It could be bought out sooner.
It will be on Verizon, mark my words. The question is when. I don’t see it happening until 2012 and the LTE (which is not really 4G) is more readily available on their network, with backwards compatibility for CDMA.
I’ve heard similar stories coming out of a gIaNT ELectronic chip manufacturer as well. Apple asks for a ton of control over their systems. I think it pays off in the end many times. But you’re going to ruffle some feathers when you’re picky. If it was Verizon three years ago, I’d bet there’d be a similar love between those two by now as well.
Ironically, I think it was BECAUSE Apple demanded only a small set of device models and therefore settled on one frequency variant (GSM) that they put themselves in a corner. Few other device manufacturers make devices for only one provider.
Something about eggs in baskets comes to mind..
Verizon has far more spectrum going forward and the only set block of nationally contiguous spectrum. What was Jobs’s justification for going to Intel from PowerPC? A better roadmap forward. Verizon offers a better roadmap forward over the most important resource of all, spectrum.
Oops. One addendum. Inwas specifically talking of the gold standard, high propagation 700 MHz block of LTE spectrum that Verizon won on a national level by agreeing to Google’s demands in FCC Auction 73.
[transmission] : Bringing the iPhone over to Verizon only accelerates the evolution of Skynet’s A.I., as it will drive AT&T to a technological breakthrough that will inevitably lead to A.I. “self aware”. [end transmission]
SPRINT FTW!!!
@ghostface147
What are you talking about? Both VZW and Sprint handled more data than AT&T. http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/04/13/verizon-and-sprint-handled-16bn-more-mb-of-data-than-att-in-2009/
AT&T is famous for just stupid decisions. I know Apple is not perfect, but if I was AT&T, and a client was bringing in tons of money to me, I would do anything to keep the client happy. I do not think they really looked at the possibility of the iPhone in 2007, and how it was going to strain their system. I am lucky, I live in an area near the interstate. There are cell towers all over. Ther are still a few areas out in the middle of nowhere, and no carrier has good reception. Well only one. It’s called landline.
Fraydog.
You are very very wrong. You need to do more research. I’ll condense it down for you like this…
The 700mhz band was mostly being used by analog tv transmission. After the digi tv switch, most of the band not already auctioned off or already owned was bought up by verizon, because they are running extremely low on data throughput due to the spectrums they own for CDMA. What you didn’t mention was that AT&T had previously already bought alot of 700mhz spectrum back in 2002 & 2003. Also during this recent auction of spectrum AT&T did buy more spectrum too, but didn’t need as much because they already had plenty. This spectrum is going to be used for the deployment of LTE by BOTH carriers.
Btw, this spectrum will mostly be used for digital voice data, as it has a lower throughput than some of the higher spectrums that will be used for data. This spectrum will have farther reach however.
Another reason AT&T has a much better roadmap… AT&T can farm their 900 and 1800 MHz GSM bands and switch them to LTE much much easier. We’ve already seen how they can do this with the upgrade to 3.5G on HSPA+. Since GSM bands are already worldwide, the WORLDWIDE switch to LTE by carriers already using GSM will be more fluid. CDMA however, will have to be reorganized since putting LTE on an existing CDMA band requires 5mhz of width per channel and LTE only actually needs 1.4mhz. In other words, it’s going to take longer and be more difficult for verizon to farm out their CDMA bands for LTE use than it is for ATT.
Att has more towers, has more spectrum, and already has more throughput than vzw. They had to, because of the iPhone.
Now, even though pretty much all carriers except sprint (wimax) will be switching to LTE, doesn’t mean any phone will work on any carrier. They will still use different bands.
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