“The carrier has had trouble keeping up with wireless data usage, leading to dropped connections and long waits for users trying to run programs on their devices,” Svensson reports.
MacDailyNews Take: That’s messy. Programs – or apps – run just fine; it’s those requiring network access via AT&T’s network 3G or EDGE that might cause users – iPhone or otherwise – to wait.
Svensson continues, “AT&T is upgrading its network to cope, but its head of consumer services, Ralph de la Vega, told investors at a UBS conference in New York that it will also give high-bandwidth users incentives to ‘reduce or modify their usage.’ De la Vega didn’t say exactly how or when the carrier would change its policies, but he said some form of usage-based pricing for data is inevitable,” Svensson reports. “Right now, the carrier has a monthly usage cap of 5 gigabytes on its data plans, the same as other carriers.”
Svensson reports, “Just 3 percent of ‘smart’ phone users are consuming 40 percent of the network capacity, de la Vega said, adding that the most high-bandwidth activity is video and audio streaming. Several applications on the iPhone provide nonstop Internet radio.”
MacDailyNews Take: Radio? What’s that? Hey, now that baseball season’s over, at least we’re not streaming full game video and audio every night.
Svensson continues, “De la Vega also defended the network’s performance, saying testing showed that AT&T’s third-generation, or 3G, network was faster than that of competitors, and that major problems are concentrated in New York and San Francisco, which are packed with smart phone users.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: No U.S. network could have handled what iPhone’s thrown at it over the last 2+ years. While immensely irritating, it’s no wonder that AT&T never turns on the iPhone tethering they’ve been promising us for over a year.