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iPhone's success strains AT&T's network
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Is the Apple iPhone straining AT&T's network?
Has the runaway success of Apple's iPhone overloaded AT&T's cellular network? Are the shear call volumes, text messages and number of web sites visited by iPhone users more than AT&T can bear on its 3G and aging GSM networks? Is this the reason that my wife's AT&T business cell phone waits days before it delivers her messages and hours before she receives voicemail notifications?
This could indeed be the case. You see, AT&T does a slight of hand when it comes to their cellular networks. In any given location, there are only so many "slots" for cell calls.
What happens when all the slots are taken? Simple. Your messages are sent to a holding queue. Your incoming calls are routed to voice mail purgatory. You then become the recipient of a message wrapping you on the knuckles because “you missed a call.” Well, technically speaking, you didn't miss the call—AT&T was unable to complete the call because their cellular network was congested.
AT&T is not alone in this practice. Virtually every cellular provider performs this same sleight-of-hand. "Now you see it—now you don't!" What may be unique about AT&T is that their network (today) has exclusivity for what is arguably the most popular mobile device ever manufactured—the Apple iPhone.
It appears that iPhone folks use their devices—a lot. Probably more than any other smartphone user, iPhoners download applications, stream music, watch videos and browse the Web. And why not? Isn't that why they bought their iPhones in the first place?
But all this non-stop activity places a strain on AT&T's network. It causes delayed messages, calls routed directly to voicemail, and spotty network performance. None of this is especially welcomed by business users. “They don’t even realize how much data they’re using,” Piper Jaffray’s analyst Gene Munster recently told The New York Times. He was referring to iPhone users with unlimited data plans—which describes most of the iPhone business users in the universe.
The Times reports that “The problems seem particularly pronounced in New York and San Francisco, where Mr. Munster estimates AT&T’s network shoulders as much as 20 percent of all the iPhone users in the United States.”
“It’s almost worthless to try and get on 3G during peak times in those cities,” Mr. Munster told the Times. “When too many users get in the area, the call drops.”
So, if your iPhone seems just a bit laggard or sluggish, now you know why. And, as is the case for my wife, if your non-Apple AT&T cell phone also seems a bit under the weather, you can blame it on all those iPhones and hope that AT&T's engineers will soon find a way to enhance their cellular networks.
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