Disqus
Well, the answer could be both yes and no, depending on what your perspective on things is….
If you are retailer or an Operator selling the iPhone, and you are looking purely at revenue, then yes, Christmas could be a VERY good time – you’ll shift tons of boxes, and sign up tons of contracts – good times all round!
However, if you are a consumer, trying to get on an already creaking network, does the fact that a stackload more data-hungry devices are coming your way make you happy? Doubt it, it means less bandwidth, and more delays, for you!
Amusingly enough, a not-so-very-different bandwidth issue appeared when SMS became incredibly popular – something that was designed to send the odd message occasionally became the communications tool of a generation of youth, and suddenly WHAM – you had millions of messages going through SMSCs (short messaging service centres) and knocking the platform over! And when did that happen? Christmas of course!
Now, the bottleneck isn’t with a particular platform, it’s with both the core and (particularly) radio network – but the net effect is the same – poor customer experience when people fire up their devices, and their chosen homepage takes 5 mins to load!
The network operators are interestingly playing things down, and saying it will be fine – notably, O2 has recently said it’s spending lots of money on building in extra capacity – but given the rate that things like the iPhone and its peers are selling, will that be enough? One thing seems sure for me – the mobile networks, between Christmas and New Year, will be under exceptional strain this year – voice, data, and texts are all going to be slower than usual. So get ready for that, and ………. wait for it ………. wait for it ……… wait for it …….. enjoy! 
[Image via: Apple]
About The Author
Ben Robinson
Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas! He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to 'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device) isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question of why you continue to use it... His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.
