Everyone was quick to cast aspersions on AT&T for not being able to keep up with the demand of the iPhone but a new report suggests Apple’s device wasn’t properly optimized for transmitting and receiving data.
This does make sense because beyond the ill-fated Moto Rockr, Apple had no experience in the cellular space. After becoming a national punch line because of its poor iPhone performance in major metropolitan cities, AT&T sent networking experts to Apple to provide a “crash course” in networking, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“Apple rejiggered how its phones communicate with AT&T’s towers. As a result, the phones now put less of a load on the network for such simple tasks as finding the closest tower or checking for available text messages,” the report said. AT&T networking experts even ribbed Apple’s inexperience, saying it is “past networking 101, 201, or 301” and is now “in a Master’s class.”
This doesn’t mean AT&T escapes responsibility because it did fail to anticipate how much iPhone users would surf the web. It has also added backhaul capability, used 850-MHz spectrum in major cities, changed the way its antennas were pointed, and made other changes to improve service. I’m not an apologist for AT&T in the slightest and it has deserved all the jabs it has received, but I find it interesting that no one ever brought up the idea that Apple or the iPhone could be the source of the problem. I always found it odd that the major complaints in the big cities were iPhone-specific, while the large number of BlackBerry users in the same location seemingly had no problem staying connected or receiving messages.
I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that the iPhone-AT&T combination outranked any other duo in average download and upload speeds since Apple got its crash course. Regardless of who is to blame, the experience does give AT&T an advantage over its competitors because it has already dealt with the deluge of data-hungry users.
[Via The Wall Street Journal (subscription required)]