Sprint President Takes a Shot (Or Two) at AT&T 3G

[ComicalMoodyDan]

Sprint President Takes a Shot (Or Two) at AT&T 3G
By Mark Sullivan , PC World , 09/18/2009

A Sprint exec speaking here today used AT&T as the poster child for 3G wireless networks that can't keep up with the increasing data demands of smartphone users.

Sprint's president of corporate initiatives and CDMA, Keith Cowan, set up the punch line with a couple of interesting statistics about the increasing demands placed on wireless networks. He first cited ComScore's observation that mobile broadband use has increased 71 percent from January 2008 to January 2009. He cited another report saying that the number of people doing social networking on mobile devices will increase to 730 million in 2013, from 54 million in 2008.

Then: "It's also clear that 3G can't do it, as AT&T is quickly learning," Cowan said during his keynote. Cowan was referring to user and media reports of slow and/or unreliable AT&T 3G service for the iPhone.

Cowan said poor network performance can take the fun out of even the funnest device. "As our friends at AT&T are learning, it doesn't matter to consumers if they have the coolest device if the network is so jammed up that it is virtually useless."

In PC World's own 13-city 3G performance testing, which took place in March and April, the AT&T network scored an average reliability of just 68 percent across 13 wireless markets. Competing 3G services from Sprint and Verizon had average reliability scores of around 90 percent in the same markets. A September 1 New York Times story seemed to suggest that AT&T's network challenges are mostly confined to New York City and San Francisco, where a proportionately higher number of iPhones rely on the network.

For months, the tech media has been increasingly critical of AT&T and Apple, over everything from network performance issues to AT&T's no-tethering policy to the recent non-admittance of the Google Voice app into the iPhone app store.

Two days after the New York Times article came out, AT&T released a carefully-produced video, that, while ostensibly announcing AT&T's new MMS service, spent most of its time acknowledging criticism of the AT&T 3G network, and explainig its efforts to beef the thing up to better support data-hungry smartphones like the iPhone. While the video never exactly admitted any AT&T shortcomings, it smacked of damage control.

Nobody, an AT&T spokesperson told me, could have predicted the wild popularity of the iPhone, or the massive amounts of data iPhone owners would use.

Of course Sprint's Cowan was only using the AT&T 3G network as a whipping boy to make the pitch for his own company's 4G network offering. Sprint is rolling out 4G WiMax service over the Clearwire network, which the companies say will be available in 80 cities by the end of 2010.

But Cowan's stats say more about the need for 4G--now--than they do about any one company's offering. Sprint and Clearwire are the first to sell 4G service in the US, and that's important. Hopefully AT&T is being motivated by Sprint's and Clearwire's speed to market--and its own need to provide more bandwidth and reliability to iPhone users--to accelerate its own move to 4G.

But, alas, what I'm hearing here today is that 4G's "big year" won't come until 2011.

Sprint President Takes a Shot (Or Two) at AT&T 3G - Network World

[RadioRaiders]

Originally Posted by ComicalMoodyDan

"It's also clear that 3G can't do it, as AT&T is quickly learning," Cowan said during his keynote.

If ever theres a time to stand up and shout "You Lie!" I think that would be it

That statement is wrong on too many levels. I beleive ATT's problem is one of capacity, ie: spectrum and or backhaul, and lack of spectrum and backhaul will hurt any network regardless of technology (ie: 2G, 3G, EVDO, HSPA, WIMAX, etc). To take a swipe at "3G" which is successfully deployed all over the world, where I today regularly get speeds of 3-6Mbps with and speeds of 150Mbps will be possible with in the coming years, is just wrong.

...however it's nice (in a roundabout way) that by blaming ATT's "3G" network, they admit that EVDO isn't really 3G and can't handle future data traffic demands

[RadioRaiders]

Originally Posted by ComicalMoodyDan

Cowan said poor network performance can take the fun out of even the funnest device. "As our friends at AT&T are learning, it doesn't matter to consumers if they have the coolest device if the network is so jammed up that it is virtually useless."

PS- ATT is your competitor, you have no friends there

PPS- ...and even if hypothetically they were your friends... is it really nice to stand in front of the world and say in your keynote speech "your network sucks" to a friend?

[Quint101]

Originally Posted by RadioRaiders

PS- ATT is your competitor, you have no friends there

PPS- ...and even if hypothetically they were your friends... is it really nice to stand in front of the world and say in your keynote speech "your network sucks" to a friend?

A true friend would reveal your shortfalls in a caring way

But this 3G/iPhone drama has given AT&T competitors ammo to attack the company... I read a release that stated that 3G improvements are not coming to San Francisco anf New York soon Hopefully they will get the networks fixed and/or upgraded sooner than later.

[RadioFoneGuy]

Independent studies have been done on all the major carriers networks and whoever got the iphone from the get go would have had the same problems. The iphone is a whole new breed of Smart/feature phone that constantly hogs bandwidth on the network.

Imagine if Apple would have made a 1XRTT Iphone like Apple made the 2G EDGE Iphone. CDMA networks would have struggled as well.

The articles takes a worst case scenario and puts a spin on it to make it even worse sounding that it is.

EVDO is based off of TDMA which is a timeslot base system. Once you fill up those slots you automatically revert back to 144k 1X.

Like Marry Poppins said "a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down" otherwise take it with a grain of salt.

[bobolito]

Originally Posted by ComicalMoodyDan

Cowan said poor network performance can take the fun out of even the funnest device. "As our friends at AT&T are learning, it doesn't matter to consumers if they have the coolest device if the network is so jammed up that it is virtually useless."

I'd like to see the Sprint network handle 80+ million customers plus 9 million iPhones at the same time to see which network has more problems. Of course, when you've been bleeding millions of customers constantly for the past two years, it's easy to have a network that has no capacity problems. AT&T has the most data demanding device available and for me it is working beautifully. Although we can't deny that AT&T is having issues with capacity in some areas, but they are doing everything they can to catch up, plus, there are many other areas where the iPhone performs great, like Boston, CT and NJ. Those claims that the device is virtually useless sound like they come from an angry teenager.

[strunke]

Wirelessly posted (Opera/9.60 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.2.14912/960; U; en) Presto/2.2.0)

I don't know. I don't see how the iphone takes up any more bandwidth then other smartphones? It doesn't do much different from say the HTC 6800? Or blackberries. I think AT&T has just been slow getting the 3g rolled out. And in turn they are slow to build it's capacity. Add a popular phone and you've got issues. Sprint and verizon and even Alltel had evdo rolled out on a much larger and more robust scale then AT&T did when the iphones launched. I think that those two main competitors would have faired better when it comes to network issues. They had a larger and more mature network and I would venture to say they had more data hogs then AT&T did.



Oh and don't take this as a shot at att it's just you can't say AT&T was ready for this and their network is suffering a little because of it. However the useless comment is a little exaggerated by sprints guy.

[bobolito]

You're right. AT&T has been slow to deploy 3G. But the Sprint & Verizon 3G coverage advantage is due to the fact that they had a 2-year lead in deploying EVDO, not to mention that EVDO over CDMA networks is a much easier upgrade path than going from GSM to UMTS.

As for the iPhone being a data hog, its because of the massive amount of usage a typical iPhone user creates. The typical iPhone app that uses data usually pulls more data than other smartphones because they are more multimedia oriented. Other smartphones typically strip down the webpages whereas the iPhone tries to display full pages. Audio and video streaming is used more on the iPhone than any other smartphone. Plus the cool UI of the iPhone makes it easier to get involved with it more and use it more.

[RadioFoneGuy]

You cant compare EVDO vs 3G UMTS in this sense due to the fact that EVDO is a software and hardware upgrade to an existing system. 3G UMTS is a whole new network. There are new cabinets, backhaul, antennas, switches, routers etc.

CDMA carriers were able to mimic 3G speeds on an existing system with hardware and software upgrades which makes it easier to deploy on a wider scale and at a faster rate. EVDO is based off of TDMA and does have capacity limitations.

Cool Fact "GSM has the capabilites to have 3G speeds similar to EVDO its called Evolved EDGE but most carriers went with upgrades to UMTS'

I have an Iphone 3G and a couple of HTC Smartphones and I can tell you from experience the Iphone uses 4X the data bandwidth the HTC does. I think alot of the high usage is from itunes, app store, geocoding, push email you name it.

strunke your right to a point about AT&T being slower than they should be but I believe it gets made out to be worse than it is in most cases.

I have worked the engineering side of GSM, CDMA and UMTS and they all have their short commings. Trying to increase capacity on any of these networks is not a flip on the switch so to speak and can take months just trying to coordinate the backhaul.

[strunke]

Here is a new related article through Cnet off cnn....

AT&T takes the phone out of iPhone - CNN.com

[RadioRaiders]

Originally Posted by strunke

Here is a new related article through Cnet off cnn....

AT&T takes the phone out of iPhone - CNN.com

Looks like the reporter has a very simplistic "just make it work" attitude:

I wanted to know specifically why my problems haven't been resolved nearly one-and-a-half years after getting my iPhone

Unfortuntely, things aren't that simple, especially in a network as large as AT&T's that spans thousands of miles. The paperwork to add new towers, or even just new antennas on existing towers can take months/years, to deliver and install the equipment also takes time, to plan the network and decide if a new site would even help or not also takes time. It's not just like "I got my iPhone a year ago, haven't you fixed your network yet?"

• "Terrible in SF. Probably 1 out of 3 calls gets dropped," wrote a 3G iPhone user.

The opertor has the true drop rate. If 1 in 3 calls on their network dropped, they'd be out of buisness. I've never seen a network that had a 30% drop rate.

• "My (3G iPhone) won't work inside my house. I'm thinking about selling my house and finding a new one.

Nice to know it's sane and reasonable people who are the ones complaining

[crood]

Originally Posted by strunke

Wirelessly posted (Opera/9.60 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.2.14912/960; U; en) Presto/2.2.0)

I don't know. I don't see how the iphone takes up any more bandwidth then other smartphones? It doesn't do much different from say the HTC 6800? Or blackberries. I think AT&T has just been slow getting the 3g rolled out. And in turn they are slow to build it's capacity. Add a popular phone and you've got issues. Sprint and verizon and even Alltel had evdo rolled out on a much larger and more robust scale then AT&T did when the iphones launched. I think that those two main competitors would have faired better when it comes to network issues. They had a larger and more mature network and I would venture to say they had more data hogs then AT&T did.



Oh and don't take this as a shot at att it's just you can't say AT&T was ready for this and their network is suffering a little because of it. However the useless comment is a little exaggerated by sprints guy.

Typical smartphone use is business oriented, primarily e-mail and PIM stuff. Are there available data intsensive apps? Yes, but the iPhone is really the first consumer oriented smartphone. We're talking audio and video download, games, etc on top of basic e-mail and web browsing. It isn't the device, it's whose using the device and what they're using it for.

Also, prior to the iPhone, smartphone adoption was fairly slow. You've now added millions of smartphone users who'd probably be using a regular phone otherwise. That's going to stress any network that wasn't scaled for such an enormous increase.

[bobolito]

I'll second that. Also, let's not forget the flood of those other "iPhone killers" that came out. They only came out after the iPhone came out and while their combined market share is insignificant, they have helped fuel smartphone adoption in the mainstream.