Is AT&T Ready for Your iPhone 3G S? No, here’s why:
I’m excited, as I’m sure you are, about the iPhone 3G S. I have just spent hundreds on the 3G, and now, less than a year later, I’m trumped with an even better one… at a lower price, faster, and better. Ahh, the punishment of early adopters. Please sir, can I have some more?
Anyway, according to a USA Today article (as well as a ton of other sources, just google it), AT&T’s network isn’t even ready for the 3G, not to mention the 3G S. As a side note, an unnamed source at AT&T had told me 6 months ago that AT&T is about 2 years behind in mobile capacity compared to where they should be with the iPhone boom they have been experiencing.
According to the article, the average mobile device eats a respectable 70-80 megabytes of data in one month. Not too bad. The iPhone uses far more data becuase of the OS and how it constantly needs to be ‘figuring things out’ ( and also due to the sales volume, 3rd party apps, and its sheer usefulness), it eats about 700 megabytes. That’s 10x more than the average device. Let’s throw a few million of these devices out there every few months, and pretty soon all urban centers with 3G will have a data transfer rate closer to glacial speed.
So, let’s play pretend. And let’s pretend you are an executive at AT&T, and you have a problem. You’re getting downward price pressure from consumers on the device. But the device is still selling like hotcakes. It has literally saved you form bankrupcy (again), but it’s a data hog and your network can’t really handle it unless you upgrade your gear. What would you do?
Well according to the USA Today article, you put off upgrading your gear for another couple of years. So while those of us who bought into the 3G ‘speed’ promise are not getting what we thought… those of you who are buying into the 3G S speed promise aren’t either. You see, the S uses HSPA. Think of it as the new 3G network. And AT&T basically stated they won’t finish upgrading to it until 2011. So while you’re itching for that new burst of speed from America’s largest network… you won’t get it until the 3G S is old news. Bummer.
