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you are exactly right, the only reason people understand freeway traffic is cause they get a good visual sitting in the middle of it.

Yep. Most people need something they can related to on it. They can understand highway construction as most people have had to deal with it and know it takes a long time to finish.
 
While true people do not care, that is part of hte issue. The masses are to stupid to bother trying to understand the problem and compare it to something that makes sense to them.
FSJ is a great example. He to clueless to compare it to something else correct. He compared it to manufacturing which is not a way to compare it. Comparing it to highway traffic is by far a better way to do it. Since you can never build up a supply of that to sell later. It is either you have it or you dont.
Also comparing it to highway shows how hard it is to increase how much there is. Everyone knows highway and road construction takes a long time to add and complete. Most it it years in the making to figure out what is needed 10-20 years down the road. Bridges are designed to last a 100 years for a reason.

If people understood why there are problems they would be a lot more understanding but they do not want to take the time to understand the underlining problems. No one could of predicted how fast the bandwidth demand increase would of been and how fast it has been. The existing models they had to work with was mostly based on increase demand in voice services which are very predictable. Data on the other hand is growing at an insane pace and no one has a good idea on what the future holds. It is all guess work right now and I expect for a while to come.

So... quick question, if you read AT&T's financial reports, it seems to indicate that AT&T's spending on improving the network, adding more cell towers, etc. has ACTUALLY DECREASED ever since the iPhone launch. Yet, their revenues (wireless) have increased. Why is that hmmm?


w00master
 
I just want a plan for unlimited EDGE data. Surely it would cost less than the "one size fits all" plan they have now. I never use 3G because it isn't available anywhere near me.
 
So... quick question, if you read AT&T's financial reports, it seems to indicate that AT&T's spending on improving the network, adding more cell towers, etc. has ACTUALLY DECREASED ever since the iPhone launch. Yet, their revenues (wireless) have increased. Why is that hmmm?


w00master

Does that matter. What other stuff have they been investing the money in. It could be on backbone of the network or on R&D. They know 3G is a only a stop gap and will be over run. They have still spent billions on it. Do not forget the red tap.

Other thing you have to think about is just putting up towers to put up towers is a waste of money. I willing to bet in some markets they have reach the saturation point of towers and can not add any more. Most of the Major cities are either at that point or are getting close to that point.
 
Does that matter. What other stuff have they been investing the money in. It could be on backbone of the network or on R&D. They know 3G is a only a stop gap and will be over run. They have still spent billions on it. Do not forget the red tap.

Other thing you have to think about is just putting up towers to put up towers is a waste of money. I willing to bet in some markets they have reach the saturation point of towers and can not add any more. Most of the Major cities are either at that point or are getting close to that point.

It does matter, because they've been telling consumers that they've been "improving the network." Yet, there's little to show for this.

Why did they REDUCE spending on this then? Their REVENUES ARE UP? Don't they want to hear less complaints? Perhaps they don't.

w00master
 
It does matter, because they've been telling consumers that they've been "improving the network." Yet, there's little to show for this.

Why did they REDUCE spending on this then? Their REVENUES ARE UP? Don't they want to hear less complaints? Perhaps they don't.

w00master

Revenues are up. what about profits.
There are other things they could be dumping the money in other than just building towers. There is a lot more to the cell system than that. Pulling money out of towers to improve the backbone is still improving the system. Just not put on the tower side or things. That or they needed more server to handle increase SMS/MMS, data demands and so on. None of which would be bill under tower construction.
 
Revenues are up. what about profits.
There are other things they could be dumping the money in other than just building towers. There is a lot more to the cell system than that.

Ever since the iPhone, 80% increases overall for AT&T.

Yet, they cannot help out with cell traffic? Quit being an apologist and step away from the kool-aid... Seriously dude.

The iPhone is AT&T's number 1 wireless product. Yet, their coverage in many key areas: NY, SF have NOT IMPROVED since the launch. Don't you think they would want to at least TRY AND HELP out here? Give me a freaking break.

w00master
 
You can't just throw towers down too, you have to think if they will interfere with each other.
 
offers users the choice of using their own cellular minutes for calls or purchasing an unlimited calling plan for wireless calls routed through the device.

wow, how nice... i can use my minutes for the call going through MY OWN INTERNET...

or i can choose to pay ATT for unlimited use OF MY OWN INTERNET.

how the hell is this justified? they charge me for using someone else's bandwidth? how does that make sense?

or they charge me for minutes that i'm not using. awesome. :rolleyes:
 
The growing coverage provided by Wi-Fi hotspots will take care of some of the demand for bandwidth, but growth in demand seems likely to outpace it for some time to come.

I've noticed a marked decrease in wifi hotspots over the last few years, particularly free ones. 5 years ago I could find free wifi all over the place, but now it's pretty rare. Is it just a Colorado and New Mexico thing or have others noticed this as well?
 
In my opinion, I think $30 per month for data in addition to $60 per month for the line (and then $30 for unlimited texts) is excessive for how I normally use my iPhone. Because of that, I feel zero remorse for tethering my connection to my laptop (although I know I should). So, a tiered system may be good if the pricing was more reasonable as I would not be such a high bandwidth user any longer.
 
I've noticed a marked decrease in wifi hotspots over the last few years, particularly free ones. 5 years ago I could find free wifi all over the place, but now it's pretty rare. Is it just a Colorado and New Mexico thing or have others noticed this as well?
Here in Los Angeles it seems that more and more retailers are using wifi as an incentive for people to stop in, accepting the risk that you'll hang out there without buying anything. But that's just my impression. I have seen no statistics about whether free wifi coverage is growing, stable, or even shrinking.
 
I don't know... A solution to this problem of AT&T not having the service capacity seems like it could be solved by, oh... bringing the iPhone to other service providers (thereby spreading the 'burden' of the iPhone). And I'm not some butt-hurt T-Mobile user. I don't even live in the States...I have O2 for goodness sakes (which, incidentally, has rights to the iPhone - oh, wait, Tesco now does too). =P
 
if this happens in the UK i'm going to slap Steve Jobs, paying for cellular data, whaaaaat :mad: then again we have 4 companies offering the iPhone... only 1 in the US, Apple need to buck their ideas up, they are making a mess of a good product :mad:
 
How about $10/month and apologies for all the dropped calls and data connections? When the service improves, then we'll talk about price.

I don't doubt iPhone tests the network. iPhone actually uses the network. I can't imagine why everyone's looking forward to tethering, when the network can't even pull down a few maps or surf a few web pages for a phone. Do you imagine tethering will work any better with the demands of a full computer trying to squeeze through the phone?
 
how can people complain about other users usage of the net? have they forgotten how much we pay for our iPhones, its INSANE!!!!, you can literally go out there and compare prices with other companies and we are the top 3 suckers that pay allot just to use the phone, and you complain that others are hoging the network wen years before we talked about watching TV on your phone, but now that the technology is there o its the other users fault that i don't get service and my calls drop :s

they knew that the time was coming were networks are going to be used in ani way shape or form, they were just not prepared (or didn't want to spend the cash and got greedy with the iphone profit) and now they want to say, "well lets just make a plan for the low consumers and the hi consumers will charge more" WELL NO !!! they shod just give us beter service to begin with, its not my fault that there network was beat to death instead of evolving after all the cash they charge a month. And the fact that i haf to be considerate with mi fellow iPhone users so that they can get good service to, this feels like i am in the cheapest company that only wants money and not give what they are suposed to.

if the iphone were cheaper than yes it be great but lets be serious this is not cheap. Multiply the number of growing iPhone users in the net by what they get charged a month and go tell ATT to fix there issues with that and stop fu*@ me around.
 
IF AND WHEN they do that, I'm G O N E !

I'm not even getting 3.6 for speed! The phone is capable to 7.2!

that has been covered on numerous technical blogs that the 7.2 is an ideal max bandwidth that will never be seen in the real world. it's only achievable in a lab setting
 
This is basically AT&T indirectly saying their network sucks and that they'd rather you not use the data you paid for.
Here's an analogy that I hope makes sense: Consider a buffet restaurant. They advertise "all you can eat" and base their food supply and equipment purchases (dishes, refrigerators, etc.) on an expected number of customers and an expected average meal size. If they run low on food as customers show up, their meal size prediction might have been low and/or their business might be doing better than expected. Either way, they need to adapt, e.g., buy more refrigerators. If they don't, they're hurting both their customers and their business.

If some customers are eating way more than others, they could try to stop them on the spot, and probably get a lot of bad publicity. They could raise prices to cover the true average. Or they could consider switching to tiered pricing. If they choose tier levels based on the weight of food in a meal, they are bound to get complaints, but it's not unfair. If they noticed that most men ate more than most women, they might think it was fair to charge men and women different prices, but they'd get in legal trouble. A more acceptable approach to tiers might be to raise the basic price for most people while giving discounts to kids and seniors (who are unlikely to be overeaters). That's fair too.

The equivalent to your statement would be that the restaurant says that their food supply sucks and that they'd rather you not eat the (potentially infinite) amount of food you paid for. The first statement could very well be true, and I'd expect them to work on improving it. The second statement is no doubt true but shouldn't be surprising. Covering their costs, with or without tiers, and having a fair system is better than throwing overeaters out of the restaurant without warning!

Back to AT&T. If they introduce some way to charge high-bandwidth users more than low-bandwidth users it might complicate our lives but it won't surprise me any more than Apple finally accepting tiered pricing in the iTunes Store, and I won't consider it bad business practice.
 
It does matter, because they've been telling consumers that they've been "improving the network." Yet, there's little to show for this.

Why did they REDUCE spending on this then? Their REVENUES ARE UP? Don't they want to hear less complaints? Perhaps they don't.

w00master


they are sending more cash to cupertino to pay all the iphone subsidies
 
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