Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Time to Cut AT&T Some Slack, iPhone Users?
Since 2008, AT&T’s network in and around San Francisco has experienced an increase in 3G data traffic of 2,000 percent. If you find this metric as astonishing as I do, consider this: The increase in Bay Area data traffic is actually below the national average–significantly below. According to AT&T CTO John Donovan, 3G data traffic on the company’s wireless network has risen nearly 5,000 percent nationally in the past 12 quarters.
AT&T has finally completed the very important “internal system upgrades” that prevented it from supporting multimedia messaging service on Apple’s iPhone. And at some point late tomorrow morning, the carrier will release an update enabling MMS.
The Palm Pre is finally taking off in the Great White North. Canada’s Bell Mobility, which became the device’s exclusive Canadian carrier back in May, this morning announced a ship date and price for the Pre.
Ugly just isn’t going to cut it in today’s mobile device market. That’s what Dell is finding as it attempts to build a smartphone capable of holding its own against the Blackberry, iPhone and upcoming Palm Pre. According to Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu, the PC maker’s first smartphone prototypes have been rejected by wireless network operators, which found them dull compared with current and upcoming devices.
If misery loves company, then Apple may have a friend in RIM. A Citigroup analyst who has tested the company’s forthcoming BlackBerry Bold claims that the device is troubled by 3G reception woes similar to those plaguing Apple’s new handset. A noteworthy data point, since Bold will initially run on AT&T’s wireless network, just as the iPhone does.
