Yet more evidence of Cingular mediocrity
Regular readers know that I’ve been singularly unimpressed with Apple’s choice of Cingular (later AT&T) as the exclusive US carrier for the Jesus Phone. It’s not just the idea of a five-year exclusive (which made sense under the old business model but not the new one), but also the mediocre quality of the Cingular’s US mobile phone network.
The iPhone 3G was supposed to take advantage of AT&T’s wonderful new HSDPA network. Promoters of this UMTS (W-CDMA aka 3GSM) technology claimed it would deliver downloads at “8-10 Mbps”. AT&T invites prospective customers to “Download and surf on the nation’s fastest 3G network.”
At the same time, iPhone 3G user are unhappy with their network performance. Wired asked its readers around the world to run a test to report their actual download speed, to distinguish between iPhone performance problems and network performance problems. Here is what they found:
- Tests in Germany and the Netherlands achieved 2,000 Kbps.
- Tests in Canada delivered 1,330 Kbps
- AT&T provided an average speed of 990 Kbps
- The only carriers that were worse were two Australian carriers, with an average speed of 390 Kbps
In some major metropolitan areas that are supposedly 3G-rich, 3G performance can be very slow. For example, zooming in on San Francisco, you'll see that 10 out of 30 participants reported very slow 3G speeds — barely surpassing EDGE.The hypothesis is that AT&T didn’t buy enough 3G radios in the cities where the iPhone is most popular, and thus the network is getting overloaded.
As skeptical as I am about WCDMA and “wireless broadband” in general, AT&T here may have a slight advantage over its US rivals. On the wireline side, they finally have a solution that beats all DSL (although not a cable modem or FiOS or uverse). On the wireless side, neither of their EVDO rivals (Verizon, Sprint) do much better, claiming only 600-700 Kbps — although a July review of a Sprint modem measured an actual speed of 966 Kbps for its EVDO service.
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5 comments:
I'm not here to bash but when you post something as disparaging as this you should make sure you quote accurately and get all the facts straight and also back up your negativitiy and not just those quote research that supports your argument. Complete run-on sentence but deal with it.
In the first paragraph you stated that the 5 year deal "which made sense under the old business model but not the new one". What does this mean and what are you referencing? Why did this make sense before and not now?
And when you state "Wired asked its readers around the world to run a test to report their actual download speed, to distinguish between iPhone performance problems and network performance problems. Here is what they found", you probably should have referenced that this was a sample of 2,600 users. The reference to a world wide sample is very misleading.
My final comment deals with your last paragraph in which you state "As skeptical as I am about WCDMA and “wireless broadband” in general, AT&T here may have a slight advantage over its US rivals. They finally have a solution that beats all DSL (although not a cable modem or FiOS or uverse)" You say you are skeptical about AT&T service but then state that it is not better than uverse? The problem is that uverse IS the AT&T product so how can that not be better?
Usually I don’t spend the time to deal with anonymous criticism but it seems like many of the concerns are because I wrote the article assuming everyone had a common context — either industry knowledge or from previous blog postings. I guess there are new readers who don’t have that context so I should be more explicit.
It was pretty well publicized that the iPhone 3G business model is different from the iPhone 2G business model. The short answer is that Apple used to get a share of the monthly revenues but they don't anymore. The 2G business model justified the cost of the AT&T exclusive but the 3G one does not.
As for Wired, it had a sample from around the world, but clearly for anyone who read the original article (as I expected readers to do) would see that response was disproportionately from the US and Canada.
You're right, the last paragraph is a bit ambiguous. Cingular is slightly faster than the other "mobile broadband,” and much faster than DSL. It is not as fast as a typical cable modem or the Baby Bell fiber optic services (FiOS, uverse) solutions.
I hope that clarifies things.
Joel
I apologoize for posting anonymous, and didn't think it would be a big deal. But there are still questions I have with this, maybe your "facts" haven't been called into question before.
Do you have any numbers/facts to back up your contention that the new business model is worse for Apple than the old one? Is this based on Apple results or some inside information? Isn't knowing what you're getting better than what you think you might be getting?
I did read the Wired article and that was why I quoted 2,600 respondents. That is far from a representative sample of the number of actual users. All I was asking for was a note from you saying that it was a small sample size. Obviously most of the respondents were from the US and Canada because that is where most of the network support and sales are.
Wired should have also asked how many of those 2,600 purchased their phones from AT&T or Apple. Fraud/unlocking is a big problem for those two with this device and could result in poor network speeds. I believe that even if you drop 100 phones from that sample the average speed would be 1,030 Kbps, dropping 200 fraudulent subscribers would result in 1,073Kbps. My point here is not to state the network is great, it isn’t, it is to say that only quoting the headline leads to misrepresentation and doesn’t accurately portray the whole story.
In the last paragraph of your reply, you still differentiate AT&T/Cingular from uverse. Why? This product, uverse, is only offered by AT&T. Also, your response leads me to believe that Cingular offers broadband internet service which is 100% false.
I didn't say the new business model is better or worse than the old. I said that the guarantee of an exclusive to AT&T made sense under the old, but no sense under the new. As I pointed out in linked articles, Apple is foreclosing a large share of the market by giving AT&T a US exclusive for its entire product line, something that (for example) Motorola, RIM, Palm or Samsung would not do.
You are confusing sample size with sample representativeness. The Gallup Poll predicts presidential elections with a sample size of 900, so there is nothing inherently wrong with a sample of 2,600 (other than most of the world is grossly underrepresented).
The Wired article makes an important point: It's possible to get close to 2 Mbps with the Apple hardware, but that’s not happening (on average) on AT&T’s network in the US.
I won't argue uverse anymore. I've said twice that uverse is wireline solution and Cingular is a wireless solution, so broadband speeds are Apples and oranges.
“I didn't say the new business model is better or worse than the old. I said that the guarantee of an exclusive to AT&T made sense under the old, but no sense under the new. As I pointed out in linked articles, Apple is foreclosing a large share of the market by giving AT&T a US exclusive for its entire product line, something that (for example) Motorola, RIM, Palm or Samsung would not do.”
Your actual statement was “It’s not just the idea of a five-year exclusive (which made sense under the old business model but not the new one), but..” Why did it make sense under the old business agreement? Why was the old deal better for Apple?
Your argument seems to be that every provider should have the phone but that wasn’t the case under the old business agreement. How has this changed? Also, Motorola has and does have exclusive phone agreements with service providers (see RAZR and new ROKR).
As to your sample size/representativeness point, are you honestly saying you trust the Gallup Poll? If that were true the presidential election in 2000 and 2004 would have been over by 8PM EST and you could be going to bed.
The truth is that the half of iPhone respondents are most likely those that have complained to WIRED and the other half were waiting in line at the AT&T store waiting to add service or complain. Even if we disagree “sampling” you have to agree that there are some fraud cases involved, right?
As to your last reply:
I won't argue uverse anymore. I've said twice that uverse is wireline solution and Cingular is a wireless solution, so broadband speeds are Apples and oranges
What does that mean??????????????????? Are you comparing wireline cable service to phone and laptop PC cards?
Cingular wireless to UVerse wireline?
You’re right, those are apples and oranges so why even bring it up.
As skeptical as I am about WCDMA and “wireless broadband” in general, AT&T here may have a slight advantage over its US rivals. On the wireline side, they finally have a solution that beats all DSL (although not a cable modem or FiOS or uverse).
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