Top tech bloggers ding (and ditch) AT&T over iPhone woes
By Andrew Heining | 07.20.09
As the exclusive carrier for the iPhone, Apple’s hit, market-defining smart phone, AT&T used to hold the position of envy for mobile carriers. Not anymore.
Over the weekend TechCrunch’s MG Siegler unleashed a scathing rebuke of the company and a plea for an end of the carrier’s exclusivity contract, citing a laundry list of shortcomings. Among them:
Visual voicemail– voicemails not delivered on time, disrupting schedules, and without explanation.
Activation woes – new iPhone owners met by sometimes days-long waiting periods when AT&T’s activation servers went down on launch day for the 3G and 3GS.
Network unreliability – dropped calls are common, and system overloads at the South By Soutwest Interactive Festival and other high-profile tech gatherings.
Missing features – Apple announced tethering and MMS support in June, and despite being available on mobile carriers in other countries, AT&T has yet to enable the features in the US.
The post, which was one of the weekend’s most retweeted and pushed “AT&T” to Twitter’s top-ten trending topics list, comes four months after Giga Om editor Om Malik’s very public break-up with AT&T.
AT&T reportedly responded by email to Siegler’s post, “expressing their concern over the problems and the overall reaction to this story. They say they are looking into the reports of issues and are going over the tweets/comments.”
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2. Foobar | 07.21.09
If you think AT&T is bad, you should try those blood-suckers at Verizon. They charge for (and maintained iron-fisted control over) EVERYTHING. I used to have to pay VZ $4.95/month just to move photos from my bluetooth-equipped phone onto my computer. Even tethered, VZ wouldn’t give me access to the photos. Think that mentality has changed? Really?
3. Kevin | 07.21.09
Verizon eats your unused minutes. Why is this never discussed? Until they let me use my unused minutes they will never get me to switch from att.
4. Jason Butler | 07.21.09
I haven’t had any troubles with AT&T, but I have to imagine there’s less congestion in Boston than in San Francisco or New York.
5. John C | 07.21.09
It’s too bad 99.9% of consumers don’t care what top tech bloggers do (or even who they are), or this might actually be important.
6. Doug B | 07.21.09
I was with Sprint for 8 years prior to switching to AT&T for the iPhone. They are awful (AT&T), even compared to Sprint. I spend a lot of time driving around the DC area. Over the last 5 years Sprint was nearly bullet-proof. I forgot how annoying a dropped call was. Now I drop calls while standing still with a full signal.
My wife had a medically important voicemail inexplicably delayed by 12 hours this past weekend.
Either AT&T doesn’t care, or they spent too much money for the exclusive rights to the iPhone and can not keep their network performance up to par.
7. Dan | 07.21.09
AT&T sells wireless broadband. Apple and Google are buddies; Google and Intel both invest heavily in Clearwire. Tethering is direct competition with Clearwire and AT
8. Jason Douglas | 07.31.09
At&t sucks for sure but they’re not as bad as verizon. We as the consumer are stuck chossing between one bad carrier and another. These companies place so many restrictions on data plans that we are paying ridiculous money for. $20 dollars a month for data on your cell phone is overpriced, the least they could do is let you use the frigging thing freely.
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1. Top tech bloggers ding (and ditch) AT&T over iPhone woes (The Christian Science Monitor) | iPhoned.com.au | 07.20.09
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1. Chris | 07.20.09
No complaints with AT&T. Was a bit annoyed MMS didn’t come in June with 3.0, but it’s not that big of a deal. And I wouldn’t pay for tethering anyway, so not having it officially isn’t a problem at all. MyWi is better anyway. Yeah, I drop some calls every now and then, but it’s as simple as pressing the “call back” button and re-connecting. Always have 3G, where I live, so I’m not complaining about their coverage.
Overall, AT&T is a good carrier. If Verizon ever gets the iPhone, It’ll take a really good reason to get me to switch other than Verizon has better coverage.