Is iPhone To Blame for AT&T’s Woes?

AT&T has been an average partner for Apple. It’s true that the company took a chance on iPhone and negotiated with Apple to have the rights to offer iPhone till 2010, but the quality of service offered to iPhone owners has been anything but satisfactory. There are a lot of  iPhone owners who believe they can get a better wireless service with other carriers such as Verizon. We won’t know for certain what percentage of these people are willing to back their word up unless Apple offers iPhone through Verizon.

Many experts believe that Verizon have better capabilities to handle a revolutionary device such as the iPhone. But as CNN reported in its story, Verizon may not be that much better than AT&T when it comes to handling the load that a device such as the iPhone will put on its network:

Unfortunately for AT&T, when it comes to network quality, perception is reality and right now Verizon has a more positive public perception, … If AT&T can continue to show improvement in network throughput, it may blunt some of the impact.

AT&T has learned its lessons the hard way. The future is mobile, and AT&T’s network was not prepared to handle it. The company can address this issue by investing more in its infrastructure and learn from its experience with iPhone. That’s no guarantee that AT&T’s service will get better, but at least the company has something to work with.

AT&T is not the only carrier that is struggling to keep up with all the demands that the iPhone puts on its network. O2 has also been struggling to handle iPhone’s load. Similar to AT&T, O2 has decided to blame its woes on iPhone owners:

Where we haven’t met our own high standards, then there’s no question, we apologize to customers for that fact, But it would be wrong to say O2 has failed its customers en masse

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I do believe that the iPhone nation is a forgiving one. A lot of us understand the challenges that such a device brings to the table for carriers such as AT&T and O2. But when these companies start whining about a device that is bringing them lots of subscribers, they start doing their customers a disservice. The iPhone may have been a revolutionary device a couple of years ago, but that’s just a start. Next generation smart-phones will be much more powerful and better capable of handling resource-intensive, highly sophisticated mobile apps. If these carriers can’t handle the iPhone today, can they really expect to handle the next generation smart-phones?