Technological zealots, pundits, and old fashioned fanboys will argue which wireless carrier is the best for days on end. They all have reasons to switch and cannot fathom how anyone could betray their preferred carrier by using anything else. Nobody takes into account the most important factor when stating their case, which is - coverage maps. For the most part, all carriers are similarly, each with strong and weak areas. Beyond that, there seems to be some sociology behind the carriers people choose. 

Verizon - the old standby. People with long standing accounts will typically have Verizon. Unlike its competitors it hasn’t been bought, sold, merged, or renamed. It uses a technology called CDMA that is very old, although it has been updated since it was first rolled out. The ancient CDMA in use means that Verizon has had a long, long time to perfect it, which accounts for the best coverage and higher stability. They aren’t known for innovation, but they always work. If you see someone carrying a flip phone, chances are it is Verizon. They also have the best prepaid phones and plans around; if that tells you anything. They are the government bond of carriers. Low risk, low return. Dependable, but boring. 

AT&T - the careless thrill seeker. AT&T throws caution to the wind and tries new things. It’s the college frat guy that says, “It’ll be fine, just try it. And it it’s not, at least it’ll be fun to see what happens. We will deal with the consequences later.” They took to GSM like a kid with new rollerblades on Christmas and looked just about as steady in the beginning. They took Apple’s iPhone and made blind changes to their network to accommodate it when Verizon declined and AT&T signed an exclusivity contract in the process. It paid off overall as the phone revolutionized an industry and became supremely popular, but they pissed off a lot of customers along the way when the data consumption rates crippled their network. Tech geeks go nuts for AT&T (except the “damn the man” open sourcers). They are risky and can usually be seen uttering the famous last words “watch this shit” before they singe their eyebrows. High risk, high return. 

Sprint - the one trick pony. They sell Blackberry to corporations - at least they did when that was what people wanted. Now they are desperately trying to find a new trick. RIM, the creator of Blackberry filed to innovate and put all their eggs in one basket which as Sprint corporate customers relying on their enterprise services. They tried to bolster their market by picking up the blue collar Nextel crowd, but that just fragmented their network across more than one technology. Now, are they CDMA, iDen, Wi-Max or some Frankenstein conglomerate of all of them? Now that the iPhone is flourishing in the enterprise, there’s nothing left. It’s no surprise that Sprint picked up the iPhone and advertises itself as the only carrier offering truly unlimited data. Of course, their network is too slow to worry about consumers’ data consumption making a dent anyway. Sprint is the guy that bet every last dollar on the .com bubble and now lives in his grandmother’s basement looking for a comeback. It’s customers are email hog, road warriors that care about nothing but spreadsheets and metrics and being able to get emails immediately. Physical keyboards, small screens and no apps make this smartphone like the person who sounded smart before they got caught for plagiarism. Never was smart, we just didn’t know any better in the beginning. 

T-Mobile - the tagalong/sidekick (pun intended). T-Mobile has had more names than it has cellular towers over the years. It was the first to enter the “more than a phone” game with the Sidekick which quickly became the security blanket of connected celebrities everywhere. They are known of their cheap plans, lots of minutes, celebrity endorsements, being bought and sold, and the only of the majors without the iPhone. Even the reckless AT&T bailed out of buying them last week. They have nothing going for them. You I will often find their customers shouting about why they area the best and backing it up with reasoning like, “because they are and I pay less than you.” You get what you pay for and if one company is significantly less, it’s no pt because they are doing you a favor; you’re getting less. They were the first with GSM and stopped. They were the first with an Android phone when Google was still a mysterious search engine company that shocked world with rumors of a phone - anyone remember the MyTouch G1? T-Mobile is the kid on the playground that always looks slightly confused, slightly dirty and says things like, “Wait…what? I don’t get it” which often matches their customers. 

Regional carriers - the local specialist. Even the majors had local and national plans and they were separate, once upon a time. Those were the days of roaming charges. Now, any plan worth its salt will be national. Of course, the business model still charges more and calls national roaming a feature. In reality, it’s the standard. So the regional guys are below standard but they come to you like a good natured neighbor who is here to help without all that fancy schmancy stuff the big guys have. You stay local? We have just the plan for you. You almost always pay less and keep your monthly bill down, but look at the cost per minute - its less efficient most of the time. They don’t often offer the latest and greatest hardware, features or speeds, but if you use a small amount of talk time or data and you do it all locally, they’ll be there. Also, they took a page out of the mortgage industry’s play book and waive (or manipulate, skew, or ignore altogether) the credit check. Their customers are the ones raving about their new smartphone that the AT&T geeks recycled 2 revisions ago. They scream about the awesome low price because they’ve never divided it by the number of minutes they actually get. They now get data, but aren’t concerned about speeds. Usually, their phones are in a case bought in a mall kiosk and it looks like a bedazzled threw up on it. 

These are all general statements and mostly tongue in cheek. The customers are unfortunate collateral damage used to describe the one-dimensional nature if the carriers and how we can humanize the carriers to make consumers understand their vision. However, look more closely at the phone and owner. You’ll find that more often than not, I’m right (and I was very nice  and polite with my word choice).

If you have an iPhone and you’re looking to upgrade, there are several options. You can visit a store, call AT&T or log into ATT.com and check your account. With over 500,000 apps on the app store, and a long relationship with Apple, it stands to reason that AT&T has made it easier still. The ATT Upgrader app allows you to input your number, last 4 of social security number and billing zip code to get an immediate look at your status.

Whether or not you are eligible for an upgrade, you can purchase a new phone from within the app. Even if you are ineligible you are greeted with a message that says,

You are not eligible at this time for an upgrade at a discounted price. However, you can take advantage of our no commitment pricing

On October 7 when the iPhone 4S launched, this was the easiest way to complete the purchase. Apple’s website was overloaded making a connection to each carrier. The phone number to Apple was not letting anyone through. Anyone with special pricing such as AT&T government or premier accounts was told that the transaction could not be completed online. If the Apple site let the customer in, a carrier would have to be selected, which was the common choke point. Using the AT&T Upgrader obviously connects only to AT&T which alleviates part of the processing problems during high volume upgrades. Of course, it is only built for iPhone customers upgrading to new iPhones. However, if you fall into that category, download the free app and give it a try. You’ll have your new phone on the way in no time.

Verizon is changing from unlimited data to an EXPENSIVE tiered structure and it’s happening soon

Rumors surfaced again today, citing the Verizon CFO as the source

Gigaom, Huffington Post and a slew of journalists, bloggers, and commenters have been up in arms about the announced merger between AT&T and T-Mobile. No company is going to shell out $39 billion lightly - $25 billion in cash and the rest in stocks; giving Deutsche Telekom an 8% stake and a seat on the board.

Immediately the world went berserk over why this is a bad deal. Things like “Two crappy networks make one crappy network” and “the one who loses is the customer” have been flying around Twitter for 18 hours straight. There are some challenges to be overcome but some benefits as well. There are certainly some complaints that need to be straightened out.

There will be better coverage and more phones for T-Mobile customers, for sure. AT&T customer may not see as big a jump in service and as for phones, they will be unaffected (unless you’ve been itching for a Sidekick). AT&T customers, will see an improvement of  service to some degree but this will take a large amount of time before the networks are full merged.

Some pricing plans will disappear. This is a true statement. Maybe AT&T will adopt some of T-Mobile’s plans and find a middle ground. Prices are bound to stay low though. Many people are concerned that without T-Mobile operating as the discount warehouse for rate plans, that Verizon, AT&T and Sprint will jack up the prices. The competition created amongst the three giants by smartphone and ubiquitous data will keep prices low. In the short term, will former T-Mobile customers lose their unlimited data? Probably not. There may be an option for those “Grandfathered” in, much like the way AT&T customers who had unlimited iPhone data plans got to keep them. AT&T once had unlimited data, now it’s gone. What is to say that it’ll never come back?

As far as the frequency spectrum not being compatible and AT&T customers not being able to use T-Mobile towers, I’m not sure where Arianna’s minions came up with that one. 1900 Mhz is the standard for both companies using both 2G service. T-Mobile uses 1700 for 3G. As a matter of fact, most AT&T phones are Quad Band which means

1. 850 Mhz - GSM/GPRS/EDGE 2G
2. 1900 Mhz - GSM/GRPS/EDGE 2G
3. 850 Mhz - UMTS/HSPA 3G
4. 1900 Mhz - UMTS/HSPA 3G

That is why most AT&T phones work anywhere on the globe that use GSM. AT&T iPhones that are unlocked work on T-Mobile’s 1900 Mhz 2G EDGE network. AT&T will be using the 1700 Mhz infrastructure for LTE rollout which saves money and time and rides an existing part of the spectrum.

Google may lose out on the deal. There was a deep rooted relationship between the two companies, which leaves Google in the hands of Verizon and AT&T. Each of those companies has a nice relationship with Apple. Google may see some problems as a result but will not be subject to some enforcement of AT&T and applications like Om Malik was claiming. His comment about putting out an AT&T app store is no different than Verizon’s idea to do it or those of the manufacturer like Motorola and HTC.

Nobody can anticipate every single maneuver and process. Latest reports have people panning the move, saying that T-Mobile customers will be left out in the cold without an iPhone. Anyone who thinks this deal will be done overnight, needs to rethink things. There are regulatory and technological issues at stake here. This will take time. AT&T is claiming a year to get it all squared away.

All concerns will be addressed by both companies and service will carry on as normal after a few brief speedbumps. T-Mobile customers, can be irritated now at the shock, but the fact remains that T-Mobile needed this just as much as AT&T. The company never got into the space as large as they had wanted. Deutsche Telekom, the investors for T-Mobile did not grow them to the size of Verizon or AT&T.

For those asking “what do we do?” here is a recommendation - do nothing. Wait and see how it plays out. When the merger is finished from a financial and regulatory aspect, the technology side will be implemented and then pricing plans will be published. Let it all happen because there is no way to know what it all means before then.

Verizon dropped a bomb today, but it was a bomb everyone was expecting. Apple and Verizon have finally partnered and the iPhone will be available to Verizon customers on February 10th. Naturally, my phone has not stopped ringing and everyone wants to know what I think. I have many, many thoughts on this topic.

First, I was a little surprised to see that this partnership happened with a CDMA version of the phone while Verizon touts the forthcoming 4G LTE network. Then again there are carriers in South Korea that still use CDMA which opens other markets for a phone with that technology. Japan is also all CDMA. Also, LTE is just coming around now and won’t be outside of major cities for a while. Then there’s the fact that LTE chipsets still have battery drain issues and are physically larger. Still, it’s a little strange to see an innovator like Apple investing in a dying technology. That can only mean that LTE is still a bit of a far away pipe dream.

Note: There is one tremendous downside. CDMA, unlike GSM, does not allow simultaneously voice and data. That means you cannot surf the web while on the phone. Dan Dee and Tim Cook have already spoken about users putting emphasis on certain things and “tradeoffs.” Definite drawback.

People are asking me how I feel about this move, as if I should be betrayed that my beloved iPhone has moved to Verizon. It is not sleeping with the enemy. It isn’t like Derek Jeter plays for the Boston Red Sox now. I’m actually very happy about this.

I love my iPhone. I loved the 2G, 3G, 3GS and now my 4. They keep getting better. i’ll never go anywhere else. Should I move to an area where AT&T’s coverage is subpar, I can still have an iPhone. Ubiquity of iPhone ownership just went up.

There are many more users that will be holding this device now. That means more ideas, more developers, more feedback, more user interaction, more needs to be met and more use cases. Apple makes great products that their customers will love. When you up your set of data point by an order of magnitude, you can really gain vision for the future iterations to make customers happy.

The most important issue is that the iPhone is the most innovative and important development in the mobile space… ever. People who were die hard Verizon supporters actually left Verizon and moved to AT&T just to get an iPhone. Those people will, more than likely, go back to Verizon. That means that when AT&T’s customer base shrinks, the available bandwidth for the remaining customers will go up. The increases the value of the experience.

When the iPhone launched in 2007 and more specifically iPhone 3G in 2008, AT&T’s network was immediately crippled by the data consumption. Everyone complained that the network couldn’t handle it and AT&T was miserable. That was not the case. There was an unprecedented level of usage that no carrier would have been ready for. Verizon was able to look at this empirical data and prepare for it in a way that AT&T was never able to. We will see that iPhone will soar on Verizon just as it will on AT&T with the lightened load. Remember, AT&T launched the iPhone 2G on an EDGE network while 3G was already around.

This was a long time coming. Verizon passed on the iPhone initially and took the time to get their network ready. A phone like this deserves to be everywhere. I think this is a major blow to RIM and Google, but more on that later. Today was a definite game changer as the mobile landscape was redefined in just 42 short minutes.

I, however, will be staying on AT&T. I have been with them for over 10 years and, despite some hiccups, have had a good experience. Make no mistake though, I’ll always have an iPhone so if or when Verizon suits my needs better, I’ll make the move.

The phone will be available for pre-order on February 3rd and will arrive or be ready for in-store purchase on February 10th. The 16gb will be $199 and the 32gb will be $299.

Congratulations to Apple, Verizon and the many Verizon customers who now have the availability of the #1 mobile phone on their choice network. It is an amazing day in technology.

Verizon had a national and global data outage last night. All 3G service went dead for at least 6 hours. Verizon simple acknowledged the issue and its resolution without going into detail as to what caused it directly or the factors surrounding it. Speculation says this is alongside the upgrade procedures to the 4G LTE network.

The outage is not what is really important. The timing is what seems more relevant. Just days ago Glenn Lurie who is AT&T’s head of emerging devices sat with Walk Mossberg on the stage for All Things Digital’s D: Dive Into Mobile conference. When asked about  the possibility of a Verizon iPhone (which we all know will happen at some point), he said “We’re not concerned about it at all.”

AT&T has come under fire about the quality and stability of its network over the last 3 years. Users have cited experiences where the network could not keep up with their demands. AT&T has experienced a 5,000% growth in data consumption since the arrival of the iPhone. Verizon, like any other carrier, has not experience this explosive growth.

AT&T, as a brand, has suffered as users remain frustrated, however the exclusive ownership of the iPhone all this time gives them an edge. Lurie’s most important quote was “We’ve managed a massive amount of data on our network for several years. Many of our competitors have not.”

1. If Verizon got the iPhone in 2007, would they have suffered the same slings and arrows of outrageous data consumption and be seen the way AT&T is?
2. Will they go through the same growing pains when they do get the iPhone?
3. Having an objective viewpoint watching AT&T, has Verizon been given an advantage of preparation that AT&T did not have?
4. Will the iPhone split over multiple carriers mean a less outrageous jump in usage?
5. How has effect has the proliferation of Android devices had on easing into the new mentality of ubiquitous, constant, massive amounts of data?

I’ve seen AT&T’s issues since day 1 of iPhone in 2007. I had an iPhone 2G that day and each successor on launch day. It has changed the way we do business and AT&T has struggled under the weight of the success of this device.

Every day, I try to keep in mind that they had no roadmap for success. They could not possible expect the response to be as great as it was. For a company flying blind, in uncharted waters under unprecedented strain, I feel they have adjusted well. With $18billion invested into their network this year and last year, it’s obvious they are working at it.

I hope Verizon users do not go through what AT&T users have, but I won’t fault Verizon if it happens. This is a major time for wireless technology and growing pains are to be expected. They are signs of amazing advancements.

Keep all of this in perspective before you scream about a dropped call on AT&T’s network, if you can.

20 June Weekly Wrap-Up #19 (part 1)

The iPhone 4 seems to be amazing. Getting one is a nightmare. Apple launched its pre-order of the new device. The tagline surrounding the new iPhone reads: “This changes everything. Again.” That may be true about the device itself but the old, familiar headaches of seeing your way clear to owning one are back as always.

With the initial release of the iPhone, now called 2G, and the 2nd iteration, the 3G, your options were basically to an AT&T store the night before and wait until morning in hopes that you weren’t too far back in the line to receive that little black box of happiness. There were not enough to go around and many people went home iPhone-less and despondent. Those who did get one could only have hoped they were near enough to the AT&T store to survive the wait to plug into iTunes and activate it. The 3G fixed the latter, allowing AT&T to activate in the store. I drove 45 minutes from the nearest AT&T store with the first one staring at the emergency call screen hoping it would activate itself. At least they gave 911 access in case I ran off the road staring at the revolutionary piece of technology.

The 3G S brought a new set of worries with its model. Go to a website (apple.com or att.com) and order one, hoping to sneak into a spot in the virtual line and get through the process without the site crashing or, at best, timing out forcing you to start again. I can almost see why the two giant companies didn’t foresee this issue. The 3G S didn’t do anything different than the 3G when you really get down to it. It’s faster, it has a compass and it was just enough to whet the appetite of every aspiring fanboy and early adopter. 

As per their tagline for the iPhone 4, this changes everything; again. It is shaped different (3G and 3G S were identical in that respect) and looks beautiful. It is another home run for the designers at Apple who focus on tech sex appeal. It has dual cameras and an LED flash. It has the best resolution seen on a phone of any kind. It does video calling. It has Apple silicon in it. The list goes on. 

How AT&T and Apple could not see a massive surging coming makes me wonder how each of them got to where they are today. They didn’t, though. Apple’s website has been down most of today and AT&T’s phone support is a step above, “There’s a new iPhone?”

I began my hunt at 5am (central) and made it most of the way through the process before it failed. This went on for hours until about lunchtime when the process fell apart altogether. Throughout the day, with each passing hour, I got a little further without total success. I called a local AT&T store and got no answer. I tried AT&T’s website and was told I couldn’t upgrade via their site (keep in mind, I’m a premier customer with a separate website and phone number than the public facing portal). I called their corporate line and was met by someone on the other end of the phone who knew less about the process than I did.

Finally, I went to the store in person at about 5:30pm, over 12 hours later. After 20 minutes of standing around someone began to take my information. She told me the delivery date was July 5th. When I inquired if it was specific to them she told me it was from Apple. I asked if all AT&T heard that from Apple and she told me that Apple is shipping July 5th and the date changed as of noon today. I have a hard time believing that. Maybe for AT&T store pre-orders that applies (Apple’s website still says June 24th).

I left without completing the purchase. The entire way home I convinced myself that even getting the device was silly and worthless and certainly not enough to put myself through what I had. When I came home, in 27” of iMac glory, Apple.com sat. I clicked once more and it went through! I did have 2 in my cart though so something went through earlier today without letting me know. I get to the checkout screen and find my shipping address is wrong. I never updated it with AT&T when I moved last September and Apple wouldn’t let me. 

With pending regret I emptied my cart and changed my address at ATT.com and headed back to the pre-order function on Apple’s site. It didn’t work. I thought I had a problem. Deep breath; “One more try.” Shortly before turning blue, I let out a sigh of relief as I was back to the checkout screen, with the proper shipping address.

It was now 6:30pm - 13 and a half hours after I began this and an estimated 200 attempts from my desktop, iPhone, iPad and work computer throughout the day. I still have the confirmation on my screen, as I have not yet received the confirmation email that I was told was sent 40 minutes ago. I’m still nervous as to whether I’ll receive it or not.

What have we learned? Buying an iPhone will never be easy. It has become a utility for so many people, that we have to have the newest version. Regardless of whether you’re in the Apple or Microsoft “camp” there is no denying it. Enough people rushed Apple’s site today that the servers went down for over 12 hours with only intermittent reports of successful purchases. 

I learned that I need to brace myself for this each year. Clearly, giving up is not an option. Logging on and buying one is not an option either. Buying an iPhone is the digital equivalent of shopping on Black Friday. We all complain. We all hate it. We all do it… year after year.