AT&T defends its iPhone network via YouTube outreach - Page 5

If JBL can sell a stereo that can stream music from the iphone or ipod via bluetooth --- then JBL don't have to pay for the licensing fee for the dock. It's as simple as that. Money is money, everything else is conspiracy theories.

VZW doesn't have to make people happy --- they make money for their partners and their customers have the highest customer satisfaction rate.

Palm chose to use webkit --- and Apple once they open-source the webkit, Apple doesn't have a choice to exclude Palm. Also Apple has been excluding Palm Pre from syncing with itunes.

Google Maps is not a turn-by-turn nav apps. Verizon doesn't restrict other nav app makers from selling their apps in the GIN store. So it's those nav app makers' choice to whether to develop for the Verizon GIN store. What, you are going to blame Verizon because these other app makers (like tomtom) are not developing for the GIN store.

VZ Navigator has been the most popular app on the GIN store and they have been offering it for a long long long time. When every single zero dollar phone can use that function, you know that Verizon knows certain thing or two on the subject.

It's not about whether I am against revenue sharing or not --- it's about Apple wasting valuable time and energy on a failed business model. It was a failed experiment for Apple to try the $600 iphone with a 2 year contract and the revenue sharing. They could have spent that time and energy on more productive work.

You made it sound like Verizon has never sold a smartphone before --- they have been selling windows mobile smartphones for years.

What you read and heard are just conspiracy and revisionist theories. The only thing that you can trust are comments that were made before fanbois starting spinning these theories. Steve Jobs didn't say anything (on these topics) in the original Jan 2007 keynote. Wall Street analysts didn't have an idea on revenue sharing (and why should they because it's an entirely untried business model). Verizon VP came out 1 week later and flushed out the details --- which all were later confirmed when the iphone was actually launched 5 months later. Nothing was polluted at that time.

I haven't made it sound like anything. You inferred hidden meaning where there was none.

As for "conspiracy theories" and "revisionist theories:" First, I have no motivation to engage in any of that. I also don't have hard evidence suggesting why VZ didn't end up with the iPhone. That said, we can offer reasonable explanations.

These explanations come about because your post and others beg the question. The question is: Why did AT&T end up with iPhone despite having a smaller user base and technically inferior network (both are indisputable)?

There are but two possible reasons: 1. Money and 2. Technical problems with either CDMA and/or features Apple demanded.

Given that VZW and Apple have a lot of smart engineers, the only reasonable choice is money. We know that Verzion already was/is pretty deep into their own app market (Get It Now, I believe its called). We also know that Apple had a list of restrictions from subsidizing to who could sell the phone to who knows what else.

So tell me, who is being unreasonable here? No one "knows" why VZW didn't get the iPhone, but can certainly offer reasonable suppositions. Mine is that Apple arrogantly approached VZW as they have been known to do with others, laid out their terms, and VZW told them to pound sand. AT&T decided that even with Apple's demands, they could see a huge growth in subscribers, which they did. AT&T hoped to high heaven that their network could handle it. Of course, it couldn't and still can't. But that's another issue.

Given they sold a ton at that price point, I'd have to disagree that it was a failure.

Has any other cell phone sold more in a single weekend than the iPhone?

Except that Apple could have sold many times that amount if they sold it at $400 (instead of $600) and Palm would have never been rescued by private equity firms.

Long term gain is vastly more than those short term gain.

At the time when AT&T signed the iphone deal with Apple --- AT&T was the largest carrier in the US.

I don't know why you keep on saying that no one knows why VZW rejected the iphone. VZW listed their reasons why they rejected the iphone in the Jan 2007 interview --- and there were no monday morning quarterbacking or revisionist retelling of the story.

Did Verizon "invented" the revenue sharing "excuse"? No, it was confirmed months later by SEC filings from both AT&T and Apple that revenue sharing is part of the iphone agreement.

Did Verizon "invented" the distribution partner "excuse"? No, it was confirmed months later by actual events that only AT&T corp stores and Apple stores can sell the iphone.

Did Verizon "invented" the warranty and support "excuse"? No, it was confirmed months later by actual events that it is Apple (and not AT&T) that will handle these issues.

To answer your question, yes I am an insider for the mobile business. I also know other insiders in different departments of different carriers. Thats how I gain my knowledge. How do you gain yours?

JBl can make BT headsets, but JBL is going to make more money from the iPod stereo systems that make use of the dock connector.


How are they gaining high customer satisfaction if they don't have to make anyone happy?


Palm is able to use webkit because Apple developed it and offered it for open use by anyone. Apple excludes everyone (outside of Apple) from syncing directly with iTunes.


My point is that Google Maps is a free navigation app, you want to play semantics with turn by turn.

So you are telling us that TomTom, Garmin and others are ignoring Verizon's 80 million subscribers by choice, Verizon has played no part?


Its quite easy to be the most popular when people have little other choice.


I think its extreme to call it a failed waste of time. Apple sold millions of iPhone's and made billions of dollars. Of course your retort is that Apple could have sold even more phones, but looking at the success of the iPhone I don't think it matters.

No, JBL is going to make more money on stereos with bluetooth streaming because bluetooth licensing fee is much lower than apple licensing fee.

Carriers are in the league with used car salemen for consumer satisfaction ratings --- so it's not difficult to be number 1 in consumer satisfaction. Verizon Wireless just have to suck less than the other carriers.

Once Apple open-sourced webkit, they can't exclude Palm from using the source code. There are unintended consequences of open-sourcing.

Garmin is doing their own cell phone with their own GPS solution, so you are going to pin that on Verizon's fault???

Choice is over-rated. Basically 99% of the iphone apps are useless.

More money is more money. If Apple's iphone was a success, it could have been even a bigger success.

You are only consdering the cost of the license, but the cost of R&D for adding the BT module and creating/ buying the driver will far outweigh the cost of the dock R&D. The BT will also only stream at a lower quality than what is capable from a simple direct line-in port that can easily also charge the iDevice. On top of that, the averge user is likely not going to want to set up such a system just to have an inferior setup. I'd say that JBL would likely make more money from having the iPod dock that connects to all the very popular iPod.

Bluetooth chipset manufacturers provide reference drivers.

So what's with all the fuss by apple fanbois complaining for 2 years that the iphone can't stream music via bluetooth. That's a lot of revisionist retelling of the story.

Apple deliberately crippled digital out for the ipod so that they can charge a lot of money on licensing fees from their digital dock out setup. It's encrypted and needed authentication in order to get digital out.

http://www.stereophile.com/news/010408wadia/

How much do those drivers cost compared to require splitting a cable so that the output from an iDevice can match the dock mold for audio input? JBL doesn't make more money if they include, at their cost, a feature that isn't of great interest to many consumers. I'm guessing that the real interest in A2DP was for wireless BT headsets, where if make more sense even with the loss of quality. The iPod dock does push product. You can find cheap ass alarm clocks with iPod docks. The include the dock and advertise this fact because it's a strong selling point.

Apple didn't cripple the BT stack to disable A2DP; it never had it until v3.0. If you've used a Mac you'd know that BT was never Apple strong point. It sucks but don't make a conspiracy out of it. Apple excels in some areas and fals short in others. There seems to be a theme from self hating Apple product users that Apple should be able to anything at any time and if they don't they are purposefully and personally screwing you over. That simply isn't true.

Licensing fees don't account for the fact that stereo systems are more lucrative that BT headsets.


That's a good point. VZW gets high points for its network, but no one praises its phone selection.


This brings my point full circle. Which was Apple is not interested in crushing Palm.


You are totally avoiding the point of my question.


99% of most all apps on all software platforms are useless, but that does not mean we don't want competition.


What proof do you have that if Apple had sold the original iPhone as subsidized that it would have been significantly larger success than what it had been. These types of things are easy to say because there is no way you can actually prove it.

1. That is probably true, but they might not have made more money. Either way, "being able to do better" is not a failure.

2. So let me get this right: Palm is in business because the iPhone was priced high initially. Good lord.


That's a good point, though it was widely known that their network was inferior.


I don't know what you're taking issue with. In the article, the VP said this:


This is exactly what I've been saying. They rejected Apple's revenue sharing (or whatever you choose to call it) plan and didn't like their other restrictions. The apps might not have been a big part of it, but to assume that it didn't cross Verizon's collective mind is ludicrous. Since it wasn't referenced though, we don't know. All we have is a public statement that may or may not tell the whole story.

No. The Pre also has lost its hype and we certainly don't hear anything mentioning the Pre's sales anymore. Guess it's become a flop.

I will offer that the reason for confusion and mystery over the MMS/iPhone issue from AT&T is....completely and utterly b******t.

That's the only explanation that makes any technical sense, since 850 MHz spectrum additions in no way shape or form = a way to enable MMS in small or high volumes.

WTH!!! Go research more on Apple's iPhone/iPod Touch platform apps now.. I'm 100% sure you do not own an iPhone/iPod Touch. My 32GB 3GS has 8 pages of apps, with 16GB of music, 4GB of videos and 1GB of pictures. Through my 8 pages of apps, I only have 2 fancy apps ( Fart app and Beer app ) and 2 games ( Tap Tap and Hangman ) The rest of the apps are for utilities, social networking, organizing stuff like tasks, etc , productivity apps and stuff that help me in my everyday life. ( Find a new restaurant,etc ) To me, the iPhone is 100% not a toy and it depends what apps you put in. On it's own, it's the best smartphone till now and a mini-Macbook IMO. Different people have different interests and some use their iPhone/iPod Touch for pure games and entertainment. I don't. See, the way I use my iPhone makes it a professional device that I can even say is on par with my MBP, only smaller, more portable and in a much nicer package. The iPhone is a success. I don't see the sense in your last sentence BTW. Find me a phone that can beat the iPhone in terms of sales and user satisfaction. I have owned every iPhone till now ( iPhone 8GB, white 16GB 3G and white 32GB 3GS ) and I've never found a phone that is TRULY better than it. Go look at the "iPhone-Killers". They've all become flops and are struggling to catch up with Apple. The iPhone is till years-ahead of other "high-end" models released by other manufacturers. So, have a look at the iPhone's success first before making conclusions.

Oh really? How about this for long term gain?

How much would iPhone sales have skyrocketed (thanks to media hype) if the Sept 2007 price reduction was that much less dramatic? The price went from 600 to 200! Artificial value had 3 months to assign itself, fanbois paid the premium, then the rest of the world got a crack at it, once supplies were at a reasonably high enough level to support that level of demand.

The iPhone really went on sale in Sept 2007. iDay6/29/07 was for no one but media and fanbois.

Say it with me now....
Planned. From. The. Start.

But that's just a conspiracy theory right? Multi-billion dollar organizations that plan out their success is just crackpot theory right?

Take your freshman marketing analysis elsewhere.

I think you're either trolling or truly ignorant. There are certainly useless apps. But the number can't approach 99%.

Your second statement is, well, dumb. It's hard to imagine Apple doing any better than it has with the iPhone. I don't think THEY even thought it would be this big. Look at the supply shortages for both the 2.5G and 3G models. I had to wait a MONTH before standing a reasonable shot at getting a 3G. Even then there was a line 15-20 deep before the store's opening. So please...don't tell me how many more they could have sold.

You don't want to keep your competitors around --- they might bite you in the ass later on. It's like how Microsoft invested in Apple in 1997 to help them survive --- biting them in the ass now. Who knows whether Palm is going to do 10 years down the road, may bite Apple in the ass.

"Strigl noted, citing Apple's steep and one-sided terms including a cut of monthly subscription fees and total control over distribution and customer relations".

My interpretation comes from reading the whole interview. Revenue sharing is revenue sharing (we both agree on that). Total control over distribution means that third party Verizon independent agents can't sell the iphone. Total control over customer relations means Apple get to do warranty and technical support.

As I stated repeatedly, everything else is just conspiracy theories. The Jan 2007 interview was 1 week after the keynote, 5 months before the actual iphone launch --- and it wasn't tainted by any rumors spreaded out by bloggers. From the time of the Verizon-Apple negotiation to the actual launch of the iphone app store --- that's 3 years. That's an eternity in silicon valley.

Palm went through several major restructuring in 2005-2007 --- at the same time as Verizon-Apple negotiation in 2005, AT&T-Apple negotiation later on, and the development of the iphone in 2006-2007.

Palm sold their PalmOS source code to a Japanese firm in 2005.

Palm was rescued in June 2007 when a private equity firm invested $325 million for 25% of Palm shares.

Do you think that if Steve Jobs announced the iphone keynote with Verizon as its partner in Jan 2007 --- that Palm might not have gotten rescued 5 months later.

I don't understand why you insist on deriding anything other than the VP's one statement as a "conspiracy theory." A conspiracy theory would be, for example, that Apple deliberately tanked the deal with Verizon in order to hurt them and help AT&T. Now THAT'S a conspiracy theory.

And what is "everything else?" The only thing I've really put out there is that Verizon was likely not happy about Apple potentially competing with their apps/GIN store. Now, while that, I think, is a logical assumption on my part--it IS just an assumption. It certainly stands to reason that Verizon--since they charge for "everything"--would foresee Apple and other third party developers as a potential threat to their proprietary model. Again, I'm just stating an opinion here, one that I believe to be reasonable. I'm sure that this wasn't the primary reason for rejection.

This is where I think you're really off. They have nothing at all to do with each other. Nothing. If you think otherwise, post some supporting documentation--or even supporting qualified opinion.

Because everything else were tainted by later events. It's like saying that Bill Gates had a plan to rule the world when he was negotiating to license DOS to IBM. He didn't have a plan. Neither was Apple with the iphone, they were kicking around with business models left and right.

Verizon Wireless did and do sell Microsoft Windows Mobile smartphones which their subscribers don't have to buy apps from the GIN store, so why would Verizon suddenly becomes afraid of Apple.


The two events don't have to directly related to each other. Coming back to the Bill Gates example --- while Bill Gates didn't have a plan to rule the world, it was IBM's biggest mistake to not get exclusive license to DOS, locking out other PC clone makers.

I totally disagree with this line of thinking, in what business does one company have to fail for another company to thrive?

MS current problems have nothing directly do with Apple. Whether Windows is a great OS or not has nothing to do with Apple. Whether the iPhone continues to grow has nothing directly to do with Palm.

It's not about "have to" --- getting rid of a competitor is always better financially for the surviving company.

ATT's network is never going to quite match up with Verizon's, at least when you compare their respective strategies. AT&T invests heavily not just in subsidizing the iPhone, but in multitudes of specialty devices. AT&T has the best device catalog of any US carrier, and its not just because of it being a native GSM network (look at T-Mobile's paltry offerings). That money going to Apple, RIM, etc. up front lets them book future revenues with contracts, but leaves the cupboard dry from a liquidity perspective. Its one of the reasons why LTE is coming to Big Red before AT&T...all the dollars going to Apple are instead going on towers in Verizon's case.

Also, Verizon runs CDMA. While that in and of itself isn't a huge advantage, CDMA is not TDMA, which is the duplexing technique for the entire GSM standard bar 3G spectrum (which ironically, is actually CDMA's twisted twin sister). TDMA being a time-division scheme means you can step only so far from a tower (I want to say 30km) before you're done. Ouch. Lose one time-stamp in the BER stream, and you drop a call. In an urban-core environment like the Bay Area or New York City, all those twenty story-plus steel faraday cages called skyscrapers drive up the BER stream no matter what you're doing. GSM sucks for that and that's the way it is.

Also, in the future, Verizon's FIOS build-out will matter for their wireless network. Femtostations and all that fiber pipe ($20 billion plus last year alone worth of residential fiber vs. $0 in fiber for AT&T) are going to build an incredibly robust wireless infrastructure EVERYWHERE over the coming years, with unbelievable capacity for growth in that fiber.

The guy who runs Verizon, a guy named Feinburg (I think) got his start not out of MBA school but as a line tech at a Baby Bell. He knows the phone biz and his FiOS build-out scheme is going to keep paying big dividends long after the iPhone has lost its cache. Its just the way it is...

Speak for yourself, despite owning two stereo bluetooth headsets I would much rather use my wired headset (VSONIC R02-PRO 2) for the simple reason that the quality is far higher.

btw as a bit of a sidetrack do you think whining on the Internet is a valid hobby to put on a resumé?


Since getting an iPhone I have found it influences my purchasing decisions, if it doesn't have a dock I don't look twice, no doubt there are many more people just like me judging by the sheer amount of things from alarm clocks to hifi systems to cars that have docks built in.


Conversely Verizon's network will not match AT&T's network as it is part of a WORLDWIDE GSM network which can be used almost any country.

50% of iPhone sales are outside the US, if the iPhone went with Verizon those sales wouldn't exist, period.

If I travel to the US from Australia I will roam onto AT&T or I can use an AT&T SIM in my unlocked iPhone, Verizon won't exist for me and other travellers.

T-Mobile uses a 3G band (1700) that is used by no-one else so it would be almost as useless as Verizon.

If you care about sound quality, you should be getting the dock with digital out which cost a lot of money. Wait, if you care about sound quality, you shouldn't even care about mp3's.

AT&T doesn't unlock the iphone so it doesn't matter to the Americans travelling overseas.

The cost of designing a GSM version cost about $5 million, it's not a lot of money.

Why is that?

IMHO the sound quality difference between 320kps MP3 and a lossless format like FLAC is nowhere near the sound quality difference between bluetooth and wired headsets.

If people cared the iPod wouldn't be the dominant World's number one portable music player.

Here is the long-term problem for AT&T...they are "safe" with GSM from Verizon for now. But in 24 months LTE is going to be hot, and Verizon is going to have a LTE network rollout at least a calendar year ahead of AT&T. LTE is the future, GSM included. Sprint's stuck in WiMax death-land for 4G...ugh.

Like I said in my original post, Verizon's edge with the FIOS build-out and the oncoming revolution in femtostations is going to let Verizon have a LTE network incorporating your standard big-tower tech plus a billion mini-towers all plugged into a laser land-pipe. That's going to blow AT&T away.

Something to remember about GSM, it isn't a technology per se, its just a specification...like IEEE 802.11 or some kind of ISO book.

Advertising, advertising, advertising.... fix network

I don't agree. The success and popularity of the iPhone has helped fuel demand for the smartphone, the mobile web, and the mobile app. Everyone in these emerging markets are benefiting from the iPhone's success.

In 24 months LTE will only be available in a small number of markets it will take some time for Verizon to get it all over the country, it will take some time before phones will have LTE.

AT&T will be upgrading its HDSPA network and will be making the transition to LTE at the same time.

But that's not what I was saying.

For example, you see a penny on the sidewalk --- you don't "have to" pick it up. You are not going to starve if you don't pick up the penny. But if you pick the penny up, you are a penny richer --- financially speaking.

Getting rid of a competitor is always better --- financially speaking.

Ironically, this article was posted yesterday and confirms everything I said in my first two posts on this thread:

http://blog.telephonyonline.com/unfi...orward-slowly/

Note how the HSDPA rollout for AT&T isn't just about software upgrades on its switches, but also involves changing a lot of copper into fiber (something Verizon is WAY ahead of on AT&T as a side-effect of FIOS rollouts). Also, the HSDPA+ upgrade schedule for AT&T will at the end of 2011 be in as many markets as Verizon's LTE rollout (~30).

I would surmise that Verizon's 30 markets selected for rollout of LTE will closely mirror where they've been most aggressively building out FIOS. With FIOS you can get a 150Mb/s internet connection to the home along with HDTV, and with fiber that barely touches the capacity in the lines. Throw in femtostations which are coming on strong (at least as the trade shows) as the "next big thing" and this suggests a wireless LTE network plugged into a fiber grid. AT&T has no answer for this.

Apple being who they are, are going to have an LTE iPhone and its connectivity is going to be a hot commodity, and that widget's going to be on both AT&T and Verizon, but its only going to be worth having on Verizon. AT&T's in trouble long term with their network.

To add to that While LTEs bandwidth roadmap far exceeds the potential that Evolved HSPA can do there is no reason to expect that early LTE and early Evolved HSPA to have about the same bandwidth potential for several years as the HW for these technologies has not yet even been created to take advantage of their potential.

Verizon is testing LTE speeds in excess of 100 Mb/s OTA in urban test environments like Minneapolis today. Another thing about LTE, it can duplex - MIMO-style - up to four antennas, for up to 350 Mb/s OTA...wow.

The other killer Verizon has over AT&T is fiber. All your cell stations ultimately have to throw data around over trunk lines on the ground. Both AT&T and Verizon have big tracts of fiber trunk running all over the place. But only Verizon, via their FiOS rollouts in big markets, actually have fiber (and the optical switches to run it) running out to places where your towers are...which mostly are away from the trunks. That's a killer advantage, even all other things being equal (which they aren't to begin with).

From an operations perspective, Verizon's already running FiOS, so they are learning how to run it and working out the bugs now, today. Plugging base stations whether they be LTE, WiMAX, HSDPA, whatever, is going to be easy for them going forward because they will have the critical practical experience and know-how already institutionally built-in to their organization.

Apple makes cutting edge widgets. And the people who buy them want the cutting edge widgets...mostest, fastest, etc. I have no doubt Apple will have a LTE-running iPhone in eighteen months. It will be the killer app for the killer network (something WiMAX deployments today distinctly lack). And the killer network will be Verizon. HSDPA+ is a stop-gap and AT&T's stuck with it because like I said, all their capital is tied up in paying off widget-makers instead of plowed into their network.

What speeds they are getting from the towers has absolutely no barring on what they can put into the phones themselves. There are still technical limitations. Take CDMA v. CDMA2000 or EDGE v. HSDPA, the older tech has smaller, power efficient chips, which is one reason why even in idle mode if you have 3G turned on your device will not last as long. This is the same for these faster technologies of LTE and Evolved HSDA. Its not magic, its science.


LTE will be on the iPhone, eventually, but with the iPhones release schedule of one a year you are suggesting that next Summers iPhone will have LTE on it. That makes no sense. If you think that LTE will be wide spread that makes the expense, large and power hungry chips feasible in exactly 18 months Id have to suggest you are wrong. Do you recall that Apple first released an EDGE-only phone because AT&T didnt have an excessive HSDPA network and that 3G was too power hungry for the device? Do you think these will change in 18 months? Im sure AT&Ts 3G network was more built up in 2007 than Verizons LTE will be built up in 2010.

LTE is what Verizon has to go to next. Sprint took a gamble on WiMAX and they made the wrong decision. Both are carriers are running into a brick wall with their CDMA-based networks. GSM-based networks will go to LTE, but the rush to push it isnt required as GSM-based carriers are barely pushing into the 3G technology that they are using.

Lets break this down. AT&T is now creating real 7.2Mbps from the towers to match the radios that now handle 7.2Mbps HSDPA. I have a Sierra Wireless 3G card that has 14.4Mbps HSUPA. The next step for AT&T and other carriers using W-CDMA is up up the HSDPA to HSUPA, which has the same maximum downlink as HSDPA but with a larger maximum uplink of 11Mbps. Then, still within 3G, Evolved HSPA will provide 42 Mbps down and 11Mbps up. That can all be down much quicker, cheaper and presumably with a lot less issues than having to completely revamp a network while the end user is still only getting those actual throughput speeds with LTE. In the last year Evolved HSPA has been rolling out in certain countries but that is on the towers, not in the handsets of phones. While Im sure they exist, I have yet to see a commercial USB card for a laptop that can pick up Evolved HSPA at anything that resembles 42Mbps.

Baby steps, not some excessive change to a network because you are in a technological black hole. AT&T will push to Evolved HSPA and then use that as a bridge to LTE. LTE is an enhancement to UMTS so the transition will be more more natural, but if we talking about AT&T that may not be the case.