AT&T activates 1.6M more iPhone 3Gs as data revenues jump

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Comments

  • Reply 81 of 91
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    AT&T has had an established reputation for long time of having terrible mobile service. I've only been with AT&T since the iPhone but doubt that reputation is unfounded. At the same time the AT&T from 10 years ago is dead and gone. The current company only shares the name.



    There of course is some truth in AT&T having network problems, but clearly you can find people who are unsatisfied with all of the mobile carriers for one reason or another. As an industry mobile carriers over all rank pretty low in customer satisfaction. I think AT&T has become the industry whipping boy, whether its the fairly earned or not.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hezekiahb View Post


    Couple people I know have AT&T & are always saying how they wish they had Verizon because it's more reliable. My experience has been that they get just as good coverage as I do, but for some reason there is this belief floating around that Verizon just works great everywhere you go. Is it the commercials?



  • Reply 82 of 91
    gyokurogyokuro Posts: 83member
    I appreciate the arguments so far, but there is no comparing the two service providers because of the obvious difference of network technologies. Now, when they are both running 4G and both have iPhone (hopefully), then maybe we can argue the nuance. There is, though, the intangible perception of good customer service, which Verizon currently wins by my experience.

  • Reply 83 of 91
    nitronitro Posts: 91member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gyokuro View Post


    I appreciate the arguments so far, but there is no comparing the two service providers because of the obvious difference of network technologies. Now, when they are both running 4G and both have iPhone (hopefully), then maybe we can argue the nuance. There is, though, the intangible perception of good customer service, which Verizon currently wins by my experience.





    I'm surprised that country like the US of A there should be more competition on technology (iphone is one of them). shouldn't the consumer decide with their feet who they want their as their service provider. i know Apple has done deals with AT &T , but still i feel American customers are getting short changed for sometime. perhaps "consumer affairs" need to get "metal spheres" and deal with it. I know the various reasons on "whys" and "why nots" of apple going to AT & T , but at the end of the day "double/multiple" standards in customer service should not be condoned.
  • Reply 84 of 91
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    Exclusive agreements between carriers and phone manufacturers are common, its nothing new.



    I can agree with your comments in the general sense that more competition is good. But the Apple/AT&T deal has some significant differences and changes that go against the common thinking.



    Before the iPhone the mobile carriers had all of the power. They would dictate to the handset manufacturers what hardware and software the handset was able to have. This allowed the carrier to charge for additional functionality or lock the consumer into their proprietary service.



    The Apple/AT&T deal changed that paradigm. In agreement for exclusive iPhone agreement. AT&T agreed to have no control over the hardware functionality or software on the iPhone. AT&T agreed to charge a reasonable unlimited data price. For that price everything on the phone is able to function without AT&T being allowed to charge anything additional.



    AT&T cannot charge extra for music or media services which carriers normally do. Nor is AT&T allowed to charge extra for GPS mapping, which they normally do.



    Still today on other mobile carriers this type of freedom is rare. And because of competition from the iPhone they are beginning to loosen their control.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nitro View Post


    I'm surprised that country like the US of A there should be more competition on technology (iphone is one of them). shouldn't the consumer decide with their feet who they want their as their service provider. i know Apple has done deals with AT &T , but still i feel American customers are getting short changed for sometime. perhaps "consumer affairs" need to get "metal spheres" and deal with it. I know the various reasons on "whys" and "why nots" of apple going to AT & T , but at the end of the day "double/multiple" standards in customer service should not be condoned.



  • Reply 85 of 91
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    T



    PS: This relates to nothing but I found an interesting feature of the iPhone's GPS that I didn't know existed. If you go out of cell range completely A-GPS can't work. You also can't grab the maps from Google. This happened to me a couple weeks ago in some middle of nowhere area of Kentucky. I was trying to find my destination and was out of options since I couldn't make a call. I decided to go into Google maps, it was on the last page showing the map of the destination I had looked up earlier. I pinched the map out until it was fairly small and surrounded by the empty grid. There was blue dot, which moved with me until I worked my way up to the cached map. Maybe it's just me, but I was impressed that the remaining map coordinates were still keep in sync.



    This has happened to me as well. But it's something that happens to a lot of phones on different networks. Automobile GPS models don't have that happen because the maps are in the device, and all they need is the GPS info from the satellites.



    When we get turn by turn programs for our devices, they won't lose the maps either.
  • Reply 86 of 91
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DHKOsta View Post


    You're right about my posts being speculative, and maybe it would have been useful for me to be more clear about that. It's been my observation that speculation is a significant, accepted part of these forums. We don't have all of the numbers, but we have a lot of them. $30 a month for data. 24 months is $720. Half of that is probably eaten upfront by the subsidy, and the other half divided between Apple, network upgrades and maintenance (much of which seems to be driven by the iPhone), other overhead, interest, the IRS, and actual retained cash. My best guess is that cash isn't AT&T's big motivation for the partnership. I assume it's massively profitable, but it's not bringing the net cash. That's all I was trying to say.



    Except that you're missing things there.



    For one, an Phone account is fairly expensive sofat, at least $70 pe month for a single account. That's $840 a yesr, or $1680 for the two years of the contract.



    That's high, and doesn't include anything for messaging.



    All the expenses you mentioned, including the subsidy exist for all other phones. The more expensive phones are subsidized at least to the same extent the iPhone is.



    So I don't see what you're talking about as being different for the iPhone. But, AT&T has said that they make more money from iPhone customers 1.6 times as much revenue. That's a real number. They also have significantly lower churn rates from iPhone customers. That saves them money as well, and adds to their profits. That more than accounts for any expenses AT&T has to lay out.



    The iPhone is a big profit center for them. I don't see any information you have provided that shows it isn't.
  • Reply 87 of 91
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TBell View Post


    And you used the phone one time? That stinks.



    Was that supposed to be witty?



    Do you actually have something to contribute, or is this all we have to look at from you going forward?
  • Reply 88 of 91
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by teckstud View Post


    Wrong- re-read . The problem is they keep adding to the 2G tower to bring it up to 3G rather than replacing it -hence the piss poor signal that you must love so much in Brooklyn.

    The 2G signal then interferes with the 3G signal on the same tower. Did you even read it?



    You don't replace towers. You add transmitters and receivers to them. A tower is just a structure to carry these devices, so they add to it as needed, and yes, even replace some of the equipment on the towers if required.



    They add towers where they need more coverage.
  • Reply 89 of 91
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    So I don't see what you're talking about as being different for the iPhone. But, AT&T has said that they make more money from iPhone customers 1.6 times as much revenue. That's a real number. They also have significantly lower churn rates from iPhone customers. That saves them money as well, and adds to their profits. That more than accounts for any expenses AT&T has to lay out.



    Apple also deals with the servicing and tech support for the iPhone directly. I can't imagine how much of an expense this would be in man hours and such, but it seems significant. This would also add to user satisfaction with tech support as they are trained on one simple device, not flipping through scripts with dozens of phones to potentially deal with.



    I wonder what the actual churn numbers are for the iPhone.
  • Reply 90 of 91
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gyokuro View Post


    There is, though, the intangible perception of good customer service, which Verizon currently wins by my experience.





    That's interesting because I know people who think the network is very good, but think the customer service stinks.



    People have different expectations.
  • Reply 91 of 91
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nitro View Post


    I'm surprised that country like the US of A there should be more competition on technology (iphone is one of them). shouldn't the consumer decide with their feet who they want their as their service provider. i know Apple has done deals with AT &T , but still i feel American customers are getting short changed for sometime. perhaps "consumer affairs" need to get "metal spheres" and deal with it. I know the various reasons on "whys" and "why nots" of apple going to AT & T , but at the end of the day "double/multiple" standards in customer service should not be condoned.



    Apple could never have gotten what they wanted if they were talking to several providers at once.



    By giving AT&T an exclusive deal for several years on a product that both Apple AND AT&T thought would be hot, gave Apple the upper hand.



    And now you can see what that's done around the entire world.



    We would never have seen the entire relationship between carrier and manufacturer change. Apple managed to force that upon the entire worldwide industry.



    Verizon, the network most hated for its tight control over every aspect of its phones has been forced to open up and lower their very high data service charges. They also now allow phones to have features that even a year ago they didn't allow.



    Sometimes exclusivity breeds innovation far more than does what we see in Europe, with all of its crappy, clunky "feature phones".
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