A not-so-interesting complaint relating to the iPhone and AT&T’s EDGE data service. Yes, EDGE is slow for modern browsing tasks. AT&T has 3G and HSDPA networks available in many urban areas that Apple could have taken advantage of, relying on EDGE as a good fall-back in most rural areas. To be honest, most rural areas will actually only have GPRS!
While the analysis of an under-powered wireless infrastructure is true, not just the government is to blame as they try to in this article. The carriers and device manufacturers should also be taken to task on this. Too much emphasis is placed on who has the fastest network, and not enough on making that fast network ubiquitous.
The dirty little secret that consumers need to keep in mind is that the U.S. is a huge country and we expect service in nearly all corners of the map. Take a look at Europe and each country is not much bigger than the state of Wisconsin, or Colorado or California. If that’s all the real estate that you have to worry about, you can get coverage fairly easy. We’ve got a lot more country that has a few dozen people per square mile and that is hard for many carriers to justify putting up expensive cell towers.
At any rate, consumers should start getting more vocal about the price and performance of wireless networks. Popular opinion is the greatest power in the marketplace, regardless of what the carriers, device manufactures, and government regulatory committees believe.
Let ’em all know what you want!
Via: PC World – Frontline: iPhone Shows Need for New Wireless Network
