AT&T slowing EDGE to force customers to switch to 3G?
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Been holding on to that now-antique EDGE device to keep from extending your contract with AT&T? Well, if you've been experiencing some sluggishness -- and not just general EDGE sluggishness, mind you -- you might have more to blame than just those recent outages. Open for Business reports that AT&T has been quietly lowering EDGE signal strength to give more 3G love to all you iPhone 3G and Bold users. To add to the shadiness of the situation, AT&T reps are all offering up the same solution -- buy a 3G device. Unsurprisingly, AT&T's Mark Siegel has denied Open for Business's claims, and says that the mega-carrier is not requiring anyone to switch to a 3G phone. We'll put on our Sherlock Holmes outfits and try to do some digging,
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Slowing down EDGE speeds - Unlikely
Shifting Spectrum to provide more bandwidth for the increasing numbers of 3G user - Very Likely
Shifting Spectrum to provide more bandwidth for the increasing numbers of 3G user - Very Likely
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According to Open for Business, a technology publication, AT&T technicians have confirmed this information, and the company's technical support team suggested that customers experiencing difficulties with their EDGE phone models should upgrade to 3G-supported devices. AT&T has "categorically" denied the allegations.
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http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=5979 »
And
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/07/atandt-slowing-ed ... »
Maybe it's just me, but from what I've experienced rumors are usually based on some truth.
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You provided two links to reports from only one source from one month ago. This report did not get much traction then for a reason. Like I said, AT&T allocates spectrum based on projected need and in all likelyhood EDGE bandwidth has decreased. At the same time so has the % of EDGE handsets on the AT&T network.
AT&T has some 25 handsets for sale right now and only 3 are not 3G. Those handset sales are not even proportional to their quantity on the wall. 3G has been selling at a high % for some 2 years now. EDGE handset owners also subscribe to data at a far smaller rate than owners of 3G handsets.
Moving the bandwidth is progress. Wouldn't AT&T be doing a much greater disservice by NOT anticipating 3G demand when they sell 90% 3...
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AT&T has some 25 handsets for sale right now and only 3 are not 3G. Those handset sales are not even proportional to their quantity on the wall. 3G has been selling at a high % for some 2 years now. EDGE handset owners also subscribe to data at a far smaller rate than owners of 3G handsets.
Moving the bandwidth is progress. Wouldn't AT&T be doing a much greater disservice by NOT anticipating 3G demand when they sell 90% 3...
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Moving the bandwidth is progress. Wouldn't AT&T be doing a much greater disservice by NOT anticipating 3G demand when they sell 90% 3G handsets?
If that's the case, I hope it helps.
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Notably, AT&T and the iPhone 3G were singled out in the report as most disappointing in 3G performance (following on news that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has been sued again for 3G performance in its iPhone 3G). The report mentions that the iPhone 3G wouldn’t support data speeds in excess of 1.4Mbps, while laptop data cards were pulling down data at up to 1.7Mbps. Gartner goes on to advise that “Companies shouldn’t expect the fastest network speeds on the iPhone 3G.â€Â
In response to the attack, AT&T s
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Did you quote Consumer Reports and the 3 people who turn in their wireless report cards. 🤣
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I feel like this is a complete lie. If anything my edge speeds have gotten better over the last year.
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I've been using a Blackberry Curve 8310 for the past year and have not seen any change in my data speeds. In fact, since the 4.5 handset update, I can even stream YouTube video over the Edge network just fine.
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I've been using a Blackberry Curve 8310 for the past year and have not seen any change in my data speeds. In fact, since the 4.5 handset update, I can even stream YouTube video over the Edge network just fine.
Thanks for sharing that. 🙂
Because that's exactly what I was looking at doing, ditch my 3G phone for the BB Pearl. Until of course I started reading about ATT slowing their EDGE network.
But unfortunately before I do that I've got to check with Sprint, it would appear they are offering me a deal to good to be true.
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andy2373 said:
Thanks for sharing that. 🙂
Because that's exactly what I was looking at doing, ditch my 3G phone for the BB Pearl. Until of course I started reading about ATT slowing their EDGE network.
But unfortunately before I do that I've got to check with Sprint, it would appear they are offering me a deal to good to be true.
i haven't read every post but they are moving more spectrum away from 2g to 3g so edge may be affected but if you go from a 2g area only to a 3g area you will notice a slight increase in speed with a 2g device because there aren't as many devices connected. also, they have the most amount of blackberry users than any other company so they aren't going to shoot themselves in...
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