Analyst Estimates AT&T Needs To Spend $5B To Catch Up 187
itwbennett writes "The public's perception of AT&T's network is poor and declining, apparently because of real shortcomings when compared with Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel,' says Gerard Hallaren, director of research at TownHall Investment Research. 'AT&T's capital expenditures on its wireless network from 2006 through September 2009 totaled about $21.6 billion, compared with $25.4 billion for Verizon and $16 billion for Sprint (including Sprint's investments in WiMax operator Clearwire). Over that time, Verizon has spent far more per subscriber: $353, compared with $308 for AT&T,' Hallaren said. 'Even Sprint has outspent AT&T per subscriber, laying out $310 for network capital expenditure.' All this means AT&T has a choice, says Hallaren: 'spend or suffer.'"
Re:Sprint? (Score:2, Interesting)
'Even Sprint has outspent AT&T per subscriber, laying out $310 for network capital expenditure.' All this means AT&T has a choice, says Hallaren: 'spend or suffer.'
Or maybe it means that Sprint-Nextel's network was such a steaming pile of crap that they had to outlay an irresponsible amount of capital to bring it up to snuff. Last time I checked, Sprint is losing thousands of customers a week.
Buh bye AT&T, enjoy history's dust bin (Score:2, Interesting)
AT&T's little game a while back where they decided that they were going to blame and overcharge iPhone users for their problems pretty much guaranteed I won't be looking into AT&T for service any time soon. I think the iPhone is a silly and largely pointless thing, like most Apple products, but that was just ridiculous.
"Oh gee, we sold a whole bunch of phones that are built to be and advertised as mobile media platforms, let's blame the users of those phones using them as mobile media platforms for all our network's problems".
Okay, AT&T. Lemme know how that works for you.
Re:Sprint? (Score:4, Interesting)
My big complaint with Sprint is cross carrier SMS and MMS. Everyone I know finds Sprint extremely unreliable about sending or receiving anything which comes from or goes to Sprint's network. I've literally waited an hour for text message to appear on the phone next to me. They also seem to drop a huge number of messages; again, cross carrier. At one point, I'd guess perhaps as high as 80% drop rate - though that high is not what I'd call typical.
I don't know if other carriers are purposely causing problems for Sprint or if Sprint is purposely causing problems for other carriers, or they are just well beyond their capacity. But, unless things improve and you SMS or MMS heavily with people on other carriers, I could never recommend Sprint.
Also, one last note, Verizon has not crippled any Android phone features. While Verizon has a terrible history here, thus far they've been true to their word on Android. Now hopefully Verizon's upcoming Android 2.1 update will fix various bugs and incompatibilities vs every other Android phone available. If not, then I'd recommend people staying away from Android+Verizon.
Re:Follow the money (Score:3, Interesting)
What I found strange about the "story", which incidentally, I also thought read like a successfully placed bit of corporate propaganda, is that AT&T is currently running commercials that capitalize on their data network being faster than Verizon's, and IIRC there have recently (last 3-6 months) been multiple stories from multiple sources (Engadget/Gizmodo, some cellular research company) that have BOTH released the same results -- AT&T's data network is faster than Verizon's.
My own personal datapoint as a customer who switched from Verizon to AT&T in the last 9 months is that I get *better* coverage with AT&T in my primary area (Twin Cities), fewer dead spots and the data service on my iPhone is faster than it was on my Motorola Q on Verizon.
My complaints about AT&T are really centered on the coverage in rural areas of MN and North Dakota -- I'm lucky if I get a solid 1x, many no service areas, and wifi is needed for any data services you'd normally expect to use on 3G. But I think that whole area is pretty much Alltel territory and nobody uses anything but Alltel up there. Verizon roams there just fine and there's decent EVDO coverage in many places AT&T wheezes on a weak 1x signal.
What??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Really? How in the world did you find a Sprint plan costing more that AT&T using the iPhone? Especially when the Sprint "everything" plan is $99/month? That's quite a feat...
You can say Sprint's customer service sucks, and yes, lots of folks had issues there. But as far as cost of plans go, I'm by NO means on the high end AT&T plan, and I'm nowhere near my Sprint bills...
700 Mhz anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
So whatever happened to the much-ballyhooed 700 Mhz spectrum? Didn't AT&T & verizon both invest in that bit? So far I haven't seen hide nor hair of any 700mhz devices nor any announcements about wireless service using this spectrum.
Re:We have seen this game before. (Score:4, Interesting)
Then I guess the real question is why do voters fall for it? If we swapped out tax cuts with welfare benefits and large corporate entity with welfare recipient, voters would howl. We place restrictions on what someone can or cannot buy with their food stamps, why not do the same for tax cuts that are specifically targeted for infrastructure building?