AT&T 3G Upgrades Degrade 2G Signal Strength 210
Timothy R. Butler writes "Much to the chagrin of owners of various 2G cell phones on AT&T Mobility's network, including the highly visible (and originally highly expensive) first-generation iPhone, we have discovered that AT&T has been quietly adjusting its network in ways that degrade 2G network performance as it has sought to build out its next-generation 3G network. Many of the phones affected, including BlackBerry devices, are still well within their two-year contract period."
Planned Obsolescence (Score:5, Insightful)
Its the way people do business now.
Sad and immoral, but true.
Re:Planned Obsolescence (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really planned obsolescence, appropriating resources for the new revenue stream forsaking existing customers.
This to me seems worse as they are stealing services paid for by existing customers, instead of just letting their stuff expire as obsolite.
Re:Planned Obsolescence (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems like this would be fine, if there were an open market. But to lock user's phones into a particular network, lock users into multi-year contracts, then downwardly adjust service, seems a little dodgy.
I don't doubt that shifting spectrum to 3G is the right way to go... I'm just not convinced that now is the time and this is the way.
even without contracts, the competition is sketchy (Score:4, Interesting)
There are a lot of identical prices/features in the plans the major 4 providers offer, so much so that it seems like an odd coincidence if this is truly a competitive market between non-collusive entities.
For example, say I want to buy a laptop cell-phone modem, and buy a wireless data plan. There are four providers who will sell me that, so you'd think I might have a choice of packages, maybe some carriers offering higher data limits for a higher price, others structuring their service with multiple tiers, etc. Instead, every provider offers exactly one plan, and all four have identical terms and prices: $60/mo for 5GB of data.
Re:even without contracts, the competition is sket (Score:4, Informative)
Instead, every provider offers exactly one plan, and all four have identical terms and prices: $60/mo for 5GB of data.
What in the world are you talking about? I went to check your facts and the very first carrier that I checked had a $50/month data card plan with unlimited data [t-mobile.com].
oops, looks like I missed one (Score:4, Informative)
I stand corrected; T-Mobile's offer is reasonably good, and gives the others some competition.
AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon all do offer only the same $60/mo, 5-GB limit plan for data cards, though. Well, Verizon also offers a useless 50-MB limit one, for $40/mo.
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It's probably cheaper because their 3G coverage is still small.
I never looked at AT&T's plan before... $0.50/MB overage - aaaak! Leave it to AT&T to make Verizon look cheap at $0.25/MB. Sprint lays them both to waste by making it $0.05/MB for overage. It's still puzzling to me why the overage rate isn't more like $0.01/MB, since that is about what it costs to get the first 5GB. With AT&T if you go a gig over you'd owe over $500... seems fair! :)
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I think you missed my point - 10GB at $50 is still a different plan than 5GB at $60.
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I'm not here to debate the relative merits of the various carriers or their plans. I simply pointed out that one of the major carriers has a plan that is roughly half the cost of the others in price/data and $10 cheaper in absolute terms.
Beyond that, the 3 with 5GB/$60 plans vary wildly with overage fees. I dare say that you'd have a very unpleasant surprise if you went over with AT&T and their $0.50/MB overage.
Not that much.. (Score:2)
I know that is Verizon's price. I'm unsure about AT&T, but T-mobile's is a tad lower as is Sprint's. Sprint's is particularly interestingly low for shared plans relative to the rest. This of course makes sense, as at the moment Sprint is the most desperate as they have a lousy reputation and must take the most drastic action. I'm pretty sure that Verizon has the highest prices (excepting AT&T, who I've no looked up), and they also happened to have the largest market share.
In other words, things
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Here in Cambridge, MA, I'm seeing 59.99 / 5GB for sprint and AT&T. T-mobile is offering 49.99 for unlimited.
Perhaps pricing variants are dependent upon the market, and some markets are more competitive than others?
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Re:Planned Obsolescence (Score:5, Interesting)
If true, then this is exactly what Cingular did to the TDMA network (back when I had my GAIT phone, http://slashdot.org/~LoadWB/journal/123321 [slashdot.org] ) while transitioning to GSM/GPRS. Cingular quietly discontinued various network services to TDMA phones, then essentially told us "tough shit, get a GSM phone."
I have noticed that my EDGE speeds have not been quite up to their norm lately. I was hoping this was just an anomaly, but I guess you never really can tell.
I wonder how friendly T-Mobile is to unlocked phones. I really have a hard time abandoning my Sony Ericssons...
Re:Planned Obsolescence (Score:5, Informative)
Friendly -- T-Mobile will even unlock one phone every 90 days for you, for free.
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Too bad their network isn't that great. I don't get signal outside of my house and I live in the biggest city in NJ by population.
t-mobile is the avis of the industry. good unlock (Score:5, Informative)
The customer service folks are actually helpful, they will discuss how to configure unlocked iphones and other phones on t-mobile. They also unlock t-mobile purchased phones in 90 days, even sooner in most cases, etc.
AT&T has the absolutely worst customer service. All the other carriers ('cept for T-mobile) are pretty evil. I would not be surprised at any informal price fixing... everyone is locked in anyways. But network quality is very important also, and T-mobile doesn't do well there.
I only switched to T-mobile when they allowed their phones to do calls over the wifi network as well as the cell tower network. The coverage isn't great, but you can supplement it by placing wifi points where you use the cell phone the most... it actually is better for use in some rural areas. But my blood pressure is much lower whenever I deal with customer service, that's priceless!
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I posted this on the OFB.biz article as a comment... LoadWB, you're 100% right, AT&T did *exactly* this before, and I expect them to do it again -- screw up 3G service to "encourage" people to go to LTE.
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Par for the course. I predicted over 5 years ago that this is exactly what would happen once they decided to go to a post-GSM technology, based on the handling of the previous TDMA->GSM conversion.
AT&T and Cingular (pre-merger you understand) BOTH did exactly the same thing du
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Wow, thanks LoadWB. I had the same problem as you with my TDMA service back in 2006. After being with AT&T Wireless and then Cingular since 1999, my service abruptly became very flaky. Near my house I would lose service for hours at a time, when otherwise I would have an exceptionally strong signal. If I walked a few blocks away from my house my service would resume again, though at poor signal strength. As quickly as the problem appeared it would go away for several days. The frequency and predic
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I wonder how friendly T-Mobile is to unlocked phones. I really have a hard time abandoning my Sony Ericssons...
I'm using unlocked P910 and P990's on T-Mobile. Just pop in the SIM and go.
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No it's not. I have Verizon, they kept analog in FANTASTIC shape right until the analog shutdown date. I mean, they surely did reduce the number of analog channels, but they counted analog in their call drop and fast busy stats, so they made sure to keep *enough* analog channels to keep service in good shape, urging people to get a new phone but not forcing them into it by destroying their service.
They rolled out EVDO without harming existing service.. in rare cases
Forced Premature Obsolescence (Score:2)
Forced Premature Obsolescence
There, I fixed it for you.
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So? (Score:2)
I'm sure these new features are well defined in the contract you sign with A&T.
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Yes. I'm also pretty sure that also in the contract is the right for AT&T to come to my house at any time they please and take my car out of the garage. There are lots of illegal things put into those EULAs and contracts. Just because it's in a contract does not make it enforceable. Or even right.
Of course, the correct and awesome behavior would be if people actually read all the crap they're supposedly agreeing to and then quietly declined to sign in the first place.
Centro (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Centro (Score:5, Funny)
Your signal strength degradation in MO has nothing to do with AT&T, and everything to do with your slashdot username!
AT&T and Food Lion (Score:2)
Got my Centro three months ago and have not noticed any degradation of service during that time here in rural SC but AT&T reception has never been really great either.
I thought AT&T's network went down yesterday while I was out shopping only to realize that Food Lion, or someone in the store(?), was blocking cell phones for whatever strange reason.
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True, save for the fact that I had made calls from inside this store in the recent past with no indication of reduced signal. The day in question I got the 'No Service' message upon entering.
The only dead spot I've found here in SC is in the depths of the Francis Marion National Forrest but I turn my phone off there anyway out of respect for the Swamp Fox and his men.
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Edge service (Score:2, Interesting)
Where I live, AT&T has both Edge (2.5G) and 3G deployed - I only have the first gen iPhone so I cannot speak to 3G quality here, but over the past couple of months I have seen an improvement in 2G coverage and quality. My house used to be on the edge (hah!) of an Edge dead zone - but now we get nearly full bars and no missed calls.
NYC (Score:5, Interesting)
In NYC my 1st Gen iPhone has become unusable. It's so obvious I'm glad someone else is noticing.
- Pandora for the iPhone used to work, now it doesn't (Too slow).
- Loading map searches on google maps takes a minute plus.
The constants are my apt location and my desk location at work. I haven't changed a thing, but the network has definitely slowed down with the same "signal strength"/Bars.
Shreveport too... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's funny, I noticed this a month or so ago in Shreveport Louisiana. I live in an area where Shreveport is the closest 3G network. At home we have horrible signal fluctuations, but when it works Edge is mostly fine. Before Shreveport went 3G I would get 5 bars and Edge was pretty good (for Edge anyway).
After the 3G switch, I still get 5 bars of service, but the Edge symbol almost never comes on, instead I get the weird little 'dot in a circle' that tells you you are one GPRS, and with a 1st gen iPhone that means no data whatsoever. Calls are great though.
Occasionally the E will appear for a short time, and when it does it is like the Edge network that was there before 3G came. But it only lasts seconds, or sometimes maybe minutes, then goes away again.
At least with this setup I know out of the gate I'm not going to get service when the edge icon is completely missing.
The first time I noticed this I was with some people who had 3G iPhones. With the 3G disabled their phones were doing the exact same thing, so I know it isn't my phone being weird.
This is one of the few times I feel lucky to be nowhere near 3G service, as it would make my fully functional phone not work properly, and I'd be 'incentivized' to upgrade. Now I can keep my working phone, and slightly less expensive data plan for the time being.
FCC? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does this only affect at&t 2G phones? Even if-so, should this not fall under the jurisdiction of the FCC? Is a company allowed to create devices/systems that use the spectrum in such a way that they interfere with other devices created by the same company?
Clever contract wording or not, this just doesn't seem like it should be allowed.
Re:FCC? (Score:5, Informative)
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Output power is the same for both frequency bands. The higher frequency provides greater distance loss but also better in-building penetration. So while those a further distance from the tower don't get as good reception, those closer to the tower but obstructed by an object (or in a basement) have improved reception. But everyone looooooves to complain about cell phone comapies so the story is about those with coverage losses instead of those with coverage gains.
People (ok, people over the age of 30) ne
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To see signal strength in db on your BlackBerry hold Alt and type NMLL on the home screen.
I just bought another 8310 (GSM/EDGE) because I've seen far too many reports about short battery life on the new BlackBerry's. I really hope that I don't see too much degradation of service. Hopefully it's a valid reason to get out of contract for free. If not, the sales rep last told me that canceling a contract was only $75 now, so if you need a new device it's probably cheaper to pay the $75 and get the discounts/re
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So this is really a problem with physics/RF characteristics. Well damn it, I want to sue the fabric of spacetime then! =)
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I've filed a complaint. I hope more people do the same.
In the last 4 months I've seen my signal strength go from 4 bars to no bars in my home, nearby grocery store, and at the hobby shop I hang out at every other weekend.
I'm on PrePaid, I have no contract, but I've got over a hundred dollars in my account still.
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Wildly OT, but following your homepage/sig link (your site?) and putting in my comments page address gives http://socuteurl.com/fuzzybutt [socuteurl.com]
Coincidence? I THINK NOT!
Pulse Dialing... (Score:2)
Get with the times, 2G is going the same way as Pulse Dialing did for land lines.
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1 - These damn 2-year contracts make "getting with the times" a real pisser.
2 - Pulse dialing for land lines still works fine... right? Well there are some systems that *never* supported it, nasty phone trees and VOIP providers and whatnot, but it works on every POTS network I've ever plugged into. Flick the little switch on the back of your phone and try it, or, if you've got rhythm, just tap out the numbers using the cradle switch! Weee, fun!!!!
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Flick the little switch on the back of your phone and try it,
Do they still make phones with a pulse/tone switch? Seems strange, since the last pulse-only POTS service disappeared a long time ago. So the only purpose the switch serves is to create frustrating delays for people who don't know what it's for.
But you're right, POTS still supports pulse dialing. And a lot of people are using it, judging from the number of rotary dial phones for sale [ebay.com].
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But you're right, POTS still supports pulse dialing. And a lot of people are using it, judging from the number of rotary dial phones for sale.
Judging use of a product by its sale availability is basically wrongheaded. You might also note that the phones for sale are probably not in service.
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When I said "a lot of people" I meant "hundreds", which is enough to account for those eBay sales. And I very much doubt that that many are being sold for use as planters.
I also have to quibble with your sig. Not all trolls are ACs. Some are even editors [slashdot.org].
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Given that this switchover was hitting even semi-rural areas like Bluefield, WV several years
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Do they still make phones with a pulse/tone switch? Seems strange, since the last pulse-only POTS service disappeared a long time ago.
Disappeared? Maybe in the first world country where you live. My university still has an internal pulse-only network.
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Great analogy. If the switch to tone dialing were being made today, pulse dialing phones would still work, but it would take upwards of a minute to connect after dialing. For many customers, pulse dialing would either sporadically or completely stop working completely, and the phone company would tell you they can't fix it. To fix the problem you would have to get a tone dialing phone and upgrade your service with the new tone dialing package. Within 18 months, the phone company would introduce new ultr
This is nothing new... (Score:5, Informative)
I found it unbelievable that anyone would pay more, receive less, and sign a new contract with a company that just failed to live up to their old contract. Unfortunately, my pessimistic view of the general public was once again shown to be overly optimistic.
Re:This is nothing new... (Score:4, Informative)
That's incorrect.
First of all, in many areas of the country, AT&T (merged) sold the Cingular towers off to T-Mobile (this was the case in California). They only used the AT&T towers.
There was a complex migration, you could read a lot about it by the people who tracked the switchover on howardforums.com.
The only thing that you say that does make sense is about your reception. If you had an old AT&T "Blue" SIM, your phone would not access any Cingular towers. But the only thing you had to do to fix it was to get a new "Orange" SIM (which were literally orange). If you didn't didn't do this soon after the merger, you started to see reduced coverage rather quickly. A new SIM should be free if you complain about your coverage to AT&T's customer line (not a store, the stores always want to put you under contract as there is money it in for them). But even if you couldn't swing that, a new SIM can be purchased for $20, no contract extension necessary.
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What AT&T did when they made the brief switch to Cingular that dropped coverage is irrelevant. The service that was contracted for with AT&T stopped being supplied. Personally, I knew that they were lying which is why I put "not repaired" in quotes, and specifically said "an obvious lie". That doesn't change the fact that phones that previously worked and were under contract stopped working as a direct result of AT&T/Cingular's actions, and "not being repaired due t
Re:This is nothing new... (Score:4, Informative)
This is also the case for me.
I was a Cingular customer pre-merger. I started seeing my service degrade slowly; I noticed it more prominently when I got a new 3g capable phone.
I went to an AT&T store, told them my problem. They gave me a new SIM card, and all my reception issues went away. The clerk said it was common; he said that phones with the old pre-merger SIM cards wouldn't connect to all the towers, so they were trying to give everyone new SIM cards. Not sure how much of that was actually technically accurate, but the core of it is that a free, up-to-date SIM card solves all problems.
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In the hands of AT&T, from the sound of it.
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surrealism? metarealism?
AT&T hates non-coastal areas... (Score:2, Informative)
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The cell phone coverage maps viewed at a national scale are virtually indistinguishable. They all work everywhere in densely populated territory, and only near a highway in rural areas. All the providers refuse to build towers in areas where they can't get enough customers to make money off of them.
All cellular companies in the US suck (Score:5, Interesting)
For me I choose AT&T over technology. I have no love for the company but GSM/UMTS is a worldwide technology, and for better or worse I am backing the standard. Verizon, and Sprint both deal in proprietary technology, which in my opinion is the real problem in the US. The FCC has allowed companies to use cell technology, nasty contracts, and DRM technologies (SIMLOCK) to provide customer lock-in. IMHO the FCC should dictate the technology, and it should be the same path most countries are on, GSM/UMTS/LTE. They should also disallow the contractual lock-in, and SIM locking.
The government picking a technology standard that enables US customers to have real choice is a good thing.
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Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why so serious? (Score:4, Informative)
You do realize that the "many" are currently 2/2.5G phone users? Users locked into a contract that means you can't upgrade (without paying a pretty nasty chunk of change)?
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That's why I go with Virgin Mobile, pas as you go. I get calls, and texts and NO 2 year contracts!
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FishWithAHammer was saying that you can't upgrade without paying full retail price to AT&T, or by saving a bit of money buying it online. Either way, you're out a large chunk of money unless you're eligible to upgrade.
Re:Why so serious? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then you should have stopped selling 2G service when you knew you weren't going to support it properly, but that would be denying a potential income stream. Or you could have at LEAST warned customers that they were going to be locked in to a contract that won't provide the services as advertised (oh, they might be within the contractual fine print, but it's not what the guy on TV told you it was going to be), but that would be bad PR. So the sneaky underhanded method works out the best... for you (as a representative of AT&T).
Caveat Emptor is good advice for consumers, but it makes a really nasty corporate business plan.
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That's sorta bullshit. Your website advertises 3G as a way to get faster Internet access on your phone. A "normal" phone user who just calls and texts sees no indication that the phones with the little blazing "3G" icons in the store are more likely to work well in a year or two. If you are phasing out 2G, stop selling the phones!
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Re:Why so serious? (Score:4, Insightful)
Normally I would agree with your premise.
"Edge users are equivalent to VHS users. The technology has moved on, you need to move on or deal with slightly degraded service"
That isn't really a valid analogy. If VHS players suddenly couldn't fast forward, rewind, or record, and could only play some parts of a tape, then yeah. That's not the case here though.
In this case there seems to be a large group of people still under thier original contracts. INAL but sounds like 1. Breach of contract (Degraded services) 2. Bait and switch (oh if you want it to actually work properly you need to upgrade to G3) 3. Fraud (Offering and contracting services you have no intention of providing - which is where the purposely degrading comes in)
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Edge users are equivalent to VHS users. The technology has moved on, you need to move on or deal with slightly degraded service.
Except my tapes don't stop working in my VCR just because the VCR company started phasing out VCRs.
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And like your VHS tapes, EDGE hasn't stopped working either. They may get slower connections, but it still works.
If want to complain about somethng, why not complain about the fact that, very soon, the old TV connected to that VCR is going to stop working...
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And unlike EDGE, when my VCR breaks, it breaks on its own and not because the corporation that built it told it to break.
Your little analogy with analog tv doesn't work. That was announced years ago and TVs don't require contracts as opposed to AT&T quietly messing with things and affecting those who have contracts.
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"...not because the corporation that built it told it to break."
Actually, I just read the last company doing VHS tape production is folding up operations...
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Once they stop production, everyone's tapes will stop working as a direct result?
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What evidence do you have that ATT's current customer base is primarily 3G? ATT especially has been a laggard in 3G deployment; I would guess that most of its current paying customers are on the losing end of this decision.
There is still a business argument that it is better to prepare for the future than to support the past, but it's a questionable one.
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they already chose (Score:3, Informative)
I had my 2G (quad band) phone in Europe. I only ever got EDGE once, and that was in the complete sticks.
The rest of the time, I only got GPRS. This is because that's all that was offered, GPRS and 3G.
So far from being an idyllic solution, it seems in Europe the outcome is even more decided for you.
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How long ago? Edge was only rolled out when the iPhone came out, and came quite a while after UTMS (3G).
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Three months ago. In England, France and Malta (!).
And EDGE wasn't rolled out in any significant amount, even when the iPhone did come out. This is part of the reason the iPhone didn't sell well in Europe before it had 3G. And who can blame them? Surely they knew Apple would have a 3G phone soon (since Europe had had 3G phones for years already).
And it's UMTS, not UTMS.
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Most all GSM networks in Europe are EDGE able, some less then others. The question however remains. Did you have a data plan on that roaming ?
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Yes, I had a data plan on that plan. And I activated it. I WAS NOT ROAMING except in France. I bought a UK SIM in the UK and used a local's Maltese SIM in Malta.
Maybe you're confusing EDGE with GPRS or UMTS?
I'm not making this up. Europe went straight to 3G (partly because of the ridiculous amounts of money they overpaid for the spectrum) and EDGE coverage is spotty at best.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,1000000085,39250156,00.htm [zdnet.co.uk]
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Then you have picked bad GSM providers. Where I life (Iceland) there are two 2G providers, one of them only provides EDGE on the most populated places (Siminn), while the other (Vodafone IS) provides EDGE all over his network.
I do not know this is all over Europe, but most GSM providers there are EDGE able. Coverage however might be limited.
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My carrier in the US (T-Mobile) does the same - 3G is on a completely separate frequency.
I don't know what the other carriers are doing - not all of them have the luxury of a totally new frequency like T-Mobile has.
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So in other words 2G is shit in Europe period since ATT is doing exactly that right now, moving it to a different frequency. Just so happens that not all frequencies are the same and some don't provide as good a signal everywhere as others.
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"AT&T's "2G" network was the pre-GSM TDMA network. The iPhone works on the 3G GSM network.
What is happening here is degradation of the stronger 900Mhz spectrum of the 3G GSM network which has twice the distance but half the capacity, because north america's UMTS runs on the 900Mhz band, so they can't expand the UMTS without degrading this."
100% wrong.
Marketingwise, AT&T called the TDMA network "digital". (Which is a poor term b
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"AT&T's "2G" network was the pre-GSM TDMA network. The iPhone works on the 3G GSM network.
You drank the cool-aid. Apple released a 2G iPhone less than 2 years ago, and replaced it with a 3G model less than a year ago. So, there's still users with the old model under contract who can't upgrade without paying a penalty fee.
Re:Class Action Lawsuit? (Score:4, Informative)
If you read your contract with ATT, you will realize that any such lawsuit will have to go to arbitration, with a phone-industry appointed panel of phone industry lobbyists.
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Federal law needs to be enacted that states a private corporation cannot a) prevent you from seeking redress in a court of law and b) cannot even suggest that they can prevent you from doing so. I say this as a small business owner as well. The customer may not always be right, but damn it, you can't starting trying to take people's rights away just because it may cost you more to do business.
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If you manage to use the idiotically bogus cellular industry "terms" 2.75G, 3G, and 3.5G in the same post, then you win the AT&T schill bonus prize!
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Not really, your post's full of random "A^(TM)" characters. Anyone else see this?