Sep 24, 2009 4:47 pm US/Mountain
Smart Phone Networks Frustrate Many Coloradans
Good Question: Why is my fancy phone so slow?
Written by Alan Gionet
DENVER (CBS4) ―
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Good Question, a regular part of CBS4 News at 10 p.m., is an opportunity for Alan Gionet to drill past the basic facts of a story and give it some depth & perspective. See more Good Question reports.
AT&T is rolling out a new feature for the iPhone on Friday called multimedia messaging, also known as MMS. It is supposed to allow users to send messages, including things like video, to other phones.
MMS will probably mean more demand on a network that's already frustrating users. Many iPhone users and other smart phone users lately have been asking the same question. "Why is my fancy phone so slow?"
Cars that go through gas quickly are called gas guzzlers, so an iPhone could be thought of as a "data guzzler." MMS will be the latest addition to the data hogging iPhone scene, and many are skeptical about whether it will work smoothly on the network of AT&T, which remains the iPhone's only authorized service provider.
"Well, my iPhone works -- it's just that the service is terrible," medical device salesman Jared Stevens told CBS4.
His problems cost him money.
"It makes me look bad because it makes me look like I'm not responsive, which is really not the case."
He depends on cell phone service to get calls about surgeries where he needs to show up with his products. If a call comes through a day late … well, you get it.
"Within the past 3 months, (there have been) a tremendous amount of dropped calls -- upwards of 10 to 20 a day. Voicemails coming in the following day," he said.
All of that creates big headaches.
Not that it's just iPhones.
"I am sending pictures to my online album to my Facebook," says Sarah Watley, who's phone is a Nokia with Verizon service. "Most of the time it doesn't work I've got to send it three different ways."
The problem is data networks are getting overwhelmed.
Prof. Tim Brown from the University of Colorado's Electrical Engineering department told CBS4 it was simpler when there were just phone calls and text messaging.
"There was only one type of call and it was small bandwidth and you could have lots of these stacking up. Now what's happening is you have these iPhones and you have these different kinds of devices that are looking at video, people are downloading pictures and when these come in they're much higher bandwidth and fill up the channel much more quickly. So these relatively big things are trying to be fed into the same pipe and it fills it up more, much more quickly."
In order to prepare for demand, cell phone companies model use and try to prepare.
"They certainly have models of what it's going to take," said CU professor Frank Barnes. "They have to have models to know how many phones to build. Now they can get surprised, but you wouldn't begin to manufacture this thing without some reasonable idea of how you're going to handle it and service it."
AT&T now says it is spending billions on system upgrades.
The company said there was no one available to answer questions on camera and spokesperson Brooke Burgess provided written responses to CBS4's emailed questions. She wrote:
"We're working hard to deliver the latest wireless technology in the Denver area and we are in the process of increasing the reach and capacity of our wireless network so that our customers can do even more with their AT&T devices. These network enhancements are expected to be completed in the coming weeks. I look forward to sharing more information with you soon when the upgrades are completed. If a customer has a specific problem with their service, we encourage them to contact AT&T so we can review their situation on a case by case basis."
That didn't accomplish much for Jared. He says they've done updates over updates for his iPhone.
"It really has not helped the problem," he said.
And on getting word that there will be additional towers he said, "They really haven't had an exact answer of when the service would be better."
Additional Resources
To read what people are writing about iPhone network issues on Twitter, check out the Twitter trending topic
#attdroppedit.
People are also sounding off about iPhone network issues to CBS partners at
CNET.
(© MMIX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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