Rumor — AT&T Losing iPhone Exclusivity Next Week

MojoKid writes "An inside source over at HotHardware reports that AT&T will lose their iPhone exclusivity on 1/27, coincident with Apple's upcoming press event next week, though it's not yet clear what other carriers will be stepping in to pick up the iPhone. For anyone who has followed the saga, you may notice that you haven't seen AT&T fighting to extend their original exclusive agreement as of late. In fact, they have spent most of their time fighting Verizon's negative ad campaigns. This may not be all that surprising. Inside of AT&T, word is that the iPhone is causing more trouble than ever before. On some level, having the iPhone is hurting AT&T's image. Do you remember hearing about AT&T's 'horrible network' before the iPhone? The iPhone itself doesn't really handle the switch from 3G to EDGE very gracefully, so calls that are in-progress tend to fail whenever 3G connections aren't optimal and the phone attempts to step down to EDGE. It seems that AT&T may finally be tired of taking the heat."

About time...

[CrazeeCracker]

...a fair amount of other countries already have multiple carriers for the iPhone. Let's hope this stirs up some competition.

Re:Who cares?

[sixsixtysix]

exactly. although i would really like to see them disband the whole "tying certain phone to certain carriers" bs. just make everyone pay for the phone and have them choose whatever service. as for service, now if they could all just start offering unlimited plans at a decent rate (less than $50/month).

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you actually tried both?

Android's fine for geeks who don't like fuild usability, but it'll take another generation or two for Android to catch up.

Uh, excuse me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they are the only company to carry it, and it's such a data hog, it's largely to blame for AT&T's network troubles. We don't remember hearing about AT&T's "horrible network" before the iPhone--do you?

Doesn't matter. AT&T made an agreement with Apple, they made contracts with users - really one sided contracts - to handle this. To blame a product and consumers for AT&T's short sightedness, mismanagement, and desire to squeeze every last penny out of their subscribers and their system is ridiculous.

AT&T got the business and they didn't live up to their end of the bargain.

Period.

Sigh

[slasho81]

So why didn't you wait till next week to publish a verified fact?

Re:Uh, excuse me?

[ceoyoyo]

It's also not a problem with either the iPhone or the users. The phone works just fine on other carriers' networks in other countries.

Re:Underlying technology.

[CptPicard]

Funny how in the past couple of decades using Nokia GSM phones on a Finnish carrier, I've never experienced a single "dropped call". It's amazing this happens in the US.

Re:Shiny overrode Technical

[Doogie]

That's nice.

I also live in "New England" and travel around the region for work. I can't begin to list all the dropped calls I've had in the last week alone, even around the Boston area. There's still huge sections of VT/NH/ME that have zero ATT coverage at all, nevermind 3g. At this point I really don't care who is at fault, I'm just done with the iPhone/ATT.

Re:Who cares?

[Nerdfest]

Admittedly, it is easier to design a simple fluid interface when you can only run one application at a time. It removes one level of complication that most of the other smartphones need to deal with.

Hmmm....

[rinoid]

You sure can smell it can't you? The smell of troll bait in the morning ...

The iPhone is fine, so fine it's sold 10 million units. It works just fine.

Before the iPhone we had the choice between crap and crappy and a decent RIM device. Please don't tell me about your Treo.
After the iPhone we have a few choices of very good, very smart devices.

The post is a rumor which doesn't suit /. as many have pointed out ... but most of the replies are trolls who feel it's their duty to point out how much the iPhone sucks, the users are idiots, or if only it ran Linux wouldn't the world be a whole lot better?

I can't wait for the announcement to see what new device or new services are potentially opened up. I don't care to prognosticate but it'd be nice to have open carrier choices among all handsets -- but this has never really been the case. Thanks to innovation and a little more pressure from Google openly stating this as their goal it may happen. Just like DRM and iTunes where so many needed to blame Apple, call the service shit, call the device shit, it's happening with ATT, carrier lock-in, and the iPhone.


Troll bait hoo-ha-ha!

iPhone Users are Heavy Data Users

[EvlG]

I have wondered if ATT is a victim of their own success with 3G congestion. They largely sold the iPhone on the merits of all the cool data features and these users consume a lot of wireless data. 3G networks aren't designed to handle many concurrent heavy users. So I wonder, if Verizon gets the iPhone and folks make the switch, will the situation just naturally improve for ATT? Will Verizon suddenly feel the pain of all those heavy users?

Re:Underlying technology.

[wumpus188]

No wonder, when the whole country population is about a half of NYC (5.5 vs 9 millions)

What's to see?

[Anonymous Coward]

"you may notice that you haven't seen AT&T fighting to extend their original exclusive agreement..."

When did we EVER see AT&T fighting to have or to keep the iPhone?

"We don't remember hearing about AT&T's "horrible network" before the iPhone--do you?"

YES, I do. AT&T uses the world standard GSM technology. GSM was rolled out much more slowly and less uniformly in the USA than was Verizon's CDMA. However, for years, both Verizon's and AT&T's networks used to suck. In January 2007, when the iPhone was introduced, people were already complaining about AT&T. And if the shoe had been on the other foot, they would have been complaining about Verizon instead.

Re:Verizon iPhone

[wwphx]

Doesn't your contract go month-to-month at that point? Can't you just continue to pay your normal monthly and wait for a carrier switch to happen? I'd wait before switching to a different carrier and getting locked in to another contract, only to find a couple of months later that the carrier that you want now offers it.

Re:Underlying technology.

[CptPicard]

Fair point; in particular price-wise, competition doesn't really work yet in the common market in Europe. Roaming charges can be surprisingly high. When it comes to both competition to push down prices and carrier co-operation in providing reliable infrastructure, I would say it would be probably pretty hard to replicate Europe-wide.

Re:Who cares? Makes no sence at all!!

[pablo_max]

....The iPhone itself doesn't really handle the switch from 3G to EDGE very gracefully, so calls that are in-progress tend to fail whenever 3G connections aren't optimal and the phone attempts to step down to EDGE..

Seriously, this makes no sense at all.

Your voice connection is not over IP, thus EDGE has nothing to go with it. InterRat handovers (3G - 2G) are not an easy thing to do. All phones implement this in more or less the same way. That way would be what the core spec says!

EDGE is only for data. Just like GPRS.

Another niggle I have

[goldcd]

is they seem hell-bent on making things 'around' the phones. Ovi, music subscriptions, that god-awful games console thingie etc etc.
They're clearly absolutely rubbish at it - and I'd just wish they'd stop trying (or at least burn all their money trying).
In my mind Nokia should make phones - that's where their skill lay. I remember those god-awful early Samsungs and the other Korean phones made out of silver plastic. I remember the lousy interfaces on them (and Motorola phones). Nokias stood out then. Now they don't. I guess maybe it's just Nokia were out the gate first and kept ahead for a while, now everybody else has caught up and has better PR.