Thursday, June 7, 2007
iPhone Data to be Boosted by AT&T's Operation "Fine Edge"
Posted by Rocco Augusto in "NEWS" @ 10:55 AM
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/exclusive/iphone-data-to-be-boosted-by-atts-operation-fine-edge-265867.php
"An AT&T employee who works on Operations tells us that the carrier ordered a last-minute beefing up of its EDGE throughput, latency and coverage in anticipation of the iPhone. The operation, internally referenced as "Fine Edge" will continue until June 15th, and has been going on for as many as 6 weeks. EDGE is slow, but at least at AT&T, the implementation isn't limited by the protocol itself. Rather, the limiting factor is, according to our source, the data backend and the way the towers are configured to allocate bandwidth to data and calls. And according to an internal doc, they're dropping in more T-1s in their poorest performing towers, hoping to get that paltry 40kbps performance to a new minimum of 80kpbs. (EDGE's real world max is about 200kbps.) That's still painfully slow, but we're not ones to look a gift WWAN upgrade in the mouth."
Sometimes I sit around and wonder why certain companies maker certain decisions. Today, I'm sitting around and wondering what the heck AT&T Wireless (formerly Cingular Wireless) is thinking! First they decided to sign a 5 year exclusive deal with Apple for the rights to sell the Apple iPhone on their networks, a phone in which they are not even able to sell extra batteries for. Lithium Ion batteries were the third top selling category for accessories in my store when I worked for Cingular and since you're losing a good chunk of money on each handset sold, accessories are the real bread and butter for most wireless retailers. On top of that, they take valuable resources to tweak and rebuild their dying EDGE network instead of focusing on their expanding 3G network. Seriously, I need to know, why in the world are we moving backwards instead of moving forward?! If I was in charge, instead of focusing on our slower speed data network, I would have just told Apple to stop being a bunch of cheapskates and add UMTS/HSDPA connectivity to the device. Problem solved.
The good news is, all existing customers with EDGE compatible devices should notice the speed increase on their handsets as well. So not all is lost! :)
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- Source: mbranscum
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