AT&T blames it all on the iPhone

AT&T blames complaints about its data services on the iPhone and argues that data use by subscribers is unprecedented. Really? AT&T has to contend with a large concentration of subscribers consuming very large quantities of data in a relatively small area (examples would be San Francisco or New York), degrading the overall experience. Again, really?

The above information was taken from an article in Network World (a great magazine and website I might add) and ABI Research and I could not agree more. AT&T actually has to spend money building out more of its infrastructure. They actually have to do what they said they'd do when they asked Congress for deregulation of the telecom industry in the 90's. They promised that deregulation would free the telecom industry from governmental constraints and allow them to expand (as the market place dictates). But it never happened because all they really wanted from deregulation was an end to rules that prohibited the big boys from locking out the smaller players who had started to emerge with the rest of the Internet economy.

Rob

P.S. - now I have to worry about AT&T cutting off my phone service for making these comments!