Will AT&T Light Up LTE Next Month?

Lots of rumors going around - last week IntoMobile claimed AT&T will launch their LTE network in New York City as early as June 30, with plans to offer LTE in Los Angeles on July 24. If it is true this is pretty interesting since AT&T has been running about a year behind Verizon with 4G rollout plans.

To this point in time, AT&T has been saying they would get a few markets up and running with LTE in the second half of 2011, with a complete upgrade of all markets by the end of 2013. The company's primary technology pitch - in response to Verizon's plans to have LTE upgrades in 175 markets by the end of 2011 - has been all about an enhanced 3G service called HSPA+ (sort of 3G on steroids - up to 56 Mbit/s downstream and 22 Mbit/s upstream) getting them over the hump until LTE rolls out next year.

There's also been some rumors that AT&T has told FCC regulators they would speed up  LTE deployment if the T-Mobile merger is approved.

I stress - these are all just rumors!

Is It Time For a Verizon iPhone?

You've probably heard by now that Android phone sales beat iPhone in the 2010 first quarter with 28% of the U.S. smartphone market. At first this may seem a little surprising but then when you think about it......... the only provider you can get an iPhone from is AT&T. You cannot buy one from Verizon or Sprint where you can buy an Android phone.

In addition, AT&T is selling Android phones so, if you are looking at phones in an AT&T store you're going to get to compare side by side. A quick check on the AT&T Wireless website shows the 16G iPhone 3Gs selling for $199.00 and the Motorola Backflip Android Phone selling for $99.99. Both option contracts look similar and they both run on the same AT&T 3G network.

There's been rumors swirling about a Verzon and a Sprint iPhone. Digital Daily quotes Morgan Stanley (MS) analyst Katy Huberty on Verizon and the iPhone:

According to our [Alphawise U.S. consumer iPhone survey], there is substantial pent up iPhone demand within the Verizon installed base as 16.8 percent of Verizon subscribers said they are ‘very likely’ to purchase an iPhone if offered on the Verizon Network.

This 16.8 percent is higher than AT&T subscriber’s 14.6 percent extreme interest in the current AT&T iPhone and well above the overall iPhone extreme interest of 7.5 percent

Crunching her numbers, Huberty calculates Verizon would sell about seven million to eight million (Apple) iPhones annually over the next two years.

Sounds like some numbers Apple might be interested in, especially when you tie in potential revenue from the iPhone App store, iTunes, etc.

Steve Jobs is keynoting Apple's World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) early next month in Cupertino...... it will be interesting to hear what he has to say.

21-28 Mbps In Your Pocket Soon

Martin Sauter has a nice post titled HSPA About to Overtake Wi-Fi 802.11g. He points out 802.11g, with a theoretical data rate of 54 Mega bits per second (Mbps) but a practical throughput of only about 20 Mbps, will soon be obsolete when compared to coming to HSPA+ data rates of between 21 and 28 M bps.

If you are not familiar - HSPA+ is also referred to as Evolved High-Speed Packet Access and is basically an enhanced 3G wireless broadband standard formally known as 3GPP release 7. It's just starting to take off - according to GSM World, there are currently 20 HSPA+ networks running at 21 Mbps and two running at 28 Mbps in the world today.

I think I'm already finding myself making the transition on my iPhone 3GS. When I'm away from my home I usually don't have the WiFi radio turned on, running off the 3G network connection. I do this to save battery and also have some concerns about security on open WiFi networks that I may end up attaching to. I usually don't notice a difference in performance and sometimes find myself checking the top of my screen to see if WiFi is turned on by mistake. What kind of bandwidth am I getting? Here's an iPhone screen shot that seems pretty typical - 1.265 Mbps downstream and 348 Kbps upstream. Not bad for a device I carry around in my shirt pocket (as a comparison a T1 connection runs at 1.544 Mbps) and.... it's going to get a lot better.

AT&T 2G Network Services Changing?

Timothy Butler has an interesting post over at Open for Business (OFB) titled Fewer Bars in More Places: AT&T Network Upgrades Degrade Service for 2G Phones. Here's a couple of quotes from Butler:

In an act affecting owners of 2G cell phones on AT&T Mobility’s network, including the highly visible, and originally highly expensive first generation iPhone, Open for Business has learned that AT&T has been quietly sacrificing 2G signal strength in an effort to speed up the build out of its next generation 3G network. The first generation iPhone was trumpeted by the company as recently as seven months ago; many 2G phones continue to be sold by the Dallas-based company today.

According to Butler, until recently AT&T has primarily relied on the 850 MHz frequency band that offers better indoor reception for their 2G EDGE service. He says AT&T technicians confirmed to OFB that transmitters for the 2G signal used by the original iPhone and most other handsets, including most AT&T offered BlackBerry and RAZR models, have been shifted to the weaker 1900 MHz band in some areas.

Cellularguru.net has a good frequency FAQ that describes the difference between the 850 and 1900 MHz bands:

What is the difference between the 850 and 1900 bands? They are the two
different wireless bands available to North America. 850 was the original cellular band, and it was split into two, the "A" band and the "B" band. The "B" band was for the wireline phone company and the "A" band was for a non-wireline provider. The 850 band has been around for 15+ years, and the systems are very well built out. The FCC mandated that a certain amount of land be covered by a signal. The 1900 band was placed in operation several years after 850. The 1900 band is also known as PCS, and the two terms are used interchangeably, which can be confusing when trying to follow a conversation. There are 6 bands A through F, and some of those can be split into others. The requirements for the 1900 were not as strict as 850. Only a certain percentage of the population needed coverage (67% IIRC). Than means building the urban areas pretty much met the entire FCC buildout requirement for a given area. From what I can gather, there rules have been relaxed even further.

Which is "better"? Here's more from Cellularguru.net:

Which is better, 850 or 1900? In general, you are going to get more performance out of 850 than you are going to get out of 1900 for several reasons.

1. As mentioned earlier, back when the 850 licenses were issued, they had to cover a certain amount of land cover. This required deploying their system throughout many rural areas (not ALL though). 1900 licenses only need to cover up to 67% of the population, and in many cases they don't even have to meet that.

2. The higher the frequency, the shorter the usable range. You need approximately twice as many 1900 MHz towers to cover a given area than 850 MHz towers. Most 1900 MHz towers are in urban and suburban areas. A properly built 1900 system will work as well as a properly built 850 system, but it will likely cost more to deploy and operate.

Sometimes 1900 will work better in a city because 1900 MHz signals tend to work better in the middle of the city with large buildings as the shorter wavelength allows the signal to go around corners easier. Also, due to network loading, 850 towers have to be "turned down" in urban areas so as to not overload, so the playing field is leveled. 3. Leaving the technical details aside, it seems that 850 MHz signals penetrate most modern buildings better than 1900 MHz signals. There are many factors involved such as the material of the walls, the proximity of the local cell towers and various other factors. The fact that 850 MHz carriers have been in operation longer and have optimized their coverage is an important factor to consider. If there is a window nearby, chances are that either system will work, assuming that there is some sort of signal available at the window! The bottom line is this: when you try out a service, make sure you bring your phone to all the areas you'll be using to make sure it works where you need it.

Here's more from the Butler piece:

OFB was able to confirm this situation for itself using multiple devices in St. Louis, MO, and also obtained information on similar cases across the country. Reports suggested the problem started to appear as AT&T ramped up its 3G network in preparation for the iPhone 3G in early 2008. Each AT&T technician OFB talked to concerning this problem offered the same solution: that the customer should purchase new, 3G-enabled equipment at the customer’s own expense.

I'm still one of those first generation $400 iPhone users so Butler's accusation concerns me. His piece goes on:

AT&T’s executive director of analyst relations, Mark Siegel, “categorically” denied to OFB that AT&T was advising customers to dump 2G equipment such as the iPhone for 3G versions. In a follow-up message, Siegel added that the company was not requiring anyone to switch to 3G equipment. Although that is technically true, customers in affected areas are all but required to upgrade due to the dramatic signal strength drop over the last few months.

Where's Apple on this? Butler writes OFB also attempted to reach Apple for comment, but had not received a response from the company by press time.

Bandwidth Hogs and the iPhone 3G

A couple of weeks ago I purchased an AT&T USBCONNECT 881 3G card and have been doing spot bandwidth tests where 3G is available. The 3G iPhone will use the same network so these spot tests will be a good indicator of the kinds of bandwidths we can expect. You can see my speed test results by location linked here. Coverage and bandwidth has been good so far in areas where I spend time including out on Cape Cod in North Truro, MA.
On the left is a screen shot (click to enlarge) sample - 1324 Kbps downstream and 334 Kbps upstream in the wilds of the Cape Cod National Seashore - pretty good for a PC and would be very nice on a new 3G iPhone!

A recent piece on Gigaom titled Is 3G Ready for the iPhone Stress Test? is an interesting read. Here's a quote from the post:

The original iPhone runs on the 2G networks using a technology called EDGE. Despite the slower speeds, the data usage on AT&T’s mobile network ballooned due to the original iPhone. According to Chetan Sharma, our favorite mobile data guru, iPhone users used nearly five times the data used by average AT&T subscribers, and nearly twice as much as other smart phone owners. About 55 percent of the data was carried on Wi-Fi networks, while the rest was on EDGE.

3G bandwidth on a small handheld device..... sounds very nice especially for YouTube and other mobile video applications. YouTube does run on the original iPhone over the EDGE network but it is slow. As a result, most are only watching YouTube videos on their iPhones when they are within WiFi range. If users can now watch elsewhere - will mobile video become a 3G bandwidth hog? I think so.

I'm also interested in how AT&T will handle the inevitable BitTorrent iPhone file-sharing applications (these are much bigger bandwidth hogs) that will be rolling out this summer. The AT&T 3G service I purchased for my PC card has a monthly 5 Giga-Byte (GB) data "soft cap". Will users get cutoff for the month when the 5 GB cap is hit?

It's not just AT&T that's going to have to deal with these issues - they'll just likely have to face them first with the 3G iPhone.....Verizon and Sprint also have similar caps in their 3G wireless contracts.

Second Generation 3G iPhone To Be Released June 9?

PC World reported we can expect the "first of an impressive wave of new products" announced at the Apple Conference June 9-13 in San Francisco. Rumor has it one of those new products will be the second generation iPhone which will incorporate 3G technology.

I wrote last November about 3G technologies, AT&T's 3G build-out, and the iPhone:

3G technologies provide approximately 144 Kilo-bits per second (Kbps) to around 2.4 Mega-bits per second (Mbps) to mobile devices like cell phones and non-mobile devices like computers. For AT&T, 3G is a significant upgrade from the current EDGE network which, according to PCWorld, averages around 109 Kbps.

First generation iPhones run on the AT&T EDGE network. Here's more from the November blog entry:

EDGE is commonly referred to as "2.5G" or "2.75G" (between 2nd and 3rd generation) and has been the source of a lot of discussion with regards to the iPhone. Many questioned Apple's decision to go with AT&T/EDGE and have debated why Apple did not go with a 3G option for the iPhone. Steve Jobs has always said the decision to go with EDGE instead of 3G (on the first generation iPhone) was based on battery life.

According to PC World and Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research , Apple will not stop making the "2.5G" model but will upgrade the case and drop the price to between US$299 and $349, compared to the current $399.

Apple is also expected to announce an updated Mac laptop and new iPod versions.

AT&T Wireless Upgrades and the Second Generation iPhone

A small article in the Springfield, MA Saturday Republican paper caught my eye. AT&T has been quietly updating their cell phone towers to 3G in Massachusetts along with 220 other metropolitan areas in other parts of the country. Just last week the company updated 30 towers in the Western part of the state with plans to do the New Bedford area next. Both Boston and the Worcester area have also been upgraded.

3G technologies provide approximately 144 Kilo-bits per second (Kbps) to around 2.4 Mega-bits per second (Mbps) to mobile devices like cell phones and non-mobile devices like computers. For AT&T, 3G is a significant upgrade from the current EDGE network which, according to PCWorld, averages around 109 Kbps.

EDGE is commonly referred to as "2.75G" (between 2nd and 3rd generation) and has been the source of a lot of discussion with regards to the iPhone. Many questioned Apple's decision to go with AT&T/EDGE and have debated why Apple did not go with a 3G option for the iPhone. Steve Jobs has always said the decision to go with EDGE instead of 3G was based on battery life. Here's a quote from Steve jobs in a piece from MacNN:

"The 3G chipsets that are available to semiconductors work reasonably well except for power. They are real power hogs," .... "So as you know, the handset battery life used to be 5-6 hours for GSM, but when we got to 3G they got cut in half. Most 3G phones have battery lives of 2-3 hours [of talk time]."

There have been rumors (see Mathew Millers post at The Mobile Gadgeteer here ) going around since the current iPhone was announced in January that the next generation iPhone would be 3G capable. People have also been questioning whether the current iPhone has both an EDGE radio and a 3G radio built in, which would allow current iPhones to software update to the faster 3G network as the network becomes available.These rumors have pretty much died out after people have taken iPhones apart and have not been able to find an upgradeable radio.

Some complain about EDGE network performance with the iPhone but this has not been an issue with me personally. Perhaps it is because of the places I find myself at - I may be unique - I find myself on a WiFi network probably 90% of the time with the iPhone. The 10% of the time I'm not on a WiFi connection I'm usually checking email, looking up directions on a map or searching for a phone number on the web. On these occasions the EDGE network performance/bandwidth has been fine for me.

Is this 3G build-out by AT&T in (at least partial) preparation for a 3G enabled second generation iPhone? Partial is the key word here but i would say yes - it's time to move to 3G. I'm excited to see what Apple comes out with for the second generation iPhone and it will be interesting to see (if it is 3G enabled) how the battery life issue is dealt with. My bet right now would be on a multi-mode EDGE/3G/WiFi second generation iPhone that would operate on all three types of wireless networks. Time will tell!

Some Initial Thoughts on the iPhone

Yesterday afternoon, while driving home, Mike Q called me - he was in line at an Apple store waiting to pick up an iPhone when the store opened. He's blogged a bit about his experience already and has made some really interesting observations that I won't mention here because he is doing/will be doing so. I have not purchased one yet but will soon - I'm dealing with a current contract that expires in October and am in the process of trying to negotiate my way out of it.

I've been impressed with just about everything I've read, heard and seen so far. There are a few things that some are complaining/concerned about - here's my list:

- No Java or Flash support is no big deal for me - there likely will be soon.
- AT&T's (Cingular) EDGE network - it's 2.5G quad-band GSM based technology - a concern for some but I can deal with that. Most places I go now I find WiFi available. Steve Jobs has said 3G was not an option at this time due to battery consumption.
- Small storage capacity - 4G ($499) or 8G ($599) without an SD card slot. This could be an issue when watching video offline (iPod like).
- Lack of a keyboard - I think people will quickly adjust to multitouch and we'll see Bluetooth keyboards soon.
- Apple's Safari browser and no Firefox - how long do you think it will be before we see Firefox?

The fact that the iPhone is running Apples operating system OS X is key. The applications we're going to see will be impressive and we will see many.

Here's a list of some random questions running around in my head:

Microsoft - so far they are saying they will not respond with a similar product but the company really has to. Microsoft came from behind nicely with the XBox and will have to do the same with the Zune. It's going to be tricky - the Zune would have competed very nicely with the first generation iPod released in 2001. Unfortunately for Microsoft we're half way through 2007. Can Microsoft catch up? My opinion is definitely yes if they want to. Will Microsoft want to? I think they'll have to.

Other Smartphone manufacturers - Nokia, Motorola, Nokia, etc..... These companies also will have their work cut out for them and you can bet they all got them and have spent the last day taking them apart. If you want to see a gutted iPhone there is an interesting iPhone disection (with lots of pictures) link here.

When will Apple come out with a second generation product? Following the iPod cycle we will likely see something in the next 6-12 months.

Do I still want one? YES!!