A peek inside AT&T’s stocking: Soot-able for any occasion

Well, it looks like we know what AT&T received from Santa in its stocking this year, and it did not involve candy or any wind-up toys. No, it looks like the nation’s second largest wireless operator scored a fine piece of carbon-based sedimentary rock otherwise known as coal. Who knew St. Nick was so cold.
The lump of coal weighing down AT&T’s stocking was thanks to news over the holiday weekend that the carrier has temporarily ceased selling Apple Inc.’s iPhone through its online sales channels to residents of the Big Apple and neighboring burgs. According to one online report, the ban is due to New York City not being ready for the iPhone, despite the unfettered sale of the device in Gotham since it launched in mid-2007. (AT&T has said it was suffering network congestion issues in New York as well as in San Francisco, but to this point the online sales ban appears limited to New York.)
Most analysis of this news is centered on AT&T’s recent struggles to upgrade its network to handle the increased load being placed by the strong growth of data-hungry smartphones. AT&T even touts in its advertising its dominance in the smartphone market and is of course currently the sole domestic home to the iPhone.
AT&T has not provided an official explanation for the suspended iPhone sales only noting that it periodically “modifies” its distribution channels and that customers can still purchase their “precious” in Apple and AT&T retail outlets in the area. Regardless, experimenting with the sales channels of what is arguably the hottest selling device in the nation’s largest market seems to be an odd modification, even for AT&T. The carrier has boasted recently that it was spending billions of dollars upgrading its network with higher-speed capabilities, greater use of 850 MHz spectrum, installing greater backhaul capabilities to its towers and boosting the free availability of Wi-Fi hotspots to its customers in an attempt to stem the flow of complaints against its network capabilities.
All of this comes at a time when rumors are growing more heated that Apple is looking to spread the network-destroying capabilities of its uber-device to other domestic carriers as well as looking to unveil a new contraption that could include spectrum-sucking capabilities that would tower over the iPhone. I am sure potential partners are very aware to AT&T’s current network struggles and scurrying to ensure their networks are up to the demand of millions of iPhone users in need of their constant YouTube fix.
And, more broadly, industry analysts and trade groups are shouting that the wireless industry is in dire need of hundreds of megahertz of additional spectrum to placate consumer demand for mobile data services.
Unfortunately for AT&T specifically, and the wireless industry in general, solutions to this issue on a micro and macro level are months and years away. And with the general public’s continued discovery of what their mobile devices are capable of – not what the supporting networks are capable of handling – growing by the day, it appears the industry is set to kick off the new year on shaky ground. Happy New Year!