Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us atRCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
I, like I think most people, want to believe that the things I believe to be true are in fact true. Sure, there might be some corner of my mind where I let a few self-delusionary thoughts live (I can win the lottery! If I flap my arms really, really hard I can fly! That bird outside is spying on me.), but for the most part I like to think that my beliefs are generally well grounded and for the most part correct.
However, I also realize that a strong belief in the correctness of my beliefs could come at the determent of the real truth. But, the real truth to whom? Isn’t the strength of my beliefs in what I think is true enough to make those beliefs truly true to me? If I really think that bird is spying on me, then isn’t it in fact really spying on me? Wait, I just went cross-eyed.
I believe modern-day Renaissance Man Stephen Colbert summed up this feeling best when he coined the term “truthiness” on his television show “The Colbert Report” back in 2005. Colbert’s brief description of the term was “truth that comes from the gut, not books.” The term was so compelling that the American Dialect Society adopted the word and added the more “book friendly” definition of “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.”
So, where am I going with all of this? Well, the ongoing online rancor over AT&T’s network quality has hit fever pitch with not a day going by where I have not seen reputable news sources taking pot shots at the industry’s No. 2 operator’s network, and more specifically the quality of that network in relationship to Apple’s iPhone. The basis for most of these stories appear to be wireless nerds who had a call drop or could not download that awesome YouTube clip of a kitten stuck in a tissue box.
Regardless of the source of these stories, or even their accuracy, they have clouded public perception of AT&T’s network and in turn boosted the perception of its competitors.
Now, not being an iPhone owner or an AT&T customer I have no first-hand experience in how the carrier’s network works on a day-to-day basis. But, I have over the years been privy to using dozens of AT&T wireless devices and have found the network to be comparable with others. And I have friends and family who are both iPhone users and thus AT&T customers and from their comments, AT&T’s network seems to have the same pitfalls as others: it works in some areas, not in others. Welcome to wireless technology. (We will leave the fact that AT&T just recently enabled MMS capabilities on the iPhone out of this discussion. That is just mind bottling.)
This is not to say that AT&T’s network is in fact sub-par. But if it was really that bad, I doubt the carrier would still be posting industry-leading customer growth numbers. (Or maybe people are just that gullible.)
Many of the news accounts I have read about AT&T’s “inferior” network quality also include the notion that if the iPhone was somehow available on Verizon Wireless’ network, everyone would be able to stream high-definition content to their iPhones with no impact on network quality. This unquestioned belief in the infallibility of Verizon Wireless’ network should be applauded as the carrier has managed to convince nearly everyone that it has a superior network to its competitors. I am not a Verizon Wireless customer, but similar to AT&T I have had the opportunity to try a variety of Verizon Wireless devices over the years and have found similar network quality results to its competitors: works in some places, not in others.
(Rumors that Apple is in talks with Verizon Wireless about eventually launching a device for the carrier have been everywhere. But I doubt Apple would make a one-off CDMA-model for Verizon Wireless’ current network, which likely means the carrier will wait until its LTE network has enough coverage to justify the Apple touch. It would also make sense for Verizon Wireless to wait for LTE as the network would start out with little traffic and with LTE’s capacity-boosting all-IP core would seem to be a perfect fit for a data-hungry device. Oh yeah, AT&T is also planning on rolling out an LTE network.)
This public sense that AT&T Mobility’s network is somehow inferior to its competitors has overrun many discussions I have had with people asking what cellphone they should get. Nearly everyone says they want an iPhone, but that they are afraid they won’t be able to make a call unless standing underneath an AT&T tower with one hand holding a pair of rabbit ears and their tongue stuck to the tower. I have tried to explain to the best of my abilities the intricacies of wireless technologies and that all of these horror stories need to be taken in context. (Part of the explanation is that most iPhone users never take the time to use the device’s Wi-Fi capabilities even when at home in range of their Wi-Fi network or when near one of the 20,000+ Wi-Fi hotspots AT&T Mobility allows iPhone users to access for free.)
In many cases, those that have selected the iPhone have been happy with the device and seem to be so enamored with the gee-whiziness of the device to not even care about its actual network performance. (And most have no idea that the device has Wi-Fi or how to use it.)
And this is where I think “truthiness” comes into play. People are so convinced that AT&T Mobility has an inferior network, with that belief reinforced by others’ “gut” feelings, that they take it as a truth and let that truth cloud their perception of reality. Now, I am not saying there is anything wrong with clouding one’s perception of reality, I just think one should keep that clouding to a minimum when dealing with reality.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
— Good to see that deranged ramblings are still in style. (As if the previous diatribe was not proof enough.) Are there still adults out there who don’t realize that when an offer says a two-year contract for wireless service is required that it means they have to pay a monthly fee for that service over a two-year period? Sure, carriers offering discounts onnetbooks are a questionable long-term financial decision, but stories that make these offers appear to be written in blood are becoming laughable. So keep them coming.
— Also, nice to see that regular phones are still being launched by handset vendors and carriers in the U.S. With all of the recent hype surrounding more powerful feature phones and smartphones, you’d almost think that the basic handset market was dead.
— Looks like you can’t keep a bankrupt company down. Iridium, which became synonymous with the failure of the satellite phone market of the late 1990
s, made its return to the stock market this week after being acquired by GHL Acquisition Corp. (You hav
e to hand it to GHL. Not the snappiest name, but it does tell you what they do.)
— And finally, for all the garbage that populates the Internet today, I found one of the true bright spots. Enjoy.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at Dan Meyer.
