Online media disrupting mobile networks
It started last year in New York and San Francisco. AT&T’s network was degrading. Phone calls dropped. At some peak times a third of all calls dropped. More and more AT&T customers throughout the U.S. started to complain about slow data, lost data connectivity and dropped calls.
When I attended Content Delivery Summit in New York this month I experienced exactly the same. Calls dropped, or I suddenly got voicemail messages without getting calls. 3G was slower than GPRS. The phone constantly switched between 3G, GPRS and Edge, and lost connections many times. The signal strength kept changing from max to a single bar. In-session switching between 3G, GPRS and Edge is a drama, because your IP address gets lost so your stream / email / surfing session gets lost too.
I’ve had the same issues in the past with KPN when they just introduced 3G. In the first 2 years, I had to switch 3G off to be sure I could be reached. It has been fixed, but in recent months I occasionally miss phone calls and get voicemail messages much later.
Last week, T-Mobile (another provider with exclusive iPhone contracts) publicly admitted having similar problems in the Netherlands.