Network issues have plagued carriers all over the world. After AT&T made headlines, the issue is now more or less universal.
An FT.com interview now quoted a O2 head as follows:
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The head of O2 has apologised to customers who could not make phone calls because the mobile operator’s London network was overwhelmed by bandwidth-hungry smartphones.
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O 2 ran into difficulties in the capital during the second half of 2009 as customers with smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone ramped up use of applications that repeatedly pull data off the internet at short intervals.
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Even though the iPhone definitely is a bandwidth hog, reports of O2 bandwidth issues were covered by industry journals like Mobile ever since 2008.
IMHO, the iPhone is not to blame – instead, blame the overselling of mobile broadband. Today, many households are sold mobile bandwidth rather than wired service and a WiFi router without actually needing it.
This causes large-style network loads (think Windows updates) which are completely unneeded – and much more significant than one or two iPhones.
IMHO, the iPhone is used as a scapegoat here – what do you think?
Image: Wikimedia Commons / HMRC
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The report seems to ignore other smartphones.
O2 also supplies the Palm Pre. In its default settings this polls continuously looking for new messages. I found that by reducing the polling interval to 15 minutes I could improve battery life significantly, which makes me wonder how much data it was previously transferring. In theory I can watch YouTube on the phone, but I am not foolish enough to do so.
I think that the phone companies have a vicious circle of their own making. They need to sell more contracts for revenue but to do so they must promote more or better services. Customers, not unreasonably, expect to use the services they have paid for, saturating the networks.
Your observation regarding wired broadband is sensible. If you tell a Palm Pre to use local WiFi when it is available this also helps with battery life, so your suggestion would be of benefit to both the customer and the network.
Hi,
push email IMHO is not the issue – one packet every minute is not a problem. YouTube to go also isnt.
Think about Windows Updates and home broadband
All the best
Tam Hanna