AT&T to begin implementing N-SET in an effort to reduce 3G network strain

Stop working at burger king and you could afford the iphone….hater

@James Smith,
What are you talking about? I am a huge fan of the iPhone. I have done nothing but defend it, saying the best part about it is the apps and the support it has because it is more like a portable computer than a phone. I also love Blackberries, and have one of those too. so where do you get off bashing me and assuming I work at McDonalds? I actually teach Unix administration, web development and PHP programming here in Arizona.

I completely that iPhone is a great platform for doctors, and a lot of them use it. It will also get a lot better with 3.0 because of the port API support. I have read a lot about the new medical devices/apps coming out for iPhone come 3.0.

i dont understnad why people bash at&t so hard. . i’ve traveled accross the country and have had verizon 3g and att 3g capable phones and i use extreme lab “speed test” and my at&t phone 9 times out of 10 beats out verizon.

exactly. people don’t know what they’re blabbing about half the time. and its all relative to where you live. in my area, AT&T destroys Verizon in every single imaginable way. and most places that i have traveled its the same scenario. but Big Red has its areas of the country where it dominates and is better than AT&T. but its not better as a whole imho, just different and better at times.

The people crying are just people who have Verizon who want iPhones but can’t get them because their carrier is running a dying technology already hitting its limits (albeit one that works well for voice). AT&T has been doing a lot of upgrades in my area lately, so service has been sketchy, but befoer that I can tell you I did not notice one difference between them and Verizon…and I had a RZR for like 4 years…so I did not find myself locked in a contract when the iPhone rolled out. In all honesty, half the people whining have probably never had AT&T or Cingular for that matter.

/boohoo

To stay on topic, I am on the fence about this move. They should work at transitioning exclusively to 3G in the next couple of years. It seems strange since I think BGR was just publishing stories a month ago about AT&T strengthening their backbone and such. Guess not.

i know at&t works best for some.. but im in so cal.. im pullin down 2.5mbps when tethered and i dont know what a dropped call is.. and who cares if sprint dies they would jus get bought out and any debt wouldnt be passed on.. but everything else would be.. so the worse that can happen is to raise prices to vzw level.. but that probably wouldnt happen either.. talk crap if you want but sprint is the best carrier in the west

Some of you people need professional help, do you really think anyone cares if you dont like an iPhone or Blackberry or Nokia or anything? most of us dont really care what you think, if you have an iPhone then enjoy your phone and let me enjoy mine, does ragging at someone elses opinion and being unable to express yourself without swearin make you feel good? that appears to be the case, oh, I have a 3G iPhone and a Bold (Both on AT&T and I love their service.

i’m not pretty sure whether this N-SET can work even for the incumbent devices in the market without any update at the device software.

@YH Kwon,
Sure it can work! Your phone polls the towers at interval and to initiate a data connection. When your phone polls, the towers can tell the phone to use 2G. And when your phone polls for a data connection, it can switch to 3G. Your phone does not have to do anything because it already does what is required.

You’d think that these brainiacs would have figured this one out on day one…

So they are basically doing the exact thing that VzW does.

For all those morons claiming VzW’s 3g network is better. VzW partitions their network so all calls go through 1xRTT while all data uses EVDO Rev O and for the few phones that are EVDO Rev A. AT&T has more 3g capable phones then VzW has EVDO Rev A phones. Every Single AT&T 3g device uses the 3G network vs VzW which their 3G is only used for Data and that is it.

What does this all mean? It means that with VzW the 3G network only has to deal with data traffic and since the bulk of their customer base is not heavy Data users their 3G network is only in use by customers with Data plans. AT%T’s 3g however isn’t… The 3g Network has to deal with both the Data users and then a HUGE amount of Voice only customers.

Basically, if you have 10,000 VzW customers with Evdo Devices only the Data plan (Vcast Vpak to Email and Web Packages) customers are using the 3g network. So we are looking at 20 to 30% of that customer base using their 3g services. If you have 10,000 AT&T customers and they all have 3G devices then… ALL 10,000 customers are using the 3G Netowrk….

Now do we understand why AT&T’s 3G is so clogged?

Please do… and let’s get the Eos on the exception list of devices which will only connect via 3G

It amazes me. For 90% of the posters, here is a piece of advice. It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.
There are several posters on here who have a clue, a lot that IMHO, are a waste of oxygen that I might need later in my life. There is nothing worse than an uninformed, uneducated person with an opinion.
I have been in the mobile telecommunications industy since the early 90′s. We have come so far so fast in this industry, the technology involved is in reality, overwhelming.

From my experience, most of the carrier haters are upset with the carriers as a result of their own stupidity. (Yes, there are cases with all carriers that are legit.) I have seen from personal experience instances like: “I didn’t pay my bill for 4 months and they cancelled me. That is so unfair.” and “I broke my phone and they wouldn’t give me another one. They said I have to buy it.” What people expect is amazing. How come they do not call their cable provider wanting a free TV? Same principle….

Back on topic, the program puts customers with no data usage on the 2G network. If the customer starts using data, they go back to the 3G network. End of story. It is less than 1% of the subscriber base nationwide, but it is enough to make a difference.

Sorry for the long winded post, but this is supposed to be a forum about technology, not people complaining because they are uninformed.

Can anyone tell me, if there’s so much congestion on the 3G network, why won’t AT&T move on to 4G instead of downgrading to 2G? Will 4G make things worse? I think I saw commercials for Sprint boasting they’re now 4G.

I vow to lessen any strain on AT&Ts precious 3G network as soon as my contract is up. I plan to take my entire family (5 phones) with me. We are sick to death of being ripped off for data plans and messaging. We would love to own iphones or blackberry bolds…but think it’s ridiculous that messaging is not included in the data plan and there is no provision for “family” data plan pricing. Will be watching how Sprint performs after the Palm Pre is released.