iPhone Owners Stage Anti-AT&T Demonstration At Santa Clara U, Might Get Results
According to a new article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, a slew of iPhone owners at the school are fed up with AT&T's poor reception on campus. So fed up that they have organized a "day of complaint" to push for better coverage. To be honest, the main reason this little demonstration is picking up so much steam is due to the perception of AT&T across the nation. Many feel that the carrier's reception is subpar, and that they're networks are overcrowded in major cities. To make matters worse, they're the only carrier in America to offer the iPhone, which many people see as the best smartphone for the money. In other words, you're basically opting for worse service in order to have a superior phone, and it seems that consumers are finally down with just "biting the bullet."
The "Campus Wide Call AT&T to Complain Day" saw loads of students and professors make several hundred calls to AT&T in order to make their voices heard, noting that many students "can't get reception in many of the dormitories, in the basements of the library and the student center, in some academic buildings, and in student houses near the campus." What's crazy is that it worked. On the morning of the demonstration, Leon F. Beauchman, an area manager for AT&T, made an unexpected visit to the campus. He somehow caught wind of the event beforehand, and he showed up in order to do what's best known as "damage control."
According to the report, AT&T is already working to better service at the school, but they certainly have a lot of other demands on them at the moment. 4G is just around the bend, and they need to improve the amount of cell sites in order to get 7.2Mbps data out to more people. At the very least, this is proof that a small minority can still get recognized, and hopefully everyone will benefit from the demonstration.
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Can we stage them here in Mendon too? |
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Bravo! This kind of negative publicity is exactly what will get AT&T's attention. Now if similar demonstration can be organized all over the country, perhaps Apple's hand will be forced as well. I'm not saying that AT&T sucks, but that it's about time that the iPhone becomes available on other carriers as well. AT&T won't always be the best choice in a certain region as the students/faculty at Santa Clara know. This is a table of network coverage reliability worth taking a look at: http://i.bnet.com/blogs/reliability-results.png?tag=content;selector-perfector The table is from an article on PC World, linky here: http://www.pcworld.com/article/189592/ |
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By Gibbersome: "I'm not saying that AT&T sucks, but" I'll say it. |
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Good link gibbersome. The thing about it all is this. I actually would have liked an iPhone. I use only cell phones though. So reception is a necessity, not an I wish. I see no point in having a home line as my internet is through cable anyway, plus with a cell phone I have my main phone anywhere. With Verizon I get that. Either way Sprint is currently offering service with clearchannel here in 4G. There are as of yet no 4G phones though, plus sprint get such bad reviews in general, as does T-mobile. Well At&t also gets a lot, so while I may have changed to them years ago, and gotten an iPhone because of it's capabilities I have not. This is primarily because I know in general there network is not quite up to par. The iPhone has in many cases carried them. Just to let you know I have also had service with them years ago. I moved to Verizon because of there networks stability for calls anywhere I seemed to go. So with people complaining about there connections with them I definitely was not going back to the same junk connections I had before. |
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They have a right to be angry about AT&T's lack of service. I've been with AT&T since last June, and I've had nothing but trouble with dropped calls, no or poor reception, and text messages not being sent/received. The worst thing? On the three occasions I have had to call 911, the call wouldn't go through. A week after I got my iPhone, I witnessed a serious car accident. I dialed 911 repeatedly for 15 minutes before I was able to get through. In the meantime, I was the only person with a cell phone at the accident site, so two drivers with bloody noses and who knows what else had to wait. I wasn't in the middle of nowhere either- I was in central Phoenix. It doesn't make it any better that you get a 'too bad, so sad' response from AT&T employees when you tell them about the poor service, including not being able to call in an emergency. |
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how much u wanna bet ATT employees don't use ATT :D. nothing happened to the 2 drivers after 15min wait right? im with ATT too on the iphone and i always get poor connection and slow web loading. i receive aims 5-10 mins later...(not sure if its the aim app or hte network...) But in all ATT is poor on connection :( |
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SILLY PROTESTERS!!! Don't they realize that just by buying the phone and being forced to sign up for att, that they voted to be treated that way? If all those same people rallied around and kept their crappy old phone, and told them we want other carriers. Then Apple would have been overstocked and forced to lower the price and use other carriers. |
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But even with the bad connections everyone can't stop buying :D. the phones too good to wait for :) |
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animatortom that is a very valid point they are already enablers for At&t to suck. So in many cases they deserve what they get. As a point it is a big point to values as well. Would you buy or choose the pretty over the functional. As far as values go that is where they stand to the greatest point, which is in all reality pretty sad. |
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I hate those stupid At&t commercials to, they are outright lies in most circumstances. Little does the general consumer know that unless there business plan has changed, they are not upgrading to 4G at least not yet, while all other providers in the US are. |
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