Think not being able to secure customer customer email addresses is a hiccup from two otherwise savvy network / ecommerce operators? Apple has proven itself as a top rate designer and marketer of consumer electronics. AT&T has masterfully managed to use its lock on a popular device to oversell its underpowered wireless net at stratospheric prices.  But wait! It appears neither is really up to the task of running ecommerce and customer care systems.

The fourth-generation iPhone, which features a higher-resolution display, longer battery life and a front-facing camera for video chat, appears to be in high demand. So high, in fact, that when Apple and its partners started taking pre-orders on Tuesday, many anxious customers were unable to reserve one. The phone will be released next Thursday.

“This pre-ordering process is an absolute joke. I’ve tried Apple.com, ATT.com and even calling the store… no luck. #FAIL,” Andrew Dumont of Seattle wrote on Twitter.

Another Twitter user by the name of JoeKLee wrote: “Apple.com and Att.com, I just want to give you guys money. Please fix your websites.”

Other users have said that Apple’s new retail application, which the company introduced Tuesday morning to allow customers to pre-order the iPhone 4 on their existing iPhones, isn’t working. (New York Times)

With demand so high, I doubt this lack of a core customer care competency will deter the hungry masses from buying Apple’s new handset in record numbers. It’s unfortunate for them that we still have a wireless cartel where carriers and devices are locked to one another.  It’s also sad that to so called technology leaders have  managed two huge technology blunders inside of a week.

Even a casual observer of tech news probably noticed that a big chunk of the Fruit Pad’s early adopters of  had their email addy’s hacked. Many of those were privileged  social elites who Apple has carefully cultivated as users adding a feel of exclusivity  to membership in its product cult.

A group of hackers exploited a hole in an AT&T Web site to get e-mail addresses of about 114,000 iPad users, including what appears to be top officials in government, finance, media, technology, and military.

The leak could have affected all iPad 3G subscribers in the U.S., according to Gawker, which broke the story on Wednesday. Among the iPad users who appeared to have been affected were White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, journalist Diane Sawyer, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, movie producer Harvey Weinstein, and New York Times CEO Janet Robinson. (Cnet)

One again, AT&T demonstrates that it is willing to under invest in providing service ,while constantly looking to invest in expanding its footprint. While it’s a demonstration of how truly pathetic AT&T is at secuity, what really amazes me is how Apple remains unscathed. Do you really think Steve Jobs (the world’s biggest control freak) would enter into any arrangement with AT&T where Apple  did not have involvement in the management of the network?  Even if this can be made to stick entirely to AT&T, why did Jobs and Co. select it as the exclusive wireless carrier for a second high volume product when it’s network continues to leave it’s current iPhone users waiting? At the very least BOTH companies need to be taken to task for delivering a flawed product.

I predict that all of the elites who lost a bit of privacy will carry on using Apple’s products while bashing AT&T mightyly. The tech press will pass lots of  “big, bad AT&T gas” whole remaining loyal fruit cult members. I wonder: Has Apple bought off the press or simply brainwashed them? Does any rational person really want a portable “cloud” device / service can’t even lock down an email list? AND…please tell me the .gov types weren’t using these devices for official communications.

Well shucks I have been saying for quite some time that Femtocell was a total rip. But folks say I am a lone voice in the wilderness on the issue. Well no more –

Even if I’m willing to pay $150 to extend AT&T’s shitty 3G network, it will only be accessible to 10 lines, and it will almost certainly be a pain in the ass to add or remove lines. So, when my iPhone toting friends are down to play Rock Band, they too can enjoy getting 5 voice mails the moment they leave the house, each from a call that never rang inside the AT&T black hole that is my home. There is one spot of good news here though, buried at the end of the paragraph: AT&T has decided graciously not to charge me a monthly fee for the privilege of fixing its network. But wait, that sentence right before it, about the minutes? Does that mean I’m still going to be charged for minutes, even when dialing out over my broadband connection instead of AT&T’s spendy wireless network? Are they fucking kidding me?

In addition, AT&T will offer a companion rate plan option for MicroCell customers – especially customers on Family Talk plans — who want to supplement their existing voice plans. For $19.99 a month, individual or Family Talk customers can make unlimited calls through a 3G MicroCell, without using minutes in their monthly wireless voice plan.

Oh I get it now. This is a revenue opportunity. You know, for AT&T. For $150 down, I can use my broadband connection to extend AT&T’s shitty network, but if I don’t want those calls to eat my minutes I have to pay ANOTHER $20 a month? This is extortion.

So what is the problem? Well I think the blog entry at Tested lays it out pretty well. Link.

But in every grey cloud could be a silver lining. Somebody, anybody get hold of one of those microcells and lets dig into the internals. If we could reverse engineer it, chances are we could turn the tables. AT&T would not have much incentive to deploy this if they knew that with just a .BIN file upload you could have your cell phone operating for free!

Think about it.

Which in this case means that if Google wants to deliver it, and you want to use it, Google WILL find a way to do so. Even if the device mfr says NO! Well in this case its AT&T/Apple saying no to a Google Voice app on the iPhone.

Now I understand why AT&T did not want it, it hurts their voice traffic income. But do both of these partners realize the semi truck load of a mistake they just made? Had Google followed their original plan they would have locked the Google Voice into the app space of the iPhone architecture. Doing so would have meant Google duplicating that for any subsequent smart phone with the attendant hassles and costs of handling multiple variants of software. Now?

Now Google has turned the software and the iPhone into a VoIP TERMINAL. Unleashed from the underlying architecture Google Voice can now live on any device capable of handling HTML5. Any smart phone, MID, Nettop, Netbook, you name it. That single denial has unleashed a monster, at least for a Telco.

Very dumb AT&T.

Linky.

Just when I thought we had reached the bottom of stupidity for what goes as political belly dragging along comes someone with an even lower rut in the road. –

The suit claims that AT&T should turn over unused balances on the calling cards of consumers whose last known address was in Washington, D.C. and have not used the calling card for three years.

“AT&T’s prepaid calling cards must be treated as unclaimed property under district law,” the attorney general’s office said in a statement.

According to the attorney general’s office, that sum, known in the industry as “breakage,” represents some 5 to 20 percent of the total balances purchased by consumers who use the calling cards.

States and municipalities have often similarly used unclaimed property laws, known as escheat laws, to claim ownership of unused retail gift card balances.

Yes escheat laws are on the books and yes calling cards would probably fall under their provisions. Where I have angst is that this is conversion not escheat. Why? Simple. Unlike say a checking account or valuables recovered in a crime and not recovered where the owner will never be found. In AT&T case they probably do know where the calling card customer is. All they have to do is dial the last known originating call on that card and they probably have an 80% chance of finding them. Not only that but the State has the obligation to attempt to find the ‘owner’ of the lost minutes.

So here is where it will get Macabre to the extreme. High likelyhood that the lost minutes are 5min or less. In today’s world that’s maybe .50¢. So in order to legally claim those ‘assets’ DC would have to at least do a search for the owner. The cost of the search is? Guarantee you its more than .50¢! That is why I say this is conversion not escheat. The only way the DC govt can do this is by not following or severely modifying the escheat laws.

Anybody disagree with that logic?

Linky.
HT:Reason Online.

On of the most used marketing ploys in in the telco suit’s bag of tricks is raising revenue by tinkering with rates, billing or repackaging existing technology into higher priced offerings. That sort of tinkering has evolved into a fine art in the wireless biz, with AT&T as the master.

Recent growth in wireless data use has eroded the quality of service AT&T’s infrastructure has been able to provide to many of its customers. AT&T  has responded with a commitment to invest in upgrades, along with usage based price tweaking that amounts to a price increase for many of AT&T’s wireless data customers. According to a report on Neowin, this so called investment may have been a ruse with the expectation that a price increase alone will reduce usage, therefore improving performance.

As seen in the images below, AT&T’s “commitment to improving their network” claim could not be further from the truth. Since the release of the original iPhone,  AT&T has consistently spent less money on network construction. This seems very strange, considering they beefed up construction right before the iPhone’s initial release. With such a high demand phone,  AT&T should be expected to continue investing in their network, especially considering the fact that the iPhone was upgraded twice already, allowing it to consume more data, and ultimately bring more customers to the carrier.

Since the release of the iPhone, AT&T’s revenue has consistently increased. They now make approximately 80% more revenue from wireless data than they did when the iPhone was initially introduced. This increase doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon, as it has been steadily inclining for the past two years. The post also shows stats regarding the economy’s negative effects on AT&T’s net income. Guess what? There weren’t any. AT&T was able to increase their cash, and cash equivalents on hand by 4.375 billion dollars since the start of 2009. They’ve seemed to keep profits fairly steady, considering the times. (more on Neowin)

If you’re a regular reader, you’re already well informed on the end of voice as a viable wireless business. Sprint and Verizon had invested heavily in national 3G data services for years, while AT&T lagged. Now that 4G is coming online and 3G matters to to a growing number of customers -  like those who grossly overpaid for iPhones, AT&T is playing catch up. It hurts if you’re AT&T and one of your competitors that has been out investing you in 3G calls attention to that fact in advertising.  True to AT&T’s track record it continues to prefer competing in the courts over upgrading. Perhaps AT&T customers who are experiencing poor data service should be careful about what they say publicly too.

AT&T earlier this month filed a lawsuit claiming that Verizon is misleading customers by suggesting that AT&T subscribers cannot access wireless Internet services throughout its network. In the opening paragraph of its legal rebuttal to the suit, Verizon very plainly surmised its argument: “AT&T did not file this lawsuit because Verizon’s ‘There’s A Map For That’ advertisements are untrue; AT&T sued because Verizon’s ads are true and the truth hurts.”

The rebuttal filed on Monday in a Georgia district court was in response to two complaints AT&T filed with the court asking that the Verizon advertisements be pulled from the airwaves. AT&T has called the claims in the advertisement “false” and “misleading.” And the company claims it has caused “irreparable harm” to AT&T’s wireless business. (Cnet)

Verizon representatives have responded to the press on these claims. But now the company has filed its official response to the court in a 53-page document that lays out the company’s defense.

It’s also worth mentioning that if Verizon really wanted to put the hurt on AT&T, all it would really need to do is dramatically drop 3G  prices. Since the wireless space is a cartel of spectrum licensees, that isn’t likely to happen. Still, a little competitive sparring is a good thing, There should be more of it. I’d bet even the lawyers agree.

When two elephants start a fracas in the room what is the best course of action? Get the Hell out of the room of course! Well that is what is preparing to go on between Verizon and AT&T. The two are locked horns on the coverage map ads that Verizon is running in reference to their 3G wireless network

I hope the judge has a good sense of humor. He will need it for this case. –

In essence, we believe the ads mislead consumers into believing that AT&T doesn’t offer ANY wireless service in the vast majority of the country. In fact, AT&T’s wireless network blankets the US, reaching approximately 296M people. Additionally, our 3G service is available in over 9,600 cities and towns. Verizon’s misleading advertising tactics appear to be a response to AT&T’s strong leadership in smartphones. We have twice the number of smartphone customers… and we’ve beaten them two quarters in a row on net post-paid subscribers. We also had lower churn — a sign that customers are quite happy with the service they receive.

The fun part of this? Like these two companies don’t have something else to do? Like maybe lay some fiber or something? But it is par for the course in the Telco industry. Now I suspect that why AT&T did this has little to do with the ads and more to do with some underlying cross interlata agreement they have been locking horns on. You don’t burn $1,000/hr in legal costs for this kind of piddly stuff.

Endgadget has the gory details.

Yes I told you so. More than once. Net neutrality is a paper tiger. The duopoly is seeing to that handily. Rules written by the revolving door insiders at the FCC will never be a positive agent of change.  AT&T is using Google as the boogeyman in its quest to twist the new rules to effectively rub out any potential competitor. We may very well get new “net neutrality” rules that will only make the situation worse.

In a letter to the FCC (PDF) this week, AT&T went on the attack to portray Google as a big powerful company that’s trying to fool the FCC into believing that the rules shouldn’t apply to it. In the letter, AT&T is still trying to cover all of its bases. That means that, at times, it’s hard to follow which arguments it’s trying to make - the one about Google Voice or the one about net neutrality. And it doesn’t help that it stooped a little too low by referencing a convent of Benedictine nuns in a list of those who were handicapped by having calls to their numbers blocked to and from Google Voice numbers.  (ZDnet)

There are problems with AT&T’s posturing that could more permanently lock us into duopoly dominance. Since Google has gottten big and scary,  it’s an easy target, but there more to this. If enacted, net neutrality rules should ONLY apply to companies who have last mile right of ways and / or wireless spectrum. If the holder of spectrum will provide equal network access to competitors it should be exempt. Google owns no spectrum, no right of ways and does not charge for Google voice which does not even directly connect a telephone call. Calling it a competing phone service is like saying Colgate in in the dentistry business. The real reason behind AT&T’s attack on Google is to have rules written that will force providers of virtual services into the same regulatory framework that governs entities that have monopolies in last mile access or wireless spectrum. The net effect of the regulations AT&T wants would impair the ability of every VoIP, online entertainment and interactive online service to compete against a protected monopoly. There probably  are anti  competitive  issues in the way Google is doing business. They should be considered on their own merit and not used a lever to enslave us to a duopoly for the next several decades.

The only way to get open networks is with an open market. If a duopoly must exist. the only fix is to require it to divest from non access businesses.

As the FCC inches closer to redefining broadband and doing a bit more of  its usual endless rule making, AT&T is chiming in with new ideas on how broadband should be defined. Never mind that a substantial percentage of AT&T’s top tier broadband subscribers are likely to be gamers. AT&T does not think that their chosen us use of the higher price pay for is legitimate.

The computer gaming industry is not pleased with comments that AT&T filed with the Federal Communications Commission on how to define “broadband,” particularly the suggestion that online games should be relegated to the category of “aspirational services.” “For Americans who today have no terrestrial broadband service at all,” AT&T wrote the FCC, “the pressing concern is not the ability to engage in real-time, two-way gaming, but obtaining meaningful access to the Internet’s resources and to reliable email communications and other basic tools that most of the country has come to expect as a given.” (Ars Technica)