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FCC Opposes Fake Steve Jobs’ AT&T DDoS – Urged Public to Use “Common Sense”

William — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 07:01:13 +0000

Fake Steve Jobs (journalist Dan Lyons) recently proposed that iPhone users earlier today at 3PM EST begin gobbling up as much bandwidth as possible – in protest of AT&T’s shoddy 3G network performance. AT&T has since called the joke “irresponsible and pointless,” and now even the FCC has chimed in on “Operation Chokehold.”

“To purposely try to disrupt or negatively impact a network with ill-intent is irresponsible and presents a significant public safety concern,” the FCC tells ABC News. It added that “threats of this nature are serious, and we caution the public to use common sense and good judgment.” Even Lyons seems to be backing away from the campaign, though judging from comments to his post by his blog’s readers, AT&T users may not be listening.

Link to the original article…

Verizon To AT&T: The Truth Hurts – Back and forth over ad campaign continues…

William — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:10:53 +0000

Last week AT&T tried their best to get Verizon’s new ad campaign shuttered. The series of ads poke fun at AT&T’s lackluster 3G coverage and network performance, something AT&T didn’t find amusing. Verizon has now filed their 53 page legal retort (warning: PDF document) to AT&T’s complaint, which as you’d expect argues that illustrating AT&T’s network limitations is a perfectly fair form of advertising. On page seven sits this gem: “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.” As for AT&T’s claim that the maps used to highlight AT&T’s 3G coverage are unfair? “AT&T does not like the truthful picture painted by that comparison,” says Verizon.

Link to the original article…

Verizon Promises Droid Won’t Strain Network – Though they’re preparing for more backhaul for LTE launch…

William — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:14:30 +0000

Unlike some of the capacity issues that troubled AT&T with the huge influx of iPhone customers, Verizon is insisting the company won’t struggle under the load when they launch the new Motorola Droid this Friday. That’s easy to say, given Droid’s sales likely won’t dent iPhone volume — but Verizon has an interesting conversation with Telephony Online on getting ready for the influx of additional data users. According to Verizon, they didn’t add backhaul capacity for Friday’s Droid launch — because they didn’t need to. At least not yet:

In most markets, Verizon Wireless has EV-DO running on three sectors per cell site and in many congested areas, it has deployed multiple EV-DO carriers. CDMA downlink channels are only 1.25 MHz wide, compared to the 5 MHz used by AT&T s HSPA network, but they support similar maximum capacities (3.1 Mb/s for Rev. A compared to 3.6 Mb/s for HSPA). AT&T s 3G evolution path will widen that gap over the next two as it upgrades its base stations to 7.2 Mb/s HSPA, but for now VZW has an efficiency advantage, allowing it support much more capacity over the same spectrum.

In a different report, Verizon says they’ll certainly be adding new fiber backhaul in a number of markets when they launch faster LTE service in 25-30 new markets next year. Verizon says they’ll be deploying fiber Ethernet to 90% of the cell sites in its territory by the end of 2013. Pound for pound, Verizon’s wireless investment CAPEX has been more robust than AT&T’s for some time — and the proof should be in the pudding.

Link to the original article…