@WinkMe: One wuld think that after AT&T saw what a well designed phone OS could do over EDGE that they would have to really invest for a 3G iPhone to work sufficiently. The $20 for all iPhone users certainly helps with that cost as a good deal are probably not heavy bandwidth users, as opposed to the ones paying much more on other cell phones, but I still wonder if AT&T may raise the price to account for their massive and swift upgrade to 3G and the even higher rate of data use we can expect.

@JacquesAss: The 2-way video cahat and Sling Player are not going to happen, at least not over cell networks. One of the items Apple is limiting in their SDK rules are bandwidth hogs. They also aren't allowing VoIP apps to work over the cell network so they are at working with the telcos on this. And it makes since as we don't benefit if the whole system comes to a crawl after billions were invested to upgrade it because reasonable checks weren't put in place.

@yoshi: NO one thinks it's the only 3G cellphone, but it is the only internet capable cellphone that my parents can use without a personal tech to walk them through it.

Leonard Nimrod

Well, the question is. Will more bandwidth be used, or will you just spend less time downloading. The general bandwidth footprint won't necessarily change unless you decided to browse crap more since you're not spending 3 hours waiting for your .mac mail to load. (Which, those apple fuckers haven't released a low bandwidth version of for us people who don't have fancy web-capable phones. Yet gmail works just fine on...)

Xavoc

@yoshi: Now, that's reassuring. You made me feel better for even considering a new iPhone (when my contract is up, that is).

maven2k

Do you really think that AT&T, with 3G devices already in play, and with more than a year to plan all this, didn't work out what their likely peak bandwidth requirements would be?

Give them some credit - they have to have at least one network engineer with a slide-rule who could work it out.

MINI Driver

I can't be the first one to think of this...they'll obviously just cap the data limit at 5GB per month then charge extra for going over. That way the 5% of users who are using 40% of the bandwidth will only use 5% like they're supposed to. Those greedy users, expecting their providers to use their money to make a profit AND maintain and upgrade their structural backbones.

CubFan81

It's like we're the only fat girls at Country Buffet.

Will there be enough potatoes? Somebody replenish the Hawaiian salad, STAT!

Joey_Brill

I'm rolling around waiting. I went to the apple store near the mall to see if anyone is there but no was waiting. I wasn't going to wait in line for it but i needed a new magsafe charger for my macbook.

darkinfero

Amazing... you guys act like the iPhone is the only 3G device on the new at&t's network. Not only does it support the 3G Blackberry, it will and can support the few million iPhone customer's.

Let's hope the new iPhone can handle the fastest 3G network in the U.S.

yoshi

i doubt this will blend

cheungman

I'm tired of waiting!!!

Boatski

@hillaryh8tr: Giggity, giggity, giggity!

92BuickLeSabre

I will be discouraged if it has limited BT functionality. It is one hell of a convenience on my Tilt & N95 when pushing files.

As for AT&T, it's going to be one big wait and see, unless you're in the know.

vagrant

You mean carriers might actually have to take the money they suck out of our pockets and upgrade their networks? As opposed to claiming huge gains quarter after quarter?

Smallest violin in the world plays in the background.....

nwaringa

And Miss Cleo says that all you people crying for embedded Flash will regret it when the new 3G iPhone crashes the Internet exactly on Monday, June 9, 2008 at 6:35PM.

beyondthetech

whats 3g?

hillaryh8tr

iPhones jump from EDGE to 3G. AppStore opens. MobileMe syncing of address books, contacts and documents opens for initial syncing. Full Exchange server syncing begins. OTA iTunes Store downloads begin. 2-way video chat goes live. Sling controller rolls out for video-streaming.

Yeah, hopefully AT&T wore their big-girl panties the day iPhone 2 goes on sale.

JacquesAss

This is exactly why people have been getting hit with bills for tethering and extreme usage. I was using my att HTC S630 to get 3.5g speeds on my lappie for over a year with no overages or extra fees (i have the unlimited data plan) My buddy just got back from The Dominican Republic and got hit with over $7,000 in charges...

Granted they dropped it down to $1200 but the fact exists that they are becoming more protective of their data. It is a commodity after all.

AskTheAdmin

Why do you TEASE us with this post?!?! GIVE ME IPHONE NEWS!!! (throws nearest hard object across room and continues to drink hard liquer until the next iphone is released)

Ftp1423

I would hope that att built their BRAND NEW SPANKIN 3g network to be proofed for a couple years... or at least till 4g is mainstream.... I got my money on the network being highly capable of handling this traffic (but locked down and capped until absolutley needed)..... i mean they had to have seen this coming.... right?

WinkMe

All the more reason to be first in line to buy one, so you will have at least 15 minutes of non-clogged 3G airtime.

Monty

What's an iPhone?

MikeSWelch

I can definitely see this being a problem, especially during peak hours. I hope AT&T addressed this potential problem and has the bandwidth to support it's users without severely degrading the speed and quality of its network

TOWken22

That depends on where you are. I watch my N95 go from 3G, 3.5G to Edge at any given point during the day..

Jrsy

"It wasn't so harsh on the network, because 55 percent of the data was over Wi-Fi." How EXACTLY would they know this? If I used the internet on my iPhone over EDGE, then yes, I expect them to know how much EDGE internet browsing I'm doing on it....But how exactly do they ascertain how much data I'm sucking down and how much time I'm spending on the net when I'm on WIFI?

TheSonOfKrypton

I quite frankly dont think that the 3G network will be degraded because the iPhone wont be THAT cheap. Maybe a new EDGE one. I really cant wait until WWDC god I have been up all night. Cmon 3G iPhone today!!!!!

spyz88

Hundreds of thousands of 3G iPhone users over AT&T will not swamp the system ... because they will find themselves dealing with the AT&T 5Gb bandwidth cap on their "unlimited" data plans.

himself

@MINI Driver:

I was waiting for mini.

@Leonard Nimrod:

Bull$hit

@snitch29:

Read my post again... I said U.S. (UNITED STATES).

Geez... :)

yoshi

@yoshi: Let's hope the new iPhone can handle the fastest 3G network in the U.S.???? Dude are you serious??? i guess you never been to Asia, 3G that's been deploy in the US it's already outdated there, LOL.

snitch29

@yoshi:

No need to wait - go right ahead!

MINI Driver

@dagamer34:

I understand... Let's give the give the new at&t engineers some credit when it comes to building a wireless network.

Also, let's not forget that it was Apple's Steve Jobs that chose the new at&t's Edge network because it was the largest geographic footprint at the time.

This new 3G network will be able to handle all us slingplaying, porn downloading, song stealing, video conferencing, text messaging, voice calling, etc fanboys.

Thanks to the new at&t!!!

yoshi

@snitch29: U.S. != world. Plus, where in Asia are you referring to. It's the larger continent in the world, and only has sup advanced UTMS networks in come countries, but most of Asia isn't even covered by any cell signal.

• [www.3gamericas.org]

For example, from the spreadsheet above you see that neither China or India have a 3G network in place, and Japan is planning to start upgrading to HSUPA just this month. ANd if you compare those Japanese dates to AT&T in the US you see that AT&T got a jump start on NTT DoCoMo by a large margin. The biggest issue is the size and density of the Japan and the feature set of the phones which allow for television and other loss-leader services.

Leonard Nimrod

So are there any numbers on how many current iphone users will be upgrading to the 2.0? Because if a large percentage of current users upgrade and a large number of folks waiting for 3G before buying an iphone jump in AND a bunch of new iphone users are pulled in by the hype machine, this could be quite a few new 3G devices with data usage only limited by battery life. I would be surprised if there aren't some network issues looming for AT&T.

RobotVampire

I can't wait to see the effects of the iPhone's first third-party Bittorrent client.

Pender

@yoshi:

Most 3G phones in the past couldn't load up entire non-mobile websites because the screen wasn't large enough. That means that you cut out the Flash, Javascript, and images for sending mostly text OTA. When you realize that several text pages can be crammed into the same bandwidth as a decently-sized photo, then you can see why the iPhone might be the first device to actually push their network to the limit.

The nice thing bout AT&T is they just rolled out 3G in my area of Michigan where it wasn't 3 weeks ago. That's pretty sweet!

dagamer34

Won't this harm not just people with iPhones, too?

I'm planning on getting a 3G iPhone, but even if I don't for one reason or another, I'd still like to be able to cruise on my 3G phone now.

Dammit, they need to beef up the network. Please. Don't let this happen to meeeeeeeeeeee!!!

chasema

@MINI Driver:

:)

I think everyone will be very happy if and when Apple releases the new 3G iPhone. They will thrilled to death with the new at&t's new 3G network too.

yoshi

"And it's fair to assume iPhone users are going to slurp even more than before since they won't have to hit up Wi-Fi to do data-intensive stuff."

I don't think that's fair at all. Wi-Fi is still going to be faster. If the iPhone is smart enough to detect a Wi-Fi connection and use that automatically (provided you have authentication) then the 3G network would be much better off.

My phone spends 90% of it life either at work or at home. Meaning I would only need 3G for 10% of it's life. Granted not everyone has Wi-Fi but come on! Would it be "fair to say" the average iPhone user is either a techy or a simpleton with "AirPort"?

JEmlay

I think at&t's network engineers *might* know a bit more about their network and it's capabilities than some blogger.

I'm just sayin'.

I know the anti-AT&T sentiment runs high here, but do you honestly think they wouldn't take into consideration worst case scenario for capacity?

keene

*sigh* i've loved my time on AT&T 3G, but I fear it will soon end as the hapless jobs-zombies will ruin it just like they did EDGE.

asten77

jeez, asten77... snobby enough? Are you one of those vapid 'blackberry-prayer' zombies, 'not-in-my-neighborhood' types that is going to have problems with all of this? *sigh* I'd suggest a monastery to get away from it all, but they don't like newcomers clogging up their wifi up in the Himalayans... y'know, the EDGE network on AT&T was actually speed-bumped the day before the iPhone release and thusly was indirectly _improved_ by the iPhone crowd. And the AT&T 3G network is hitting robust levels not seen before as it's finished, coinciding with the iPhone 3G release. So please stop. Reading your post, I'm tempted to hope your 3G connection slows down due to lack of karmic bandwidth.

illseeingeye

Just had a chat online w/an ATT rep:

Chat InformationThank you for your patience! An AT&T sales representative will be with you shortly.
Chat InformationYou are now chatting with Audrey, an AT&T sales representative.
Audrey: Welcome to AT&T online Sales support. How may I assist you with placing your order today?
Tim: hi audrey...when's the new iphone coming to the online store?
Audrey: Unfortunately, we do not yet have a time frame for this to be released. Once available it will be listed online and will be available for you to purchase.
Tim: k...thanks.

timbrews

I would imagine that AT&T is running the same setup as the Rogers in Canada where 8 T1's(~12Mbps) are feeding each 3G cell site. That should provide plenty of bandwidth.

Bokito

i have a feeling at&t is gonna roll out a big update to their 3g network any time now..

jdub2patrick

i have a feeling att will announce a big upgrade to their 3g network any time too...

jdub2patrick