Our post last week on AT&T’s failures inspired a lot of people to voice their displeasure (to put it kindly) with the service over its poor network performance, particularly with the iPhone. It also inspired one professional video editor, Pat Lee, to make the following truly awesome AT&T/Apple ad parody.
Lee tells us that he hopes the video inspires people “to contact Apple to let them know about their issues with AT&T’s atrocious service.” The end goal is to put pressure on Apple not to renew its exclusive deal with AT&T here in the U.S.
And the video comes at a good time. Comic-Con is currently taking place in San Diego and not surprisingly, there are widespread reports of major AT&T failures at the show. While it’s undoubtedly due to a huge concentration of comic lovers with iPhones, once again, AT&T should have seen this coming. Instead, just as with SXSW, they’re forced to scramble to try and fix things on the fly rather than preemptively attacking a problem.
Love it.
at&t hate is from a small vocal minority. Most people believe that at&t has the best service. but its ok keep complaining about small things like a website being down for a few hours, because thats what really matters in life.
Uhm, I bought a phone, what the fuck am I supposed to complain about other than dropped calls, the iraq war, man’s inhumanity to man, acid rain?
That would certainly make more sense and be more worthwhile.
FAIL
i was with Verizon for 5 years before the iphone came out and i moved to AT&T. with Verizon i never ever had a droped call. as soon as i got AT&T … it doesnt pass one sigle day not to have at least 5 dropped calls. so keep defending AT&T. pfffffff
Sorry, who thinks AT&T is the best mobile service? Clearly not someone who is an AT&T user…
Great Video!!
ATT drops all over California.
My family lives in Morro Bay (San Luis Obispo) and driving from LA to San Francisco frequently i can clearly see how bad ATT is. We have Verizon and ATT and Verizon works everywhere!! But ATT is spotty at best!
ATT loses VM’s and text msg so often I now give out my Verizon number! So what good is my iPhone on ATT? Crap!
ATT is crap. Bad service! And the worst part is ATT lies about it. George Bush and ATT must be friends!
yep the video is as good as a original commercial video except the real negative publicity!
I am pretty fed up with the continuing bashing of AT&T as if Verizon is the second coming. Yesterday I fired up my laptop with my 3G card here in Northern Virginia and was delighted to receive 3G at 7.4 mb. As promised, AT&T is beefing up its network and IS delivering on its commitment to deliver a great 3G experience.
In addition, they are in the middle of turning on their 850mhz frequencies to complement their 1900 mhz 3G GSM signals. As any technician will tell you, 850 performs better through buildings and hills and goes further than 1900 mhz. My sister is already reporting that in New York City, she is able to walk her building and receive a signal this year in places where she used to only get a signal when standing next to a window.
The data demand throughput from the iPhone is nothing short of incredible. AT&T has done a remarkable job in building out its network in a manner that for the most part has kept up with this crushing data load. I am curious to see what would truly happen to Verizon, if they had to contend with the data load that AT&T is dealing with. Remember that all the Blackberry’s in the world running on Verizon’s network do not amount to 1/5th of the data traffic that AT&T is carring on their 3G, primarily due to the Apple iPhone.
Here’s a little something to ponder as you dreamabout how great Verizon is. Try doing this little experimane with any Verizon phone. Try to talk on the phone while simultaneously conducting a data session (web browsing, email, txt message, etc.) You can’t and your won’t because with Verizon you get one or the other BUT NOT BOTH simultaneously.
Now try the same experiment with AT&T. Hey, guess what? It works. How about that?
A final thought, only with AT&T do you have access to the world’s largest wifi network (think starbucks, most hotels, airports, and mcdonalds) included with their iPhone and Blackberry Bold service WITHOUT ADDITIONAL COST! To access these same wifi networks through Sprint or your belvoed Verizon, it would cost you extra.
Ok, I will get off my soapbox now. I simply have had it with the Verizon can do no wrong and AT&T sucks crowd. Get over it and deal with the real facts!
first
FAIL.
Is it possible for TechCrunch to auto-block all comments with “first” as the only word?
heh.
In all fairness, he was probably leaving that comment via ATT 3G, hence the delay.
win
+1
Absolutely amazing!
Great commercial. Here’s my low-budget video of real-world AT&T performance. I plan on posting more.
http://www.yout...h?v=AdiBUN2ncTk
Spread the word. Upload your own experience.
I think, the real comparison should be done with similar service of AT & T and other handsets
like for instance Nokia N82 or Nokia N97
you will immediately know weather it’s AT & T’s service or it is the iPhone that cannot receive signals.
Every story has two sides. Just blaming AT & T is not a just deal.
You cant clap with one hand, can you?
Well, you can also change that comparison by comparing it to how well the iPhone works in other countries. I live in Europe, I have a 3G iPhone, had it since February, it never ever dropped a call. Lots of my friends have an iPhone, who have never had any problems whatsoever. But, on a sidenote: every phone I have ever had, on a few different networks, start to fail when you’re at a place with many other people, like a concert, a festival, etc. Even with extra gear in place, handling so many calls from one spot is a problem; they’re can only be so many FM-signals chattering at once, if too many transmitters start transmitting in one place, it doesn’t matter how many extra phone masts you place. The phones start jamming each other’s signal.
Funny, I don’t have any issues in MY area. But last time I was visiting my mother 250 miles away the service was crap. My area, AT&T rocks. I just want my bloody MMS!
Finally my prayers were answered, even metroPCS is working better with cheap phones then my iPhone…
you will not find more great videos of this nature at patlee.net. just letting y’all know before you head in. talented photography of male underwear models though, if that’s your cup of tea.
this is true.
cool…in that case i will check it out!
I doubt petitions or rants on forums will push Apple one way or another, marching as they do to the bet of their own drum, but let’s hope it at least gets AT&T to invest more money in infrastructure and — perhaps — persuade more communities to allow more cell phone towers, improving coverage.
FWIW, my iPhone 3GS dropped a call while typing my previous comment. AT&T must be reading TechCrunch.
They might (and hopefully will) force AT&T to be more appreciative of their exclusive contract.
They take it for granted and their contract is over very soon. They need to do something to keep people from switching to Verizon. Right now, they have done nothing to earn my respect. They should give me something that I can’t get from Verizon or another carrier. I’d really like to be able to use my unlimited data plan sans limits! Is that too much to ask?
Hopefully, they will get the point and allow tethering with no additional charges and maybe even allow people to use applications like Skype of SlingPlayer on their network.
When/if Verizon starts offering iPhone contracts, they will directly target what AT&T doesn’t offer.
I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Remember what they did when all they did was drop the price on the original iPhone. Maybe they’ll get the hint and finally do something about it. The problem I see is that so many people wanted the iPhone because there really isn’t anything like it out there so no matter what they sold a butt load.
I submitted this video to Digg and propose that we try to make it a trending topic on Twitter with “#iphonehell”. That kind of gravity might actually snag more media attention, especially the attention of AT&T and Apple!
http://digg.com/d3yao1?t
You could say exactly the same things of O2 in the UK.
Apple really do have a knack of giving exclusivity to the worst carriers in each country!
AT&T provides a really $hitty service in the Bay Area. Taking a 20 miles drive anywhere in the Bay Ares results in multiple dropped call, I have 5 dead areas driving from East Bay to Peninsula, terrible. Once Verizon gets the iPhone (if they do) I will jump right back to their network
I giggle a bit (and by giggle I mean scream with frustration) when it drops on 280 next to Apple’s campus.
I don’t get as frustrated with my iPhone as I did when I was on Sprint. It would drop repeatedly, without warning. Usually, one party or the other would still be on the line not realizing the call dropped.
I love all this complaining because my phone company uses any network anyplace including calls to 40 countries but the kicker is i get paid for $10.00 per phone month after month that gets activated through my my outlet … To learn all about go here ====> Don’t you wish you got into MICROSOFT, AOL, GOOGLE when 1st Launched? Now is your chance with New Mobil Technology http://bit.ly/vF9mz
It’s not just the crappy iPhone support. AT&T’s landline support sucks too. But not providing MMS and tethering is just too much. The iPhone and AT&T is like Lance Armstrong on a tricycle.
My AT&T service isn’t that bad… still waiting for flash support though, maybe in a couple of years. :\
AT&T doesn’t really control flash support on the iPhone. That’s up to Apple as to when they want to include it).
Home come I could have a cheap ass Sony Ericcson prepaid phone on AT&T and never having a dropped call anywhere that I’ve been travelling. It’s EDGE, BTW.
ha..big whoop, what did you expect from a company, that preys on fooling people as its first priority,
you really did not think, you will get a good service..Did you? its karma, you would have saved yourself, if you wouldn’t have deluded yourself from the mass hype.
Forget it now, get ready for the next mass crap and lunacy that will come out of a place called America and the best part is, you will pay to get your ass scammed again and again.
Good Luck
well, if apple switch to tmobile or sprint. Another similar video will be made mocking those companies too. One can never get enough.
One month ago I stood half way between the Sprint and Apple stores on University in Palo Alto wringing my hands between Sprint or an iPhone v. Pre v. ATT… I got the Pre….
Three weeks later my iPhone envy was so great I returned the Pre for the iPhone; I drop a half dozen calls a day…. I miss Sprint. I now have, essentially, an iTouch.
ATT should be heavily discounting their horrendous service…
The best is when both people are on iPhones. You don’t even bother talking about the dropped calls. Just call back and start talking where you left off. Unless you both call back, in which case you do the voicemail dance for a few minutes before reconnecting. Rinse and repeat when the call is dropped again two minutes later.
I never have problems with my AT&T service. But I don’t use an iPhone.
It apparently doesn’t occur to anyone that any phone relies on both transmission quality AND reception quality. Two different phones in the same exact location on the same exact network can have very different quality of service (try it). When the issues are “particularly” with the iPhone, it’s a hint that Apple may be at least partly culpable.
Negative Ghost Rider, the pattern is full.
I couldn’t be any happier with my 2g iphone on t-Mobile.
I had at&t after being forced into it when they took over cingular. I couldn’t get service unless I walked a block from my house. Even when I had 5 bars, I could barely talk to people and calls would get dropped.
Actually, visual voicemail, youtube, and 3g potential would make me much happier. But it still beats any other option.
Nothing better than a slam article about a product and a service that offers links to purchase both that products and service right underneath the article… Apple will never take the blame for a product that overheats, freezes, has the poorest battery life… they will always blame AT&T and their followers will always blame AT&T for everything wrong with the device… I have the phone and just like everything else in this world… mass production leads to quality reduction… it’s a life lesson… if greed is your game prepare yourself for emptiness
ATT does suck. I dont know if anyone has noticed this but if i have 1 bar or all 5 bar on my iphone i still get fail/dropped call. So no matter how high att try to raise the bars calls still fail me. bars are deceptive.
I have a jailbroken and unlocked iphone 3gs on ATT. I was thinking about breaking w/ att and move to t-mobile which is $20-$30 cheaper than what i pay att for the same service but what i have heard is that iphone wont work on t-mobile 3g high speed internet connection
That’s EXACTLY what I’m encountering in my home in Sunnyvale. It would randomly go from 1 to 5 bars but regardless of bars, the reception is horrible.
I’m thinking AT&T developed some technology to trick phones into thinking they have great reception (more bars) when the opposite is true.
I guess in the mobile world, “bars” are not created equal – and ATT’s “bars” are the worst.
Criminally poor service. Completely unreliable. Comically bad customer service. Hurting Apple’s brand. I will not purchase another iPhone until it is on Verizon and seriously considering tossing the one I have. Thanks AT&T!!!
I feel so lucky to have o2 here in the uk
“While it’s undoubtedly due to a huge concentration of comic lovers with iPhones, once again, AT&T should have seen this coming.”
At any given moment, there’s probably thousands of conventions going on in the US. Should AT&T be monitoring all of those and guesstimating which once will have the highest concentration of iPhone users?
I’ve had some issues with service, but I don’t know anyone, on any network, that hasn’t had blips from time to time.
@Andrew,
“At any given moment, there’s probably thousands of conventions going on in the US. Should AT&T be monitoring all of those and guesstimating which once will have the highest concentration of iPhone users?”
Given that AT&T monitors every phone call and forwards it to the NSA for analysis; how difficult would it be to guesstimate? And, they could just ask the NSA.
kudos on that comment
they don’t even have to forward it. everything that flows through their network is copied and made directly available to the government.
I’m an iPhone owner for over a year and I think Apple and AT&T are a perfect combination – each matching the other with terrible service.
You’ve covered AT&T, but what about the need to reboot the phone every other day, laggy as hell performance, an App Store that’s slow as molasses (on the phone or the desktop, for that matter), Push that’s almost a year overdue, updates that cripple Wifi/Bluetooth connectivity, the lack of basic BT profiles, requiring an OS update to sync Notes (ridiculous!), copy/paste as an afterthought, an apparently completely random App approval process, the inability to run two apps at the same time, etc, etc, etc.
Some of us need a Hero…
Has anybody made a mashup of user-reported drop call percentage on ATT network in various locations? Would be interested in seeing this, even with potential for falsely-reported data. How else can I make a wise purchase decision re switch to iPhone? Let’s get people sharing this info in a usable format, please.
Glad to know I am not alone. Intermittent service at the office. Drop calls are a constant as service will fluctuate from a few bars to one bar to no service within the span of 1 call. I could lose a call by leaning back in my chair.
Living at the top of neighborhood I’m the lucky one. Take the dog for his evening walk and I enter a complete dead zone around the neighborhood. We are located only 2 miles from local at& store and Apple store.
Call them and they will tell you more towers are coming. Last week I met an at&t technician at a gathering and he laughed at that notion. at&t were denied the permit to put in more towers years ago.
Meanwhile they continue selling iPhone and at&t without advising local residents of the many, many dead zones everywhere here.
I haven’t been receiving any new visual voicemail for about two weeks, and then suddenly a rush of 16 new voicemails came through. They included a few old voicemails that were marked as new, and completely new ones from the last two weeks that I never had any notification of (not even missed calls).
This comes at a particularly bad time, because two of the missed voicemails were requesting employment references for former co-workers, as well as calls related to my own business.
AT&T has really dropped the ball on this one.
I’ve got dropped calls galore here in Miami. I’ll frequently be sitting absolutely still, at a restaurant for example, and watch signal strength fluctuate between zero and five bars. No in between, just all or nothing.
In all fairness to AT&T though, I do have to wonder how much of the poor coverage issue is due to people saying, ‘not in my backyard’, to more towers.
FWIW: I had Cingular. I had a weak signal at home. However my N80 could search for towers and at home there were 2. If I manually connected to one of them my signal was excellent.
A couple months after it became AT&T access to that tower was shut off. The tower could still be found, but access was denied. I would try every couple of months, but still denied. This was not a fluke. I am in Mt. View CA.
I don’t know what this means. But I doubt I in a unique position.
I live in the Bay Area and used to be with Verizon prior to getting the iPhone 2G, which I still use. Certainly the ATT network service is not as good as Verizon.
Perhaps ATT isn’t that bad, but rather that Verizon is so good.
any news on apple’s multi carrier plans?
you know with apple’s cash… they can just buy out a carrier jking
I happen to like AT&T. In my neck of the woods, it delivers pretty solid service. It has more coverage than T-Mobile, the only other national GSM carrier. And an iPhone without a SIM card? Perish the thought.
I have both At&t and also Verizon. I travel all around the country. I use both cell phone per still being in a contract with Verizon. I get better coverage in more places with AT&T. I am from Cincinnati, OH and have better luck with AT&T. I guess it just depends on where you are. There are some places through out the country where my verizon works and at&t does not..at the sametime there are places where my at&t works and my verizon does not. Coverage wise..there is no difference.
i used to work at the dreaded company and there service is pretty crappy. there wasnt a day that went by without some outage somewhere and some affected multiple states.
when the first iphone released it was a nightmare, not only becuase of att’s crappy network but also apples demand to be the one to troubleshoot the phone. we did not get any information on the iphone for a while (like att’s device tutorials which you can google) and when we told customers they had to call apple, they would state they already did and apple said to call ATT.
both companies suck in my opinion due to unprofessionalism, releasing “beta” products to the public to have them catch on fire when a customer uses it (google that as well) and covering it up and each company blamed the other.
apple is known to be a rip off…charging to much for the products they offer, when comparable products are considerably cheaper and just as good. i myself prefered the TILT phone over the iphone, and the bugs still surrounding iphone would mean the downfall of any other company.
unfortunatly the world is ruled by big companies releasing crap products/services and still having the money to keep doing it (microsoft- xbox 360 rrod failures, apple- origional iphones over heated, cuaght on fire, iphone 3g-problems with 3g service (had to be set to 2g on thousands of phones for it to work, new iphone- i dont work at att so i dont know but i am sure there are some, att- expensive service with constant dropped calls in many areas, MMS (multimedia message service) outages are contstant somewhere, poor network strength in many areas/ including the city i live in. i could go on and on but i wont becuase if you do research you already know.
i did read something a few weeks ago that i hope will happen, there was something on another website that was talking about companies being investigated to see if they can put an end to carrier exclusive phones and start giving customers choices as to who they want to be their cell phone service provider based off of quality instead of what phones they offer. i think alot had to do with problems regarding the release of iphone 3gs and the problems they had. i personally hope it goes through and ends the crappy companies who just paid the most to have an exclusive contract.
I’d have an iPhone IF I could choose a carrier other then AT&T. After much research I have the Samsung Instinct – better then iPhone really – and way less cost per month with Sprint unlimited voice & data for 99.00 a month. AT&T would of been 162.00 I am a Mac user so people often ask why I don’t have the iPhone. It’s not the phone… it is what the network would allow the phone to do. AT&T is the oldest – true….. bigger does NOT mean better. Otherwise McDonalds would have the best hamburger in the world – and we all know that is far from the truth.
please define “better”. it’s interesting that so many people seem to define better/best strictly by features (”at least it has MMS”…). but if that was the case no one would buy an iphone. literally. It’s the interface! It’s how you interact with your phone! That’s what attracts us all. And unfortunately the only other phone/OS that has come close is the Pre/webOS. Sorry, but the samsung instinct doesn’t cut it.
Seriously, I had problems with service at the Ann Arbor Art Fair last week. Its way too flakey.
I really have no issues all over MI with AT&T service. Actually, my whole family has not encountered any issues. 1 of the phones goes to Nevada and back without any dropped calls or any types of issues that all the iPhone users are talkign about here. I really have to think that it’s really just Apple’s product. Out of all the units we carry, none of them are Apple’s. Palm Treo, My hacked LG Vu (best iPhone ever made once it’s hacked LOL!), Samsung Propel and a LG Shine… No dropped calles, no data loss, nothing. I can’t vouch for lost VM’s since I use gVoice and YouMail but the rest of my family uses the standard AT&T VM. Again, no issues there.
Though I LOVE the video, I think it is a bit misdirected and really should be fired at Apple moreso than AT&T. Heck, I even hit the favorite button, I think it’s that funny!
This was lame.
With AT&T, I know the service could probably be better, faster, or otherwise improved but considering the few years they struck a contract that forever changed the view of their company.
As an AT&T customers, I’m sure as heck not brand loyal, but I do want to give them credit that in Phoenix, AZ, service has been very superior to any other carrier in my experience.
I would love if Verizon was the next bidder and shared service for the iPhone. Then and only then, will competition and the free market play out to whoever has more reliable and superior customer service.
This video was not only lame, it misses the point on why consumers need access to more than one carrier with a handset that is still in high demand.
~Joseph
I can’t wait for the iPhone to end it’s exclusivity with ATT. I live in SF and every time I go to a crowded area my phone stops working. ATT is terrible at providing service in busy places. Go to a concert and good luck finding your friends. Go to a street fair and there is absolutely no way to get even a text message out. Go to the ball game and you are out of luck. What good is having a mobile phone if you can’t use it when you are out and about?!
Here in Atlanta (and Georgia in general) the service is pretty bad. I just killed 2 iphone accounts and ate the fees to get a couple of Pre on Sprint. Fantastic decision from what I’ve seen the past month and a half.
So far at work I get signal all through the office where my iphone got none (or if I stood on one foot and flapped my arms near the right window it might have gotten signal for a minute or two before) and I can start a call now and drive the full 60 miles of my commute without dropping the call. My iphone would have dropped the call 2 or 3 times easy making that same trip.
My wife missed a couple of job interviews because of the poor service on her iphone, I got chewed out at work over the poor service affecting my on-call availability. It was the pits to put it mildly. AT&T did knock half off of the final months bill by way of apology.
Now don’t get me wrong…I LOVED the iphone but I loathed the service quality it was tied to.