AT&T's "Edge" Network Shatters iPhone Mobile Web Expectations

An article out from the New York Times entitled "Mobile Web: So Close Yet So Far" talks about how disappointing the mobile web experience has largely been for consumers thus far.

"Even the iPhone’s browser can disappoint. It has a version of the Apple (AAPL) Safari browser that doesn’t support Flash, a programming language widely used on Web sites, so users are limited in what they can see on the Web. And, you pay a lot to experience the pain of surfing the mobile Web. Lewis Ward, an analyst at the International Data Corporation, compares the mobile Web today to AOL (TWX) before it went with flat-rate pricing in the early 1990s. Most people surf on a pay-per-kilobyte model, which encourages them to surf as fast as they can, he says."

While I can only speak as one U.S. consumer using one U.S. web based phone (the iPhone), I will chalk up the internet browsing experience on my iPhone after several months now as an abject failure.

As much as I love the iPhone, and it is the best mobile phone I've ever used, the web browsing on it leaves so much to be desired. AT&T's (T) sucky "Edge" network is not worth using at all. Unless you are really in a pinch and absolutely must get something from the web it simply is not worth using.

When I got my iPhone I thought that browsing the web was one of the big things that I'd be doing with it. I do not do this at all.

A case in point. I whip out my iPhone as I'm heading up the escalator at the West Oakland BART station and try to go to a web page. There is no train at the landing yet. The iPhone fires up like it's going to load but then it just moves so slow. Maybe a minute later the train arrives. I hop in. My page still has not loaded. The train pulls forward. It's probably a good half mile and maybe another minute and a half before the train pulls into the tunnel that goes under the Bay (where I lose all internet access). Still no web page loads. Now I'm under the Bay after about 3 minutes or so of waiting and I've given up. After about 5 days in a row of this performance I simply stop trying to use my iPhone on the way to work. This is disappointing because I would like to have read an article on the iPhone on my way to work during the 8 minutes or so I'm under the Bay in the BART tunnel.

While it is true that you can use wi-fi with the iPhone this is kind of stupid. Why? Because in general it's too much work to screw around trying to find unsecure wifi spots to use. In the few places (like home) where you *know* you have wifi, you don't need to be on your iPhone when your MacBook Pro is a much more suitable way to browse the web.

Yes, there is the occasional occurrence when you are standing in North Beach and want to call the sushi restaurant to inquire about dinner and you're willing to wait the 3 minutes plus to get the phone number on your iPhone. But for general web surfability, I'd rather surf my first ever AOL dial up connection than AT&T's "Edge" network. And it's a big disappointment to me that the iPhone disappoints so much in terms of internet useage as this is something that I was actually very much looking forward to doing with it when I shelled out the $700 to buy it in the first place.

And before you say $700 - $100 (generous rebate gift certificate sort of thing back) = $600 not $700 -- not in my case. Apple's "generous" $100 rebate code didn't work for me in the store when I tried to use it and I've yet to get around to trying to figure out who to deal with on that one.

Comments

[vern]

well i can't comment on how it works in the bay area but in sc where i am it works beautifully. yeh it is slow at times but most times it works great. i can check my stocks on the fly and have actually made a stock trade on the golf course in between strokes. Some pages dont load right because of the flash situation but not many or at least it doesn't hamper me too often. My child loves to watch utube videos in the car. I honestly don't know how i got by without it. I have friends with blackberry that grab my iphone to surf the web cause "the web sucks on a bb" according to them. The weather is such a cool feature. I have surfed in canada with it and it was fine. I don't know how i got by without it.

[Ira]

Admittedly the edge network is a bit slow, but certainly usable. In spite of the short comings for web surfing, all of the other attributes of the phone are second to none. I do not believe that there is another phone on the market that can hold a candle to the user interface and features of the iPhone. As for the price you stated, when was the iPhone selling for $699.00 less the $100 rebate. As far as I can remember, it started at $599 for the 8 GB model, was then dropped to $399, about eight weeks after introduction and a $100 rebate offered to all of those original customers. If you can't get the facts straight on the original cost, what's the value of the rest of the article???

[JS-DC]

I have to agree with the other two comments: EDGE isn't great but it's certainly usable and very useful. I've been amazed, actually, that I can download and watch YouTube videos over EDGE and it's not too slow.

WiFi, on the other hand, is terrific on the iPhone. I have found myself many times reaching for my iPhone instead of bothering to fire up the laptop. This happens much more with the iPhone than with my last phone (a Treo 680).

Network speed is one issue, and I'll probably buy a 3G iPhone as soon as it's available. But don't make the mistake of discounting the iPhone's incredible ease-of-use, which makes checking stocks and weather, for example, the kind of quick task it should have been a long time ago.

And this is just the 1.0 device! Better than my 6th gen Treo!

[pats]

I had the same problem with the rebate. Apple support had me reinput my info into the rebate apply ation and it worked fine the second time. They were aware of the problem with some rebates. As far as the edge network, its slow but works great for checking sports scores when your out and about. Also i surf the home wifi when the kids take the computer

[BobbyW]

Ira T makes some good points. Additionally, it's tough to take a journalist who uses the word "sucky" seriously.

[peter02l]

My iPhone doesn't work on the international space station, it cost me $800, and when I went back to get my rebate, for some reason they charged me an additional $200. I got the mpst expensive data plan hoping to get a faster connection, and yet my first web page hasn't loaded since I bought the phone.
What I am trying to say is it's not that hard writing articles these days. Can't get internet connection under the sf bay in bart? Such grand expectations!

[GARYHirschberg]

Please tell me how someone with a cerebral rectal inversion like yourself can get a job spouting drivel. I would love to do so, like you have, as opposed to having to work for a living.

Yes, the Edge network is not super fast, nor in many cases, fast at all. But on balance, it works fine in the NY Metro area, Boston, Rochested, etc. It is frustrating at times, but then what isn't (like reading the garbage you write). It is version 1 and the best phone out there. I use the browser constantly. One thing I have found, which you might have also with a bit of experimentation if you were so inclined, is that if you are trying to load a page and the phone keeps flipping back and forth between Edge and some low output WiFi network, it tends to get "stuck", for lack of a better word. When that happens, I just turn off the wifi and use Edge and the problem goes away. You are obviously not knowlegable in any way on reporting things as they are. Who pays you anyway?

[BD]

My rebate worked fine on the Apple retail website. And in my line of work, we love having Safari on the iPhone to look up pictures. It works wonderfully no matter where we are.

[Uncle Miltie]

When I'm on EDGE, I use the mobile web, and pages like mobile.nytimes.com or m.usatoday.com load fast - under 2 seconds. On the other hand, if I try to load nytimes.com or usatoday.com they take forever.

The key to using EDGE on the iPhone is the mobile web. On other phones, it's painful because you can't display everything correctly, or it's too hard to navigate, or you spend too much time waiting for the page to scroll. On the iPhone, those shortcomings are not an issue.

[brokenjago]

Doesn't the iPhone retail for $600? (or, at least, it did.)

[Mark]

I totally agree with your write up! Glad to hear it wasn't just the Atlanta metro slow as hell "edge" network. att is a big blow hard company. Verizon Wireless is WAY faster and more available throughout the southeast. Also, TMobile is better than att as well..

[Coverage isKing]

Bay Area/BART coverage issues - capacity and connectivity - are nothing new for cell phones, unfortunately. That said, I have had fine iPhone/Edge experiences in:
- Philly
- Pittsburgh
- Houston
- Austin
- Vegas
- Laredo
- DC
- Tennessee

I am opening attachments, reading pdf's, linking to articles, loading videos. Financial transactions work fine, too. Sure, at times things are slower to load than other times. Just like a commute that sometimes hits... traffic! It happens.

So my fine experiences in 8 locations trump your single sucky one.

If you absolutely must engage in reading during your 8 minutes under the Bay, try an older analog technology. It's called a newspaper. You know, where real journalists used to ply a meaningful trade. Or HEY! Use that iPOD feature. Watch a podcast. Or two! Even better use of the technology.

Here's how to find wifi spots with your iphone -- turn wifi on and ask to join networks. VERY difficult, I know.

How did you get overcharged? Why can't you figure out basic instructions for getting $100? Why can't you fight for yourself when you are owed money? Or are you so wealthy that facts and figures don't matter much, so long as you have a soapbox from which to pout in public? Poor widdle baby cannot figure out hard things! Waaaaahhh

[Tom B]

Someday ATT will deliver a faster network. In the mean time, Apple had a choice of shorter battery life / somewhat slower network OR substandard pig-headed, idiot carrier (say Verizon). What can you do? The whole landscape will be different in a few years. Early adopters always get SOME measure of suffering.

[jswede]

last I checked, AT&T has a solid 3G network in most cities and it's expanding quickly -- the v1.0 iPhone does not use it, but that's likely at the very top of the to-do list for v2.0, no?

it's a great phone, and that it's more expensive, and is less fast, than v2.0 will be is hardly as shocking as you'd have us believe. Are you the guy suing for the irreplacable battery?

[jrob]

I have an iPhone, and while it is not perfect, I am very happy with it for the following reasons:

1. It is fast enough for regular use.
It is definitely slower than my broadband connection at home, but not as slow as the author would like you to believe, and good enough that I use it very regularly. There have been some occasions where pages load slowly, but these are definitely the exception. I too have found that in some cases turning off WiFi fixes the problem. I was planning to wait for the 3G iPhone, but when the 4GB phone price dropped to $299, I bought it. And I bought the cheaper 4GB instead of 8 GB, because I planned to upgrade as soon as the 3G iPhone came out. However, it is fast enough that I may just put off upgrading for a while if a 3G iPhone comes out.

2. It has a real web browser.
You can view real web sites (not just mobile ones), exactly as they are on your computer. Sure, flash does not work yet, but that is relatively rare, and I'm sure will be supported eventually. I used to use a Cingular 2125, which was a Windows Mobile phone, and trying to surf the web was extremely painful with its rudimentary browser. The only thing I used my data plan for was Google Maps, and even that was often frustrating. In contrast, the iPhone implementation of Google Maps and Safari are done amazingly well.

3. Maps, Stocks, and Weather are very useful and easy to use.
I regularly use Maps to navigate or find restaurants or look up business phone numbers, and this is very responsive. Over thanksgiving I used it to check out how bad traffic was (BAD) and where I could expect it to clear up. I used it to find restaurants, the quickest way out of San Francisco, and the number of my hotel to ask for a king size bed. I checked my stocks on friday. I used Weather before the trip, and before we went to the wharf in San Francisco. I found out (in about 30 seconds) that the LSU game had gone into triple overtime, and found a TV to watch the end. I also read some Wall Street Journal articles. The point is, the iPhone features are all very helpful and usable, and even enjoyable.

[Nathan A.]

Surely you jest! Can't keep your WiFi signal on your iPhone when inside the BART tunnel? A simple solution comes to mind: Find another way to get to work! Better yet, find some meaningful employment. Someone actually pays you to write this tripe? Myself, I'm eagerly awaiting the day when I can hop onto my iphone and have it whisk me to work, avoiding traffic jams by using it's onboard GPS navigational systems. If it rains, I will be kept dry by the auto umbrella feature which will deploy to prevent errant raindrops from falling into my latte. Get a life. You need it more than you need an iPhone.

[jswede]

.....aaaaaaaand THERE is the 3G announcement - coming next year. As expected.