Begin forwarded message:
From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed@reed.com>
Date: December 13, 2009 1:37:07 PM EST
To: dave@farber.net
Cc: ip <ip@v2.listbox.com>
Subject: Re: [IP] worth reading AT&T and iPhone
I have been measuring ATT 3G network performance for several months, as have a group of non ATT network experts. It's hard to do that with iPhones, but easy to do that with the ATT network dongle and a laptop, with tools from standard Internet performance measurement resources (if you have your own network servers, which all of us do).
Measurements of latency on ATT's network in several cities (NOT using an iPhone, but a 3G modem) do not bear out the claim by Randall Stross, the NYT reporter, that it's the iPhone's air interface.
Stross is not a network technology expert, so I wonder where he got the idea that it's the iPhone's air interface that is the problem. Perhaps from ATT PR flacks? I'd be interested if there were any technological "there" there. I suspect not. The Occam's Razor explanation is that ATT's backhaul is super-under-provisioned for the demand. And they are blaming the users, as usual.
Anyway, this link from the fake Steve Jobs site suggests what might actually be happening. :-)
http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/12/a-not-so-brief-chat-with-randall-stephenson-of-att.html