AT&T Realizes That Upload Speeds Are A Selling Point

from the about-freakin'-time dept

Tue, Sep 25th 2007 6:48pm — Mike Masnick

Most broadband is advertised these days solely on its download speeds (or rather, what those speeds might get "up to" under ideal conditions). However, for a while, we've been wondering when more broadband providers would realize that the internet isn't just about downloadable "broadcast" contest, but in multi-directional communication. That is, when would they realize that people value the upstream part of their broadband connections? There had been some talk about this a few years ago, but most marketing is still focused on just the downstream speeds. That's why it's interesting to see AT&T now hyping up the fact that it's boosting the upload speeds on its 3G wireless network. AT&T (from back when it was Cingular) has fallen way behind both Verizon and Sprint in terms of offering 3G data services around the US. It launched much later and has had trouble ramping up the network as fast as its competitors. However, by upgrading the upload speeds, it looks like AT&T is searching for some differentiator it can use to compete. While it may just be partly a marketing gimmick, at least the company does seem to intrinsically realize that in an age of VoIP, user generated content, virtual worlds and video games -- upload speeds really do matter to many people. While it may not be a huge enticement, it's worth watching to see if others start boosting (and hyping) their upload speeds as well as their download speeds.

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Filed Under: 3g, upload speeds
Companies: at&t

11 Comments

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comboman, 25 Sep 2007 @ 8:30pm

In other words...
In other words, AT&T realized that all those iPhone customers are going to need some bi-directional wireless bandwidth. Too bad this has nothing to do with broadband speeds.
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- bill, 27 Sep 2007 @ 11:14am
  
  Re: In other words...
  IPhones do not use 3G... they use the EDGE network... Perhaps future IPhones will use 3G
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Bryan Young, 25 Sep 2007 @ 8:45pm

Faster than Comcast cable speeds
Nice, that beats out the crappy 384K limit of my Comcast cable modem. I actually think this would be pretty nice for video conferencing (and P2P [yeah right]).
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Anon, 25 Sep 2007 @ 8:51pm

P2P
Well, people in the P2P scene are already hyping their upload speeds. Who cares if you have a 5 meg downstream or a 20 meg downstream. How much can you seed?
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John, 25 Sep 2007 @ 8:59pm

Ping?
When will people start advertising average pings to google in local areas.

Ping was one of the major reasons I switched from DSL to Cable, because the ping was so much better.
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- Ping Ping, 26 Sep 2007 @ 7:44am
  
  Re: Ping?
  More importantly, have them show some Packet Loss numbers - even if they don't control all the routers that a request may pass through...
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Michael Long, 25 Sep 2007 @ 11:05pm

Nice upgrade...
Nice upgrade, but it would be even nicer if they FINISHED their network first.
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Adrian, 26 Sep 2007 @ 1:55am

Well
I do not really think that will aid AT&T. Their popularity is not as high as they expect it to be!
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SamuelB, 26 Sep 2007 @ 7:48am

FTA: "Burns said company surveys found that iPhone customers were happy with the network, which is based on a technology known as EDGE: 'We're surveying them in large numbers week in and week out. They're telling us their EDGE experience is great.'"

That is such a load of crap. Who are the idiots that are telling AT&T that their EDGE network is so great?!?!? The "EDGE experience" sucks regardless of the device that is using it.
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Steve, 2 Oct 2007 @ 4:58am

boo!! iphones suck. beside that, their rediculusly expenicve and on the worst network. nobody has AT&T. GO VERIZON! did you know that we are the only country to use 3G. the rest of the world uses EDGE. so that sucks for anyone that likes to go out of the country. it still makes me wonder why apple (boooooo) would choose AT&T...
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- Matthew, 2 Oct 2007 @ 6:06am
  
  Re:
  It's called being the highest bidder.
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