Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch highlights a key fundamental that we often forget at the bleeding edge of the mobile world: The basic stuff has to actually work.
For all the talk about 4G and LTE and genius amazing whiz-bang gizmos, the basic reality is that when I hit ‘dial’, I expect my call to be connected. I am intolerant of any exception.
In Michael’s example, he explains how the utterly brilliant black-cab taxi service Uber, highly popular in San Francisco and New York, failed to meet his needs — because AT&T couldn’t connect a call:
Yesterday I requested a car and even though the app showed the car as arrived and on top of me on the map, it was nowhere to be found. I called the driver (a handy feature in the app), but our connection was so bad that we couldn’t communicate. So I hit “cancel” (a $10 charge to me) and walked to my destination instead.
via Uber To Dump Hundreds of AT&T iPhones, Switch To Verizon.
The CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanik reckons that they may well make a total switch from iPhones running AT&T to iPhones running on Verizon. Just to get proper connectivity when their drivers need it.
Ridiculous.
I understand Kalanik’s perspective, but goodness me, when things get that bad with AT&T, it really does demonstrate that no amount of 4G marketing magic can hide the continued failure to deliver basic connectivity in these geographies. Whenever I’m in NY or San Francisco, I definitely, definitely do not even think of using AT&T. It’s Verizon or Sprint all the way for data (through a MiFi or dongle) and T-Mobile to enable my GSM calls for my European devices.
The complacency of network owners will blight the mobile experience for years to come.
Agreed
The Indian regulator is currently both fining MNOs and blocking mergers as a result of network build out targets not being met. ( More on this soon ) Western markets could do with some penalties for being unable to provide sufficient reliability of service in areas they claim to cover.