AT&T Increasing Network Reliability – iPhone maybe going to Verizon

With the WSJ mention yesterday of Verizon [VZ] potentially picking up the Apple iPhone this year when a CDMA variant of the smartphone is built, this seems to have got AT&T [T] listening as they are now to be in the process of expanding their network capacity.

AT&T has received criticism over the last few years due to various network issues and it seems like the potential opening up of the phone to another network (ie, AT&T loosing exclusivity in the US) is pushing them to give the customer the best experience in terms of network coverage.

The fixes and extra capacity should enable iPhones to drop less calls and have faster browsing speeds if successful.

A 100 day plan has been created to built up the network in densely populated cities with work already being performed to increase the performance of what is already there. The main problems in building the network is getting all the towers built and having to discuss with landlords of buildings to get permission to fix them to roofs etc…

The company are spending $2 billion in this network upgrade which will essentially double the capacity the network had in 2009.

Other things for performance are said to come from experience which also falls positively in to AT&T’s court. They say that before the iPhone came to their network they could accurately predict what impact each customer would have on it’s network based on age and gender, but since the iPhone came along it’s very hard to predict.

Apple [AAPL] and AT&T have worked together to make the iPhone a lot less of a network hog which has helped the reliability of the network. Hopefully (for AT&T) these network fixes happen quick enough that customers will want to stay with AT&T rather than go to a better performing network such as Verizon.

Of course, there has been no official word on if Verizon are getting the phone, but by the way AT&T have announced what they are doing to their network, it seems like the announcement has scared them a little in to getting things working a lot better.

Via: WSJ