iPhone not to blame for AT&T network issues
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Blog: AT&T's wireless data subscribers complained of outages and a slow network Monday, but the company says it wasn't due to the iPhone.
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To hear other wireless carriers tell it, the introduction of Apple Inc.'s iPhone on AT&amp;T Inc.'s network is no real threat.
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Blog: When the iPhone freezes it's not the blue screen of death, but instead the black screen of death
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What's the best way to beat the  commitment involved in iPhone ownership? Bad credit. AT&T Inc.   said on Friday that people who buy Apple Inc.'s   much-hyped iPhone but do not meet its credit requirements will  still be able to keep the phone without having to commit to a  two-year contract.
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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS  CUPERTINO, Calif. - AT&T Inc. and Apple Inc. on Tuesday said wireless service for the iPhone will range from $59.99 per month to $99.99 per month.
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No opening the handset case, no soldering -- a hacker group has announced that they've come up with a workaround allowing iPhone owners to make calls via networks other than AT&T.
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The price of Apple Inc.'s iPhone and the cost of switching to AT&amp;T Inc.'s wireless service may suppress demand for the device, according to a survey by the research firm IDC.
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A problem with Duke University's wireless network caused outages at the school, officials said Friday, exonerating the initial suspect, Apple Inc.'s new iPhone.
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InfoWorld - Consumers aren&#39;t willing to pay what Apple&#160;may ask for the&#160;iPhone, but if the price drops they&#39;ll switch their mobile service to AT&amp;T in order to get it, according to results of a survey released Thursday.
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AT&T Inc.  sold almost all  its initial stock of Apple Inc.&#39;s  iPhone within hours  of the device going on sale, an AT&T spokesman said on  Saturday.
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AT&T's wireless data network is down in the Midwest and Southeast U.S.,  and BlackBerry and iPhone users are without data services. AT&T said service was expected to be back up soon.
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(InfoWorld) - Complaints about the speed of the network thatÂ Apple's new iPhoneÂ connects to points to the need for a new broadband wireless network in the U.S., said a businessman proposing one. The iPhone uses AT&T's EDGE network, which AT&T says averages speeds of 100 kilobits to 150 kilobits per second. But one review in the Wall Street Journal called the network "pokey," and a review in the New York Times called the network "excruciatingly slow," saying users may "almost ache for a dial-up modem." With new wireless spectrum scheduled to be auctioned by early next year, the launch of the iPhone demonstrates the need for a faster new network, said Reed Hundt, a former chairman at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and vice chairman of Frontline Wireless. Frontline has asked the FCC to set aside 22MHz of spectrum out of 84MHz available for a national wireless broadband network, to be built by the highest bidder for the spectrum. "The connection service is a bridge back to the 20th century," Hundt said Monday. "The iPhone is like the guy who invented the Ferrari and found out he was selling into a country of dirt roads." Apple selected the AT&T network in part because it covers 90 percent of the U.S. AT&T has been pleased with the iPhone launch, said spokesman Todd Smith. There are faster networks in the U.S., but they do not have the geographic coverage that EDGE provides. "We believe the EDGE network was designed for a product like the iPhone," Smith added. "We're confident with its ability to support the device." Hundt doesn't blame AT&T for the network speeds, he said. Instead, the U.S. government has so far failed to provide spectrum available for faster new networks, he said. "It's not AT&T, its not Apple, it's the government that arranged things so there'd be only one national network," he said. The FCC has a chance to change that when it sets the rules for the auctions in the 700MHz band being abandoned by U.S. television stations, Hundt said. "There's one last chance for the government to take a new course, and create an open, truly national ... wireless broadband network," he said. Frontline and other supporters of an open-access broadband network say the 700MHz spectrum auctions represent the last chance for the U.S. to create a new broadband network to compete with cable modem and DSL (digital subscriber line) providers. In late 2005, the U.S. Congress passed legislation that requires U.S. television stations to move to digital broadcasts and abandon spectrum in the 700MHz band by February 2009. That spectrum allows broadband signals to travel three to four times farther than signals transmitted in higher bands. The Frontline plan would require the winning bidder of one chunk of spectrum to build a dual-use commercial and emergency response network, with priority network use for police and fire departments. Frontline is asking the FCC to require "open access" rules, allowing wireless and broadband providers across the country to buy wholesale access to the network. CTIA, a trade group representing wireless phone providers, and the Hands Off the Internet coalition, representing AT&T, Alcatel-Lucent,Â and other groups, have opposed open-access rules, saying consumers already have many choices in the wireless market. FreedomWorks, a conservative advocacy group, said in a paper released last week that too many questions about the Frontline proposal still exist, such as who will finance the network and how much public safety agencies will have to pay for access. "Frontline asks both U.S. taxpayers and public safety agencies to become its business partners, its first and largest investors," wrote study author Jeffrey Eisenach.
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AT&T Inc said on Monday delays in activating service for customers of Apple Inc.'s iPhone had been mostly resolved after the wireless company worked out the problems on a case-by-case basis.
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(InfoWorld) - Hackers who unlock Apple's iPhone from the AT&T network and share the method with 10 million of their closest Internet friends are inviting a lawsuit from the two companies, several intellectual property (IP)Â lawyers said Monday. Apple and AT&T may have a legal case against unlockers under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), especially if they try to sell software code or devices that unlock the iPhone, the lawyers said. But the legal landscape gets a bit complicated -- there's a legal exception to the DMCA's anticircumvention provisions that allows individual mobile phone users to unlock their devices for use on other networks. So figuring out how to unlock the iPhone yourself is not likely to be a DMCA violation, most of the IP lawyers said. But posting instructions or code online, even for free, may earn you a cease-and-desist letter from an unfriendly lawyer, and selling software or a device that unlocks the phone is inviting trouble, most of the lawyers said. But there's plenty of disagreement among IP lawyers about the interpretation of the DMCA. "It's an extremely grey [area], because I don't think the exemption was altogether clear," said Bart Showalter, an intellectual property lawyer in Dallas with the Baker Botts LLP law firm. "The idea of trying to use copyright to, in a sense, establish exclusivity in a service contract ... is going to be an interesting thing to watch." John McLaughlin, founder of Uniquephones, based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, had planned to release software Saturday that wouldÂ allow users to unlock their iPhone. But early Saturday morning, McLaughlin said he received a phone call from a man saying he was from a law firm representing AT&T. The caller saidÂ McLaughlin could be sued for copyright infringement. Two other groups have claimed to have unlocked the iPhone. Representatives of both AT&T and Apple declined to comment Monday on possible legal actions against unlockers. Showalter suggested that unlocking the iPhone and posting code or instructions for free would likely fall under the exception to the DMCA's anticircumvention provisions, thus protecting the unlocker from legal action. The exception allows circumvention of device controls "for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network," according to language from the U.S. registrar of copyrights. So if a hacker unlocks the iPhone, then posts the unlocking code for free, he's engaging in a legal activity and enabling others to engage in the same legal activity, said Michael Lewis, an IP lawyer with Fox Rothschild LLP. If that hacker is sued, he could probably argue that posting of the unlocking code is protected by free speech provisions in U.S. law, according to Lewis. Other IP lawyers disagreed. Movie studios have successfully sued Web site operators for distributing the DeCSS DVD-copying code, noted Carole Handler, an IP lawyer with Foley and Lardner LLP. The unlocker of the iPhone who posts code online could be held liable for secondary copyright infringement, she said. "I don't see that [Apple and AT&T] have a choice," Handler said. "They have to do something. If you don't protect your intellectual property, it's gone." Lewis' colleague, Gerry Norton, agreed, saying the unlocking exception was narrowly written. "The exception was just for the end-user," he said. Most of the lawyers agreed that selling software to unlock the iPhone, as McLaughlin was planning to do, would invite a lawsuit under the DMCA. "The courts seem to have less sympathy for people who are doing things to make a buck," Lewis said. But there wasn't even unanimous agreement on the legal liability of selling unlocking software. If the software being distributed targeted only the network lock on the iPhone, the developer could have a defense, Showalter said. "It does seem a little unusual to me that they say somebody can unlock their phone, but if someone tells them how to do it, that's a violation of the DMCA," he said. "If the software that's being sold is only doing the minimum amount that's necessary to allow it to interoperate with other services, you may have some support in the DMCA exception." Beyond the legal questions about unlocking the iPhone, Apple and AT&T could face their own legal challenges, Handler said. The exclusive contract between the two companies could lead to an antitrust lawsuit if a competitor or customer could successfully argue there's no other device like the iPhone available on the market, she said. "Consumers want new technology," she said. "This is the era of the consumer controlling the media. When the consumer is told he or she can't do something, they get pretty upset, and they start claiming conspiracy, antitrust, and the whole bit."
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A well-known hacker  claims to have overcome restrictions on Apple Inc.&#39;s iPhone,  allowing highly technical users to bypass AT&T Inc.&#39;s network  to use the phone&#39;s Internet and music features.
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By Christopher Michel As the world braces itself to be swept up by the arrival of the Apple iPhone on Friday, the major cell phone companies Verizon and Sprint -- which are not selling the much-hyped iPhone -- claim they are not intimidated.
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(InfoWorld) - Duke University said Friday that widely publicizedÂ problems with its campus wireless networkÂ it had originally blamed on Apple iPhones had instead been traced to Cisco Systems hardware. A fix has been applied, the school added. For their part, Apple supporters blasted Duke for falsely accusing the new iPhone for playing a part in the flap. First reported last Wednesday by Computerworld's sister publication Network World, the problem involved failures of up to 30 wireless access points at a time across Duke's Durham, N.C. campus. The cause, school IT administrators thought then, was the built-in Wi-Fi adapters on iPhones, which were pinging the hotspots with thousands of address requests each second. The relatively small number of iPhones registered to Duke's wireless LAN -- just 150, according to the Network World story -- were nevertheless hogging bandwidth with endless address requests and taking down access points for 10 to 15 minutes at a stretch. Friday, Duke's chief information officer, Tracy Futhey, posted a note on the university's Web site thatÂ fingeredÂ an unspecified Cisco issue for the trouble. "Cisco worked closely with Duke and Apple to identify the source of this problem, which was caused by a Cisco-based network issue," said Futhey. "Cisco has provided a fix that has been applied to Duke's network and there have been no recurrences of the problem since." Futhey also took exception with news reports that she said made it sound like Duke's wireless infrastructure was falling apart, and that the iPhone wouldn't work with its network. "The reality is that a particular set of conditions made the Duke wireless network experience some minor and temporary disruptions in service," she argued. "Those conditions involve our deployment of a very large Cisco-based wireless network that supports multiple network protocols. "Earlier reports that this was a problem with the iPhone in particular have proved to be inaccurate," Futhey added. Those reports, however, were largely based on a statement by another Duke administrator, Kevin Miller, assistant director of communications infrastructure with the school's Office of Information Technology, who pinned the blame on the iPhone. "I don't believe it's a Cisco problem in any way, shape or form," Miller told Network World on July 18. Neither Duke nor Cisco spelled out the applied fix or the root cause. Cisco did not immediately reply to a request for additional information. Not surprisingly, Apple and iPhone supporters were angry at Duke for rushing to judgment. "They should not have 'announced' that it was the iPhone until after the problem was resolved," said a user identified as "jwilkinson1977" on Apple's iPhone support forum. "It's just bad publicity and wasn't warranted." Traditional college rivalries even played a part in the Duke bashing. "I think Dook [sic] owes Apple an apology!!!!!!!" wrote another user, pegged as Evangelist on the same thread. "Of course, I am a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, if that makes a difference.....AND IT DOES! I knew all along that the percentile was like 99.99999999999988998 that Dook had either done or not done something." Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.