4 ms·

It does seem that concessions were made. For example, the Facetime app is currently wifi-only. Also, I believe movie rental is wifi-only. Those are understan

by chwahoo 16y ago

It does seem that concessions were made. For example, the Facetime app is currently wifi-only. Also, I believe movie rental is wifi-only. Those are understandable restrictions for now, but this article rings a bit hollow in light of them -- It would seem that AT&T won a few of those battles.

jarek 16y ago
It makes for a better story when you don't mention this.
andreyf 16y ago
It would seem that AT&T won a few of those battles. All of the features you mention are so bandwidth-intensive, that the user experience for them would be non-existant. FaceTime simply wouldn't work on a typical AT&T connection. Even YouTube via 3G is painfully slow now, when it works at all. Add a couple of people downloading 1.5GB movies, and the network would grind to a halt.
jws 16y ago
Or more likely, the probability of a negative user experience is too high on AT&T's network. To use a non-#attfail example: The little microwave ISP I use in a rural area gives me 10mbps, but they don't have enough backhaul to support that kind of bit rate in a sustained manner. If I start to watch a YouTube video at a better-than-awful bit encoding the first 10 seconds or so are great, then the routers notice my connection being a pig and fair-queueing or whatever mechanism they are using lowers my allowed bit rate to unwatchable levels. I have a negative impression of YouTube watching because of my ISP. It is only because I have had experiences on other ISPs first that I don't associate this with YouTube or my browser. Apple knows better than to let Facetime get a reputation as choppy, unreliable, or generally flakey, which it would on AT&T's network.
- jarek 16y ago
  FTA, implied to be more of less AT&T's argument: "It didn’t make sense to build phones and offer features that carriers couldn’t support." Message: AT&T expects to solve user experience problems by removing or restricting features, and this is a bad thing. Your post: "[T]he probability of a negative user experience is too high on AT&T's network ... Apple knows better than to let Facetime get a [bad] reputation[.]" Message: Apple solves user experience problems by restricting features, and this is a good thing.
  - Poiesis 16y ago
    Message: AT&T expects to solve user experience problems by removing or restricting features, and this is a bad thing. This is of course in contrast to Apple's usual product design approach, which is to solve user experience problems by removing or restricting features?
    - jarek 16y ago
      The double standard is exactly what I meant when juxtaposing the two quotes.
- barrkel 16y ago
  I have a similar problem with YouTube, but on adsl and with full proper bandwidth available on other websites. YouTube itself throttles the client after the first few seconds, on the theory that many people will quit watching and it's a waste of bandwidth to read ahead too aggressively. But the feature seems flawed in my case, leading to stuttering on an uncontended connection. I often have better luck using a download manager and playing back the flv offline. Either that, or my ISP is packet-sniffing and throttling video, which seems unlikely since e.g. BBC and ITV can stream fine.
- gonzo 16y ago
  Any chance you're in Laramie, WY?
pcc 16y ago
Another factor might well be related to avoiding excessive accidental data roaming; e.g. helping to avoid surprise roaming bills, interacting with the EU50 data roaming cap etc. (At present people easily run up bills for several thousands by downloading a single TV episode.) Intl roaming is quite prevalent in places like Europe so it seems well possible that related sensibilities may also be informing these decisions.
cosmicray 16y ago
> It would seem that AT&T won a few of those battles. If AT&T won the battles, it may have been more due to lack of suitable infrastructure, than to telling Apple not to implement something. I live where AT&T has no 3G (only EDGE). The microwave backhaul link speeds are documented in the FCC database (service type CM). Where I see Alltel (now Verizon) having a link speed of 133Mbps, a similar nearby AT&T link is in the 27-40 Mbps range. Obviously AT&T doesn't have a use for the higher backhaul rate, because they have not upgraded to 3G yet. Does anyone have decent bandwidth utilization numbers for Facetime ?

by chwahoo 16y ago

jarek 16y ago

It makes for a better story when you don't mention this.

andreyf 16y ago

It would seem that AT&T won a few of those battles. All of the features you mention are so bandwidth-intensive, that the user experience for them would be non-existant. FaceTime simply wouldn't work on a typical AT&T connection. Even YouTube via 3G is painfully slow now, when it works at all. Add a couple of people downloading 1.5GB movies, and the network would grind to a halt.

jws 16y ago

Or more likely, the probability of a negative user experience is too high on AT&T's network. To use a non-#attfail example: The little microwave ISP I use in a rural area gives me 10mbps, but they don't have enough backhaul to support that kind of bit rate in a sustained manner. If I start to watch a YouTube video at a better-than-awful bit encoding the first 10 seconds or so are great, then the routers notice my connection being a pig and fair-queueing or whatever mechanism they are using lowers my allowed bit rate to unwatchable levels. I have a negative impression of YouTube watching because of my ISP. It is only because I have had experiences on other ISPs first that I don't associate this with YouTube or my browser. Apple knows better than to let Facetime get a reputation as choppy, unreliable, or generally flakey, which it would on AT&T's network.

jarek 16y ago
FTA, implied to be more of less AT&T's argument: "It didn’t make sense to build phones and offer features that carriers couldn’t support." Message: AT&T expects to solve user experience problems by removing or restricting features, and this is a bad thing. Your post: "[T]he probability of a negative user experience is too high on AT&T's network ... Apple knows better than to let Facetime get a [bad] reputation[.]" Message: Apple solves user experience problems by restricting features, and this is a good thing.
- Poiesis 16y ago
  Message: AT&T expects to solve user experience problems by removing or restricting features, and this is a bad thing. This is of course in contrast to Apple's usual product design approach, which is to solve user experience problems by removing or restricting features?
  - jarek 16y ago
    The double standard is exactly what I meant when juxtaposing the two quotes.
barrkel 16y ago
I have a similar problem with YouTube, but on adsl and with full proper bandwidth available on other websites. YouTube itself throttles the client after the first few seconds, on the theory that many people will quit watching and it's a waste of bandwidth to read ahead too aggressively. But the feature seems flawed in my case, leading to stuttering on an uncontended connection. I often have better luck using a download manager and playing back the flv offline. Either that, or my ISP is packet-sniffing and throttling video, which seems unlikely since e.g. BBC and ITV can stream fine.
gonzo 16y ago
Any chance you're in Laramie, WY?

pcc 16y ago

Another factor might well be related to avoiding excessive accidental data roaming; e.g. helping to avoid surprise roaming bills, interacting with the EU50 data roaming cap etc. (At present people easily run up bills for several thousands by downloading a single TV episode.) Intl roaming is quite prevalent in places like Europe so it seems well possible that related sensibilities may also be informing these decisions.

cosmicray 16y ago

> It would seem that AT&T won a few of those battles. If AT&T won the battles, it may have been more due to lack of suitable infrastructure, than to telling Apple not to implement something. I live where AT&T has no 3G (only EDGE). The microwave backhaul link speeds are documented in the FCC database (service type CM). Where I see Alltel (now Verizon) having a link speed of 133Mbps, a similar nearby AT&T link is in the 27-40 Mbps range. Obviously AT&T doesn't have a use for the higher backhaul rate, because they have not upgraded to 3G yet. Does anyone have decent bandwidth utilization numbers for Facetime ?