iPhone pulls through AT&T infrastructure

Like in a Petri dish, I keep observing how the iPhone single-handedly pulls the roadmap of a telco infrastructure. Both iPhone and AT&T wireless infrastructure are expanding at torrid pace and beyond the wildest imagination (to an outside observer like me at least). The reaction is amplified by Apple’s single-track mind to perfect a user experience and their exclusive deal with a carrier – in short, a monoculture. No ounce of pull force gets lost. The 1-2 jolt that has developed from Apple to AT&T is a new baseline for textbooks.

A recent report confirms that AT&T has done good in its intent to improve its 3G download/upload throughput. Improvements stem from the roll-out of HSPA 7.2 (besides the sheer new capacity thrown at the problem). Broad technology advances in beamforming, multiple-input multiple-output communications (MIMO) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing hint that there’s quite a headroom for further scale-outs over the next 3-5 years.

I’ve sampled the AT&T improvements directly using the excellent, free Xtreme Speedtest application. For extra credit, I can go multi-platform and run this same application at the same place and time on both my iPhone/AT&T and Droid/Verizon. The speed of a web browsing session would otherwise be highly subjective and dominated by the browser’s own effectiveness.

In a previous blog, I described the “wheel of innovation” looping over the following steps:

1. New infrastructure build-outs
2. Leading to faster/broader connectivity
3. Making it a breeding ground for new applications
4. Some of them reaching viral spread, network effect, etc. resulting in larger addressable markets
5. Thus creating demand for more/different infrastructure

(loop back to 1.)

We have gone from step 5 to steps 1 to 2 (even though I have no basis to comment on coverage – I will steer clear of blue vs. red maps…) Now that the infrastructure shortcomings are beyond us, along with troubling rumors of usage tarifs, I’m eager to see a new breed of applications (steps 3 and 4).

In a subsequent post, I will share my wish list on what iPhone and smartphones in general can and should pull through in software infrastructure.