AT&T: More Bars, At Your Own Expense

More Bars In More Places (For a Fee)

Here at Manning, a good percentage of the staff consider themselves iPhone fanboys. Those of us who consider this gadget an indispensable resource love to extol its virtues. But like many iPhone converts, there is one major complaint we all share: if we want an iPhone, we pretty much have to become AT&T customers.

AT&T probably bit off more than it could chew in order to land the exclusive deal with Apple. They’ve been engaged in a constant game of catch-up for three years now, leading to a paradox in which the world’s most revolutionary phone actually lacks features to which users have become accustomed. The iPhone initially launched on the EDGE data network, while other wireless providers were already using the much faster 3G technology. And basic features like MMS are just now being activated, despite having been standard on lesser handsets for years.

But what customers were probably not ready for was subpar performance in the most fundamental area: coverage. AT&T’s network has been the single biggest limitation on the iPhone experience. But fear not, AT&T has a solution. It’s called the MicroCell 3G.

Here’s how it works: Let’s say you have AT&T, but no coverage at home (yours truly). You can purchase this device and extend the network to your home for a low monthly fee of $20. All you need is a broadband connection.

So to recap (for those of you who are slow):

• You pay AT&T $70 + per month for service.
• You have no service at home (where one would assume you are for a significant amount of time each month).

But to fix this problem, you can:

• Buy MicroCell from AT&T for (undisclosed sum).
• Pay an extra $20 per month to use the device.
• Send data that should go over AT&T’s network over the broadband connection that you already pay $XX per month for.

Imagine if the next time you needed a service– let’s say a plumber, he showed up and handed you a plunger and a bill for fixing the problem. That is basically the model that AT&T is using here. You pay them for the privilege of transferring data over your own internet connection.

Pretty good deal, huh?