AT&T Responds To Fake Steve Jobs' Real DDoS > at&t capex 18 billion in 2009

at&t capex 18 billion in 2009

Continue your time with Google and explore overall CAPEX investment versus revenue. Then spend some time comparing Verizon and AT&T's wireless CAPEX trends over the last eight years.

Yes, AT&T spent billions. They should have spent billions more (and they have the money to do so) when calculating the iPhone's impact on the network.

Yes, it takes longer to upgrade backhaul and cell sites when you're running around after the fact.

You do realize there's only so much money and people you can throw at a problem?

Need more towers. Great - you need to fight zoning, get comm lines run, build, inspect, install and tune. None of that happens over night.

I watched a tower get built on the side of the road on my commute. It was 6 MONTHS from the time the concrete pad was poured to the time an antenna popped up on top.

You can spend all the $$ in the world - it doesn't make things go faster when you get the gov't involved. It still takes time for all these things to happen.

Compound that with the Huge success the iPhone was (everyone thought it was a flop) and you'll see anyone would have trouble keeping up with the # of adds they have done.

I KNOW IN 2004 Verizon had issues coping as that's what drove me to AT&T!

You do realize you very often cannot complete calls in New York City. That's kind of beyond the "it's just not fair to demand so much of them" argument. Calls. Cannot complete them. New York. Fifth Avenue.

Again, you get out ahead of demand, you invest back into the network when your engineers are warning you in 2006 about the iPhone's impact. You don't sit there sucking up record revenues to please investors, lower your CAPEX, then suddenly sprint to try and meet demand when people discover you've been napping.

Yeah, The FCC just passed a new shot clock rule for tower builds, so the excuse of municipal delays will only go so far moving forward.

I just want to back this up when I was in Chicago last year. I couldn't make calls on Michigan Avenue....their main street....whatsoever....for almost a year....with 2 different iPhones....

I mean, I didnt want perfection, I just wanted actual service

reply to itguy05
Hmm, well let's take a look at Verizon now, and compare maps.

It takes a little common sense, just looking at AT&T's map, to say:

WTF!

I tried to get an Iphone in my not-so-small town between raleigh and charlotte, and 3G isn't available. I'm in-between two major cities, I mean NC's capital, and I don't have 3G service???

Guess what, 3G isn't coming to Sanford any time soon either. From sources I've reached out to, 3G is "not planned for the near future". Yet people continue to buy the Iphone here, makes me wonder why people shell out the money for something that is inferior, compared to Sprint or Verizon.

Why is 3G offered in so little areas compared to Sprint and Verizon? And why the heck is AT&T throwing money into ad-campaign when they really should be investing? Those are the questions that Karl is bringing up, and some of you are STILL defending this sorry excuse of a company.

If you want change, vote with your wallet. That's what I did.

reply to Karl Bode

reply to Van
Hmmm...that's odd. No problems on AT&T in the Loop or anywhere on Michigan Ave. or even five miles out on Lake Michigan this year or last year for me. Of course, I'm using a real 3G phone, not a Jesus Phone.

Two didn't work for you. That should tell you something.

reply to The Limit
I've got bad news for you...a town of 30,000 30 miles from anything bigger is a small town. A tiny town in network deployment circles. A miniscule town that is not near any Interstate highways.

But you are precisely correct. Vote with your wallet. Unfortunately the iPhone choir would rather keep singing the same tired hymns to drown out their buyer's remorse.

While AT&T and Apple laugh all the way to the bank.

reply to 56403739

Any objective analysis would point to the iPhone since 30+ of them, in your experience, failed to operate correctly on a network where other phones work fine.

reply to itguy05

reply to 56403739

reply to 56403739
Others with non-iPhones didn't seem to have much more luck

You guys must buy crap then.