An article that appeared the other day on CNN money made me laugh. The link to the article is here: http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/23/technology/iphone_4_att/
Anyway, the article seems to be the typical attention grabbing headline regarding the iPhone. I assume that CNN gets ALOT of traffic (and add dollars) when they have iPhone articles. I know I do – when I post something about the iPhone on this blog, the number of hits rises DRAMATICALLY!! I will update this post if the hits actually do rise in a significant fashion.
So, the article is saying that most people like the AT&T service, even though the media makes it sound like AT&T is just terrible. Whether AT&T is terrible or not, is not what I am writing this post about, but rather the photo at the top of the article. The happy iPhone user in this image is not using AT&T. He is using Softbank. It is very clear from the credits and from the image itself that the user is not using AT&T and is located in Japan. Softbank is the sole service provider of the iPhone in Japan — just like AT&T is in the USA. As I have traveled to Japan many times, and I have rented a Softbank sim card for my iphone 3G, I can attest that Softbank does indeed offer better service in Japan than I am used to in New York City.
I find it odd that CNN couldn’t find an image of an American user with the AT&T logo to use in such an article. What’t up with that? It really doesn’t support the gist of the article at all – for reference, I am linking to the image here:
He is happy because its Softbank, not AT&T
I was out walking around in Park Slope the other day and I noticed a huge group of people loitering on the sidewalk handing out flyers. Generally, I try to avoid these things as I get annoyed very quickly with people wasting my time. These people were dressed as the Verizon network people, wearing white coveralls and hard hats. I went over towards them, and they promptly handed me a flyer explaining the benefits of FIOS over Cable.
I agree with these things. I would get FIOS right now — IF IT WAS AVAILABLE!!! Verizon has been advertising for over a year now that FIOS is available in New York City. From what I can tell, its available in a very very limited amount of areas.
So, why is this group of 100-150 people being paid to advertise a service in a neighborhood that it doesn’t exist? Wouldn’t it make much more sense to pay the technicians to install the hardware to make FIOS work in Park Slope?
This was a bit annoying to me, and really makes me question the logic of marketing. I do call once a month and ask when I can get FIOS, and generally I am told the same, “Soon, we are working on it” canned statement.
Annoyances aside, I still will get FIOS the day it is available — but for a different reason than you might think. Of course I am interested in the fast internet speeds, but it is the TV service that I am more interested in. For one, I am anxiously awaiting the ability to watch NFL network again. When I lived in Canada this channel was included in basic cable, and it was watched by my girlfriend and my self MOST of the time in football season. I caught her watching it all by herself a few times actually — even when I was not home. Secondly, because the Scientific Atlanta 8300HDC is such a piece of junk (crashes at minimum one per week) I looked into what box Verizon uses. It seems that it uses the Motorola box, which has proven much more stable in my experiences.
Regardless, I will not be holding my breath for the service to be available any time soon.