AT&T Wireless And Obsolete Phones
Interesting post over at the brand new Engadget (looking to make a splash right at the very beginning, eh?) about how AT&T Wireless is trying to push new phones on users that can work on both 850 MHz and 1900 MHz. Since AT&T Wireless was slow in getting out phones that support 850 MHz many phones can only work on portions of AT&T Wireless’ network. To handle this problem, AT&T Wireless is offering “free upgrades” to new phones that work at both 850 and 1900, but the phones they’re offering apparently have fewer features than existing phones. Engadget makes this out to be a big scandal, but, from AT&T Wireless’ standpoint, it sounds like they’re trading better coverage for fewer features. For some people, they may be more concerned over coverage than the loss of Bluetooth. It’s worth noting the tradeoffs, but I’m not sure it’s as horrible as the report suggests.