Blog: John Myers: Unintended Consequences

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Unintended Consequences

This past Saturday I attended the Colorado-Oklahoma football game at Folsom Field in Boulder. I observed what could possibly be the law of unintended consequences of the iPhone for AT&T.

While I had "5 bars" of coverage, I couldn't access the "mobile web" on my phone to check the score of my Michigan Wolverines ( that's what happens when you lose to Appy State.... ). The previous week at the Broncos game at Invesco Field this wasn't an issue. I could check how poorly my fantasy league teams were doing at halftime with little trouble. With approximately 2/3 the number of fans attending the CU game, the AT&T cell towers near Folsom Field were "overloaded" for data transport. What could have caused this?

Could it be that, with high concentrations of those high revenue producing iPhones at events like college football games and university campuses, the data backhaul capacity of an already overloaded wireless network is going to need a lot more capacity?

The demographics of iPhone owners and the "always" on aspects of the will probably cause trouble for AT&T in these areas and events. However, it is possible that this issue will not be limited to AT&T. eMarketer has an article about the changing usage patterns of "older" American mobile phone users. In particular, the following chart shows the trends: