Even though AT&T’s already committed both carrier and backhaul upgrades in an effort to buck the butt-of-the-joke trend it’s been experiencing for the last couple years, there’s some evidence that it’s a recent trend in the way phone radios operate — not a lack of overall capacity — that should shoulder at least some of the blame for the issues. An O2 staffer (O2 carries the iPhone and has coincidentally experienced many of the same growing pains AT&T has in recent months) that reached out to Ars Technica says that Apple’s baby was one of the first widely popular phones to immediately drop data connections as soon as transfers were complete and re-establish them only when needed; that tactic saves battery power, but can overwhelm cell sites pretty easily if they’re not configured to handle it — even if there’s plenty of spectrum and backhaul available. Other handsets now employ the same strategy, compounding the problem. This seems like an awfully odd thing to miss during carrier testing, but who knows — we wouldn’t put it past anyone to gladhand the iPhone through the toughest parts of the gauntlet. Modern smartphone radio design partly to blame for AT&T, O2 network woes? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Continue reading about Modern smartphone radio design partly to blame for AT&T, O2 network woes?