iPhone prompts O2 to invest hundreds of millions in network coverage

As smartphones become more and more popular, mobile networks are running into a problem that they don’t seem to have predicted at all. Namely, that they can’t handle the sheer amount of traffic the devices are generating. UK network O2 has announced that it will be investing hundreds of millions of pounds in upgrading network quality, so that customers won’t be hit by service outages like they were this year.

What happened?

Network outages for both O2 in the UK and AT&T in the States have become more frequent and problematic as 2009 progressed. The problem boils down to this: the operators were not prepared for the full brunt of smartphone usage. There are a glut of applications available at present that are “always on”, or that access the mobile web at very frequent intervals in order to stay constantly up-to-date. While that’s awesome for users of these apps, it’s not so great for the people who have to move the data: operators. O2 had a service outage so bad in London over Christmas that its CEO issued an apology. Earlier this month, AT&Ts head of Wireless, Ralph de la Vega made vague threats aimed at high-data users. He said that 3% of the AT&T consumer base is accounting for 40% of the network capacity - and that steps are going to be taken to force this 3% to reduce their data consumption.

What we think?

According to the Daily Mail, an O2 spokesman said that it had been “overwhelmed” by the amount of data usage it was seeing.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Take a look at the internet - it was never designed for the uses it is currently being put to. The scientists who created the network as a way of sharing information could never have predicted Facebook. And the mobile web explosion is no different. The operators didn’t even begin to predict just how popular mobile applications would become. The development of mobile web services has moved much faster than the development of network infrastructure. It’s probable that the building of WiMAX and LTE networks will solve a lot of these problems… but until then, the networks will have to pony up for upgrades to the current structure. Or they could go the AT&T and route, and threaten to punish those people they’ve been trying so hard to attract.