Excitement and buzz are building around the release of the iPhone 4 next week. However, many users are wondering how AT&T plans to pull it off.
As AT&T’s network must improve to handle the advanced technology, it remains to be seen if current issues will be also be able to be resolved. AT&T has instated a capped data plan that allows users 2 gigabytes of data usage a month. AT&T hopes this helps improve their network by discouraging “data hogs” from clogging up the network.
On Tuesday, as iPhone 4 pre-orders began, AT&T was hit with so much traffic on their website with users upgrading their plans and pre-ordering the device, that it caused serious delays and errors during account sessions. Many users reported their pre-orders canceled as well as others who encountered login issues allowing them to see other user’s account information. AT&T and Apple both underestimated the amount of pre-orders that would be coming in this week. AT&T’s web site just couldn’t take it.
Despite these set backs, Apple reported that it sold over 600,000 phones on Tuesday and AT&T reported that over 13 million visitors accessed their website. Certainly these difficulties are not curbing the phone’s popularity.
As the iPhone 4 is available in stores next week, it will be interesting to see if chaos ensues on the retail front as well.