Introduction
When Apple Inc. launched its much-awaited foray into the mobile phone business in June of 2007, AT & T scored a huge coup for having been designated the sole service carrier. The press reported what seemed to be isolated incidents of subscribers who could not activate their plans either remotely or even when assisted by store personnel. At the time, however, palpable excitement about the iPhone being a category killer because of its numerous innovations managed to sidestep the questions of whether the sign-on glitches were due to the new hardware/firmware, the communications software linking the phones to the carrier telco, or service failures by AT & T itself.
Two years onwards, Apple launched its third-generation model, the iPhone 3GS, still too much fanfare and positive market reception. And still, unwary new subscribers continued to talk not only about difficulties with logging onto AT & T to sign up but also, more ominously, about “dead zones” and “dropped calls”. Such problems were unequivocally due to the carrier, not Apple or the units themselves. Even worse, some subscribers were dissatisfied enough to declare they would switch to Verizon (the newly-designated second carrier for iPhones) or another unit as soon as their service plan with AT&T ran out. Reports of connectivity problems were especially rife in New York and San Francisco (Krazit & Reardon, 2008; MNM Media LLC, 2009; Stross, 2009).
Statement of the Problem
For a company that had once owned the nationwide Bell telephone system, AT & T is obviously on the defensive where servicing the legions of diehard Apple fans and owners is concerned. The telco needs to find out what is the extent of the problem and how likely is it to contribute to the erosion of the subscriber base.
Relevant Variables
Answering the key research questions requires an investigation of technical and consumer variables. On the technical side, AT & T needs to validate system coverage, signal propagation, and capacity. As to consumers, the telco must validate the extent and sources of customer dissatisfaction.
Required Data Set
AT & T must gather signal reception data from all over the two cities where complaints are most rife. This requires vehicle-mounted radio receivers with dials that test for the strength of signal down every city street and public area. As well, engineers on foot must use portable versions of the device to test penetration through residence or commercial building walls and windows, including deep in basements. Thirdly, AT & T needs to chart voice call, SMS and data demand against finite system bandwidth for all hours of the day, throughout the week, and on holidays, when demand on the system may peak.
On the consumer side, counts may be made of irate calls coming into the company’s call centers. Since not every dissatisfied subscriber will register their ire by calling in, preferring to “vote with their wallets” when the chance comes to sign up for a competing service, it is imperative that the company commission a third party implement a customer satisfaction survey. This must quantify the incidence and level of dissatisfaction, as well as the reported causes: dead zones, dropped calls, missed messages, garbled transmission, slow uploads/downloads, and whatever else matters to subscribers.
References
Krazit, T. & Reardon, M. (2008). Apple, AT&T mum on iPhone 3G issues. Web.
MNM Media LLC (2009). AT&T taking the blame for Apple’s iPhone problems? Network performance underrated, reports say. Web.
Stross, R. (2009). AT&T takes the blame, even for the iPhone’s faults. Web.