AT&T to begin implementing N-SET in an effort to reduce 3G network strain
AT&T continues to boast of “the nation’s fastest 3G network” while many customers in various regions across the country seem to think differently. Dropped calls, outages, network congestion and general reliability issues continue to plague the carrier’s 3G network but today we have some good news for those of you currently with AT&T. According to one of our ninjas, AT&T is set to begin a rolling launch of its Network Settings (N-SET) Solution across all networks in the US. The roll out will begin this month. N-SET will balance traffic between the carrier’s 2G and 3G networks, thus reducing the load borne by its 3G network. Essentially, a customer who primarily uses voice services will connect via 2G even if 3G is supported by his or her handset. If and when said customer begins to actively use data services, the network will bounce him or her over to 3G. BlackBerry Bold and iPhone 3G users will not be affected by the change. Assuming all goes according to plan, N-SET stands to have a pretty immediate impact on network performance by freeing up 3G bandwidth for heavier data users. Whether or not it will be enough to impact urban and populated areas — especially once the new iPhone is released this Summer — remains to be seen.
WOW, you see thank God i left at&t… did not want to deal with their bullshit…
I’m just mad they haven’t don’t this sooner they pushed 3G on ud knowing the network couldn’t handle it.
And how is verizon dealing with the problem? there is no problem!!!
They have more bandwith space.
@JoeTour,
It has nothing to do with Verizon having more bandwidth. It has to do with AT&T 2G and 3G users sharing the same bandwidth, and more 3G users users are congesting their part of the pipe, while bandwidth on the 2G side is going unused. N-SET is meant to balance this, making most use (voice and other low bandwidth traffic) 2G and freeing the 3G portion for people that need it. AT&T may have more bandwidth, but it is not being used efficiently, causing issues.
Wow, they are just now doing this? This should have been in place from the get go. And for those who want to bitch, this isn’t a bad thing. Because of the nature of AT&T’s network, spectrum is split up between GSM and 3G. If everyone has 3g devices, more so than GSM, then the 3g network is going to get over saturated because it only has half or less of the spectrum AT&T has in an area.
All this is, is load balancing between GSM and 3g, until 3g has a more dominant amount of spectrum.
Honestly this should have been in place a long time ago.
As much as i love my att service, i think its about time they’ve done something to control one of the major problems giving it a tarnished name at times. I have to admit though, my at&t phones are alot faster in terms of data than my verizon phones once were here in my native boston area. In terms of reception around here i haven’t noticed a difference between at&t or verizon, just in the data speeds. It works flawlessly in my vicinity, which is why i always have a hard time understanding why people are having such issues. I’m sure it’ll go away once AT&T re-utilizes it’s tdma frequency for 3G use, and with their new juniper routers i think it’ll correct itself with this N-SET process. I’m just surprised no one thought of doing this as a precaution. I don’t think people should blame the service, rather than the management of that service. But lets face it, once verizon and at&t utilize their 700mhz spectrum with the proper hardware to back it all up, its not even going to matter.
I hope this helps my Bold. I have dropped calls all the time with 5 bars of 3G service. I even swapped my Bold out thinking it may be a RIM hardware or software issue. My Bold will sometimes drop down to EDGE with full 3G bars. Here is the real shocker, I am getting faster down speeds when using a TMO SIM in my Bold. I put it side by side full 3G bars to full TMO EDGE bars TMO smoked my Bold on 2G service. Anyone else out the having trouble? I am very disapointed with my 3G from blue. BC of this IMO I may go back to Verizon when the Tour drops.
@Richie;
Is that your response to the post? Because the post says they are improving service.
Now I can see the wisdom of verizon leaving voice on good old CDMA 1xrtt even when they switch to LTE so they wouldn’t encounter this problem.
My question is will the switch from 2g to 3g go seamlessly? Say your in the middle of a call and you want do video share or other type of data how will that work out?
Thats a good point of view there @ JoeTour.
Wait, crap-phone and bold users aren’t affected? The masses of middle age, chrysler minivan driving, emerson clock radio owning, celine dion listening, overweight soccer mom iPhone users are the reason the 3G network is overcrowded in the first place…and they are exempt? Even if I don’t notice a switching, it’s still about principle.
I hate ATT, and I hate iPhone buyers. You alllllll suck it..hard.
ATT’s network is a piece of crap, period. Everyone may believe that it is wonderful but if they have to introduce a network leveler to handle the high traffic then their network has been crap all along. They are just afraid that the country will find out so they are scrambling to repair it.
For those that live in a 3G city and have excellent 3G service have now gotten used to their phones not making that stupid buzz around speakers. But ATT’s proposal means that if you primarily use voice it will auto switch you to 2G to make a phone call. That is just stupid and soon everyone will get annoyed by their BS.
Blah. That’s why their always promoting their free Wifi @ Starbucks. No wonder Big Red turned down the iphone. It seems the iphone was a little too advance for the networks at its birth. Wait till the new one hits the Market!
2nd POST:
Ok so I drop a few f-bombs in my comments, does that mean you wont post them?
Anyway…when the Blackberry 9630 drops and vz gets the iphone, at&t can shove the N-SETs up their asses –its game over.
lol@ Homer i have an iphone, i drive a BMW z3, and im 6 foot tall and weigh 160lbs and i work out every chance i get, but i dont own an emerson clock radio, thats what my iphone is for, who needs a watch use your iphone lol
@Homer,
So you hate people that buy iPhones? And I don’t know what part of the world you are in, but it is not overweight soccer moms that use iPhones. The demographic of its users are younger generation. Some of the hottest women I have seen at clubs have iPhones for the most part.
The reason Bold and iPhone are not effected is because those two are the biggest users of the 3G network.
@Rio,
Verizon does not have the iPhone. iPhone 3G shows the highest use of 3G network over any other phone. I’m pretty sure if Verizon had something as popular as the iPhone with its user base that uses 3G a hell of a lot more, they would have at least some congestion issues.
I guess the result will be better data speeds on 3G and more dropped calls on the 2G network which cannot hold calls today. If Apple is smart they will end their exclusive with ATT on the iPhone and build a CDMA/EVDO version and double the number of IPhones they have in the US. If Apple sticks with ATT they are stupid.
@ i phone Home
Your rebuttal sounds like a Viagra Ad. At&t’s network was better when they were Cingular!
@Waggs,
I seriously doubt that. 2G use is NOTHING compared to 3G usage. If you were to cap the 3G portion of it and make it all 2G I’m pretty sure it would be able to handle it. Besides, the two most popular phones are iPhone and Bold. They won’t be effected, so they will stay 3G.
@C-cox
Oh, ok, so you’ve seen a couple of “hot babes” “up in da clubs” that have iPhones, so that means something. The majority of iPhone buyers are tech illiterates who wouldn’t know the difference between 3G and 2G anyway. That was really my point. And i’ve seen tonnnns (literally) of soccer moms with iPhones. I’ve also seen old ladies in motorized wheelchairs with iPhones. And dumb 14 year old girls with iPhones. That’s the demographic for the most part, so it’s angering to see ATT constantly bow to them.
I actually think homer has a great point altough he ruined his first post by going nuts at the end, I think it would benefit everyone in att network if they downgraded the iphone users who have the phone just because they want to look cool and all they do is dial home or their kids.
I’m sorry Gokmengs, I didn’t take my lithium today, apparently you did. Good boy.
The reason Verizon has no troubles with their 3G network is likely because they have very few phones that use the internet in an iphone-like manner.
“Street Rat Crazy”
He did make a good point.