Will iPad Crash Everybody's Bandwidth?

In a blog post recently cited by industry observer Maisie Ramsay, FCC officials Phil Bellaria and John Leibovitz fret that the traffic that could be generated by the iPad could be 'reminiscent of the congestion dialup users experienced following AOL's 1996 decision to allow unlimited Internet use.


'For months, users had trouble connecting and, once they did connect, experienced frequent service outages.'

Take that, AT&T, exclusive carrier for the iPad.

Steve Jobs (News - Alert) 'played up the iPad’s ability to stream live baseball games and hit movies during his demonstration,' in The New York Times' rather infelicitous phrasing. Great. Streaming baseball and hitting movies. Just what we need to clear up the overloaded data networks out there.

'Think your 3G connection is slow right now? Wait until we see a new wave of apps that can maximize all those new pixels on the iPad’s 9.7-inch display screen,' warns industry observer Kevin Kelleher. 'iPad screens are bigger, but the bandwidth hasn’t increased in proportion.'

AT&T (News - Alert) already ranks dead last among mobile carriers in customer satisfaction, in large part because it doesn't have the bandwidth it needs.

Verizon (News - Alert) Wireless's relentless attacks dissing the quality and range of AT&T's network -- you might remember the 'Verizon Reindeer' advertisement before last Christmas -- had a positive effect: Evidently tired of being used as a pinata, AT&T announced in late January it will throw an additional $2 billion at improving its network.

'Wireless is our No. 1 investment priority,' John Stankey, head of AT&T's Operations division, told the Associated Press (News - Alert). He might as well have added 'finally.'

'AT&T executives spent an unprecedented amount of time on their fourth-quarter earnings conference call to defend the wireless network and detail how they plan to make it better,' the Associated Press reported, adding that AT&T 'acknowledged that wireless traffic, particularly from the iPhone (News - Alert), means that performance in San Francisco and Manhattan are below AT&T's targets.'

'The broadband plan will suggest ways of moving more spectrum into high value uses, such as broadband access, to help ensure that we don't get stuck in 1997 dialup-style congestion,' Bellaria and Leibovitz write, as if government's on the cutting edge of providing bandwidth or something.