i'll confess i'm going to go ahead and grab a bold on 11-4 (or as soon before or after 11-4 as it might work out that i can), but with the new official launch date announced, i wondered if the alleged network issues had been completely (or mostly) resolved (or resolved at all). i would speculate whatever the issues were, at&t satisfied itself the bold would be ready for prime time by launch date. i found the piece (partially...) pasted below, and it goes on to give some somewhat encouraging information. my question: has anyone heard of any kind of techy breakthough (made either within rim or at&t or both) that sounds like particularly good news everyone can feel good about (understanding of course there are no certainties in lfe, much less the handheld world!). thx
Skype Journal
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Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Blackberry Bold: Challenged to Deliver on Its Full Potential
posted by Jim Courtney @ 10/14/2008 05:27:00 AM
Over the past five weeks I have had the opportunity to work with the Blackberry Bold on the Rogers network, including a week in California where I used it on AT&T's network. While it has provided significant performance improvements over my previous 8820 and has several applications that just are not available for the iPhone, I still had the feeling I was running with late beta stage or release candidate firmware. The availability of a new firmware release over the past weekend has changed that feeling. But its U.S. release on AT&T has also been dogged by 3G network robustness issues.
Let me put some of these issues in perspective, incorporating my own experience with the Bold on both networks.
There are two major technical issues related to the Bold:
Network robustness issues at AT&T
Firmware issues that have possibly resulted in suspension of deliveries at Orange (and reports of inventory shortages at other carriers)
First, to cover the AT&T network robustness issues:
as reported in RIM's second-quarter report, 60 carriers in 29 countries have launched the Bold, including Canada where I've had a Bold running on Rogers for the past five weeks.
several recent news reports have reported on network robustness issues as a contributor to the delayed launch on AT&T: Globe and Mail, TMCNet, CrunchGear
a personal indicator: on a recent trip to California both my Blackberry Bold and iPhone 3G found an "EDGE" signal on AT&T more often than it found a 3G signal (in spite of setting the Bold to only operate on 3G). On the Rogers network I find the "3G" signal (in supported urban areas, such as Toronto and Montreal) more than 95 percent of the time.
I have to conclude, combining these issues, that the AT&T network robustness issues are real and serve as a threat to RIM's ability to penetrate the U.S. market via the Bold. On the other hand the pending launch of Blackberry Storm at Verizon may become RIM's primary route to to the U.S. market for their 3G smartphones, given Verizon's reputation for, and experience with, 3G networks along with their extensive customer base. (Why else would several of my U.S.-based blogging colleagues attending the recent IT Expo all be running their laptops on Verizon for Internet connectivity with no complaints?)
Five weeks' experience with the Bold tells me about its firmware: