EDGE provisioning and missing iPhone features
A few years ago I had a GPRS phone which was capable of simultaneous data and voice usage. I inquired of Cingular about this and was told by a back-end tech that this kind of provisioning would be available within a year and would only be available to EDGE phones.
I have an EDGE phone now which is capable of simultaneous data and voice and was just told last week by some woman at AT&T ANS (Advanced Network Services) that this provisioning is not possible within my market, but was available elsewhere. Two things were made clear to me further into the conversation: she was adamant that my unlocked phone is worthless and her tech could help me find a capable phone, and she did not understand at all that I was talking about EDGE even though I thought I had made myself very clear on this point.
Dual provisioning is in the friggen specifications. That AT&T will not provide this provisioning has to boil down to a matter of policy. A policy of quickly growing bored, and screwing the users, of existing technologies as soon as something new and shiny comes available. So I ask myself, with all this clamor about 4G, why should I even bother migrating to a 3G phone and service when I'm sure that 3G will be abandoned just the same as EDGE was after it was forced onto me, just the same as GPRS was when it was forced onto me, just the same as TDMA and my GAIT phone was when it was forced onto me? Each of these technologies had promises made which were never realized.
And as for the missing iPhone features, I see little problem with the list provided, minus the obvious dependency upon 3G. A2DP, GPS, modem use, and so on all sound great. My SE K790a has A2DP which I use frequently, I can use it as a PAN access point or a dial-up modem, Java apps provide additional functionality (though no MS or OO document viewing or editing,) and a BT GPS and another Java app provides me with great location awareness (marketing term?)
Paris, because she, too, lacks a touch-screen interface.