In an earlier blog post, I discussed AT&T’s failure to adequately perform basic maintenance on its wireless network. First-generation iPhone users were stuck on an extremely slow network built years earlier that failed to offer customers anything approaching acceptable service quality. Second-generation iPhone 3G users found themselves on a network that to this day is not performing as advertised. In June, the third-generation iPhone was released, the iPhone 3G S. As with earlier campaigns, AT&T’s advertisements focused on speed (that’s what, laughably, the “S” is for). As a sign of the public’s discontent, AT&T received “very, very loud boos” at the launch event.

And the boos have yet to die down. The iPhone 3G S can operate over a more advanced network with speeds twice as fast as earlier versions of the iPhone could offer. The problem is that this network doesn’t even exist today. AT&T announced that only six cities will see the upgrade by the end of the year, despite the company’s reference to it as “primarily a software upgrade.” The company is planning to take its sweet time upgrading. It doesn’t even expect to finish the job until 2012, even though millions of customers have already bought the phone.

And it isn’t as though AT&T is waiting for parts to be delivered from Malaysia by steamboat. There’s simply no excuse for their inefficiency. Just recently, T-Mobile, the company that was slowest in deploying 3G, stated that it would have its entire network upgraded by the end of this year. What makes this so astonishing is that T-Mobile has been losing customers, while AT&T has been gaining a million new customers every quarter. And despite what you may have heard from the apologists, more than 60 wireless networks in nearly 50 countries have already deployed this technology, in places including Egypt, Aruba, Kenya, Mongolia and Syria. What’s more, another 44 overseas operators have already deployed more advanced networks.

But AT&T’s failure to deliver on its promises doesn’t stop there. The company also advertised new features, such as multimedia text messaging (MMS) and tethering (connecting your phone to your computer -- don’t ask me why you have pay more for this. It’s like charging to hook up your portable DVD player to your TV). Yet, neither feature was available to U.S. customers by the time the new iPhone went on sale, despite the fact that both were widely available in dozens of other countries.

What’s more, the notoriously secretive Apple notified AT&T of its intentions nearly a year prior to MMS being introduced, yet AT&T still didn’t get its act together. This lack of MMS capability caused three different customers to file lawsuits. AT&T subsequently made the service available more than three months after it was first touted, while tethering capability is still MIA.

AT&T recently admitted that its network has had problems. Yet in a stunning display of arrogance, the company has attributed network congestion to customer use. It’s blaming the very same customers who never stopped holding up their end of the agreement by paying nearly $100 per month for nonexistent service (while AT&T raked in all this extra cash --see Part 1). AT&T’s CTO stated, “Overnight we’re seeing a radical shift in how people are using their phones.” But the only “radical” element has been AT&T’s spectacular failure to perform adequate network maintenance and upgrades to keep up with demand. I mean, what could be more radical than advertising a network that doesn’t even exist?!

And AT&T’s egregious behavior doesn’t end there.. Customers suffering from poor home reception are being offered the expensive option of buying a “femtocell.” This is a device that is placed in a customer’s home and uses the customer’s home Internet connection for backhaul of the network traffic, acting as a miniature cell tower in the user’s home. So a customer with difficulties using AT&T’s network can now pay the company an additional fee in order to stop using AT&T’s network. And if you don’t plan to take AT&T up on this “deal,” expect to start paying even more for service anyway.

Perhaps Verizon summed it up best in its recent response to AT&T’s lawsuit:

In the final analysis, AT&T seeks emergency relief because Verizon's side-by-side, apples-to-apples comparison of its own 3G coverage with AT&T's confirms what the marketplace has been saying for months: AT&T failed to invest adequately in the necessary infrastructure to expand its 3G coverage to support its growth in the smartphone business, and the usefulness of its service to smartphone users has suffered accordingly.

The FCC has asked for public comment on whether there are any problems in the wireless market. AT&T’s performance is but one of a seemingly endless number of examples of things being far from A-OK. If you want to weigh in, just click on 09-66 and let the FCC hear the other side of the story – the one where consumers are nothing more than an afterthought.