AT&T's business strategy: to confuse and disappoint customers

Sling Media have released their iPhone version of the Sling Player. It seems on AT&T's network at least has been prevented from using the 3G network.

So consumers buy a great "internet connection" from AT&T, only to find that some things don't work.

AT&T's logic for this is sound - they told Wired

Slingbox, which would use large amounts of wireless network capacity, could create congestion and potentially prevent other customers from using the network,” an AT&T spokesman said. “The application does not run on our 3G wireless network. Applications like this, which redirects a TV signal to a personal computer, are specifically prohibited under our terms of service. We consider smartphones like the iPhone to be personal computers in that they have the same hardware and software attributes as PCs.

So AT&T won't let you use some bits of the internet, because it might, possibly, maybe, hurt other customers. This is easy to understand - so AT&T's network isn't good enough to do video, OK, I could understand that. But hang on.

That said, we don’t restrict users from going to a web site that lets them view videos,” the spokesman added. “But what our terms and conditions prohibit is the transferring, or slinging, of a TV signal to their personal computer or smartphone.

So it's OK to view video on the web. But it's not OK to view video of a TV signal? What's the difference? In the UK it's possible to get live TV broadcasts streamed from the BBC website - currently available for news, sports, and CBeebies (that's a channel for 2-5 year olds)

On a controlled device like an iPhone it's at least possible for AT&T to put pressure on partners (in this case Apple and Sling) to help meet it's terms - but what about on PCs when people connect a dongle? How does anyone understand what is and isn't allowed?

I'm sympathetic to AT&T's position here - it hasn't built the network capacity to cope with the pending flood of bytes driven by new, innovative uses of it's network, however trying to hold back the rising tide one application at a time is a futile excercise, reminiscent of King Canute. I'd recommend that my colleagues over at AT&T spend a little time reading the story of King Canute - he did try to hold back the tide, and failed - but his courtiers learned something in the process.