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AT&T is struggling to build out enough HSPA capacity is certain core markets -- New York and Los Angeles esp -- to satisfy the iPhone users there. It's not an iPhone flaw. The US is the last "hold out" market without multi-carriers ... based on the iPhone design itself: to date, there is no CDMA or AWS option. That shuts out Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile ...
Canada was the second last hold out: the dominoes fell in Nov when Bell and Telus rolled out their HSPA overlay network on their CDMA facilities. Until then, Rogers, with a true "legacy" GSM/HSPA network, had been the sole iPhone provider. Between the very solid build of Rogers HSPA, and the virtually empty highway of the Bell/Telus spanking new network, iPhone does really well here.
AT&T, nonetheless, has managed to convince Apple, so far, not to develop a "Verizon friendly" iPhone. And, in the grand picture, that's probably a smart move -- and probably costing AT&T a serious premium for exclusivity. Eventually there will be a network agnostic iPhone in the US -- maybe as soon as June 22. But in the meantime, AT&T is spending serious dollars building a more robust data network which, in the long run, preps it for ongoing leadership as new devices arrive.
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