When addressing investors at a UBS conference in New York yesterday, AT&T’s head of consumer services, Ralph de la Vega, reiterated AT&T’s focus on improving its network, while simultaneously slamming their line of smartphones, specifically the iPhone 3GS, as being the cause of poorer quality service. This, as anyone familiar with AT&T will already know, is not new news. What was intriguing about what he said, however, is that they will inevitably be charging that high-bandwidth users more for what they use. Wait, what!? Isn’t the whole point of buying an “unlimited data” plan that you get unlimited usage? To be fair, according to de la Vega, 40 percent of AT&T’s network capacity is consumed by a mere 3 percent of smartphone users. Most of which can be attributed to activities such as streaming video and music by apps on the iPhone.

In hopes that someone high up at AT&T is reading this post, here’s a quick definition that you clearly don’t understand, courtesy of Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry: un·lim·it·ed
Pronunciation: \-?li-m?-t?d\
Function: adjective
Date: 15th century

1 : lacking any controls : unrestricted (unlimited access)
2 : boundless, infinite (unlimited possibilities)
3 : not bounded by exceptions : undefined (the unlimited and unconditional surrender of the enemy — Sir Winston Churchill)

Admittedly, new media, streaming, and heavy smartphone usage is a huge drag on the network, but for AT&T to continue prospering in to the next decade the correct solution is not to charge the heavy users for what you already market as unlimited. Smartphones are not a fad and are not going to go away. They’re going to keep evolving and the demand for higher data rates is going to continue to grow, so stifling your users will only push them in to someone else’s arms.

If you’re one of the many, many, many iPhone users throughout the States who are tied to AT&T and getting frustrated with the endless dropped calls, AT&T has a solution for you. There’s a free new app available for your phone called “AT&T Mark The Spot” [iTunes Link] which was developed any deployed by AT&T themselves to help them figure out where trouble spots are an, hopefully, improve their coverage map and reduce dropped calls. Simply put, the app allows you to send the location it happened along with any info about the problem (Dropped Call, Failed Call, No Coverage, Data Failure, or Poor Voice Quality) directly to AT&T. Chances are, the more people that download and start using this app, the quicker and more motivated AT&T will be to improve their network. Needless to say, be sure not to use this while driving and instead wait until you can use your phone safely.

The rumors on the Apple vine circulating around the Internet this week come out of Taiwan, where sources in the parts supply chain reportedly say Apple is in development of a combined UMTS/CDMA iPhone which would be due for release in Q3 of 2010. The combination of these two technologies in a single handset would allow Apple to sell only a single model to virtually all carriers around the world, without having to worry about different models in different countries or with different carriers. Most specifically, Apple would be able to sell the iPhone to Verizon customers in the US and end the longer-than-expected exclusivity with AT&T. This may be great news for Verizon and other CDMA carriers around the world, but AT&T likely isn’t thrilled. That said, customers everywhere will likely benefit, as AT&T continues (and hopefully works even harder) to update and improve their 3G coverage and competition with other networks will inevitably lower plan costs across the board.