We’ve become accustomed to hearing consumers—or journalists and bloggers on consumers’ behalf—bash mobile phone companies for their coverage problems. Dead Zones has built a franchise on it. More recently, we see mobile operators bashing each other, most notably in the merciless advertising wars between Verizon and AT&T.
Now, we are even beginning to see mobile operators start to bash themselves, albeit in a more genteel fashion than when others are doing it to them. As far back as August, we reported on NTT DOCOMO’s TV ad campaign encouraging subscribers to report coverage holes. Last week we saw SFR’s amusing online video equating lack of indoor coverage with lost love—and showing the converse to be equally true.
Now AT&T seems to have joined the parade with a new iPhone App called “Mark the Spot”. Mark the Spot allows users to report dropped calls and other coverage problems with a single press of a button. The information is relayed directly back to network engineers. Although AT&T does not specify precisely how they will use the information, this appears to be a sincere and open effort to identify problem areas. This is consistent with the web 2.0-style business practice of using customer knowledge to improve the service. Mark the Spot does not specifically reference femtocells as a solution, but with AT&T’s Microcell already launched, “fill the spot” with a femtocell isn’t a hard leap to make.
This article also appears in the Airvana Blog.
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