AT&T: We're Working Really, REALLY Hard To Improve Our NetworkAT&T: We're Working Really, REALLY Hard To Improve Our Network

Late last night one of my contacts at AT&T forwarded me a video. It was of himself. In the video he attempted to explain just what's going on behind the scenes as AT&T tries to boost the capabilities of its network to meet the demand hurled at it by the iPhone and other smartphone users.AT&T has a big target painted on it these days. iPhone users are grumbling louder and louder about what they consider to be poor network performance. Just this morning, I took a screen shot on my iPhone that showed five bars of signal strength along with an error message stating that the phone wasn't connected to AT&T's network. I'm not alone.

The chorus of complaints has risen from the small din of several hundred thousand users to an all-out attack by the (now) millions of iPhone customers. The media has not been friendly, either. Lots of Web sites, blogs and Twitter articles, posts and updates have slammed AT&T's network performance. High-visibility bloggers such as Om Malik and Michael Arrington have publicly "quit" using iPhones and detailed why.

AT&T has also been demonized for failing to deliver MMS for the iPhone, a service that it has offered to pretty much every other phone on its service for years now. The feature was enabled by Apple back in June. AT&T won't support it until September 25.

In response to all of these, AT&T created a video of Seth the Blogger guy. It attempts to explain what's going on in the background and what AT&T is doing in reaction to all the articles, bogs and tweets.

In essence, the message is: We get it and we're on it. AT&T has recently opened up the 850MHz spectrum that it owns in several large markets such as San Francisco, Atlanta and New York City to better meet demand. How much more is AT&T going to do?