Hard to Get a Read on AT&T 4G Network

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- What is it about AT&T(T) and its networks? The company tosses off uber-cool small-business products such as the Apple(AAPL) iPhone 4 and the Motorola(MOT) Atrix 4G with abandon. But try to get a reasonable business read on its emerging fast 4G network? And suddenly it's like trying to get information out of Tripoli -- complete and utter confusion. Tech writers are penning nasty notes, consumer petitions are circulating and complaints are getting lodged with the Better Business Bureau. Forget shouting match, this is an online insurgency.

To get a more sober read on the small-business potential of AT&T's 4G, I have spent the past couple of weeks testing the new network here in New York, chatting with company officials and otherwise getting a firsthand sense of where the company is going with fast online business data access.

AT&T is speeding into the 4G market, but its incursions are sending conflicting signals.

As in all civil runrest, there is good and evil:

AT&T data plans are flexible and can be reasonably priced.
Without question, AT&T has attractive pricing plans for 4G. Yes, top-of-the-line connectivity such as unlimited national plans, 4 gigabytes of data access and unlimited messaging and insurance runs up to $140 a month. (If you're willing to spend that kind of money, my advice is to get a Verizon(VZ) 4G device; that's where the cellphone high roller is right now.) But do a little shopping and AT&T 4G access becomes reasonable. I like the plan with 450 minutes of talk time, 2 gigabytes of access and 1,000 text messages that, with insurance, costs up to $80 a month. That's not bad.

AT&T makes it hard for businesses to invest in 4G.
AT&T is royally -- and I mean royally -- confusing the business customer with a frankly bizarre two-prong 4G strategy. The company is deploying not one, but two separate 4G networks. One is a relatively fast-to-market, mostly software-based upgrade called HSPA+, which, by the by, is what T-Mobile and other international carriers tend to use. But AT&T is also deploying a second, more robust, faster -- and probably pricier -- so-called LTE network, similar to Verizon's. Now sure, the move gets AT&T into the 4G market faster.

My test devices work on the new HSPA+ network. But for small firms investing in equipment, this twofer strategy is paralyzing. How will HSPA+ and LTE gear work together? Will they? The company simply would not comment on what a small business can expect.

And, I'm sorry, that makes it hard to do business with AT&T.

AT&T's 4G network is a kludgefest.
My eerie, confused feeling about AT&T 4G's ambitions was reinforced throughout my time on the system. Literally everything about this network feels ragged. Yes, the fast HSPA+ is rolled out nationally, but the actual speed you get in a given location is based on how much so-called back-haul fiber is available to your local cell area. I will spare you the Geekish on this; what that means is you can, quite easily, have supposedly 4G HSPA+ access that is actually slower in some metrics than AT&T's 3G access. Which such blood-boiling stuff, I understand what the shouting is about.

Will these early missteps end AT&T's 4G ambitions? Of course not. Eventually this gets sorted out. My take here is that the company consciously made the call to take the public relation bullets on quality to be active 4G player and let time sort out the problems. But you would think that after just finishing going through the same network purgatory with the iPhone, AT&T would learn its lesson with 4G.

Apparently not.

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