AT&T=Unicom?

Anytime most people think of china's technology, they think of the worlds best hackers and a technological utopia. Well for those of us here in the United States who are fed up with AT&T's iPhone service, we have a sympathetic ear to cry in. In china, the carrier for the iPhone is a company called Unicom. According to Bloomberg Buisnessweek October 11-17, they are probably just as bad as AT&T. Does this sound familiar? Chinese customers are complaining of dropped calls, spotty coverage, and lousy customer service. This state owned company is the only one with the 3G network that works with the iPhone. The problem is that they are a distant second to the better communications company China Mobile. "Everyone hates them" is what Paul Wuh of Samsung Securities says. Unicom's service is so bad that many iPhone users in china alter their phones and lose access to many features just to go with another company. People buy an iPhone and sign up with China Mobil. Then they take their China Mobil sim card and trim it down to fit into the iphone. With China Mobil's slower 2.5G network, most of the most data heavy apps will not work but that is a small price to pay for much better service. Is it me or is Apple trying to give away market share. It would seem with other companies come out with similar phones, Apple would try to start getting out of the one service provider only contracts they have with the iPhone and start branching out to other networks. I believe that if i owned stock in Apple, I would be selling as soon as other companies started putting comparable phones out on the market. And another beef I have is why can Apple do a little better research on who has the best network. Why do you build a phone like the iPhone and give it to the worst carrier in the country? It's like building the worlds best car engine and putting it in a Pinto's body. Now to give Unicom their due, over the past three years they have spent $22 billion to improve their network. I bet that is 3 times what AT&T has spent. It still makes you wander why a company like Apple who is starting to lose their competitive advantage sill thinks they can dictate the market.