Is AT&T ready for the iPhone 4?

Is AT&T ready for the iPhone 4? - CNN.com: "With the launch of the iPhone 4 a week away, potential consumers are wondering if AT&T's wireless network is up to the task of handling what is expected to be another record-breaking launch for the latest version of the popular iPhone.

The company says it's ready. But AT&T keeps giving its critics -- and its own customers -- reasons to doubt that it's on top of its game. On Tuesday, the AT&T and Apple Web sites were overwhelmed by customers trying to pre-order the new iPhone 4. Customers saw error messages when accessing the Web sites and experienced long delays while trying to create or update their AT&T accounts.

Pre-ordering snafus aside, AT&T says that it's been upgrading its network to keep up with demand from current iPhone subscribers and to support a flood of new customers. It has also armed itself with new data plans that cap usage at 2 gigabytes per month to help curb heavy data usage.

In many ways, AT&T has been a victim of its own success. The iPhone, which is built for accessing the Net, has been hugely popular, attracting scores of new customers with each device upgrade. It's helped the company add millions of new customers every year since it was first introduced in 2007.

But the iPhone has also created a tsunami of mobile data on the AT&T network, which has resulted in poor service for many iPhone customers throughout the country, especially in densely populated cities, such as New York City and San Francisco.

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