The technosphere was all a-twitter today with news that AT&T had stopped selling iPhones in the New York City area over the weekend.
But after what was apparently unexpected by AT&T -- massive outrage -- they resumed selling them again.
Consumerist blog was first to report the service outage, when a reader wrote them saying that while shopping for a new mobile device he noticed that his Brooklyn zip code didn't work for finding an iPhone on wireless.att.com.
A call to the telecom's support and Consumerist's Laura Northrup got this response from an AT&T:
"Yes, this is correct the phone is not offered to you because New York is not ready for the iPhone... You don't have enough towers to handle the phone."
Later, however, an AT&T spokesman told Consumerist: "We periodically modify our promotions and distribution channels." Whatever that means.
Wired.com reported that other people had been told that the iPhone drought was because of fraud issues. The online mag also points out that AT&T has had problems in the past keeping up with the massive data overload that iPhone users put on their network.
U.S. & World
AT&T spokeswoman Alexa Kaufman gave NBCNewYork.com the same story Consumerist got, and pointed out that shoppers could still buy the phones in traditional stores.
"The iPhone is available in our New York retail stores and those of our partners," said Kaufman. "As for online sales, we periodically modify our promotions and distribution channels."
