The chief executive of Blackberry maker Research in Motion has made comments which some are taking as a thinly-veiled jab at the iPhone.

In an interview with Reuters, CEO Mike Lazaridis said in effect that third party developers were destroying the wireless broadband market: "Manufacturers had better start building more efficient applications and more efficient services. If we don't start conserving bandwidth, in the next few years we are going to run into a capacity crunch."

Given the prominent role that the iPhone and App Store have played in smartphone growth as of late, and given a recent Consumer Reports posting that pegs the iPhone as a data hog, it's not hard to see why some are suggesting that the move was a shot at the iPhone.

But what exactly should application developers do? After all, the Apps are only there because the users want a feature that the handset maker didnt want or have the time to implement? To some extent, developers can put certain measures in place to conserve bandwidth, but ultimately it's the carrier's responsibility to make sure its network can handle the device before they contract to carry it.

And what can the carriers do to manage bandwith issues?

Aside from the obvious solutions (developing and releasing LTE/WiMax networks) how about increasing WiFi usage? One of the hotspots of 3G congestion, San Francisco, recently had to kill off funding for a city-wide WiFi network that would have no doubt taken much of the traffic strain off of the 3G network in the city. If AT&T were to help with similar programs, or strike a free access deal similar to the one T-Mobile has in the US with Starbucks, they could help ease much of the big-city 3G congestion without having to tick off customers and developers by limiting access or charging extra for network usage.

17 Feb 2010