Summer meltdown?

Summer 2007 will likely be remembered for the introduction of the iPhone, the device still earning raves from those lucky — and wealthy — enough to get one. While watching news coverage of the long lines outside Apple and AT&T stores, I was struck by the irony of what seemed a rather old-fashioned method of providing access to what is the next generation of the phone/camera/music player/personal organizer.

We used to line up for concert tickets, too, but most of those are now sold online. The iPhone, once purchased in person, had to be activated online via AT&T and its activation vendor Synchronoss, and that process was either a nightmare — according to many iPhone bloggers — or remarkably smooth, considering the volume of business.

What also struck me, however, was that much of the online whining seemed to be directed at AT&T, while Apple — which from all indications is in control of most of what the iPhone does or doesn't do — was more likely to be praised for the design of the device and, surprisingly, the courtesy of its sales staff.

Something as corny as sales clerks smiling and applauding as weary customers finally were allowed to walk into the Apple stores at 6 p.m. on that special Friday actually seemed to make a difference. Even early adopters apparently like the human touch. Who knew?

Synchronoss is likely to be more in the spotlight after last month, and Senior Editor Tim McElligott caught up with the company's executives, as you can read on page 12.

We devote a sizeable chunk of this issue to reliving NXTcomm, the industry's leading trade show, held last month in Chicago. While attendance at the show itself didn't live up to expectations, the technology on display certainly did, and this event is still positioned to become the cornerstone of trade shows for telecom. A sound summary of what we saw and heard begins on page 24.

One of the hotter technologies at NXTcomm was Gigabit passive optical networking, or GPON, but as Senior Editor Ed Gubbins notes on page 20, the GPON market is already flush with so many vendors that it's hard to imagine how they will all succeed in North America, especially when chasing so few major service providers.

And finally, network neutrality has been kicked around for the last two years, and it's now looking like it will continue as a source of debate for another year at least. As I note on page 6, some big guns have lined up against the need for federal regulation, and if that isn't quieting proponents — and it isn't — the overwhelming amount of business now before Congress is making net neutrality a non-issue.