Those of you who follow my writing know that I am an iPhone owner. The new iPhone that Apple just announced, the iPhone 3GS will have a few of the features that I’ve been longing for. I would love to have the voice-activation, the built-in compass, and the better battery life.

However, other new features like the faster processor, the improved camera, MMS, and the ability to capture video don’t mean much to me. The faster processor would be nice if I wasn’t stuck on the slow Edge AT&T network most of the time. A year ago, AT&T said that 3G service would be in my area very soon, but that hasn’t yet materialized. So for me, and thousands of others, AT&T charges us the same monthly fees, even though we can’t get high-speed service. For those of us in this position, it would be ridiculous for us to upgrade to the new iPhone 3GS because instead of the “S” standing for “speed”, we would find that it stands for “slow”.

I am not unhappy with my iPhone. In fact, I still think it is one of the best choices out there. The problem is that AT&T hasn’t kept promises of an expanded 3G network They charge exorbitant amounts for SMS messaging on the iPhone, and they delay rolling out new features so they can make more money.

I understand that when Apple announced the new iPhone, every time that AT&T was mentioned the crowd roared with laughter. Although the new iPhone will handle MMS messages (the ability to send and receive picture and video messages like text messages), AT&T will not support this until later this summer. Tethering, which is the ability to use a phone’s Internet to power the browser on a computer, will be supported by 29 carriers in 76 other countries, but evidently will not be supported by AT&T.

On top of that, since I am only one year into my AT&T contract, I would have to pay the full price for a new iPhone. So I won’t be upgrading my iPhone this year. My only hope is that by the time the next iPhone comes out Apple will have ended their contract with AT&T and the iPhone will be available from other carriers.