AT&T's tough talk on data use seen as part of struggle with Apple - Page 2

Verizon's advantage is that Verizon Wireless is a separate company that is owned by Verizon and Vodafone.

So while Verizon Wireless ultimately reports to Verizon, they are an entirely separate company with their own team of people focused specifically on the wireless business.

Likewise, Verizon can focus on the landline side of the business because the Wireless company takes care of itself.

That is actually a disadvantage. Verizon Wireless has two different companies (Verizon and Vodaphone) who must mutually agree to all strategic and capital decisions....while at the same time, trying to ensure the success of their own companies. No company wants to be in that position.

Whatever, here they go trying to handle a PR disaster... I would suggest all those who are turning on other customers for using 'unlimited' bandwidth to start demanding better from their wireless provider instead of having them blame paying customers...

I emailed AT&T yesterday and basically told them to stop crying. I bought what they called an unlimited data plan, stop crying, etc. Here is the response:

"At this time, we are gather more information regarding the data limits. Once we have more information regarding the issue, all customers will be advised. I apologize for the frustration this has caused."

Well, there you have it...

Every other public company has a board of directors that does the same thing. It's no different...

Ahh...but now you have two boards.

So they compete against themselves. I like it. It drives them to be better internally.

Except Verizon owns 55% and Vodafone 45%. So Verizon actually controls it.

I don't buy the "AT&T were duped by Apple and too ignorant to see this coming" excuse. When you get in bed with Apple, you can expect fireworks with their products. Why would they fight to continue exclusivity if they were a victim of this?

If it's such a burden for AT&T, then they should avoid renewing any future exclusive agreements, and just let the other carriers shoulder this burden on their own networks. Then everyone will be happy.

Rogers had the benefit of knowing what the average data consumption was after nearly a year's usage by AT&T iPhone customers. Based on that, Rogers' first published data plan was $30 for 400 MB. Only after a some screaming did Rogers offer the 6 GB limit as part of the iPhone introduction and only in the first 3 months. It should be noted that Rogers attempted to suggest that the 400 MBs was more than sufficient, but virtually only a handful would accept their reasoning because of AT&T's unlimited offering.

As such, most countries have limited data plans and basically let you use it however you wish. Want to tether. Go for it. It comes off your data plan. Go over, pay extra. Do it too many times, update your contract. AT&T however, got hit the most. They and neither did anybody else have any idea what the iPhone was capable of doing or the effect that it would eventually have on the network. Perhaps Jobs did, but nobody, accept us fanboys, would believe him.

In Canada, Rogers' competitors realized that without GSM/3G systems they could just as well forget it. However, unlike the US, their systems were easier, if possible, to change/update, and they readily did so.

Is AT&T killing the market? Well without AT&T agreeing with Jobs, i.e., significantly upgrade their network and reduce their existing data plan charges, there would be no US market to kill.

What everybody has forgotten, was that Jobs' biggest issue with cell phones in the beginning was that they didn't work well, if at all, as a viable 'telephone. Talk about dropped calls, poor connections or no connections. It was the norm.

Back in the 80's/90's and even after the turn of the century, it was easy to tell your spouse that you couldn't call to say that you were late because of a business meeting or that unfortunately you got disconnected going under a bridge. Today, of course, she can go online and see exactly where you are. And unless the name of your meeting place is 'Under the Bridge', you best stop for roses on the way home.

ATT could put restrictions on the iPhone with almost no penalty to anyone but Apple. Apple can't go to Verizon nor Sprint the only US option would be TMobile. The fanbois will attack saying the iPhone can't be damaged or hurt but it certainly can be if its one of the only smartphones that comes with usage restrictions.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

I don't mind that you disagree, but I don't think you are correct. A lot of our fiber went dark when the providers were bitching that they spent money on it, but had too much bandwidth, and no service to use it. So they stopped rolling it out. Now that they have been neglecting the backbone too long, they are trying to catch up, and spending money. AT&T gripes about $18 billion spent to upgrade. What's to say they shouldn't have been spending $5 billion per year over 10 years to keep up with innovation?

In my reading, every other country that has surpassed the US in throughput both wired and wirelessly has legislated the separation of content from the backbone. This would mean AT&T could focus on new technology, 100Gb+ routers, Tbps links and such, and not have to worry about selling someone voice service.

Just because they decided to neglect the development dollars-wise doesn't mean they aren't spending money to fix it now, it just means they haven't spent enough on upgrades over time to keep up. Splitting them up to be a phone company separate from a cell-tower company wouldn't hurt consumers, IMO.

I'm going to respectfully disagree. Obviously, back then, like today, your experience is going to vary depending on location, etc. I had Cingular long before the merger with ATT, and I can assure you that Cingular's service in my area was just as crappy at ATT's reputation is today. I paid the early termination fee to get out of my contract due to their utter failure to deliver service and the outright lies from their customer service agents (I actually had one customer service agent tell me point blank that the last agent I had talked to had lied to me). Again, some locations will see better service than others.

Before the ATT merger, Cingular (wireless) and SBC (landline) were essentially the same company. Cingular was majority owned by SBC. SBC was equally, if not moreso, hated and I belive had been fined by several states for their business practices. SBC is, in my opinion, the root of the "bad" in today's ATT.

I also don't think that Cingular "agreed it would rebrand itself." I think they purchased ATT, in part, to get the name. The ATT brand, overall, still had a good reputation. SBC (hated) purchased the ATT landline business, and Cingular (hated, at least by me) purchased the ATT Wireless business. They took on the name of the companies they purchased in order to rid themselves of the stimga of their original company names.

When I used to fly, there was a saying we would think to ourselves when we encountered the occasional "righteous" ATC controller and that saying was... "Am I up here because you're down there or are you down there because I'm up here?!"

AT&T needs to look at it that way... Is AT&T (or any other network carrier) here because of the iPhone (or other smart app phone) or did the iPhone come into being because the network carrier infrastructure was already here?!


If I were AT&T I wouldn't be worried about subsidizing Apple's iPhone. I would be negotiating the percentage of profit made from Apple's store of the apps that will make Apple profit for being purchased and downloaded and yet cost us, AT&T, money to meet the ever increasing demand of bandwidth requirements (which some say sucked royally ever before an app phone ever arrived but that is beside the point and is neither here nor there).

If Apple balks, where are they going to go? The smaller networks of T-Mobile or Sprint? The same headstrong control issues in going with Verizon? What if all the carriers said fine, you have an app store that WE have to accommodate in the end, you are going to pay us.

If I were AT&T, I wouldn't worry about losing the iPhone, I'd be contracting with Apple a proper deal regarding the subsequent requirements their app phone has placed on the network that in all honesty were not there prior to June 2008 with the iPhone 3G and the intro of the app store, let alone June 2009 for the iPhone 3Gs!

AT&T can say to Apple, if they don't want to fairly pay for utilization of the network, build your own or rent! One way or another...

That's what I'd say if I were AT&T and the iPhone exclusivity contract was about to end and after looking at what hooking up with an "App Phone" truly costs us to support it... but that's just me... And if roles were reversed and Steve was AT&T and AT&T was Apple, you'd know Steve would be demanding the same thing!

One of the things Apple seemed to be adamant about when finding a carrier is the unlimited data plan, which was originally $20/month. This was a damn good price. AT&T has messed up quite a bit but the success of the iPhone and the inability to stay ahead of the data usage they incur on average simply isnt one Id scold them for. I dont think anyone would have predicted just how good the iPhone would be at making mobile internet so easy.

If AT&T is at feualt its for not prepping their network years earlier and for not having a higher ETF fee for a device they are reportedly paying $300 to Apple for. I have made quite a bit of money off AT&T by buying iPhones which I then cancel, unlock and sell online. Ive also been using tethering from AT&T for 3 seasons which I would be more than happy to pay for if they offered it as an option, but they dont. First it was there in the Beta with no restrictions, then it was simply a carrier profile, no jailbreaking required, now it requires a jailbreak but its still doable.

If they offer tethering for $30/month Ill pay for it as I understand its not part of the contract I signed, but if they wont Ill find convenient ways to get it with or without their permission. I think a lot of people are in that same boat. They really do seem to be clueless in their business methods.

If AT&T didn't need to concern themselves with what people were doing, just how much data was being used, there would be no issue. But they are trying to sell a services as well as provide the infrastructure for those services.

Where it does concern net neutrality is that these two things should be completely separate business-wise. Company A to roll out towers, fiber, repeaters, etc, and sell that as a service in $/Tbs or whatever pricing convention. Then Company B to sell you voice/data service while leasing throughput from Company A. Company B might then be able to lease more throughput from Company C, if Company A can't keep up. It would allow more people into the associated markets, and spur competition.

hard for me to buy AT&T's reasoning here.

I have astronomical monthly bills from them for my family. and to be blunt. the overcharging for SMS, data and phone service.

so... when they are crying about not being able to expand their income above their current rates... when they make billions and their billions are expected to rise???

cmon. AT&T sucks! so do most cell carriers.

What about downloading the apps over wifi? There already is a limit on size, where if the app is too large it needs to come down over wifi, or to your computer first then synced. A lot of these applications don't even use cell data service thereafter. I think it is just AT&T making a mountain out of a mole hill until they can repair their years of neglect of their infrastructure.

Verizon didn't want this phone because they are trying to get to LTE before people started using a phone as capable as the iPhone on their CDMA network. Every carrier in the US is behind, and to be honest I don't think, given the circumstances, AT&T is doing that horrible of a job getting their asses in gear.

Hopefully this is the wake up call they all need to get the US up to speed. I still honestly think it requires separation, through law, but whatever. If it isn't done that way, and they do catch up, the bad PR goes away and the networks become stagnant again in 10 years. If they are separated, and true competition is the driving force of innovation, consumers should see better (read dropping) pricing and better service over time.

What are you comparing our land mass and population to?

Europe has a larger area to cover. Their population is also double that of the US, which makes more sense than your explanation as to why it's expensive to roll out networks in the US.

You are right about the landline system, although I highly doubt many European cell phone customers didn't have a landline previously.

AT&T invests billions in their wireless network, but they also make billions in revenue, so I'm quite unsure about your point.

As others have stated, there are a lot more people using iPhones who don't need the data network and don't really use it and are forced to pay $30/month than there are people illicitly tethering.

Go into an at&t store and see how many phones don't require a data plan of any kind. It's like 4 phones. There are basic texting phones that require a $15/month texting plan. It's ridiculous.

AT&T wants to complain, but there prices are double that of T-Mobile for the same service, which has been investing more money in their network than anyone else lately. T-Mobile has about the same coverage as AT&T as well, which means you're pretty much retarded if you buy an iPhone over an UNLOCKED Nokia N900 on T-Mobile.

Most towers are already owned by other companies

I highly doubt any carrier would refuse the iPhone. If they demanded a cut from the app store, Apple would simply refuse. The amount of subscribers the iPhone can bring in is far too appealing for anyone to refuse, even with its now legitimate competitors.

Sprint is going to disappear or be bought out, and you shouldn't discount T-Mobile. They are a prime candidate for the iPhone. Their 3G network is new, but expanding rapidly, and they could possibly buy Sprint. They may be the smallest carrier, but they have a lot of money to invest from their German parent.

And for any of you who think Apple wouldn't be willing to produce a CDMA iPhone, I think that's just not the case.

Verizon has control issues, but they have the Droid, which has free turn-by-turn directions (competing directly with $5/month VZNavigator) and if I'm correct its own Android app store.

You just hit the nail on the head

Gee wiz...American greed at its worst.

Where is the FCC on all of this. One of the biggest problems in the U.S. not being able to move forward and move progressively on many fronts. Business in America has enjoyed too much protection and now some of these companies take advantage of that. It gets in the way of progress and only ruins it for the consumer in the end. We can start by making these f****** pay full taxes! What a novel idea! Collect the proper amount of taxes from big business and the economy may be able to sustain itself better.

Gee wiz.

C'mon, that's a ridiculous rant. The reality is more complicated. Here are some facts: (i) US corporate tax rates are among the highest in the world. If you look at only Federal tax rates, only two (major) countries have higher tax rates: Japan and Germany. If you include the state and local taxes as well, the US is the highest in the world; (ii) We have a dysfunctional corporate tax collection system because we subscribe to the backward 'worldwide taxation system' (i.e., all income from anywhere in the world is taxed) while much of the rest of the world relies on a 'territorial taxation system' (i.e., if you've paid your taxes abroad, that is considered good enough). As a result, we have companies keeping their incomes abroad and not repatriating it to the US.

There has to be rather fundamental reform, going beyond cliches such as "We can start by making these f****** pay full taxes!" The point is, you can't start; no one can, given the crazy quilt that it has become.

that's probably the best analogy for what's going on. it is a buffet, but the food was planned with X amount per person and Y people. but if some people eat 3X in food, there's not enough to go around. some folks have to get less or even none. and if everyone is paying the same amount that's not fair.

most of my friends don't like me cause I support the idea of capping. I say that a teleco/ISP should be allowed to put a limit on how much use each person has. the trick, i say, is to make the limit a daily one (rather than weekly or monthly) AND to set the limit at a level that the average person won't hit it but someone doing something like tethering a laptop all day through a cell phone or running a dozen torrent up/downloads etc might. thus you cut off those that are stuffing themselves with plates upon plates, perhaps even trying to sneak food out for later and ensuring enough for everyone.

I also support the idea of tiered limits. I watch a lot of hulu but my mother merely checks her email once a day. I say it is fair that I might have to pay more for my internet service than she does, and with the higher amount I have a higher daily limit.

They were given that money like 10 yrs ago so they can all build fiber optic networks and all of them squandered the cash. FIOS should've been up years ago. Korea and Japan have 100 mbps for over 10 yrs now and pay app. $40 for it today.

When the 2G iPhone was intro'd AT&T raised their rates, so don't give me the sob story about them not making any money. People are under contract to AT&T for 2 years and AT&T has plenty of opportunity to make money off of those people.

That phone had a $20/month unlimited data fee. The average fee for unlimited data was $40-$55. The next year when Apple introduced the iPhone 3G they raised it to $30, which is still lower than the unlimited data average from a year prior. I have to wonder if that would have been lowered if the iPhone didnt come in with such a low data fee to begin with.It

seems that the required data plan being lower than others could easily offset the then higher data plans for phones being an option, but with so much data obviously being used by the iPhone and the new 3G access logically even allowing for more data usage in the same time frame it doesnt seem unreasonable that they raised their rates.

We now seem to have a lower average across carriers and the highly subsidized phones requiring the data plan. Pros and cons, but looking at the market than and now I wouldnt have traded not having the iPhone enter the market simply to keep things the way they were in 2007.

Where I was last employed we leased a back room and some roof space for cell towers to AT&T directly. When they finally upgraded another site to 3G our lease was ended, and they dismantled the equipment and removed the antennas.

I'm assuming, with AT&T's upgrades, they do in fact own most of their towers, and lease time to others. They are one of the biggest providers, so I assume they do leasing to others as well. I do know that the people doing the upgrades and removals are independent contractors working contracts for AT&T, but as far as I know in the NY area AT&T owns the equipment. They do lease the land or building space, though.

I remember reading somewhere about the big four "sharing" towers in areas such as the Sprain Brook Parkway, to keep service consistent and the amount of towers to a minimum. In those cases I'm not sure who owns what.

AT&T found a new way to reduce data costs…

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http://forums.appleinsider.com/newre...reply&t=105442 Just bring down your network in a given area and blame it on inclement weather. Brilliant!

We've had this discussion before I think...

I'm pretty sure the price for Verizon's data plans look lower, but in fact they cost roughly the same (a smidge higher) than they were in 2005-6 when I was using them for my not so smart Treo.
I'm still coming up with around $132 before taxes and fees for a Droid on Verizon. If I remember right I was about $110-120 with my Treo (I'm honestly guessing but I'm sure it was over $100.)

The carriers are stuck in the mentality that their prices can just continue to rise every year. I really am disgusted with that, considering they are using copper links that were installed in the 70's and 80's.

Reminds me of our friends in the government who love to put tolls on our bridges to pay for the construction of the bridge. "When it has paid for itself, we'll remove the tolls". MMMmmm hmmmm. They just find some place else to spend the money, and continue to hike up the fees. At least with roads and bridges they spend the money on infrastructure.

Where I see what you mean that they are greedy, and squandered their tax breaks and incentives, taxes suck for everyone. Taxes just make companies stop/slow all capital investments, including hiring people. Without people, no R+D, no infrastructure upgrades, etc. The best thing to do for everyone is keep taxes as low as possible. For everyone.
There are a myriad of reasons taxes keep going up, but the foremost is that the government thinks it knows how to spend everyone's money better than the people. The government has come to the idea that they actually deserve this money and it's theirs in Congress to spend. Not only do AT&T need a kick in the ass, so does our government.

Going by the total monthly cost, especially with taxes is really fair to to carriers. They dont set the taxes. Its their job to get as much money from you as possible, within reason, so I dont have a problem when I willing agree to pay $30/month for data and $39/month for voice.

I think people are complaining about the wrong costs here. I think the increase in SMS across all the carriers has needed some serious looking into for sometime. I see it as oligopoly and cant see a valid reason why unlimited SMS should be 66% the cost of unlimited data when my email data usage in an hour is likely well above even the most zealous teenagers SMS data usage for a month.

I'm not arguing that the price for data is exorbitant, I'm just saying I don't see the costs ever going down. To emphasize your point as well as mine, data is exactly that: data. The need to charge for SMS and MMS is totally absurd at all when you pay for a data plan anyway. Isn't SMS exactly the same thing as the voicemail notifications you get on non-visual voicemail phones?

Regardless, that's my whole argument anyway about the carriers being separate from the pipes, is that a "pipe" provider shouldn't know or care if it's you tethering your phone or me sending a text...they should just be concerned with getting our data where it needs to go, as fast and cost effective as possible.

And a wise operator would certainly charge more to high level consumers. Is that what you're hoping for? If ATT can't make money back from those high data users by charging for other things, they will simply charge more for the data.

I disagree with you areas

1. If they price the data for phone use only, which is what they do, then its not priced for tethering, too. Data does cost money and if you want a tethered device the average rate is $60, either from a USB or EC/34 wireless card or through the additional cost over and above the regular unlimited data.
   
2. If you dont want them to care if you are connecting your 7.2Mbps phone to a router and then connecting several machines doing 100s of GBs per month (my record for AT&T is 45GB with tethering and >1TB with Comcast cable) then expect to have a much high base rate for data.
   
3. I recall that least one carrier had unlimited data but when you paid extra for the tethering they capped it at 5GB. This tells me that they advertise unlimited for phones because it wasnt remotely possible to get close to 5GB per month. The iPhone and subsequent phones with modern mobile OSes, browsers and apps seems to have changed that so I dont see why a business shouldnt be allowed to change the way to do business.
   
4. SMS is data is the strictest sense, but so is voice from a call or voicemail. From the carriers PoV neither is data as its not using an IP address like we think of data for a phone or computer. SMS uses the always on control channel that your phone uses to constantly talk to the tower so its not even costing the carrier any actual data usage, but it does cost them for the SMSC for the server to store these short messages. My argument is that it cant possibly be close enough to incur such a high fee that is increasing.

It's not about refusing the iPhone or any other smart app phone. It's about who should pay for the increase costs associated with a phone that the carriers have no input in and no profit from regarding the sale of apps that, with some of the apps at least, the phone carriers have to support on their network to make them work? Will it be the carrier that has no financial gain over the apps, or the owner of the app store?

I'm just saying, if I were the carrier, I wouldn't have an outside hardware phone maker telling me what pricing plans to submit or data rate plans to tier, since companies like Apple have no skin in the game regarding the additional load placed on the network with no compensation. People can say that the 30 bucks a month they pay for data is more than enough. According to who? Them?! Want to hear the naysayers squeal? Look at their paycheck and say they are getting more then enough, in fact too much.

Why am I paying a monthly cable bill and then have to pay extra if I want HBO or STARZ etc. The carrier 30 bucks data covers your e-mail and web basics before app stores. The app stores apps are like HBO and STARZ and shouldn't cost the network. And if I were a network and couldn't get justification for the increase in demand and lack of financial reward for my company, I'd say, see ya! Again, that is just me and like I said, if the shoe were on the other foot, Steve Jobs would be demanding it. Just look at MobileMe. What is truly there that one can't get for free in some shape, way or form from somewhere else. If they can get it for free someplace else, why is Apple charging $99 bucks a year? Simple, they charge so the company is not out anything and if possibly, add another small revenue stream for the company to make money and add to its bottom line, which is what the company is supposed to do!

If ALL cellular carriers agree, regarding lack of input on phones and lack of reward on app stores, where will those that have phones that can be enhanced by purchasing apps like Apple's app store, MS app store, droid app store, google app store, where are they going to go? What are they going to do? It's all about leverage. If airline baggage handlers go on strike, they can delay departure. If the pilots go on strike, they can cancel the flight. When each has what the other side needs, is the time to agree to just terms and just rewards for all. PEACE!

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of more than three or four network operators leasing lines to more content providers. The content providers would then pay for what their subscribers use. If AT&T were the backbone, for example, and you got cell service through Sprint, Sprint would lease throughput from AT&T. It's Sprint's job to create something interesting to attract subscribers. As their customer base would grow, (say by offering streaming video or tethering) they could lease more and more data throughput from AT&T.
If AT&T's infrastructure began to wane, and Sprint's customers started getting upset, they could turn to another backbone provider and lease more throughput, concurrently with what they already get through AT&T. AT&T would then be competing with another pipe provider, and those two companies would be driving each other's costs to lessees down.

This would allow more competition amongst content providers, at a minimum, by allowing startups and such to get into the game. Someone could offer something new and innovating, and have a very small subscriber base at first. So they would lease a set amount of throughput to start, at a nominally higher cost per byte (due to the lower data demand).

Instead of being so damn long-winded....it kind of works like that for web-hosting. I have a Dreamhost account. As the years have worn on, they have upped my storage, my bandwidth, my services, all while keeping the cost exactly the same as when I signed on. That was 2004. The reason is the hardware costs for them have come down, so they can provide more for the same cost to me. If they decided to whack me over the head with rate increases, I'll take my business somewhere else. Imagine if there were only four web-hosting companies in the US.

Hey, we voted in those politicians?!...

Not true. iPhone users pay no more than any other smartphone user on ATT.