AT&T's tough talk on data use seen as part of struggle with Apple - Page 3

First you'd have to find someone who is harmed by the policy. Someone who can prove they were harmed, and put a value on that harm. And then find a LOT more. I don't see how that could be possible.

Yeah... a "new trend" for a business to dump unprofitable customers.

I see what you are saying. The SMSC cost, if they were to be upgraded/replaced due to such a ridiculous increase in SMS/MMS traffic of the last two years is somewhat understandable then. Any idea how much one of those costs?
If they could move the SMS traffic to IP traffic, and treat it all as data, the cost of the SMSC is non-existent. Do you think that is feasible?

Edit: Nevermind, it is possible with this thing: IMCS.

Apparently, that is what 4G will bring? Maybe then we can stop having to pay separately for SMS and data.

QFT and absolutely perfect first post.

Mobile providers, quit whining, fix your *** network and people will use your services. It's that simple. So-and-so is hogging this or that is no excuse. As long as your network is good, has wide coverage, and appropriately allocates bandwidth to multiple users, people will come.

ATT's stanglehold on the iPhone for a few years now is not good enough for them? Now they're complaining "Oh the iPhone has set us up the bomb"

Well put! Fact is, these dumbass carriers are in business to make money- that's it! It amazes me that they almost seem like they are trying to get pity from consumers. Shut up and deal with it ATT! All I care about is the iPhone experience. If someone offers a better one then yours, my money will go to them. That's it.

This makes it sound like AT&T's hands are tied and they aren't. Sacrificing their shared (with Apple I mean) customers' experience in order to get a bigger slice of what is really Apple's pie is not going to help AT&T in the long run. If it were a nimble and adaptable corporate animal AT&T could simply decide on having the best network and invest far more heavily into it. Maybe run less TV ads spinning what their network is and instead simply make it the best network. It's the same with their claimed alternative to FIOS: U-Verse. They want to sell us the same slow DSL by pointing out that the signal is over fiber for most of the distance to your house.

Geographic monopolies are to their land-based services what contracts and specific-phone-model lock-ins are to their wireless business model. A way to make up for being too greedy, cheap or lazy to earn customer loyalty the best way: with the best product.


This is pure spin. Instead of pointing out that they're lucky so few of their subscribers are using what they're actually paying for, they have to make it out like those are the bad subscribers that are ruining everyone's network. If AT&T had an ounce of foresight for every pound of finger-pointing arrogance and hubris they carry around, their network would tower so far above the rest of the competition's that nobody would buy another phone that wasn't on AT&T. I know that the network upgrades necessary aren't cheap but this is a company that makes billions in profits every quarter.

AT&T's response is why webers net nuetrality. They are bothered that others are making money off of their government granted monopoly. They would like to make more and would like to block those who can.

Before the iPhone you could only get applications from the phone company and they were non-existant. Now you can and the whole ecosystem is flourishing. Just fix your network. If you build a great app then fine, release it just like everyone else. But stop complaining about your customers using what they paid for.

Note, the price for the dataplan went UP with the second release of the iPhone. Invest it in your network before you lose customers to other providers.

Posted from my iPhone to make my point.

They can kiss my business goodbye if they institute data usage charges. I have 5-iphones on my plan and pay over $300/month in service charges. I'd rather give up network access on my phones and save the $3600 annually I dish out than pay for that. AT&T is quickly becoming a second rate service you'd expect to find in a third world country between the unavailability of service, outdated bandwidth, and the plethora of dropped calls. Oh, and another thing, try and add that to my existing contract, go ahead, make my day!

The first line of my response should have read:

AT&T's response is why we need to support Net Neutrality.

It's my understanding that At&t and Apple had an agreement that Apple would update the iPhone once a year or atleast provide a significant software update for the existing hardware. So even if At&t underestimated the 2g, they had to have recognized the impact it was going to have by the 3g and without a doubt by the 3gs. I think they had more than enough time to improve the network to handle the data usage. I've had an iPhone since the day it came out and still use it to this day and have never had any issue with hardware, software or the network. Regardless, reports like this make me want to run away from AT&T as fast as possible.

(1) If what these guys are saying is true (questionable), then ATT would have a solid reason to get out of its contract with Apple. With business friends like Apple, who needs business enemies like Verizon? Wish Apple on Verizon. But I think there's little truth in this. What's more

(2) Real blame belongs to a substantial degree on the FCC which 'sells' capacity to these companies for outrageous amounts (tens of billions). Sounds good until you realize the money doesn't go into infrastructure but politicians' pet projects or anything else, leaving cell companies with tens of billions less to invest in upgrades. Neither of these companies have stellar returns to investors. The money is being taken by politicians...it's out of the field of investment as pertains to cell upgrades. The mob never had it so good.

These people are not forced to pay that money - they could just as easily have picked another device that was more suitable to their needs. It's not as if the data rate was a big surprise to them since they know they have to pay for it right from the beginning. If they don't want to pay it, they don't get an iPhone. Simple really.

AT&T! That is called Profiling! I can't wait for 2010, when they lose the contract with Apple. I seriously doubt that it will be renewed. ATT is a drag on Apple's Iphone technology. If ATT can't handle it, get out of the game! Let another carrier prove it can be done!

I agree that the contract will end this summer but it seems like you are implying that AT&T will no longer carry the iPhone in favour of another carrier having exclusive rights. I dont think that will happen. I think AT&T will continue to sell the iPhone without exclusivity and I think T-Mobile is the most likely candidate for the next carrier addition in the US.

Give yourself a break.... Even if AT&T had a current excellent user experience, they still would not have the exclusivity of the iPhone.

I personally think that Apple planned to break the agreement to better it's overall sales of the device and to give the user CHOICE, since thats what Apple believes in, giving it's users CHOICE.

It only makes sense for a 4g chip iPhone to become available to all USA networks.

And you have no idea why the fiber went dark. My brother worked for a company that produced fiber until about 2003. The reason was demand. His one company was producing more fiber in 2001 than the entire world demand in 2003. They can't be expected to roll out new network capacity when demand is down or not expanding quickly.


It doesn't mean they would focus on getting those new technologies out there. You don't know.


They didn't neglect, per se. They're spending what...18 billion dollars?




1. With what? I'm not stating an opinion. Look it up on wiki. If you mean quality of service, then I agree this can vary by area.

2. Disagree. You're forgetting the old AT&T Mobility was probably the worst service in the country. Perhaps SBC was also no good.

3. I'm not sure what you're taking issue with here. I'm sure they did purchase AT&T to get the name. How does that contradict what I said?

No, this is what Steve Jobs should say to AT&T: http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/12/a-n...on-of-att.html

There is a lot of hyperbole and abuse in the rant but it is all deserved by AT&T and its brown nosing sycophants.

p.s. It isn't AT&T but actually a company that bought AT&T's name so they could besmirch it.

I know of no 4G chips for LTE that are currently available for phones, especially for a phone as small as the iPhone. On top of that, Verizon isnt likely to have any phones on the market with LTE chips in 2010. Japans NTT DoCoMo, who is ahead of Verizon stated that theyll have notebook cards with LTE in 2010 and phone with LTE in 2011.

Sprints 4G WiMAX is a no go for many reasons.

Remember that even with 3G coverage over all the major cities the first iPhone for AT&T did not have 3G so I dont think we should expect Apple to be jumping on a HW bandwagon. Especially with HSPA having a such a long way to go before moving to 4G' is a requirement, like it is with Verizon and Sprint.

I expect no more than an upgrade to HSUPA to increase the upload rate. I am not even sure we can expect the 7.2Mbps in the 3GS to be upped to 14.4Mbps.

I'm just curious on why WiMAX isn't a good idea.

On another note I hope that when LTE comes around that it also brings a trend where there will be bandwidth saving in areas where you don't need to use as much, such as downloading email in the background or running an IM client. That would make people's data usage go much farther right>

Maybe AT&T should sell iPhone WITHOUT a data plan. I'd go for it in a heartbeat.

Phone networks CAN sell content to iPhone users via the App store.

Quite a few of them have started doing it.

Giant corporations here game the IRS just as well as they game the legislative process. The actual rate of taxes they're legally supposed to pay is irrelevant if they're able to consistently work that number down to zero through loopholes and other less savory methods as studies have shown they do year after year.

The only reason I don't have an iPhone is the inability to tether, in accordance with the terms of service, and to do so with a MacBook-friendly cap. I do not want yet another device to carry, or a second plan to subscribe to, or a cap that makes me afraid to follow a YouTube video link. I have enough crap with me at any given point as is!

AT&T should hold off on its witch hunt for those who tether with hacks and make tethering available those who pay a bit more, see how many switch. I'm sure there's more than a few who hack a tether because they have to, not because they want to violate the terms of service. Tethering ought to be available and AT&T won't have any idea how much they really need to invest in their network until it is.

Also, I agree with those above who find the unlimited advertising indefensible, because it is. I can't believe anyone is trying to defend it. You can't say something is "unlimited", but in the terms have a cap of any sort, no matter how great. It's not how rational people think. The buffet analogy was very apt. The people who complain about the cap aren't spoiled, they're trying to get what was advertised or disgusted that the advertising was misleading.

What AT&T should do is simplify their terms, across the board. Be honest about advertising. Become the wireless company that isn't about tricks - expose the caps of other wireless companies when simplifying and apologize. Don't run from tethering, embrace it. Drop the $30 for "unlimited" (5GB) nonsense and create several plans with 1GB, 3GB, 5GB, 10GB and so on. Same plans for all the phones. Be the company that makes tethering available to all. Be the company that charges for the data, not the device that happens to request it. I know, crazy.

Heck let's just go with what someone else suggested - have Apple buy another wireless carrier and take over the entire industry. Does anyone recall how much cash Apple has on hand?

2015: Apple Wireless acquires AT&T, puts AT&T network out of its misery.

ADDENDUM:
I would like to add, part of the concern with caps is that most folks aren't aware of how much they really use and going over has historically been scary in wireless. I wonder if AT&T were to simplify their data plans if they'd be best served charging a preset introductory rate for the first month or two with a high safe cap, reporting to the customer their usage rate after and having the customer select a plan then instead of guessing game prior.

If you read what I said, it would seem I stated exactly that. The service providers had nothing to put on the wire, so they were saying they didn't need it. And, they were wrong. This is the exact same time every other country in the world was rolling theirs out, but they didn't stop. Now they have great services, and we don't. This example further underscores the reason other countries separated their service providers from their network suppliers. Service providers don't look far past their toenails.

Apple is a good example of a company with foresight, as they buy way more memory than they currently need, and they control pricing in that market. If AT&T didn't drop the ball, they could have invested much less money back then for fiber, and be in their glory now. Same goes for the cable companies. They could be providing gobs of bandwidth to the masses, but they were greedy and foolish with our money the government gave them to install all of that cable.

As demand didn't keep up with supply, the prices for fiber would naturally come down, not go up. Also a great time to invest in it. Google ended up buying it for much less than its installed cost if I remember right.

I understand, but let's not pretend AT&T was alone. The world market slowed, not just ours. And I'd really like to see some data on how the rest of the world "kept going." The fact is they've been ahead in wireless and broadband for many years.

For some reason the market is just different here. I really think a lot of it is just geography. We are more spread out and have a larger population, making hard lines a trickier proposition. Verizon has been spending billions on FiOS over the past 5 years, and only covers 12-14 million people at present. From what I saw this is costing them nearly 20 billion dollars.

You might be right about AT&T being short sighted (in fact, I'm sure you are, given the iPhone debacle). But they just didn't see the need for the capacity back when the market for fiber tanked. I can't say I blame them, given that smartphone users use 100x the amount of data (I think that's the number) than non-smartphone users. The mistake they made was agreeing to be the exclusive provider. I think they either had no idea how many of the things were going to be activated, or they just crossed their fingers and hoped their upgrades would be sufficient.

The data is present day, and the studies are out there now. I've referenced the Berkman Broadband Study in a couple of other threads on here, as I've read that one. Some people say it's biased towards certain things; maybe I'm on their side and just don't see the bias.

On being shortsighted, the way I saw it, even back then, was Apple had gigabit ethernet on their desktops. If you look at Apple historically, they are generally 5 years ahead when including or deleting certain things from their computers. If they needed Gb ports back on a Sawtooth G4, you could be sure everyone would be using them come 2005. The reason I started reading this forum (and I read for quite some time before I actually joined) was to keep on the cutting edge of emerging technology. Apple was the leader, and this site was speculating on things they didn't even announce yet. How cool was that? Very. If only our government and the monopolies controlling our technology rollouts could've been reading that stuff too.

That study is crap.

If you look at fiber deployments, Europe is 4 years behind the US.

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=172028

The only European countries that are ranked ahead of the US are the scandinavian countries --- but those are meaningless because as soon as a country like Danmark wired their capital city (with 1.8 million population) with fiber optics cable, it covers 1/3 of their nation's population. Same thing for Sweden, Finland and Norway.

The Berkman study looks at the past --- and ignores the fact that for the last 10 years, European governments forced their incumbant landline carriers to open their DSL lines to other competitors. Sure, it gave Europeans cheaper and faster broadband access for a few years.

But the problem is the present and the future --- Europe is 4 years behind in FTTH deployment against the US because European landline incumbants ain't going to make the same mistake ever again. These European carriers ain't going to spend billions of dollars on fiber optics network and then let their government regulators rule that the fiber network must be open to competitors to use. That's how Europe is years behind the US.

Prior to you, all of the people I heard speak in points about that study have at least read it.

Here's an excerpt for you:

"So too the Nordic countries, with a special emphasis on Sweden, as well as the Netherlands, continue to be of interest. When speed, rather than penetration, is the focus, France becomes a very high performing country, and Germany and Portugal also do substantially better on advertised and observed speeds than their numbers on penetration would lead one to anticipate. Interestingly, neither of these latter two countries has any fiber deployment to speak of, and they differ dramatically in market structurePortugal has roughly 60/40 split between DSL and Cable, whereas Germany has almost no mode of broadband delivery but DSL. Both have advertised speeds of roughly 50% faster than the United States, and both have higher average observed actual speeds. Among the relatively higher performers on penetration, Canada in particular shows up as weaker than it was on penetration, as do, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom and Switzerland."

Not to mention it speaks about wireless (3G/4G future), regulations, and the fact the they DID legislate the opening of the landlines, the subsidies received, and such.

If you're going to call it crap at least have the courtesy to read it. Or just say nothing.

I must have missed it. Could you please repost it? Obviously they are ahead. What I want to know is if they truly "kept going" without demand in the early part of the decade.


Yeah, I here you. Then again, Apple has a different model. They depend on innovation more than many, or at least it seems so. Jobs said in 2001 that "we plan to innovate our way out of this" as he referenced the global recession. Perhaps others should have done the same.

Really though, I see this more as an iPhone related problem. That is, the iPhone seems to have re-launched the smartphone market. The iPod was not the first MP3 player, but it has become a household name. No one even says "MP3 Player" anymore...they call it an IPod. The iPhone may not get to that level, but smartphone interest seems to have become more mainstream. 3 years ago, the only people that had smartphones were people in business and your occasional workaholic (well...not the only ones...but you take the meaning). Now, use is expanding in part because I think Apple has mainstreamed the the concept with the iPhone.

The point is, I think AT&T totally misunderstood this. They thought that the iPhone was a cool product that would be very popular. They underestimated the demand for that one product, and the revolution it unleashed. This, in my opinion, is how they were short sighted.

For starters they forced iPhone users to pay for unlimited data usage, then when we use it as unlimited they start crying about it.

They should have gave us the choice first, $10 for 200mb a month, $20 for 500mb a month $30 unlimited, and instead of raping us for going over they can just shut you off at your limit.

You made us pay for unlimited now live with it. Keep in mind I only pay $40 a month for my cable Internet, which is unlimited.

If AT&T makes me pay anymore for data I'm going to verizon, the iPhone is great but not so great that I'll let another mega company fuck me.

Here is a link to the study. The entire point of the study is just how other governments through subsidies and legislation were able to get more for their money than we have in the US.

Public comments have closed on it, though. They are in the process of reviewing the comments and finalizing the copy for the FCC.

http://www.fcc.gov/stage/pdf/Berkman...dy_13Oct09.pdf

There are bits and pieces throughout the study referring to "ubiquitous" broadband (they consider broadband both wired and wirelessly, at different throughputs) meaning everywhere in the country gets it, regardless of demand. The most evident is South Korea and Japan, where the subsidies and electric companies maintained the fiber rollouts. They say that in Japan, where the electric utilities were able to roll out FttH it was a civil works cost reduction of 23%.

It is true, though, that European countries abandoned the FttH rollouts, and concentrated on FttC (meaning fiber to the curb) where the final tie-ins are over copper. This is a current debate, and one that is happening here as well.

Overall, I still stand by my assessment that we need to force incumbents to open the lines to competitors, as well as find new companies to subsidize and allow access to the infrastructure. For the future, it will allow serious competition.

I registered with AppleInsider specifically to post that link! Nice to see someone beat me to it. Awesome article - to think I thought Fake Steve was losing his touch...

It baffles me to no end how AT&T can't get it together to track down jail-broken iPhones. I'm a network admin & I can tell you that there is no such thing as an anonymous internet. This is just getting ridiculous.

As far as raising rates for data goes, what a crock! These cell companies setup a service & now expect they can just sit back & milk it for all time?! You make money by attracting customers, and you attract customers by offering better features or service than your competitors.

One thing AT&T could do though is put some bandwidth limits on media streaming. I don't really want to see this happen but I'd rather see bandwidth limits on certain media streaming services than see data rates overall be capped. Even a small amount of bandwidth restriction on certain services can go a loooong way to cutting down on data usage. They would of course need to write these things into terms of service.

Being in network I live by bandwidth, but I also understand the technology & limitations. People really don't understand just how much effect a few heavy users can have on a network as a whole, especially over any sort of wireless services where latency is increased.

How would they do that? Jailbroken phones dont register differently than other phones simply because they are jailbroken. The only ones that would be easy to locate are the ones with non-AT&T iPhone IMEIs as they would indicate they are from out of the country, but AT&T doesnt stop other phones from working in the US. Outside of that theyve have to look for tethering, but only excessive tethering because its possible to have high, continuous data streaming on the iPhone from iTS, YouTube and many other sites from various apps.

As I said it before --- you are looking at the past and I am looking at the future.

Europe is currently jerry-rigging their ADSL systems to give them faster speed than the US. The problem is that Europe is coming to the limits of jerry-rigging --- and they CANNOT go much faster without laying fiber optics network (which they are 4 years behind).

This is about rabbit vs. turtle race. Europe jumped ahead in DSL broadband and 3G --- short term they got all the bragging rights. But the problem is that the turtle wins at the end. US is ahead of Europe's 5 largest countries (UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain with a total population of 300 million) in 3G penetration. And US is winning the broadband race slowly with their massive fiber optics lead.

The problem for you people is you people do zero follow-ups. You read the headline 10 years ago saying that Europe is 5 years ahead of 3G than the US --- but where is the follow-up. The follow-up is that US went ahead of Europe in 3G penetration last year. That the whole Europe went technology neutral in spectrum licensing, that European regulators have been studying on whether to adopt the American style of charging for incoming calls. It seems is that if anyone bothers to follow up the wireless situation --- EVERYTHING they say of what's wrong with the American system, right now Europeans are adopting or studying to adopt them.

The problem is that you list your examples are all wrong. German government is the largest shareholder of DT/T-Mobile. Japanese government is the largest shareholder of NTT/Docomo. The Swedish and Finnish governments are the largest shareholder of Sweden's and Finland's carriers.

Forcing the incumbents don't work, period. Europe is years ahead everybody else on FTTH because the carriers don't want to spend money on fiber deployment just so their competitors can use them.

You have my attention. Do you have links? I'd love to read about it.

I never argued that the governments of those countries didn't have a great deal to do with their respective rollouts. I think I argued the contrary actually. I said their governments subsidized the rollouts knowing full well there wasn't demand.

Also, what do you think our government does here in the States? The mistake is just like the car manufacturer's bailouts; the people of the US don't have a say or get any return on their investment, because the corporations get grants to install the cabling. The governments of other countries were at least wise enough to get an interest in the companies.

US overtakes Europe in 3G penetration.

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/33436.php

European Commission studies on American style "bill and keep" cell phone charges.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2008...fx5119680.html

Europe embracing technology neutral spectrum auctions.

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/24472.php

Suddenly, EVERYTHING that was deemed to be wrong in the US --- i.e. how Americans have a mixture of CDMA and GSM, how Americans have low 3G penetration, how Americans have to pay for incoming calls.... --- turns out to be the correct model.

It's the rabbit vs. the turtle. And the turtle wins at the end.

The auto bailouts have nothing to do with this --- plenty of European governments are bailing out their auto industries as well (with the same zero say in everything and zero return on their investments).

The problem is that by having a large government ownership in the incumbent carriers create a big problem in how to regulate the industry as a whole.