AT&T caps new iPhone, iPad data plans at 2GB, announces tethering - Page 9

Every web market share analysis shows the iPhone OS browser share far beyond every other phone. Android has only recently become popular. Android will indeed catch up and perhaps surpass the iPhone. But don't act as if the iPhone has not dominated mobile browser market share.

Sustained throughput doesn't mean you will get those same speeds when loading a website. I'll take faster whenever possible, and believe it or not, a 10th of a second is a perceivable difference. You didn't answer my question though. Why would you want slower speeds? I've never made any claims that At&T's network was superior to Verizons. I don't even live in the US, I was just pointing out the absurdity that of the concept that speed doesn't matter.



EDGE? I'll let you know in a couple months then. I don't leave 3G coverage very often. I'm on Fido in Canada, not AT&T. I never said anything bad about Opera mobile, I just pointed out that I was one of the ones who downloaded it, but I don't use it. Download numbers can be misleading, that's all.



Here's a chart (source):


PS: Who is saying 10 times as much data? Your post was absurd because you blew everything out of proportion, while complaining about others doing exactly that. You are still doing it too.

Edit: Maybe I'll disable 3G and test Opera on EDGE just to see how good their compression is, but I doubt I'll use it much.

While that was true once upon a time, as was noted then as now, web share isn't data share.


Well as you note, sustained versus peak is what many people are pondering in their network performance. If you have looked at the various maps for the various networks in the U.S. it becomes an issue of large swaths of decent speed networks versus concentrated areas of high speed networks. I do live in the U.S on the West Coast. As an example, when driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, there are large areas of the freeway that have no 3G coverage on AT&T. The tenth of a second I'm saving in the respective cities won't help me across miles of freeway stuck on EDGE. Also while you claim a tenth of a second is noticeable, I would say only in direct side by side comparisons. I doubt most people could start and stop a stopwatch in .09 seconds.

The main issue though is that a tenth of a second isn't a deal breaker for any cell network. If the next iPhone loaded all webpages .09 seconds slower than Android, no one would forgo an iPhone for that reason. No one should forgo a network either. The secondary point is many of the fanbois steer the discussions into the realm of absurdity to justify the iPhone as the only solution to every problem. They crap all over any other alternative, even alternatives on the iPhone itself to rationalize their own true answer.


Well there is a secondary consideration now and that is that Opera will help save data charges.


My post isn't absurd or blowing everything out of proportion. The AI article that started this thread had that claim in it and it has been repeated often.

This was in the initial post....

Last December, one AT&T executive said he believed it was inevitable that users who utilize more bandwidth than their share will have to pay more than the rest. At the time, the company said that 40 percent of the network capacity for AT&T is used by just 3 percent of smartphone users. Other reports have alleged that the average iPhone user consumes 10 times the bandwidth of a typical smartphone user.

I do thank you for the chart though and it confirms much of what I thought, that iPhone users do use more, but not massive amounts more and the gap is narrowing.

To quote the source I included:


That would still qualify as massive to me. Though not the 10x the AT&T rep said. Given that there are more iPhones on AT&T than there are Android devices on all carriers combined, I think it is reasonable to assume that AT&T has much higher data requirements than other carriers in the US. The graph represents a single point in time, but I suspect that you are correct in assuming that the gap is closing. I'd expect more tiered pricing if capacity cannot keep up with demand. Thanks for quoting the article though. Sometimes I forget what it is even about after 9 pages of comments

I, likewise, welcomed the actual numbers.

While it is clear that iPhone users use "more" than Blackberry users, my own unscientific inquiries have led me to conclude that Blackberry users (even the ones who would qualify as "crackberry" users) tend to use it predominately for email with some texting. This is, at least in part, due to the poor performance of the Blackberry on the internet and the fact that the screen is, well, small which is not very user friendly. Even though the iPhone screen is not "large" I would have to say that it is more usable than the Blackberry for internet browsing, at least in part due to the ease of zooming and rotating it to a landscape mode.

The quoted figures, in my view, show that there really is not that much bandwidth being utilized by iPhone (or other) users. It is just that AT&T has not built their network to support reasonable use of the services they sell. It is a shell game.

In my experience with AT&T, it is clear that customers who actually use a product are viewed (and frequently treated as) abusers of the system. Why would one want a "smart phone" with internet access if not to use it on-the-go? I certainly would not like to download very large files/system updates over the 3G network (irrespective of caps and charges) if there were a Wi-Fi connection available to do it sometime and somewhere which was reasonably convenient, I must say that it is pretty routine to get email with attachments which are multiple MBs in size. I consider them an ordinary and expected use of email and the internet. Internet video, whether Flash or HTML 5 is bound to consume more bandwidth than the text only sites which are typically viewed on a Blackberry. Weather websites with radar, overhead imagery, and computerized visual simulations of forecasts consume more bandwidth than simple text.

My conclusion is that AT&T (and the others for that matter) "doth protest too much". I am reminded of a commercial on TV in which a young child is invited to "ride a bike", but then they are only permitted to do so in a three foot circle. "Even a child knows..." such restrictions aren't right.

The FCC has recognized that the wireless providers are over charging and under delivering services to consumers.

Sadly, the FCC and Congress have not bothered to implement a nation-wide network with a single technical standard. Users of land lines do not care about technical standards so long as they get a dial tone when they pick up the phone and someone answers at the other end when the dial a number. Wireless users should expect no less. While it is true that the FCC does not always get the reimbursement rates (for the use of other's networks) right the first time or as quickly as they should it is a system which has worked well for the nation for many years. Other nations and regions have a single (or unified) technical standard. It works. It really should not matter what company you are with when you need to make a call.

Anyway, AT&T's current deal is a sham and should be called such. Charging more for less is not a price reduction.

Oh, by the way, AT&T rather belatedly sent some of their people to work with Apple so as to optimize the way the iPhone interacts with the network and to reduce its
unintended impact on the available bandwidth. One would have expected them to have done so before the release of the first iPhone.

People buy products and services to use them. What is the surprise?

This is where you are 100% WRONG.

EU has been auctioning spectrum licenses on a technology neutral basis for the last 4-5 years. The best example is the 3G expansion band spectrum space (2.6 GMz).

http://www.dailywireless.org/2007/05...pean-strategy/

The name (3G expansion band) by definition should be restricted to WCDMA --- but Europe learned their lesson. Remember this was 2006-2007, WCDMA was a mess, HSDPA might be a mess as well. LTE was in the drawing stage and WiMAX looked a lot promising at that point.

So Europe decided to copy the American approach --- technology neutral spectrum auction. This is silicon technology world we are talking about --- 1 start-up making it big and 99 failures and you still end up a billionaire. Governments shouldn't try to roll the dice.

Put it in other way that geeks can relate. There is probably some geek in silicon valley right now working on the next generation of wireless technology that is 100% incompatible with LTE but is 100x faster. The ONLY reason he is working on it right now is because the FCC doesn't restrict their spectrum to a single technology. You don't want to prevent that geek to work on some really cool stuff.

Actually, you are a bit off point. If one travels around the E.U. with a current technology 3G phone, it works in Portugal, Spain, Germany, Finland, the U.K., Austria, Italy and so on. That is not the case in the U.S. There is a lot of "legacy" technology around.

It is true to say that the 4G implementation may wind up being somewhat different in both technology and result. While 4G/Wi-Max in the U.S. is being viewed as a means to deploy broadband to more rural areas which are currently either not served at all or poorly served (and gaining mobile 4G/Wi-Max) I suspect that it may be more of a mobile issue in the E.U. because deployment of (wired) broadband does not face the same hurdles as here. Still, 4G/Wi-Max could change the face of broadband in the U.S. by nudging the cable companies and such to offer faster speeds than that of the 4G/Wi-Max competition. As it is, the U.S. lags behind in both broadband deployment and speed. There are still too many areas were dial-up is the main choice.

So what? You can get a CDMA/GSM blackberry worldphone from Verizon if you frequently travels outside the US --- and the GSM side is not even simlocked by Verizon.

The FCC's job is to get the best mobile service at the lowest price for Americans --- 50 weeks out of every year. It is NOT the FCC's job to make sure you are compatible for your annual 2 week vacation in Europe.

EU is 4 years BEHIND the US in FTTH fiber optics deployment.

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

EVERYTHING that was thought to be wrong about the US telecom market --- turned out to be right. Sweden and Ireland opted for "3G beauty contest" instead of auction 10 years ago --- then they learned their lessons and copied the US style auction. The whole Europe copied American style technology neutral spectrum auction. The last 2 years, Europan regulators have been studying American style mobile termination charge (which means charging for both sending and listening to calls).

Now Americans have higher 3G penetration than Europeans. Americans talk 2-4 times more minutes per month and send more SMS than Europeans. Americans use more data than Europeans and more smartphones than everyone else. The list goes on and on.

In some ways, I think Blackberry numbers should always be treated as outliers. They are the only smartphone platform that requires all their data requests go through RIM servers that expressly compress the data when sending it out.

To me those amounts don't sound massive at all. 200 megs as an average? That is miniscule, especially from devices that will likely hold minimum 8-16 gigs of data.

RIM is specifically touting this as a feature of BB's as noted in the other thread on these forums. It is going to be really interesting to see what Apple comes up with now that these new data plans are out there. The key strength of the iPhone has always been the uncompromised internet. Clearly even with pinch to zoom though this isn't always enjoyable on a 3 inch screen and thus there are many mobile and iPhone optimized websites. The creation of these over the years has likely helped hold down data requirments and perhaps even held down data demand. We see Apple limiting features like multitasking to help improve battery life. RIM is the company that has the most experience limiting data while keeping the phone useful.


I agree that Blackberry users tend to browse less but seem to, again just my experience, just love emailing photos over the network. Almost every real estate agent I know has a Blackberry and they have some program that actually opens the keyboxes for homes on it. Then they take the photos on their phones and email them to themselves back in the office for putting into the listing. I mean think about that for a moment. If these BB folks aren't browsing, that means almost all 50 megs are spent just emailing and texting. That is a ton of data for just those two activities on a phone. No wonder it is like crack for them.


Agreed. As I noted earlier, the cell model has always been built on getting people to buy more capacity than they need using massive penalities for overages if you guess wrong. These data plans are no different. The cost of that 201st megabyte is $15 no matter what, so of course people opt for the 2 gigs just to even get a more reasonable rate for overages. Looking at how low these numbers are, it is really surprising AT&T has had so many issues. The claims always involved people using massive gigabytes of information of information per month.


Well when the model is based around a well understood low average which already has a ridiculous profit margin, and then selling fear of even higher obscene gouging fees to avoid outright insane profit margins on massively marked up overages, then what can you really expect. Anyone who manages to "cheat" and actually use or expect value of the system is automatically wrong. The FCC does have an obligation here since these are public airwaves. In my view they have abdicated that responsibility. People so often ask why there can't just be reasonble add ons based around what most people use. They don't understand that isn't the model. They'll complain that 500 txt messages are $5 and unlimited are $20 and why isn't there something reasonable. The real question is to ask why someone leasing our radio spectrum is entitled to sell an amount of data that wouldn't even be a good email, and that data would equal all texting most people do in one month the amount of data in that one email, and request $20 for that email.

If we can deliver a stamped piece of paper for less than $.50 why is progress delivering a letter/email worth of data for $30? It ought to be stopped.

This is where you lost most non-American AI'ers here.

Americans enjoyed the lowest mobile voice and data plans, speaks more than 2-3 times than Europeans, sends more SMS than everyone (except the Philiphines), have pro-rated ETFs...

Europeans don't even have ETF's, let alone pro-rated ones --- they have to pay off the rest of the contract to get out. I, as a Canadian, faces 3 year contracts --- with one carrier charging $20 a month in ETF (which means max $720 ETF).

This past weekend I did some experimenting with an old iSight camera, my MBP i7 and Evocam to stream video to my iPhone via 3G. Got it to work, but I noticed that my iPhone data usage went WAY up. My numbers were over 500meg for the billing period. The others on my family plan who typically use their phones more than I, had much lower data usage. So much for having a cool phone accessible camera to watch the dog, or the neighbors or whatever on the new data plans.

Two interesting side notes. First, when I view the cam feed in Safari on the phone I think the phone keeps the stream active even when sleeping. I had the stream open and pushed the sleep button and went away for a while. When I came back the phone was hot. I then tried quitting Safari before sleeping. Same deal phone was really warm after 15 minutes and battery was almost depleted. I killed the page in Safari and that fixed the problem. Bug? Secondly, why does one measly text message show up as 1 meg on the AT&T bill? There is no way a text message is actually 1 megabyte. Rip off?

Again, you miss the point. The example was that a 3G phone works throughout the E.U. My point was that a phone, of whatever technology, should work throughout the U.S. It had nothing whatsoever to do with a U.S. spec phone working in Europe.

Verizon covers about 300 million people throughout the US.

Nobody forces you to go with a carrier with less coverage.

Either you simply do not understand a very simple concept or are merely an apologist. That or a schill for the wireless providers.

Consumers do not care about what technology creates the connection. They simply want a connection.

They want cheap affordable connections with good service within their country where they spent 50 weeks out of every year.

What are you going to do with a 3G iphone that you bought in the UK --- which for the last 2 years you can't get unlocking codes for and which there is no cheap affordable way to get out of contract for. Are you going to bring that UK iphone to the rest of Europe where they are going to charge you an arm just to look at the top page of any website.

The European launch of the iphone showed one thing --- there is no simlocking laws in Europe. So you are an European and you have an iphone, what is the point of that 300 million people coverage.

Please read the post before regurgitating irrelevant matter.

And reread all my postings for the last few years on this forum before you response on this topic.

Your thinking is essentially circa-2007 --- when Apple hasn't launched the iphone in Europe yet. Somehow everybody thought at the time that Europe is some kind of mobile paradise. That bubble bursted a long time ago.

Europe is a continent with no effective simlocking laws, and no pro-rated ETF's. While geeks like you think that it is easier TECHNICALLY to swap phones or swap SIM cards in Europe --- the lack of affordable pro-rated ETF's means that in real life, Europeans can't get out of their contracts because of financial reasons.

In the US, while technically it is difficult to switch carriers because of incompatible technology --- in real life, it is financially more affordable to switch carriers. And when you switch carriers, the new carrier will basically give you a new phone for peanuts --- which eliminates the whole CDMA vs. GSM issue.

Apparently the Android activations are impacting Sprint's network in a manner similar to the problems AT&T has encountered. How long before they cap their unlimited plans?

http://phandroid.com/2010/06/04/over...prints-system/

I don't have to lose anyone. Declaring you suck more doesn't mean we have to tolerate suckage as a general rule anywhere.

As for the suckage, what do you think ought to be done about it? I've noticed this all or nothing approach for many industries with regard to ridiculous fees and terms. When they engage in it, I choose nothing most often. My television comes from an antenna because all the provides want $5-10 per box to connect the television, programming packages full of channels I don't watch for ever higher fees, contracts extensions for any little thing, and finally you buy the equipment like DVR's from stores and turns out you are actually only LEASING it. You pay full price to lease. So i said thanks, here's my antenna and I'll watch OTA television, use Netflix Redbox and check out some movies from our local library.

For the family, I've got the two boy's phones on $10 every four months to get 85 minutes or something like that with Page Plus. They are 10 and 8 and their parental security blankets work just fine for under such terms. My wife is on prepaid with Page Plus as well with unlimited talk/text and 20 megs data for $45 a month. I'm pondering the move myself because even as nice as my iPhone experience has been, the choice of all or nothing feels like it will turn to nothing again soon. Tmobile offers me 1000 minutes and unlimited text and data for $65 a month which seems very fair. If anything about these terms change though, I'm going prepaid talk and text only because I will not let data be used to double my phone bill regardless of what a company wants.


I could be reading that wrong, but it sounds like their internal network has crashed, not their wireless network.

I got a bit ahead of the story. The new signups crashed the internal network. (This also happened to AT&T with the iPhone.) I am not going to be surprised if, in fact I am guessing that they will soon have the problems AT&T is having when all the new Android phones are actually put in service. Everything I have read about the Android phones is that they are pretty good. I hope they push Apple into making improvements and vice versa. Competition is good.

But you've got to understand the limitations of the laws of physics --- RF spectrum is a limited resource, and that means EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY in the world will have 3-5 national carriers.

We don't live in the cartoon world (i.e. Lisa Simpson defying the laws of thermodynamics) --- so we ain't never going to see the US having 10 national carriers competiting for your dollar.

The US is pretty much close to wireless telecom paradise for the consumers in this practical world.

I understand those terms. The point of the FCC(in the U.S.) is to dictate behavior in the instances where the market is imperfect or limited.

No one need live in a cartoon world to pay for data on regular per unit terms with possible raising in rates or throttling for excessive users.

Also text messaging is just ridiculous. You could send 5000 text messages in a month and the total amount of data delivered is 782Kb. Not even one meg of data and most people are being charged $20-30 for that service.

The real problem phone providers have is that all the texting and talking most people do in a month likely didn't equal even 10 megs of data for the heaviest of users. Now for only a small bit more, they want data use that is 10-20 times harder on the same network.

It can be true that data does do that but if that really is the case, then charge each service as appropriate for the amount of data it uses. If you could get a $25 unlimited talk and text plan where people could attempt to blast through perhaps 20 megs of info a month via their voice and fingers then most people wouldn't complain about paying more for data? Having technological progress that is supposed to create efficiency gains instead cost much more just doesn't sit well with most people.

We've already read the claims from the Verizon CEO that LTE will have half to one third the cost of transporting that megabyte, so why should that megabyte cost more?

But what has the cost of things got to do with price (which is determined by supply and demand)? You might as well complain about Coca-Cola prices because it cost more than gasoline.

Americans already use SMS more than basically everyone else on the planet (Philipines text more than Americans, but they also talk about 1/8 our voice minutes per month).

I've been debating whether I should opt for Sprint or AT&T, I'm not so sure about all these "changes" that are currently being made. However, with the soon-to-be release Apple iPhone 4G - it's going to be hard going to another carrier.

Does anyone really think AT&T would reduce their profits? Only 2-3% of people are using more then 2gb a month.

These new rate plans do nothing to reduce current usage of the network.

Because we are taking about a business that is in the business of making money.... you can bet that those that will drop plans to the lower plan will end up getting burned at some point. And many with the 2gb limit will also get burned. AT&T is not going to give up hundred of millions of dollars each month, and anyone that thinks they are... needs to wake up and smell the coffee!

You are missing the fact that the iPad has tethering via bluetooth or USB disabled. And comments from Steve Jobs indicate this is not going to change. Apple want you to buy the 3G iPad and pay for connectivity.Your best choice for the iPad is a MiFi like device (or Palm Pre with mifi capabilities) and use an iPad with WiFi to connect to it.

The fact remains that anything and everything AT&T does is for the purpose of making money, and I guarantee that this move is no different. People will ultimately choose the wrong plan, and spend a lot for very little data in a month. AT&T will win, people will still lose, and in the meantime it undermines Apples technological efforts. These devices are meant to be USED, for data intensive activity, things like mobile streaming of audio and video. AT&T basically just put an end to all video streaming over 3G.

Seriously, Verizon and Apple need to work out a deal - I'm not too fond of AT&T at the moment. However, I will still be waiting in those long lines patiently waiting to pick up one of those beautiful devices. When people start changing their plans, you really should read and cover everything carefully. There's something quite fishy about this new "strategy" AT&T has implemented unexpectedly.

GOOD POINT. While 2GB seems more than the norm it will be less than the average as NETFLIX, VIDEO CHAT, & Cloud server are introduced for the IPHONE. Apple apparently has no objections to this or at least not publicly.
The increased ETF, DATA CAP, and other new charges are all signs of a company in preparation of losing exclusivity of the IPHONE.

This is the FTC complaint wizard. Filing a complaint against AT&T and Apple is easy and only takes a few minutes.

https://www.FTCComplaintAssistant.go...d.aspx?Lang=en

This definitely falls within the realm of the FTC.
www.ftc.gov/ogc/stat1.shtm

Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 41-58, as amended)
Under this Act, the Commission is empowered, among other things, to (a) prevent unfair methods of competition, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce; (b) seek monetary redress and other relief for conduct injurious to consumers; (c) prescribe trade regulation rules defining with specificity acts or practices that are unfair or deceptive, and establishing requirements designed to prevent such acts or practices; (d) conduct investigations relating to the organization, business, practices, and management of entities engaged in commerce; and (e) make reports and legislative recommendations to Congress.

The whole point of the "breakthrough" unlimited plan was that you could activate it or deactivate it without a contract.

Would people spend over 600 dollars (including a 130 dollar premium over the wi-fi version) on a 3G enabled device only to have the 3G service active for one month and then cancel it, with the intent to never enable it ever again?

If AT&T and Apple wanted to sell a 2GB plan with the iPad 3G, then they should have been forthcoming and done that from the outset when the pre-orders were placed.... and the outset means barely a month after the devices ship to consumers.

Think they would have sold as many iPad 3G devices with a 2GB capped data plan? Not a chance in hell.

Here's what Apple says on their website:
www.apple.com/ipad/3g/

No-contract 3G service.
AT&T 3G Data Plans for iPad
Data per month\tPrice per month
250MB\t$14.99
Unlimited\t$29.99

One month is based on 30 consecutive days, and starts at the date and time of your purchase.

In the United States, 3G service is available through a breakthrough deal with AT&T. You choose the amount of data per month you want to buy 250MB or unlimited. If you choose the 250MB plan, youll receive onscreen messages as you get close to your monthly data limit so you can decide whether to turn off 3G or upgrade to the unlimited plan. Best of all, theres no long-term contract. So if you have a business trip or vacation approaching, just sign up for the month youll be traveling and cancel when you get back. You dont need to visit a store to get 3G service. You can sign up, check your data usage, manage your account, or cancel your service all from your iPad.

Now, just over 1 month after the iPad 3G ships to customers, AT&T eliminates that capability to add/remove the unlimited plan.

So now the people on the "unlimited" plan, have to stay on it and it becomes a "de facto" contract. If they ever let that "unlimited" plan lapse, then they can't get it back. That defeats the whole purpose of the iPad 3G as it was marketed and sold to customers from the outset.

Disgusting and deceitful by AT&T. This is the kind of thing that the FTC is supposed to prevent from occurring to consumers.

Was in an AT&T store today checking my upgrade status. Mgr was friendly and we started talking about new data plans and new IPHONE 4G. He said to me don't be surprised if AT&T has new pricing plans for the new iphones. He said he was talking about overall minute plans. He said it was only speculation but I wouldn't be surprised to see AT&T capitalize on the upcoming IPHONE.

STAY TUNED!

They use SMS more for one reason, it is the least expensive feature and unlimited within most family plans. Among all carriers most settle in on $30 for unlimited texting across up to five phones. That means as much information conveyed as you want for $6 per phone per month. The cost of minutes on the same basis is much higher.

Last I checked, Coca-Cola did not have to buy spectrum that would automatically preclude competitors in other instances. Likewise regardless of cost, I don't have to buy 6 Cokes per month at $15 or a case of Coke for $25 with no choices or selection anywhere in between. The per unit cost of the soda flexes very little and you can buy as much or little as you want. Expecting this for data isn't unreasonable.


Exactly....

The fact is that Americans talk 3-4 times more than European countries and 2-3x more SMS as well.

Last I checked, there isn't unlimited amount of spectrum space --- so it is what it is. It is a natural oligopoly --- and the US system is the best for the consumers under these circumstances.

You can look at the other 100 countries --- and their voice plans are much more expensive which cause them to talk very little per month. So Europeans use SMS instead of talking on the cell phone --- BUT yet Americans SMS more than Europeans. You can tell that American voice and SMS rates are much lowered than every single country on this planet.

Every business is in the business for the purpose of earning a profit for the owners/shareholders.

I am simply not inclined to take AT&T's statement at face value. It is self contradictory. If only 2% of users exceed 2 GB of data per month then it seems improbable that they can have a significant impact upon the network. Not only that, but we are talking about the particular cell (node) they are utilizing. AT&T is notorious for dropped (voice) calls (with phones other than an iPhone) which suggests a variety of problems on their end. (The iPhone 3G I had dropped calls several times more often than a non-iPhone in the same areas and so I hope the antennas on the iPhone 4 are actually better performing units.)

I suspect that this is simply price gouging compounding an already inadequate network build for the customers to whom they have sold service. Just look at the responses. Far too many people are blaming "data hogs" instead of AT&T without any examination of the situation at all.

Sure looks like T-Mobile is ramping up speeds faster than AT&T!

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20...Area.0#addcomm

AT&T doesn't care about improving especially when it's being FORCE FED customers thanks to Apple. Its shameful to see that the majority of us have not seen ANY improvement in service from AT&T. The sad part is that AT&T is busy trying to lock customers in and to charge extra fees to increase its revenue as opposed to improving service which would help people to migrate to AT&T.

This new Data scheme is just more proof of AT&T staying alive gimmicks.

http://www.lieffcabraser.com/consumer/ipad.php

Apple and AT&T have been hit with a class action lawsuit over the iPad 3G unlimited data plan bait and switch...

Did you really just say this? 'Cause I once wandered into Political Outside and ran away.


In a free market you charge what the market will support. With luck and foresight, you're profitable. As a consumer I don't "text" anymore. I IM and twitter.

So for AT&T, texting not so profitable for this customer. When there are enough folks that do this, the market will even out.


Because Verizon has to sink a huge amount of money into plant and backhaul build outs to support the LTE tower it's also paying for? They spent $55B in the last 10 years...and billions more will have to be spent to get to LTE.

They gotta earn billions just to break even before they're going to pass that 2/3 savings to the consumer...same with their competitors.

The alternative is for providers not to sink as much into capex and that would suck even more...VZW's 2009 capex was $7.1B. AT&T is adding $2B to their 2010 capex taking them to about the same as VZW numbers.

Me, I wanna see LTE...

Well wander back. The cage doors were left open and the animals are wandering around.


As I noted above, cell service IS NOT a free market. The airwaves and frequencies assigned within them are public property, are limited and cannot be used without permission. This isn't a case of "I think the Big Mac sucks so I'll go down the street and make a Big Mark instead."

If someone tried to get into the cell service provider business without government consent, they would be shut down instantly.

So it isn't about what the market will bare. It is about determining a decent profit margin above what the providers paid to license the spectrum and then calling things above that wrong or inappropriate.


Possibly and you could have a point if not for the fact that cell companies see this coming and are working to thwart it. There are indeed plenty of providers popping up who have sub-leased bandwidth and are offering unlimited talk and text for $40-50 a month. However what is now happening, and this started somewhat with smartphones, is the main providers are now saying to the providers doing the sub-leasing that they cannot activate said phones on their network.

Now if your phone is unlocked, as for example iPhones are in many other countries, then when you come to the end of your agreed contract, you pop out the sim of the provider you are no longer entranced with and go grab some cheap talk and text packages from someone else.

In the U.S. you basically cannot do this and in the few instances where you can, they are being actively thwarted and shut down. For television, they have shut down the analog hole and the system that was created for allowing third parties access to cable and satellite feeds basically was made worthless. (Was it called cardbus?) So now in the U.S. if you want to record your programs, the DVR is going to be offered almost exclusively by the provider. You pay to "lease" your boxes even when done leasing them. You buy actually equipment upgrades, but are not the owner of said hardware and instead discover you are leasing it.

Such actions are exactly why I have an antenna on my house and nothing else.

The cell industry is doing the same thing right now and you can see the same backward reasoning on it. LTE is supposed to make it four-ten times less expensive to send the same amount of data over the same bandwidth. THAT is why they are sinking money in to it. If they were charging the same exact rates for the same exact data, they they would be making much more profit. Instead there is talk of and in the case of AT&T, actual implementation of tiered data plans. You now go from paying $6 per gig to $12.50 per gig all while the cost of those gigs transmitted is going down for the provider.

Nearly a million people have turned off their cable and satellite this year. The all or nothing choice has resulted in them choosing nothing in terms of paying the provider. I'm sure like in our household Netflix, Redbox and the local library all fill in the space just fine. However you're talking about us spending $15 or so a month for what the providers were demanding constant two year agreements and upwards of $120-130 a month to provide.

The cell bill is becoming the same way. Instead of packages of programming where they "conveniently" just happen to separate what you, the spouse and the kids all want to watch unless you go big, they are now going to be saying, want a phone with a keyboard of a camera above 1.3 mp, well then you MUST HAVE this amount of data, or agree to unlimited texting. Likewise when your equipment costs are done, you're still paying the subsidized cost of them even if taking no new equipment. If you don't like their terms, sorry can't take that equipment with you somewhere else. Too bad for you.

I'm currently on Tmobile where I get 1000 minutes unlimited text and data for $65. My wife is on PagePlus for $45 a month. The 10 and 8 year old boys cost us $5 a month to keep some minutes on their prepaid phones. That is $115 a month for a smartphone and three regular phones, all unsubsidized. That isn't unreasonable nor unprofitable for anyone.


The point is that all those actions need to have a decent cost to benefit analysis or else they shouldn't be done. If they don't have a return on the action, then no more stringent contact terms, bullshit fees, lies, spin or manipulation will change that fact. Most people, right or wrong, will jump on the family text plans for one reason, it allows them to tell the kids to text instead of talk and allows them to pay less for voice minutes. They see, understand and make the trade off. The parents would have spent $20 for two limited text plans or they can spend $30 unlimited and tell the kids they aren't adding any more minutes (at $20 per increment increase) They spend $10 to save $20. It makes total sense from their perspective.

However now telling those same families that the kid phone with the keyboard needs a $10 data plan, forever, whether they want it or use it or not, and btw even if you take that phone somewhere else to a sub-leasee, we won't let them put it on our network without that cost....

That is something else entirely and people shouldn't be surprised when people find a way around it because they can and will.