You honestly think tying the phones to the carriers promotes competition?
Your arguments for keeping things the way they are and the US's broadband infrastructure is better than everyone else's worldwide were unconvincing in the last thread, I hope you're not going to go down the same road with the US needs no reform in the cellular market, too.
There isn't enough overlapping coverage and direct competition amongst carriers in the US, and it allows a similar oligopoly to cable and telco's. Regional monopolies, who can collaborate to manipulate pricing and stifle innovation. If Apple never came out with the iPhone and scared the hell out of these companies, you'd still be rocking a RAZR and paying $80 a month for your service. It took an outsider to shake it up.
I never said that tying the phones to the carriers promotes competition. I said that people often overlook the weakest link --- which is the level of carrier competition. When the iphone first came out in Norway --- it had one of the worst iphone plans on the planet. Why? Because they only have 2 national carriers.
Having the choice to buy unlocked GSM phones is meaningless when Europe doesn't even have ETF (and you have to pay off the rest of the remaining contract) and the grass isn't better on the other carrier because there are only 3 national carriers in places like France or Japan or Korea. France's top carrier owns more than 40% of the market share and top carriers in Japan/Korea own more than 50% of the market share. That's the weakest link.
There is absolutely zero evidence showing the rest of the world has better broadband infrastructure than the US. Once you take out Japan, Korea and the Scandinavian countries (where you cover 1 single city, you cover 1/3 of the whole country's population) --- the rest of the industrialized world is a mess.
The only price shake-up was Verizon Wireless going $99 unlimited voice --- which forced all the other 3 national carriers to price match within hours/days. And it happen today as well --- AT&T Wireless price-match Verizon Wireless within hours. That's a real price shake up.
I don't know how it would be offensive. A data hog is supposed to be someone of a small portion of the user base that use many times more data than the average user.
Personally, I think "data hog" is AT&T code word for scapegoat. AT&T has the data to back up their side of the story, but I have yet to hear of any independent party having such data to corroborate AT&T's claim that a few outliers are ruining it for everyone else. I don't doubt that there are data hogs, I personally doubt that kicking them off or throttling their bandwidth would fix the problem. I think it's more likely that the higher average data use of the overall iPhone user base is taxing the system, not just a certain slice of the user base.
I read about the changes the other day. For me, I think that this is a smart move for Verizon to do (and apparently, it looks as though AT&T is making the same adjustments).
One of the problems that I have (being a Verizon customer) is that because my wife and I have Blackberry's, we are not eligible for the Connect or Premier plans that many people have talked about. In fact, neither are Android phone users. So, I have been having to pay for data on my phones for a while now (Blackberry, like iPhone, requires a data plan). Currently, we are on the select plan which gives us unlimited text, but we have to get data plans for the phones. From the high end of the spectrum, this change allows for me to get unlimited talk + text for approximately $15 more than what I am currently paying today for 1400 minutes whereas, previously, it would cost me over $100 more. So, there is the immediate benefit for me should I choose to go with that plan.
The proposed metered billing model for data, however, is a concern for me. The reason is because it has the potential to hurt users of certain smart phones over others, creating an unfair billing situation. For example, with my present situation (two Blackberry's), metered billing would work in my favor. This is because unlike iPhones and Androids, Blackberry's do not directly access the internet. Rather, they go through BIS servers (which are operated by the carrier and RIM. Even BES activated phones go through BIS to get to BES). These servers act like a compression proxy for data, compressing everything that gets sent to the Blackberry. It even limits the amount of data a Blackberry can download at any one time (you cannot download anything larger than a 3MB file for most carriers). Thus, much of the data traffic on those phones are small. I use my Blackberry for business and my wife as a personal phone and combined, we do not even use 50MB of bandwidth a month (even though we pay over $75 per month for enterprise and personal unlimited data). However, I also have an iPhone on AT&T. iPhones directly access the internet without compression. For the same month, I can consume several hundred MB of data (in some cases, in the GB range) for the exact same amount of use.
By Verizon's metered logic, for the same type of usage, I would pay several times more money for a device like the iPhone (Droid would be a good example here) than I would for a Blackberry, only because the Blackberry uses data differently, not because my habits are different.
Do you speak Russian and read about Russian celluar carriers? I do.
Gotta say I have to agree with you there gin_tonic. I never had any signal problems at all in Moscow. The Broadband companies on the other hand... that's another story :-)
I don't know how it would be offensive. A data hog is supposed to be someone of a small portion of the user base that use many times more data than the average user.
Personally, I think "data hog" is AT&T code word for scapegoat. AT&T has the data to back up their side of the story, but I have yet to hear of any independent party having such data to corroborate AT&T's claim that a few outliers are ruining it for everyone else. I don't doubt that there are data hogs, I personally doubt that kicking them off or throttling their bandwidth would fix the problem. I think it's more likely that the higher average data use of the overall iPhone user base is taxing the system, not just a certain slice of the user base.
I was just teasing with saying I'd be offended...I should have winked instead of grumbled I suppose.
I think between my two iPhones I probably push 5 Gb/mo. I don't think I've ever gone over that, but have been very very close. I certainly don't feel like a data "hog". It's an old argument, but I pay for "unlimited", even if "unlimited" doesn't mean more than a certain number, I don't think it's fair to be called any kind of unsavory name like "hog" for using what you're paying for, even if the bulk of users don't come anywhere close.
Personally, I think "data hog" is AT&T code word for scapegoat. AT&T has the data to back up their side of the story, but I have yet to hear of any independent party having such data to corroborate AT&T's claim that a few outliers are ruining it for everyone else. I don't doubt that there are data hogs, I personally doubt that kicking them off or throttling their bandwidth would fix the problem. I think it's more likely that the higher average data use of the overall iPhone user base is taxing the system, not just a certain slice of the user base.
It’s certainly a simple excuse but that doesn’t mean it’s completely wrong. They can’t go around saying that it’s because the iPhone is too useful, no one—not even Apple—expect 7000% growth in 2 years, but we’re still going to sell as many iPhones as possible regardless of network congestion.
Personally, I use ~30GB a month now. I have a jailbroken and unlocked iPhone that is tethered often. I use it to grab torrents and newsgroups as well as general usage for my Mac. It’s often faster than hotel networks and inherently more secure. I have yet to experience being throttled, kicked off or informed by AT&T that I’m using too much data, despite my account clearly showing my usage. If they have a problem and threaten my account, then so be it. If they offer tethering I’ll pay for it. Until then I’ll keep stepping through their loopholes and incompetence.
My AT&T iPhone costs me, all told, $78.20 a month with unlimited data, 450 minutes of calling, which is fine for me, and 200 text messages a month -- that covers me just fine. I'm over 30.
Cost isn't the problem with my AT&T account, coverage is.
You and I may be able to afford $80 to $100 a month in phone costs, but the lower that gets, the more people can buy a iPhone and that's good for everyone.
I rather like the idea of eating out one more day a month with the savings too.
Comments
You honestly think tying the phones to the carriers promotes competition?
Your arguments for keeping things the way they are and the US's broadband infrastructure is better than everyone else's worldwide were unconvincing in the last thread, I hope you're not going to go down the same road with the US needs no reform in the cellular market, too.
There isn't enough overlapping coverage and direct competition amongst carriers in the US, and it allows a similar oligopoly to cable and telco's. Regional monopolies, who can collaborate to manipulate pricing and stifle innovation. If Apple never came out with the iPhone and scared the hell out of these companies, you'd still be rocking a RAZR and paying $80 a month for your service. It took an outsider to shake it up.
I never said that tying the phones to the carriers promotes competition. I said that people often overlook the weakest link --- which is the level of carrier competition. When the iphone first came out in Norway --- it had one of the worst iphone plans on the planet. Why? Because they only have 2 national carriers.
Having the choice to buy unlocked GSM phones is meaningless when Europe doesn't even have ETF (and you have to pay off the rest of the remaining contract) and the grass isn't better on the other carrier because there are only 3 national carriers in places like France or Japan or Korea. France's top carrier owns more than 40% of the market share and top carriers in Japan/Korea own more than 50% of the market share. That's the weakest link.
There is absolutely zero evidence showing the rest of the world has better broadband infrastructure than the US. Once you take out Japan, Korea and the Scandinavian countries (where you cover 1 single city, you cover 1/3 of the whole country's population) --- the rest of the industrialized world is a mess.
The only price shake-up was Verizon Wireless going $99 unlimited voice --- which forced all the other 3 national carriers to price match within hours/days. And it happen today as well --- AT&T Wireless price-match Verizon Wireless within hours. That's a real price shake up.
25mb?!? Apple provided push to talk,
Do tell, I'm not familiar with the Apple PTT service?
In related news, AT&T just followed suit and dropped their unlimited plans by 30 bucks.
Yup. just saw some info here . . .
http://www.electronista.com/articles...rival.carrier/
Please define "data hogs".
I'm likely to take offense at your definition...
I don't know how it would be offensive. A data hog is supposed to be someone of a small portion of the user base that use many times more data than the average user.
Personally, I think "data hog" is AT&T code word for scapegoat. AT&T has the data to back up their side of the story, but I have yet to hear of any independent party having such data to corroborate AT&T's claim that a few outliers are ruining it for everyone else. I don't doubt that there are data hogs, I personally doubt that kicking them off or throttling their bandwidth would fix the problem. I think it's more likely that the higher average data use of the overall iPhone user base is taxing the system, not just a certain slice of the user base.
One of the problems that I have (being a Verizon customer) is that because my wife and I have Blackberry's, we are not eligible for the Connect or Premier plans that many people have talked about. In fact, neither are Android phone users. So, I have been having to pay for data on my phones for a while now (Blackberry, like iPhone, requires a data plan). Currently, we are on the select plan which gives us unlimited text, but we have to get data plans for the phones. From the high end of the spectrum, this change allows for me to get unlimited talk + text for approximately $15 more than what I am currently paying today for 1400 minutes whereas, previously, it would cost me over $100 more. So, there is the immediate benefit for me should I choose to go with that plan.
The proposed metered billing model for data, however, is a concern for me. The reason is because it has the potential to hurt users of certain smart phones over others, creating an unfair billing situation. For example, with my present situation (two Blackberry's), metered billing would work in my favor. This is because unlike iPhones and Androids, Blackberry's do not directly access the internet. Rather, they go through BIS servers (which are operated by the carrier and RIM. Even BES activated phones go through BIS to get to BES). These servers act like a compression proxy for data, compressing everything that gets sent to the Blackberry. It even limits the amount of data a Blackberry can download at any one time (you cannot download anything larger than a 3MB file for most carriers). Thus, much of the data traffic on those phones are small. I use my Blackberry for business and my wife as a personal phone and combined, we do not even use 50MB of bandwidth a month (even though we pay over $75 per month for enterprise and personal unlimited data). However, I also have an iPhone on AT&T. iPhones directly access the internet without compression. For the same month, I can consume several hundred MB of data (in some cases, in the GB range) for the exact same amount of use.
By Verizon's metered logic, for the same type of usage, I would pay several times more money for a device like the iPhone (Droid would be a good example here) than I would for a Blackberry, only because the Blackberry uses data differently, not because my habits are different.
Have you ever been in Moscow? I was.
Have you used a cellphone service there? I did
Do you speak Russian and read about Russian celluar carriers? I do.
Gotta say I have to agree with you there gin_tonic. I never had any signal problems at all in Moscow. The Broadband companies on the other hand... that's another story :-)
I don't know how it would be offensive. A data hog is supposed to be someone of a small portion of the user base that use many times more data than the average user.
Personally, I think "data hog" is AT&T code word for scapegoat. AT&T has the data to back up their side of the story, but I have yet to hear of any independent party having such data to corroborate AT&T's claim that a few outliers are ruining it for everyone else. I don't doubt that there are data hogs, I personally doubt that kicking them off or throttling their bandwidth would fix the problem. I think it's more likely that the higher average data use of the overall iPhone user base is taxing the system, not just a certain slice of the user base.
I was just teasing with saying I'd be offended...I should have winked
I think between my two iPhones I probably push 5 Gb/mo. I don't think I've ever gone over that, but have been very very close. I certainly don't feel like a data "hog". It's an old argument, but I pay for "unlimited", even if "unlimited" doesn't mean more than a certain number, I don't think it's fair to be called any kind of unsavory name like "hog" for using what you're paying for, even if the bulk of users don't come anywhere close.
Personally, I think "data hog" is AT&T code word for scapegoat. AT&T has the data to back up their side of the story, but I have yet to hear of any independent party having such data to corroborate AT&T's claim that a few outliers are ruining it for everyone else. I don't doubt that there are data hogs, I personally doubt that kicking them off or throttling their bandwidth would fix the problem. I think it's more likely that the higher average data use of the overall iPhone user base is taxing the system, not just a certain slice of the user base.
It’s certainly a simple excuse but that doesn’t mean it’s completely wrong. They can’t go around saying that it’s because the iPhone is too useful, no one—not even Apple—expect 7000% growth in 2 years, but we’re still going to sell as many iPhones as possible regardless of network congestion.
Personally, I use ~30GB a month now. I have a jailbroken and unlocked iPhone that is tethered often. I use it to grab torrents and newsgroups as well as general usage for my Mac. It’s often faster than hotel networks and inherently more secure. I have yet to experience being throttled, kicked off or informed by AT&T that I’m using too much data, despite my account clearly showing my usage. If they have a problem and threaten my account, then so be it. If they offer tethering I’ll pay for it. Until then I’ll keep stepping through their loopholes and incompetence.
Sincerely,
Data Hog
My AT&T iPhone costs me, all told, $78.20 a month with unlimited data, 450 minutes of calling, which is fine for me, and 200 text messages a month -- that covers me just fine. I'm over 30.
Cost isn't the problem with my AT&T account, coverage is.
You and I may be able to afford $80 to $100 a month in phone costs, but the lower that gets, the more people can buy a iPhone and that's good for everyone.
I rather like the idea of eating out one more day a month with the savings too.