Lawsuit accuses AT&T of overcharging iPhone, iPad customer data use

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Comments

  • Reply 81 of 89
    tbelltbell Posts: 3,146member
    With all fairness, Verizon is not better. Probably even worst. The government just settled a suit with Verizon where Verizon was fraudulently billing customers for fees. Tell you wife to unlock her iPhone and go to T-Mobile.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jdavy View Post


    I have unlimited data and thus have not been affected. However, my wife had the 2GB plan. She would notice her data usage going up even though her iPhone was off. She worked one of those techniques to get unlimited data back and it worked but then when she hit 5GB of data usage AT&T cut her speed to edge. She is now going to get the Verizon iPhone. I hope AT&T gets punished for their poor tactics in slowing down data use. The real solution for AT&T and all other phone providers is to increase the capacity on their lines. Limits on data usage for a smart phone makes the smart phone a dumb phone. IMHO



  • Reply 82 of 89
    What I never understand is how my phone bill can vary from month to month, if we never go near our minutes cap, have 8000+ unused rollover minutes, and have the old unlimited data and unlimited texting? We never call 411 either. I just don't get it. Shouldn't it be the exact same dollar amount every month? And with the e-bill pdf being some 60+ pages long, how can anyone possibly find what is causing the difference?
  • Reply 83 of 89
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ranchogirl View Post


    What I never understand is how my phone bill can vary from month to month, if we never go near our minutes cap, have 8000+ unused rollover minutes, and have the old unlimited data and unlimited texting? We never call 411 either. I just don't get it. Shouldn't it be the exact same dollar amount every month? And with the e-bill pdf being some 60+ pages long, how can anyone possibly find what is causing the difference?



    Compare the summaries from month to month and see. To find out when some extra charge occurred you'll need to drill down in the bill. I suggest trying to do it online with a softcopy where it should be faster (ie download the whole bill and do a search).
  • Reply 84 of 89
    chronsterchronster Posts: 1,894member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    And you wonder why I consider you a troll.



    awww because I'm not IMMEDIATELY siding with Apple and AT&T? Your bias is clear, and THAT'S why you consider me a troll.



    Why even bother replying? We all know you're a fanboy shill, and news like this seems to come out EVERY DAY, confirming what I and people like me have been saying all along.
  • Reply 85 of 89
    chronsterchronster Posts: 1,894member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AIaddict View Post


    If iOS is asking for data or sending it, or an app that may have a little adware or malware built in, then this is not AT&T's fault. The lawyers making this claim have the burden of proof to show what data was transfered at what time and what was on the bill when there was no corresponding transfer. It would not be too hard to use a 3g sniffer to capture the data trafic actually going over the air, and compare that to the AT&T bill. I would not be willing to bet AT&T has no mistakes, but I would bet the 2k the guy reported was legitimate traffic generated by his iPhone despite his settings.



    What I think AT&T and Apple need to do is take a look at what exactly the phone does at idle. I imagine there's processes at work that communicate with AT&T's servers, so there could be some streamlining to do there.



    The problem is this phone has decent processing power, and the software developers might be "over-doing it" so to speak with certain aspects of the phone's background tasks. Either way, if someone is paying for data, this information should be given at the time of purchase.
  • Reply 86 of 89
    mgl323mgl323 Posts: 247member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bigdaddyp View Post


    A text message can be sent via e-mail. For example you can send one to a Att customer by addressing the email to area code and phone number @txt.att.net example [email protected].



    Taught that trick to my nephew as the little turd went through 400 text messages that his plan allows in less then 2 weeks. Man was my sister in law pissed.



    Oh this is gold when traveling abroad if you have family member or friends that have AT&T.
  • Reply 87 of 89
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TBell View Post


    How does that explain the customer shutting all data off and not using the phone for ten days, but still being billed for data?



    This lawsuit will be settled and AT&T will change it's practices.



    It doesn't, but it does explain the diffrences that other people have brought up on this thread. What does explain the "independant firm's" stupidity is that the iPhone does things that use data such as Visual Voice Mail & the Push Notification Service, allong with other things that other users have already stated here, eg. the anti-phishing / anti-spam filter db. The idea that they don't setup email and changed the "Fetch new data" setting to off (which only applies to email), setting the "Notifications" to off which is set for 3rd party applications, and disabling location services is the same thing as turning off "all data" is ignorant. The simple fact is the iPhone has a nice handy toggle switch that says "Cellular Data" under Settings>General>Network, which disables data over the cellular modem. When I read this BS of a lawsuit I turned my data off on my phone using that feature, one day before my bill cutoff and left it off WHILE using my phone as a phone and 3 days later I used AT&T's *data# number and amazingly AT&T showed I used no data. I have unlimited data so I could care less about this stupid lawsuit's outcome.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jdavy View Post


    I have unlimited data and thus have not been affected. However, my wife had the 2GB plan. She would notice her data usage going up even though her iPhone was off. She worked one of those techniques to get unlimited data back and it worked but then when she hit 5GB of data usage AT&T cut her speed to edge. She is now going to get the Verizon iPhone. I hope AT&T gets punished for their poor tactics in slowing down data use. The real solution for AT&T and all other phone providers is to increase the capacity on their lines. Limits on data usage for a smart phone makes the smart phone a dumb phone. IMHO



    I second the BS on this, and have fun on VZ.. where they actually throttle heavy data users. Please post back here when she starts complaing that she can't be on the phone and do anything that uses data. As mentioned above I have unlimited data, and I stream pandora every day, and generally am a heavy data user with about 400 emails per day. Most months I use less than 3GB easy, sounds to me like you may be doing a little bit of the MyWi so you don't have to pay for tethering.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by xsu View Post


    If packets are lost on the way, how can that be counted as consumed by the phone? If someone was sending you a package, and it was lost on the way, how does that count as you having received it?



    When you wash your car, do you call the water company and complain to them that they charged you for all the water droplets and not just the ones that actually landed on your car? I mean, your intent was clearly to use the water to wash the car, why should you pay for the water that didn't make it to the car? Maybe you should go read up on TCP/IP and how the internet works.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    Well, there is a certain amount of overhead in packets, besides the payload, as well as for example, HTTP request and response headers, and possible requests to resend lost packets, so a 50KB page would certainly consume more than 50KB of data traffic. (And there's also the issue that someone pointed out of where they are measuring the data.) However, it seems that people are indicating that they are seeing data usage recorded when they aren't actually using the cellular data network. If that's actually the case, and the if is important, then AT&T would have some explaining to do: carrier or phone generated overhead not under control of the user ought not be billed.



    I would agree with you on this, however this is not the case. When the original iPhone came out, AT&T showed every data transaction as a line item on the bill. This resulted in people who had detailed paper billing, recieving 9,000+ page bills which was promptly halted by AT&T because obviously sending fedex boxes with reams of paper each month would be cost prohibitive. After that change AT&T aggrates data use which usually happens in the middle of the night for the prior periods usage. So people who don't bother to read the extremely long legal contract they signed when they got their shiney new iPhone think hey AT&T charged me for 80Mb of data use while I was sleeping. This does happen through out the day as well depending on data use.



    THU\t 01/27/2011\t 12:19AM\tData Transfer\tData\t 117,775 KB\tCMB1\t AT\t GPRR\t Out\t 0.00



    I was asleep at 12:19AM, but the hour long ride home from work 8:30PM - 9:30PM I was jamming out to pandora.



    SUN\t 01/23/2011\t 4:10PM\tData Transfer\tData\t 128,497 KB\tCMB1\t AT\t GPRR\t Out\t 0.00



    I was at work from 10:30AM - 6:30PM and listened to pandora on my lunch break from 1:30 - 2:30 while also looking up movie info on fandango and browsing Appleinsider.





    Here is a good link to the wiki on TCP for those interested in how Appleinsider.com gets from you typing in http://www.appleinsider.com in your browser to a page with goodness on your iPhone, or Mac, or PC, or iPad, or whatever you use to access the interwebs.



    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmi...ntrol_Protocol





    Moral of the story is this lawsuit is as frivolous as it gets and I also hope this plaintiff, his legal counsel, and the "independent firm" of "experts" get counter sued for legal expenses and libel.
  • Reply 88 of 89
    lb800ftlb800ft Posts: 1member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post


    Once again, attorneys who have no clue how technology works stirring up trouble....





    If you download a 50 kb web site, there's no reason to think that you'll be billed for exactly 50 kb. There is overhead in the transaction - some packets that are not properly received, for example. Or validation information to ensure that the information was properly sent.



    I hope AT&T sues these people for making false accusations and libel.



    xxxxx



    Yea - the same attorneys that work for ATT - LOL?!?!

    ....

    try to make it real - compared to what



    everyone - get a clue!

    peace!
  • Reply 89 of 89
    josiahljosiahl Posts: 6member
    I am curious how they charge for data usage and set a limit when myself i don't have a limit. I went into the store to ask them some questions about my bill(ATT) and i learned that i dont have a data limit because i was grandfathered into something. Anyone else ever hear about this?



    Also great ploy to keep me as a customer since if i change i lose my unlimited data privilege!
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