I do want choice...and it will happen once Apple decides to accept a lower subsidy from multiple carriers (as opposed to a high subsidy from 1 carrier). However, what choice do we have here in the US?
Verizon?....control freaks who nickel and dime every service.....who can not support concurrent voice and data....whose antiquated CDMA network can not peak above 1.4Mb? No way....not for me.
att nickel and dimes you just as bad. they are no different, but at least you could make a phone call. you know the point of a cell phone.
the max rate of a CDMA rev A connection is 3.1Mbit/sec, the avg is 1.4Mbps.
the data and voice thing is true however, but thats a limitation of CDMA rev a. rev b allows both to happen at once. att's edge network does not allow the voice/data at the same time either. i doubt VZW will spend the money to do that since they are going to LTE for data and using CDMA for voice
Quote:
T-Mobile?....their 3G foot print is even smaller than AT&Ts. At least they can support the Global 3G standard.
tmobile is tiny so there really wont be a good option with them
Quote:
Sprint?....they are heading in the wrong direction with their 3G standards....isolated from the rest of the world...no wonder they are bleeding customers each month.
agreed. they are going in the complete opposite direction.
I don't doubt that there are many users in NY and SF who are upset. I just don' think, as a whole, that there are that many. Operation Chokehold last week had a few thousand participants? The network was not even impacted. A few thousand customers out of 80 million is nothing. Heck, any company that can achieve a satisfaction rate that high is the envy of capitalism.
It's not just NY and SF. It's in many places. I can't say how many people there are, but I talk to them every day. I also know of my own experiences, which have not been good.
Quote:
I do want choice...and it will happen once Apple decides to accept a lower subsidy from multiple carriers (as opposed to a high subsidy from 1 carrier). However, what choice do we have here in the US?
Verizon?....control freaks who nickel and dime every service.....who can not support concurrent voice and data....whose antiquated CDMA network can not peak above 1.4Mb? No way....not for me.
I had little trouble with Verizon. There 3G coverage is much better. They, too are upgrading their network. They do nickel and dime, but then again...AT&T charges me $5.00 a month for 200 texts. Verizon call quality and reliability were far better. I do get better reception in my workplace with AT&T though, but I think that's just a tower placement issue. Also...can their network support voice and data together...or is it just that they are choosing not to?
Quote:
T-Mobile?....their 3G foot print is even smaller than AT&Ts. At least they can support the Global 3G standard.
Sprint?....they are heading in the wrong direction with their 3G standards....isolated from the rest of the world...no wonder they are bleeding customers each month.
Over the past five quarters they have had an exclusive contract with the iPhone. My speculation is that when the iPhone is opened up to other carriers and they have to compete, they will flounder.
I don't care how much you AT&T stockholders defend this company, no one in their right mind will pay hundreds of dollars for hardware and eighty plus dollars a month for a phone that can't complete a phone call. It's really that simple to me.
Never mind all the reasons that AI forum posters have that a Verizon iPhone cannot be done. I am not a stock holder, I am a end user. I am not an expert on the stock market or how cell phones work. I am a "mere mortal," the kind of person the Mac and the iPhone is supposed to be designed for. I want things that "just work."
I love everything about the iPhone except it's inability to complete a phone call. And don't give me any crapola that the iPhone chip doesn't switch between cell towers or that the network is overloaded by bandwidth hoggers. AT&T has had a tradition of dropping calls for a decade before the iPhone was ever around. I only gave them another chance with the iPhone because of their coverage map which is a total lie. Once my contract is up, I am OUT. If Apple wants me back, make a Verizon iPhone.
Happy Holidays to you all.
You are mistaken, I am not a shareholder of AT&T nor Verizon. I am a satisfied shareholder of Apple though, but not an iPhone user.
I just pointed out to the poster who incorrectly identified AT&T as a "dying company." AT&T's financials do not point to this and we have no idea when their iPhone exclusivity will end.
Your problems are strictly AT&T's fault. The iPhone works fine on other carriers' network across the globe.
Verizon was offered the chance at the original iPhone but could not come to terms with Apple, thus no Verizon iPhone. Apple did have a job listing for a CDMA engineer many months ago; I assumed they filled the position. No one here believes that the technical challenges of building a CDMA-based iPhone are insurmountable, but why would Apple build one if it has no carriers who are willing to partner with them on Apple's terms?
I am sorry but Wi-Fi is not a solution, not even a short-term, to crappy 2G and 3G network. Connecting to AT&T's hotspot, even when you are nearby, is often hit or miss. I would actually welcome tier data pricing plans if it means lighter users, some due to their crappy network, get pricing break.
You are mistaken, I am not a shareholder of AT&T nor Verizon. I am a satisfied shareholder of Apple though, but not an iPhone user
Okay fine, you are not a shareholder in AT&T. You just know their stock prices for the last five quarters for the fun of it. Once again, I don't know a CDMA from an IRA. Who cares?
All I have ever said is that consumers should have the choice to get the provider that is best for the area they live in. Can we agree on that? Because if I can get just one Apple Insider forum poster to agree with me on this one point, then I can end 2009 on a high note.
Want some irony? As I type this, I see an AT&T ad on the top of the screen asking me, "You want coverage? We've got it." Yeah, and Windows 7 was my idea. Sheesh!
This whole femtocell thing is retarded. ...UPGRADE YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE.
AT&T upgrading their infrastructure won't help me in the near term. They have to build or buy tower space, deal with a thousand different zoning issues in hopes they might be able to put up a tower. And even then it might cover my area due to mountain terrain issues.
So, I'm eagerly waiting for the femtocells. I just want to know what the hell is taking them so long to roll them out. I would have bought one 10 months ago for $500. I would have saved that much in landline phone charges that I'll drop once I have full cell phone service through the femtocell and my cable modem. Paying only $150 for it is a deal.
Okay fine, you are not a shareholder in AT&T. You just know their stock prices for the last five quarters for the fun of it. Once again, I don't know a CDMA from an IRA. Who cares?
All I have ever said is that consumers should have the choice to get the provider that is best for the area they live in. Can we agree on that? Because if I can get just one Apple Insider forum poster to agree with me on this one point, then I can end 2009 on a high note.
Want some irony? As I type this, I see an AT&T ad on the top of the screen asking me, "You want coverage? We've got it." Yeah, and Windows 7 was my idea. Sheesh!
Finding AT&T's financial information is very easy on Google Finance or Yahoo Finance. Might take five seconds. You should probably peruse those sites some day (I prefer Yahoo Finance myself). There is a lot of information that could ultimately help you make better investment decisions and thus give you more money when you retire.
Yes, consumers should be able to get a choice of cellular providers. In fact, they do in many other countries.
However, due to lack of corporate and government foresight, that is not currently possible in the United States of America. In some countries (like Belgium), there are laws enacted to ban carrier exclusivity and locked phones. We do not have that here in the States. Also, there are two incompatible cellular technologies in this country: GSM and CDMA.
An informed consumer will make better purchase decisions knowing the complex factors that govern a particular marketplace; the U.S. cellular market is particularly messy. There are articles out there that explain some of the idiosyncrasies of the U.S. cellular market. I will leave it up to you to seek out this information as the topic is beyond the scope of this forum.
If you are really serious, you should let your U.S. representative and senator know your unhappiness with the lack of carrier choice.
I don't see the ad you mention, but I believe you. (I'm running Firefox with the Adblock Plus extension.)
This whole femtocell thing is retarded. So first I'm supposed to pay AT&T for unlimited service for my iPhone. Then I'm supposed to shell out another few hundred bucks for a femtocell - just to have "reasonably decent" data service. And the femtocell runs on my own bandwidth. Oh wait, and those minutes count against my already purchased minutes.
Huh?
They better come up with a better strategy than this. Expecting customers to purchase and support an additional device using their customer-supplied bandwidth - just to solve AT&T's deficiencies is a hopelessly stupid idea. All of this will be obsolete with LTE - so why should I pay $200 or so every few years - isn't the point of 3G that you have an anytime, anywhere connection?
Here's another idea, AT&T: UPGRADE YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE.
Femtocells ARE a good solution for many. For data, a WiFi router on a broadband connection gets you off the congested 3G network. Femtocell's gets your voice calls off the 3G network and you won't be burning minutes for voice calls. That will allow me to cut back on the size of the plan I need to buy from AT&T. Furthermore, I'll get decent voice coverage at my house, where the coverage is pretty crappy due to the hilly terrain. Sure, I'd love it if they'd drop in a tower down the street, but a $150 femtocell is a good solution in that gets me better coverage and lets me cut back on the number of minutes I need to buy.
Yea whatever ATT. This actually means that tiered pricing is coming to a ATT store near you in 2010. Happy new year.
Post of the year. Well done.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shivas Irons
Femtocells ARE a good solution for many. For data, a WiFi router on a broadband connection gets you off the congested 3G network. Femtocell's gets your voice calls off the 3G network and you won't be burning minutes for voice calls. That will allow me to cut back on the size of the plan I need to buy from AT&T. Furthermore, I'll get decent voice coverage at my house, where the coverage is pretty crappy due to the hilly terrain. Sure, I'd love it if they'd drop in a tower down the street, but a $150 femtocell is a good solution in that gets me better coverage and lets me cut back on the number of minutes I need to buy.
Mmm...cell phone tower radiation in my house. Mmmm.....
I continue to believe that Apple/AT&T made a strategic blunder of staggering "MBA case-study" proportions by not implementing UMA/GAN in the iPhone, and forcing carriers to support it. I guess that its just one of those things that most people are unable to grasp the significance of until they've seen it in action.
I continue to believe that Apple/AT&T made a strategic blunder of staggering "MBA case-study" proportions by not implementing UMA/GAN in the iPhone, and forcing carriers to support it. I guess that its just one of those things that most people are unable to grasp the significance of until they've seen it in action.
Both the old AT&T Wireless and Cingular Wireless were part of the UMA lobbying group --- but both of them didn't bother to actually launch UMA, tells you that the technology sucked big time.
However, due to lack of corporate and government foresight, that is not currently possible in the United States of America. In some countries (like Belgium), there are laws enacted to ban carrier exclusivity and locked phones. We do not have that here in the States. Also, there are two incompatible cellular technologies in this country: GSM and CDMA.
Belgium's law has been struck down by the European Court of Justice --- now Belgium's carriers can simlock their phones.
European regulators have been auctioning "technology neutral" spectrum licenses for the last 5 years now --- no more GSM-only crap.
Due to the lack of corporate and governmental foresight in Europe --- they LOST a decade on their 3G problems. Now, Americans talk 3-4x times more on their cell phones than the Europeans. Americans have beaten Europeans in 3G penetration rate. Americans use 3-4x times more SMS than the Europeans. And the future of cell phones --- the smartphones --- are all designed by North Americans (RIM being Canadian).
I'm not sure why iPhone users sucking up all the data bandwidth is a surprise to anyone, especially att. When you get an iphone, you are forced to get the most expensive unlimited data plan. Remarkably, att also states that if you have an iphone on their network without a data plan, they will suspend your account! So, yeah, force me to pay for an unlimited data plan and I will use it. Now quite yer bitchin, att.
BTW, it's not like I stream constant video. I did a couple of youtubes when I first got it, but it's really slow. I have just become totally reliant on web info now. It seems every web site is overflowing with data to send because even my (semi)fast 1.5mbps home dsl line and computer take 5-10 secs to load pages. What is 3g? 14kbps? (gad im old. I remember when 14.4 dial up was FAST!)
Stumac - So old, I Helped Ben Franklin "invent" electricity!
Comments
I do want choice...and it will happen once Apple decides to accept a lower subsidy from multiple carriers (as opposed to a high subsidy from 1 carrier). However, what choice do we have here in the US?
Verizon?....control freaks who nickel and dime every service.....who can not support concurrent voice and data....whose antiquated CDMA network can not peak above 1.4Mb? No way....not for me.
att nickel and dimes you just as bad. they are no different, but at least you could make a phone call. you know the point of a cell phone.
the max rate of a CDMA rev A connection is 3.1Mbit/sec, the avg is 1.4Mbps.
the data and voice thing is true however, but thats a limitation of CDMA rev a. rev b allows both to happen at once. att's edge network does not allow the voice/data at the same time either. i doubt VZW will spend the money to do that since they are going to LTE for data and using CDMA for voice
T-Mobile?....their 3G foot print is even smaller than AT&Ts. At least they can support the Global 3G standard.
tmobile is tiny so there really wont be a good option with them
Sprint?....they are heading in the wrong direction with their 3G standards....isolated from the rest of the world...no wonder they are bleeding customers each month.
agreed. they are going in the complete opposite direction.
I don't doubt that there are many users in NY and SF who are upset. I just don' think, as a whole, that there are that many. Operation Chokehold last week had a few thousand participants? The network was not even impacted. A few thousand customers out of 80 million is nothing. Heck, any company that can achieve a satisfaction rate that high is the envy of capitalism.
It's not just NY and SF. It's in many places. I can't say how many people there are, but I talk to them every day. I also know of my own experiences, which have not been good.
I do want choice...and it will happen once Apple decides to accept a lower subsidy from multiple carriers (as opposed to a high subsidy from 1 carrier). However, what choice do we have here in the US?
Verizon?....control freaks who nickel and dime every service.....who can not support concurrent voice and data....whose antiquated CDMA network can not peak above 1.4Mb? No way....not for me.
I had little trouble with Verizon. There 3G coverage is much better. They, too are upgrading their network. They do nickel and dime, but then again...AT&T charges me $5.00 a month for 200 texts. Verizon call quality and reliability were far better. I do get better reception in my workplace with AT&T though, but I think that's just a tower placement issue. Also...can their network support voice and data together...or is it just that they are choosing not to?
T-Mobile?....their 3G foot print is even smaller than AT&Ts. At least they can support the Global 3G standard.
Sprint?....they are heading in the wrong direction with their 3G standards....isolated from the rest of the world...no wonder they are bleeding customers each month.
Agreed on that last two.
Over the past five quarters they have had an exclusive contract with the iPhone. My speculation is that when the iPhone is opened up to other carriers and they have to compete, they will flounder.
I don't care how much you AT&T stockholders defend this company, no one in their right mind will pay hundreds of dollars for hardware and eighty plus dollars a month for a phone that can't complete a phone call. It's really that simple to me.
Never mind all the reasons that AI forum posters have that a Verizon iPhone cannot be done. I am not a stock holder, I am a end user. I am not an expert on the stock market or how cell phones work. I am a "mere mortal," the kind of person the Mac and the iPhone is supposed to be designed for. I want things that "just work."
I love everything about the iPhone except it's inability to complete a phone call. And don't give me any crapola that the iPhone chip doesn't switch between cell towers or that the network is overloaded by bandwidth hoggers. AT&T has had a tradition of dropping calls for a decade before the iPhone was ever around. I only gave them another chance with the iPhone because of their coverage map which is a total lie. Once my contract is up, I am OUT. If Apple wants me back, make a Verizon iPhone.
Happy Holidays to you all.
You are mistaken, I am not a shareholder of AT&T nor Verizon. I am a satisfied shareholder of Apple though, but not an iPhone user.
I just pointed out to the poster who incorrectly identified AT&T as a "dying company." AT&T's financials do not point to this and we have no idea when their iPhone exclusivity will end.
Your problems are strictly AT&T's fault. The iPhone works fine on other carriers' network across the globe.
Verizon was offered the chance at the original iPhone but could not come to terms with Apple, thus no Verizon iPhone. Apple did have a job listing for a CDMA engineer many months ago; I assumed they filled the position. No one here believes that the technical challenges of building a CDMA-based iPhone are insurmountable, but why would Apple build one if it has no carriers who are willing to partner with them on Apple's terms?
You are mistaken, I am not a shareholder of AT&T nor Verizon. I am a satisfied shareholder of Apple though, but not an iPhone user
Okay fine, you are not a shareholder in AT&T. You just know their stock prices for the last five quarters for the fun of it. Once again, I don't know a CDMA from an IRA. Who cares?
All I have ever said is that consumers should have the choice to get the provider that is best for the area they live in. Can we agree on that? Because if I can get just one Apple Insider forum poster to agree with me on this one point, then I can end 2009 on a high note.
Want some irony? As I type this, I see an AT&T ad on the top of the screen asking me, "You want coverage? We've got it." Yeah, and Windows 7 was my idea. Sheesh!
This whole femtocell thing is retarded. ...UPGRADE YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE.
AT&T upgrading their infrastructure won't help me in the near term. They have to build or buy tower space, deal with a thousand different zoning issues in hopes they might be able to put up a tower. And even then it might cover my area due to mountain terrain issues.
So, I'm eagerly waiting for the femtocells. I just want to know what the hell is taking them so long to roll them out. I would have bought one 10 months ago for $500. I would have saved that much in landline phone charges that I'll drop once I have full cell phone service through the femtocell and my cable modem. Paying only $150 for it is a deal.
Okay fine, you are not a shareholder in AT&T. You just know their stock prices for the last five quarters for the fun of it. Once again, I don't know a CDMA from an IRA. Who cares?
All I have ever said is that consumers should have the choice to get the provider that is best for the area they live in. Can we agree on that? Because if I can get just one Apple Insider forum poster to agree with me on this one point, then I can end 2009 on a high note.
Want some irony? As I type this, I see an AT&T ad on the top of the screen asking me, "You want coverage? We've got it." Yeah, and Windows 7 was my idea. Sheesh!
Finding AT&T's financial information is very easy on Google Finance or Yahoo Finance. Might take five seconds. You should probably peruse those sites some day (I prefer Yahoo Finance myself). There is a lot of information that could ultimately help you make better investment decisions and thus give you more money when you retire.
Yes, consumers should be able to get a choice of cellular providers. In fact, they do in many other countries.
However, due to lack of corporate and government foresight, that is not currently possible in the United States of America. In some countries (like Belgium), there are laws enacted to ban carrier exclusivity and locked phones. We do not have that here in the States. Also, there are two incompatible cellular technologies in this country: GSM and CDMA.
An informed consumer will make better purchase decisions knowing the complex factors that govern a particular marketplace; the U.S. cellular market is particularly messy. There are articles out there that explain some of the idiosyncrasies of the U.S. cellular market. I will leave it up to you to seek out this information as the topic is beyond the scope of this forum.
If you are really serious, you should let your U.S. representative and senator know your unhappiness with the lack of carrier choice.
I don't see the ad you mention, but I believe you. (I'm running Firefox with the Adblock Plus extension.)
If Apple was in charge of pricing it would be something drop dead simple...
Minute plans:
100 minutes for $9.99
500 minutes for $29.99
1000 minutes for $49.99
2000 minutes for $89.99
5000 minutes for $149.99
Data is $9.99 per GB.
Texting is $0.01 per message.
Use as much as you want.
One simple price.
Specially for data & texting price, I don't think so.
Apply knows how to make money.
Each texting charge look simple but it does not make profit as current package out there.
200 texting for $5 = 1 text per $0.025 almost $0.03
Why would you think Apple will do something like $0.01 per texting?
Also people sign up 200 texting plan usually not using that many.
Which mean you pay more per each texting.
Same logic goes to phone minutes and data plan.
Every company out there knows how to makes money.
They just don't provide the service as advertised.(to make more profit.)
Current AT&T complains about data usage is simply they miscalculates big time.(Maybe who makes this plan already fired.)
Nothing more, they thought as data plan will be same as phone minute & texting plan.
They thought people will not use that much.
It is like AT&T rollover minutes also almost impossible to use whole left over min within their 2 years contract.
Rollover is just simple assurance to customer which cost nothing to AT&T.
This whole femtocell thing is retarded. So first I'm supposed to pay AT&T for unlimited service for my iPhone. Then I'm supposed to shell out another few hundred bucks for a femtocell - just to have "reasonably decent" data service. And the femtocell runs on my own bandwidth. Oh wait, and those minutes count against my already purchased minutes.
Huh?
They better come up with a better strategy than this. Expecting customers to purchase and support an additional device using their customer-supplied bandwidth - just to solve AT&T's deficiencies is a hopelessly stupid idea. All of this will be obsolete with LTE - so why should I pay $200 or so every few years - isn't the point of 3G that you have an anytime, anywhere connection?
Here's another idea, AT&T: UPGRADE YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE.
Femtocells ARE a good solution for many. For data, a WiFi router on a broadband connection gets you off the congested 3G network. Femtocell's gets your voice calls off the 3G network and you won't be burning minutes for voice calls. That will allow me to cut back on the size of the plan I need to buy from AT&T. Furthermore, I'll get decent voice coverage at my house, where the coverage is pretty crappy due to the hilly terrain. Sure, I'd love it if they'd drop in a tower down the street, but a $150 femtocell is a good solution in that gets me better coverage and lets me cut back on the number of minutes I need to buy.
Yea whatever ATT. This actually means that tiered pricing is coming to a ATT store near you in 2010. Happy new year.
Femtocells ARE a good solution for many. For data, a WiFi router on a broadband connection gets you off the congested 3G network. Femtocell's gets your voice calls off the 3G network and you won't be burning minutes for voice calls. That will allow me to cut back on the size of the plan I need to buy from AT&T. Furthermore, I'll get decent voice coverage at my house, where the coverage is pretty crappy due to the hilly terrain. Sure, I'd love it if they'd drop in a tower down the street, but a $150 femtocell is a good solution in that gets me better coverage and lets me cut back on the number of minutes I need to buy.
Mmm...cell phone tower radiation in my house. Mmmm.....
I continue to believe that Apple/AT&T made a strategic blunder of staggering "MBA case-study" proportions by not implementing UMA/GAN in the iPhone, and forcing carriers to support it. I guess that its just one of those things that most people are unable to grasp the significance of until they've seen it in action.
Both the old AT&T Wireless and Cingular Wireless were part of the UMA lobbying group --- but both of them didn't bother to actually launch UMA, tells you that the technology sucked big time.
However, due to lack of corporate and government foresight, that is not currently possible in the United States of America. In some countries (like Belgium), there are laws enacted to ban carrier exclusivity and locked phones. We do not have that here in the States. Also, there are two incompatible cellular technologies in this country: GSM and CDMA.
Belgium's law has been struck down by the European Court of Justice --- now Belgium's carriers can simlock their phones.
European regulators have been auctioning "technology neutral" spectrum licenses for the last 5 years now --- no more GSM-only crap.
Due to the lack of corporate and governmental foresight in Europe --- they LOST a decade on their 3G problems. Now, Americans talk 3-4x times more on their cell phones than the Europeans. Americans have beaten Europeans in 3G penetration rate. Americans use 3-4x times more SMS than the Europeans. And the future of cell phones --- the smartphones --- are all designed by North Americans (RIM being Canadian).
BTW, it's not like I stream constant video. I did a couple of youtubes when I first got it, but it's really slow. I have just become totally reliant on web info now. It seems every web site is overflowing with data to send because even my (semi)fast 1.5mbps home dsl line and computer take 5-10 secs to load pages. What is 3g? 14kbps? (gad im old. I remember when 14.4 dial up was FAST!)
Stumac - So old, I Helped Ben Franklin "invent" electricity!