Off topic, but do you use Mark the Spot to let them know where the service fails? Just curious, not defending. Sucks that you have to go to Verizon. They are more expensive, generally.
Even when you mark the spot nothing gets done. AT&T should be smart enough to want to keep the customers and improve the service in the cities that have the most problems such as NEW YORK, CALIFORNIA etc.
AT&T is trying to lock customers in by raising its ETF. But believe me people will pay if the IPHONE comes to another carrier Verizon, Sprint) and the service is good.
BOTTOM LINE: GREAT PHONE, POOR SERVICE, CUSTOMERS BEING TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF BY AT&T.
If AT&T changes their TOS and I don't agree with it I assume I will be able to cancel out of the contract. I know a friend who had a phone with another wireless carrier who did just that. Because of the change he was able to cancel the contract without a fee where normally he would have had a fee.
READ the article again S-L-O-W-L-Y and don't ASSuME anything. I doubt you could cancel because according to the article, the new TOS applies to new sales not existing contracts.
Is that because AT&Tat $325 isn't charging enough and you want to be with a company that has a $350 EEF?
Quote:
Originally Posted by dbtinc
Been on the fence about dumping ATT and now that Android is a viable option this helped me make up my mind. When my contract's up ATT is history. Hello to Verizon.
"Wireless phone carrier AT&T within a weeks time hemorrhaged overt 85% of it's smartphone customers. Again, we find it amazing for this to have happened within the span of ONE WEEK!"
This is proof of three things: (1) Verizon will get the new iPhone. (2) AT&T is afraid of the Verizon iPhone. (3) AT&T is truly evil. Almost as evil as Google and Microsoft combined. I mean, almost doubling the termination fee because people will want to switch to a phone carrier that works?
Have some friends that work at Apple. They have the android and love it. Hmm. Does anyone know if you can unlock the iPhone to be used with metropcs. They have crazy low prices but because I never hear anyone talk about it, it makes me wonder though. GWNLUD
Even when you mark the spot nothing gets done. AT&T should be smart enough to want to keep the customers and improve the service in the cities that have the most problems such as NEW YORK, CALIFORNIA etc.
AT&T is trying to lock customers in by raising its ETF. But believe me people will pay if the IPHONE comes to another carrier Verizon, Sprint) and the service is good.
BOTTOM LINE: GREAT PHONE, POOR SERVICE, CUSTOMERS BEING TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF BY AT&T.
Plus their plans stink. I hardly ever use it for web and no free text messages which doesn't cost them anything to provide. I wish we would have goverment regulation, let's face it, no one hardly has a land line except businesses o it should be regulated and a utiliy, like land lines once were, This and the Internet.
Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and Adolf Hitler were evil, AT&T on the other hand, no way. They aren't doing anything that any other (large) corporation isn't doing, trying to protect their business and their profits. Does that make them greedy? Perhaps. Does that make them evil? Not by a long shot.
Perhaps not but I live in Pasadena California and can drop 2-4 calls a day. When I drive to certain spots on Allen ave, the call will always drop. I get full bars outside my parking garage which has no door and room for 4 cars in the complex, yet when I pull into the garage, the call, 100% of the time, even though I have 5 bars, will drop the call. Plus, where's all the insurance we used to have??? At least offer it to 4 to 5 years users. Evil no but they could lower the plans, halve the data plan price and since text uses packets that cost them nothing, we should get at least 2 to 300 free texts and receiving texts from others should be based on how many time per month they text you and if I send my wife a text, that should count as ine text nit 2, one, me sending 2, her receiving so why they might nit be evil better the pricing on some of these things so we can get mire people to join, then fix the problems we do have.
In Europe, all incoming calls and texts are free. Even if you are on pay as you go and you are out of credit, your phone will still receive calls and texts for 6 months and they are free. That must be more of that socialism nobody wants.
...Evil no but they could lower the plans, halve the data plan price and since text uses packets that cost them nothing, we should get at least 2 to 300 free texts...
While I don't see AT&T halving their data plan rates, I can certainly see them offering some kind of incentive to keep as many iPhone customers from jumping ship if/when the iPhones finally opens up to Verizon. I imagine that the $325 ETF will be enough to keep many/most iPhone customers still bound by their 2 year contracts from jumping ship, but it'll be a whole other story for those who've satisfied their contracts.
I've said this before, but I'll be staying with AT&T as I can't complain about my AT&T coverage or service. My neighbors with Verizon service still can't get decent coverage at home and it's already been a year and a half since I left V. Good thing I didn't hold out hoping they'd put up a tower or something.
You pay for your food, and, if you want to finish it later, they'll wrap it up for you - a "doggie bag" to take home! That's how it works in US. I don't know if they have that concept in other countries! How stupid it would be if the restaurant told you:
Bad example. It'd be like going to that restaurant and ordering mussels. But you only want ONE, and you expect to be able to come back the next day and get the second a week later you'd like them to cook you one more, and so on.
An ongoing service is being provided by ATT, you don't have the right to use their services at your leisure.
In Europe, all incoming calls and texts are free. Even if you are on pay as you go and you are out of credit, your phone will still receive calls and texts for 6 months and they are free. That must be more of that socialism nobody wants.
And in the USA we generally get far more than double the texts and minutes when we pay for them. It washes out. If they charged us in the US 5 minutes per call, but gave us 5000 minutes for $60, we'd still be just fine.
We look at your tariffs and see, like, 200 minutes for $30 a month and say, how in the world would anyone want that few minutes? Then we're reminded that you don't pay for incoming minutes, and that in the end it all works out for everyone. Just different billing systems, not different actual usage amounts.
2. AT&T (dunno about V) has a pro-rated ETF so it goes down by what $13 a month on a 2 year contract?
No...it only goes down by $5 a month and only if your contract started after May of 2008. So even though you're on a 2-year contract, it takes 35 months to work down the ETF, but that was based on the $175 ETF. So if you cancel after the 2-year contract is over, you would still theoretically owe $55.
Based on $325 (and assuming it still goes down by $5 a month), you would theoretically still owe $205 if you cancelled at the end of a 2-year contract. I don't even see how this is legal as you've fulfilled the terms of the contract. If they are, in essence, forcing you to stay on in order not to owe the $205, then it's not really a 2-year contract, is it? -- it's at least a 3-year contract.
IMO, this is absurd. If you have a 2-year contract than the ETF should be completely amortized over the two years. And if you sign a new contract without getting a new phone, there should not be a new ETF. In fact, if you don't get a new phone, you shouldn't have to sign a contract at all - the contract should be month to month because you've already fulfilled the obligations of the original contract.
Does AT&T really think that making your customers hate you is a good strategy for growth? They can't compete on service quality, so instead they'll just make it hard to leave?
And for the record (and as I've posted elsewhere), I was in London two weeks ago and I was absolutely shocked at how well my iPhone 3G worked roaming over O2. Much better performance all around than as compared with using the phone in New York. No dropped calls, very high call quality, far faster 3G service than in New York and the phone worked almost everywhere - even on most underground stations and trains. In New York, it frequently can take five minutes to send a single short email, which always seemed to me like a bug in the phone. In London, they always were sent instantaneously. Any suspicions I had that some of the issues were in the iPhone itself were completely erased: the problem is most definitely AT&T.
Based on $325 (and assuming it still goes down by $5 a month), you would theoretically still owe $205 if you cancelled at the end of a 2-year contract.
1) With the $175 ETF it drops off $5/month. With the $325 ETF it drops off $10/month.
2) If you fulfill your contract the ETF is no more. Think of it as the last month the ETF dropping $65 or $95 depending on if you had the $175 ETF or $325 ETF, respectively.
Off topic, but do you use Mark the Spot to let them know where the service fails? Just curious, not defending. Sucks that you have to go to Verizon. They are more expensive, generally.
My Verizon plan was much less expensive than my AT&T iPhone plan. I don't remember the exact numbers but at least $20 difference, probably because you can get a plan with fewer minutes on Verizon as compared with AT&T.
How can you use Mark the Spot when the service fails if you don't have service in that spot? I loaded that stupid application onto my phone, then quickly realized it was completely worthless. Besides, I'm sure AT&T knows exactly how much traffic they're carrying and has equipment that tells them how many drops and uncompleted calls there are.
I will give them some credit: for the longest time, my phone didn't work at all on Fifth Avenue in the 30s and 40s in NYC and the phone does now seem to work there. But it still doesn't work on the promenade in Battery Park City, in spite of the fact that it shows multiple bars. And as I've posted elsewhere in more detail, I was in London a few weeks ago and the phone worked just great, far better than with AT&T in NYC.
If AT&T was concerned about keeping people from switching to another carrier and/or attracting new customers, they should simply allow Skype over 3G. All they would be losing is international fees. Most international users already circumvent that situation using wireless or other alternatives. The benefits of offering Skype would be that it would take some load off the voice services, but more importantly, it would significantly increase the company's popularity.
I'm pretty satisfied with my current AT&T service but I do use Skype a lot for international calls so it would be an awesome upgrade to be able to use it over 3G.
I would just like something more transparent in terms of phone pricing. Basically any phones that you get that are less than their marked full price, should be described as "paid for in instalments" and what you owe depends on the remaining unpaid amount, much like a hire-purchase car. The idea of a fixed remaining fee, is just absurd IMHO.
If you pay full price for a phone then it should not be provider-locked.
This is one place that I would like to see regulation step in.
Right, this makes sense ???? - Because AT&T raised their ETF to $325 your going to jump to a carrier whose ETF is $350. Your the kind of customer that Verison likes - unaware.
It's definitely time for the government to step in here and step up the regulation of the wireless industry, putting an end to this sort of nonsense, and tightly controlling what fees may be charged and what those fees may be, and, generally, how customers may be treated.
I think you are right that it won't launch immediately with Verizon. If so, then this announcement wouldn't help AT&T, since they say existing customers won't have their fees doubled. But if AT&T knew verizon wasn't getting it for a few months more, then this would help lock in any new customers/contracts that sign up for the 4G.
Locking in the early new adopters of the 4g, and those 3G owners looking for an upgrade is the best source of contracts for AT&T. They already got the low hanging fruit and it is doubtful many Verizon customers will switch over.
No...it only goes down by $5 a month and only if your contract started after May of 2008. So even though you're on a 2-year contract, it takes 35 months to work down the ETF, but that was based on the $175 ETF. So if you cancel after the 2-year contract is over, you would still theoretically owe $55.
Based on $325 (and assuming it still goes down by $5 a month), you would theoretically still owe $205 if you cancelled at the end of a 2-year contract. I don't even see how this is legal as you've fulfilled the terms of the contract. If they are, in essence, forcing you to stay on in order not to owe the $205, then it's not really a 2-year contract, is it? -- it's at least a 3-year contract.
IMO, this is absurd. If you have a 2-year contract than the ETF should be completely amortized over the two years. And if you sign a new contract without getting a new phone, there should not be a new ETF. In fact, if you don't get a new phone, you shouldn't have to sign a contract at all - the contract should be month to month because you've already fulfilled the obligations of the original contract.
Does AT&T really think that making your customers hate you is a good strategy for growth? They can't compete on service quality, so instead they'll just make it hard to leave?
And for the record (and as I've posted elsewhere), I was in London two weeks ago and I was absolutely shocked at how well my iPhone 3G worked roaming over O2. Much better performance all around than as compared with using the phone in New York. No dropped calls, very high call quality, far faster 3G service than in New York and the phone worked almost everywhere - even on most underground stations and trains. In New York, it frequently can take five minutes to send a single short email, which always seemed to me like a bug in the phone. In London, they always were sent instantaneously. Any suspicions I had that some of the issues were in the iPhone itself were completely erased: the problem is most definitely AT&T.
Well if they 'compete on service quality' AT&T has nothing to lose. According to Consumer Reports and many people on this forum they're at the bottom.
And here's AT&T logic: People are buying the Iphone not for the calling capability but for the 3G WI-Fi internet capabilty. They realize that People want the IPHONE not AT&T. As long as they were the exclusive carrier no problem. Now as the exclusivity comes to end they are starting to build their revenue streams in preparation. The funny part is you would think that they would improve their service so that customers would want to stay.
AT&T before the IPHONE was on the way out and when the exclusivity ends they'll be on the same road again...........DOWNHILL
Comments
Off topic, but do you use Mark the Spot to let them know where the service fails? Just curious, not defending. Sucks that you have to go to Verizon. They are more expensive, generally.
Even when you mark the spot nothing gets done. AT&T should be smart enough to want to keep the customers and improve the service in the cities that have the most problems such as NEW YORK, CALIFORNIA etc.
AT&T is trying to lock customers in by raising its ETF. But believe me people will pay if the IPHONE comes to another carrier Verizon, Sprint) and the service is good.
BOTTOM LINE: GREAT PHONE, POOR SERVICE, CUSTOMERS BEING TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF BY AT&T.
If AT&T changes their TOS and I don't agree with it I assume I will be able to cancel out of the contract. I know a friend who had a phone with another wireless carrier who did just that. Because of the change he was able to cancel the contract without a fee where normally he would have had a fee.
READ the article again S-L-O-W-L-Y and don't ASSuME anything. I doubt you could cancel because according to the article, the new TOS applies to new sales not existing contracts.
Been on the fence about dumping ATT and now that Android is a viable option this helped me make up my mind. When my contract's up ATT is history. Hello to Verizon.
More at eleven.
This is proof of three things: (1) Verizon will get the new iPhone. (2) AT&T is afraid of the Verizon iPhone. (3) AT&T is truly evil. Almost as evil as Google and Microsoft combined. I mean, almost doubling the termination fee because people will want to switch to a phone carrier that works?
Have some friends that work at Apple. They have the android and love it. Hmm. Does anyone know if you can unlock the iPhone to be used with metropcs. They have crazy low prices but because I never hear anyone talk about it, it makes me wonder though. GWNLUD
Even when you mark the spot nothing gets done. AT&T should be smart enough to want to keep the customers and improve the service in the cities that have the most problems such as NEW YORK, CALIFORNIA etc.
AT&T is trying to lock customers in by raising its ETF. But believe me people will pay if the IPHONE comes to another carrier Verizon, Sprint) and the service is good.
BOTTOM LINE: GREAT PHONE, POOR SERVICE, CUSTOMERS BEING TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF BY AT&T.
Plus their plans stink. I hardly ever use it for web and no free text messages which doesn't cost them anything to provide. I wish we would have goverment regulation, let's face it, no one hardly has a land line except businesses o it should be regulated and a utiliy, like land lines once were, This and the Internet.
Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and Adolf Hitler were evil, AT&T on the other hand, no way. They aren't doing anything that any other (large) corporation isn't doing, trying to protect their business and their profits. Does that make them greedy? Perhaps. Does that make them evil? Not by a long shot.
Perhaps not but I live in Pasadena California and can drop 2-4 calls a day. When I drive to certain spots on Allen ave, the call will always drop. I get full bars outside my parking garage which has no door and room for 4 cars in the complex, yet when I pull into the garage, the call, 100% of the time, even though I have 5 bars, will drop the call. Plus, where's all the insurance we used to have??? At least offer it to 4 to 5 years users. Evil no but they could lower the plans, halve the data plan price and since text uses packets that cost them nothing, we should get at least 2 to 300 free texts and receiving texts from others should be based on how many time per month they text you and if I send my wife a text, that should count as ine text nit 2, one, me sending 2, her receiving so why they might nit be evil better the pricing on some of these things so we can get mire people to join, then fix the problems we do have.
...Evil no but they could lower the plans, halve the data plan price and since text uses packets that cost them nothing, we should get at least 2 to 300 free texts...
While I don't see AT&T halving their data plan rates, I can certainly see them offering some kind of incentive to keep as many iPhone customers from jumping ship if/when the iPhones finally opens up to Verizon. I imagine that the $325 ETF will be enough to keep many/most iPhone customers still bound by their 2 year contracts from jumping ship, but it'll be a whole other story for those who've satisfied their contracts.
I've said this before, but I'll be staying with AT&T as I can't complain about my AT&T coverage or service. My neighbors with Verizon service still can't get decent coverage at home and it's already been a year and a half since I left V. Good thing I didn't hold out hoping they'd put up a tower or something.
You pay for your food, and, if you want to finish it later, they'll wrap it up for you - a "doggie bag" to take home! That's how it works in US. I don't know if they have that concept in other countries! How stupid it would be if the restaurant told you:
Bad example. It'd be like going to that restaurant and ordering mussels. But you only want ONE, and you expect to be able to come back the next day and get the second a week later you'd like them to cook you one more, and so on.
An ongoing service is being provided by ATT, you don't have the right to use their services at your leisure.
In Europe, all incoming calls and texts are free. Even if you are on pay as you go and you are out of credit, your phone will still receive calls and texts for 6 months and they are free. That must be more of that socialism nobody wants.
And in the USA we generally get far more than double the texts and minutes when we pay for them. It washes out. If they charged us in the US 5 minutes per call, but gave us 5000 minutes for $60, we'd still be just fine.
We look at your tariffs and see, like, 200 minutes for $30 a month and say, how in the world would anyone want that few minutes? Then we're reminded that you don't pay for incoming minutes, and that in the end it all works out for everyone. Just different billing systems, not different actual usage amounts.
As others have said, this is really a non-issue.
2. AT&T (dunno about V) has a pro-rated ETF so it goes down by what $13 a month on a 2 year contract?
No...it only goes down by $5 a month and only if your contract started after May of 2008. So even though you're on a 2-year contract, it takes 35 months to work down the ETF, but that was based on the $175 ETF. So if you cancel after the 2-year contract is over, you would still theoretically owe $55.
Based on $325 (and assuming it still goes down by $5 a month), you would theoretically still owe $205 if you cancelled at the end of a 2-year contract. I don't even see how this is legal as you've fulfilled the terms of the contract. If they are, in essence, forcing you to stay on in order not to owe the $205, then it's not really a 2-year contract, is it? -- it's at least a 3-year contract.
IMO, this is absurd. If you have a 2-year contract than the ETF should be completely amortized over the two years. And if you sign a new contract without getting a new phone, there should not be a new ETF. In fact, if you don't get a new phone, you shouldn't have to sign a contract at all - the contract should be month to month because you've already fulfilled the obligations of the original contract.
Does AT&T really think that making your customers hate you is a good strategy for growth? They can't compete on service quality, so instead they'll just make it hard to leave?
And for the record (and as I've posted elsewhere), I was in London two weeks ago and I was absolutely shocked at how well my iPhone 3G worked roaming over O2. Much better performance all around than as compared with using the phone in New York. No dropped calls, very high call quality, far faster 3G service than in New York and the phone worked almost everywhere - even on most underground stations and trains. In New York, it frequently can take five minutes to send a single short email, which always seemed to me like a bug in the phone. In London, they always were sent instantaneously. Any suspicions I had that some of the issues were in the iPhone itself were completely erased: the problem is most definitely AT&T.
Based on $325 (and assuming it still goes down by $5 a month), you would theoretically still owe $205 if you cancelled at the end of a 2-year contract.
1) With the $175 ETF it drops off $5/month. With the $325 ETF it drops off $10/month.
2) If you fulfill your contract the ETF is no more. Think of it as the last month the ETF dropping $65 or $95 depending on if you had the $175 ETF or $325 ETF, respectively.
Off topic, but do you use Mark the Spot to let them know where the service fails? Just curious, not defending. Sucks that you have to go to Verizon. They are more expensive, generally.
My Verizon plan was much less expensive than my AT&T iPhone plan. I don't remember the exact numbers but at least $20 difference, probably because you can get a plan with fewer minutes on Verizon as compared with AT&T.
How can you use Mark the Spot when the service fails if you don't have service in that spot? I loaded that stupid application onto my phone, then quickly realized it was completely worthless. Besides, I'm sure AT&T knows exactly how much traffic they're carrying and has equipment that tells them how many drops and uncompleted calls there are.
I will give them some credit: for the longest time, my phone didn't work at all on Fifth Avenue in the 30s and 40s in NYC and the phone does now seem to work there. But it still doesn't work on the promenade in Battery Park City, in spite of the fact that it shows multiple bars. And as I've posted elsewhere in more detail, I was in London a few weeks ago and the phone worked just great, far better than with AT&T in NYC.
I'm pretty satisfied with my current AT&T service but I do use Skype a lot for international calls so it would be an awesome upgrade to be able to use it over 3G.
If you pay full price for a phone then it should not be provider-locked.
This is one place that I would like to see regulation step in.
Right, this makes sense ???? - Because AT&T raised their ETF to $325 your going to jump to a carrier whose ETF is $350. Your the kind of customer that Verison likes - unaware.
Agreed.
I think you are right that it won't launch immediately with Verizon. If so, then this announcement wouldn't help AT&T, since they say existing customers won't have their fees doubled. But if AT&T knew verizon wasn't getting it for a few months more, then this would help lock in any new customers/contracts that sign up for the 4G.
Locking in the early new adopters of the 4g, and those 3G owners looking for an upgrade is the best source of contracts for AT&T. They already got the low hanging fruit and it is doubtful many Verizon customers will switch over.
No...it only goes down by $5 a month and only if your contract started after May of 2008. So even though you're on a 2-year contract, it takes 35 months to work down the ETF, but that was based on the $175 ETF. So if you cancel after the 2-year contract is over, you would still theoretically owe $55.
Based on $325 (and assuming it still goes down by $5 a month), you would theoretically still owe $205 if you cancelled at the end of a 2-year contract. I don't even see how this is legal as you've fulfilled the terms of the contract. If they are, in essence, forcing you to stay on in order not to owe the $205, then it's not really a 2-year contract, is it? -- it's at least a 3-year contract.
IMO, this is absurd. If you have a 2-year contract than the ETF should be completely amortized over the two years. And if you sign a new contract without getting a new phone, there should not be a new ETF. In fact, if you don't get a new phone, you shouldn't have to sign a contract at all - the contract should be month to month because you've already fulfilled the obligations of the original contract.
Does AT&T really think that making your customers hate you is a good strategy for growth? They can't compete on service quality, so instead they'll just make it hard to leave?
And for the record (and as I've posted elsewhere), I was in London two weeks ago and I was absolutely shocked at how well my iPhone 3G worked roaming over O2. Much better performance all around than as compared with using the phone in New York. No dropped calls, very high call quality, far faster 3G service than in New York and the phone worked almost everywhere - even on most underground stations and trains. In New York, it frequently can take five minutes to send a single short email, which always seemed to me like a bug in the phone. In London, they always were sent instantaneously. Any suspicions I had that some of the issues were in the iPhone itself were completely erased: the problem is most definitely AT&T.
Well if they 'compete on service quality' AT&T has nothing to lose. According to Consumer Reports and many people on this forum they're at the bottom.
And here's AT&T logic: People are buying the Iphone not for the calling capability but for the 3G WI-Fi internet capabilty. They realize that People want the IPHONE not AT&T. As long as they were the exclusive carrier no problem. Now as the exclusivity comes to end they are starting to build their revenue streams in preparation. The funny part is you would think that they would improve their service so that customers would want to stay.
AT&T before the IPHONE was on the way out and when the exclusivity ends they'll be on the same road again...........DOWNHILL