iPhone data use measured, carriers want Apple to pay for network upgrades

13567

Comments

  • Reply 41 of 135
    chronsterchronster Posts: 1,894member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleZilla View Post


    'Apple, you're making us rich with your revolutionary, insanely popular product. Please pay us.'



    Sounds like the top 2% whining to retain their tax cuts over here. We are in our second Gilded Age, but they want more.



    The issue however is that they aren't getting rich. I know AI has posted articles on this phenomenon. They sell millions of iphones, but don't see a profit like any of us would assume.



    As to the taxes thing, there's no argument here. If the rich want lower taxes, we should find ways to pay for it first, like limiting military spending, BUT I DIGRESS
  • Reply 42 of 135
    cmf2cmf2 Posts: 1,427member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by chronster View Post


    But you're paying for potential data, and from the carrier's standpoint, you WOULDN'T have used that data had you not tethered. So in their eyes, it's better that you only got to 1GB with a phone, rather than get to your cap with tethering. Getting to 2Gb with the phone is fair as it's part of the contract. Spread across millions of users, this way of thinking makes sense also.



    Now a TRUE "don't care if you tether" scenario would be if you paid for the bandwidth based on how much you used. like $10 a GB for instance, broken down to pennies on the KB.



    If you advertise X GB for Y dollars, you should be prepared to offer X GB for Y dollars. Period. Tethering isn't a feature the carriers provide, it is a feature inherent to the phone. Tethered data is still data consumed by the phone, so it should be part of that contract. It's no different from using a router at home. My ISP doesn't charge me an additional fee for me letting my laptop tap into my WiFi.



    Consumers don't need to concern themselves with what usage models the carrier uses to determine how much data will actually be consumed. That is the carriers responsibility. They are responsible for delivering on what they promised to deliver. If they can't deliver, they shouldn't have offered it.
  • Reply 43 of 135
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cmf2 View Post


    If you advertise X GB for Y dollars, you should be prepared to offer X GB for Y dollars. Period. Tethering isn't a feature the carriers provide, it is a feature inherent to the phone. Tethered data is still data consumed by the phone, so it should be part of that contract. It's no different from using a router at home. My ISP doesn't charge me an additional fee for me letting my laptop tap into my WiFi.



    Consumers don't need to concern themselves with what usage models the carrier uses to determine how much data will actually be consumed. That is the carriers responsibility. They are responsible for delivering on what they promised to deliver. If they can't deliver, they shouldn't have offered it.



    So Unlimited data that specifically excluded tethering should allow all users the right to tether their phone to any number of household computers without the carrier being able to cancel your contract for misuse?



    I wonder how your cable company would feel about running additional coax to connect the rest of your neighborhood for free. Hey, you already paid for the service and it’s not like it costs them anything else to push those analog channels to your home.



    As much as I’d like to see tethering included in a capped plan, Chronster is correct, they probably would have to raise the monthly data rates to maintain the same profits. By disallowing tethering they can keep the cost down as most people simply aren’t going to use that service.
  • Reply 44 of 135
    dreyfus2dreyfus2 Posts: 1,072member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by chronster View Post


    So Apple demands heavy subsidies be paid by the carriers, along with a share in the revenue.



    Proving something that is all wrong by quoting an article that is all wrong does not really work. Apple demanded revenue sharing instead of subsidies from AT&T for the original iPhone in 2007. This model was dropped in 2008 for the iPhone 3G.



    Don't make it more difficult than needed: carriers buy iPhones at the price Apple is asking, some carriers may receive volume discounts or a rebate for providing first tier support. Apple has no influence on the price the carriers charge, they might enforce that at least one tariff has to match the $199/$299 US pricing though. But even that does not seem to be true in markets with more than one carrier. E.g. some carriers here do not subsidize the iPhone at all, you have to buy it unlocked at the full retail price (up front or in monthly installments).
  • Reply 45 of 135
    The people using the bandwidth should pay for the bandwidth, end of story.



    If Apple makes devices that use more bandwidth, then the customers who use those devices on the network should pay more for their bandwidth usage, not Apple.



    If it's legitimate bandwidth usage by the device, then then customer should expect to pay more. If Apple manufactured a faulty device that used more bandwidth than necessary to accomplish a task, then the free market will take care of the matter?less customers will purchase that device, and Apple will have an incentive to improve its product.
  • Reply 46 of 135
    chronsterchronster Posts: 1,894member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cmf2 View Post


    If you advertise X GB for Y dollars, you should be prepared to offer X GB for Y dollars. Period. Tethering isn't a feature the carriers provide, it is a feature inherent to the phone. Tethered data is still data consumed by the phone, so it should be part of that contract. It's no different from using a router at home. My ISP doesn't charge me an additional fee for me letting my laptop tap into my WiFi.



    Consumers don't need to concern themselves with what usage models the carrier uses to determine how much data will actually be consumed. That is the carriers responsibility. They are responsible for delivering on what they promised to deliver. If they can't deliver, they shouldn't have offered it.



    (please keep in mind as you read my comment, I agree with you)



    Think of it like this: A 2GB cap at a certain price might in reality actually cost more if every single person really did use 2GB each month. The reason the carriers put in stipulations about tethering is because they are taking a small gamble with that cost in order to stay competitive. The gamble is that every customer won't reach that cap with a just a phone, and therefore they can base their pricing on these predictions. When you add tethering, you're not only adding another method of consuming bandwidth, you're adding a method that will consume bandwidth more easily than a phone, and the chances of customers reaching that 2GB cap goes up.



    So what I'm saying is, even though carriers sell data capped at 2GB, the cost doesn't reflect every customer using 100% of their data each month. The cost reflects projections made to keep the price competitive.
  • Reply 47 of 135
    thomprthompr Posts: 1,521member
    ... perhaps Apple will say, "We'll be happy to help you with the upgrade and maintenance of your infrastructure in return for a percentage of your subscription fees."



    Thompson
  • Reply 48 of 135
    tzeshantzeshan Posts: 2,351member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by derekmorr View Post


    Wrong.



    Actually, carriers can disable tethering on Android. Since Android is open, the carriers can change any part of it that they like (and the often do).



    I think you are wrong. When an Android OS based smartphone is being used as an internet gateway for other devices, the cell phone carrier can not know it.
  • Reply 49 of 135
    Maybe if the BODs cut the CEO's pay they'd have some left for upgrades to their systems.
  • Reply 50 of 135
    chronsterchronster Posts: 1,894member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tzeshan View Post


    I think you are wrong. When an Android OS based smartphone is being used as an internet gateway for other devices, the cell phone carrier can not know it.



    You're both right. Carriers by default disable tethering, but some add their own applications in that allow tethering depending on if your account information says you're paying for it, and these apps allow the carriers to track how much bandwidth you've moved with tethering alone.



    However, when you root your phone, you gain access to system files that tethering apps need. This is when the carriers can't track if you're tethering or not (using a third party app) so they simply use common sense and look at your bandwidth usage, and browsing history.



    If you go from 1GB on average a month to suddenly over 10gb, and they see that you've been transferring torrent files for instance, they'll flag the account.



    The trick is to simply limit what you're doing when you tether and not do something stupid like use your phone to download movies over night.
  • Reply 51 of 135
    dreyfus2dreyfus2 Posts: 1,072member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cmf2 View Post


    If you advertise X GB for Y dollars, you should be prepared to offer X GB for Y dollars. Period. Tethering isn't a feature the carriers provide, it is a feature inherent to the phone. Tethered data is still data consumed by the phone, so it should be part of that contract. It's no different from using a router at home. My ISP doesn't charge me an additional fee for me letting my laptop tap into my WiFi.



    I am the last one to defend the carriers, but that picture is not really complete. Volume is only one aspect, usage patterns are the other one. There are devices that are commonly using low amounts of data that accumulates over time (e.g. conventional mobiles) and there are devices that consume huge loads of data in no time (set-top boxes, computers). In other words: it makes a difference if I accumulate 2GB of email on a Blackberry over 30 days, or if I consume the same 2GB by downloading 4 issues of Wired to my iPad in one hour. Current mobile networks have not been designed to support the latter, and in several places phones like the iPhone (and others) have caused network management issues.



    Still, instead of whining and begging for more money, the carriers should be transparent about these things first. If my contract says: 2GB/month with 100MB/day maximum (just an example), I might not like it, but at least I know what I am buying and might decide to buy a more expensive contract without such a limitation.
  • Reply 52 of 135
    john.bjohn.b Posts: 2,742member




    Maybe some of European carriers need to examine their business models?
  • Reply 53 of 135
    If that's their benchmark then DUH! Of course usage is up by a gajillion. Anyone on a 3G has surely become eligible and used the upgrade to a 3GS at the very least if not an iPhone 4. Another totally stupid "report" from so called 'analysts.'
  • Reply 54 of 135
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by John.B View Post






    Maybe some of European carriers need to examine their business models?



    I have to wonder how much longer smaller nations with full high-speed data cellular coverage keep offering unlimited data with all these newer smartphone OSes sucking more and more bandwidth. The US might have been the first nation to see their large networks strain under the under the growing number of smartphone users, but I don?t anyone expected them to be the last.



    The Malthusian growth model might be applicable here. If smartphone users are, say, doubling on a network every year, and the data usage is, say, doubling per user every year, that would be a 4x growth in data usage per year. Each of those single aspects seem reasonable to me, but a carrier quad-rupling their total bandwidth capacity every year doesn?t seem feasible. Hopefully someone with more maths than me can break it down more accurately.
  • Reply 55 of 135
    cmf2cmf2 Posts: 1,427member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    So Unlimited data that specifically excluded tethering should allow all users the right to tether their phone to any number of household computers without the carrier being able to cancel your contract for misuse?



    It's not the carriers responsibility to tell you how to use your* phone. Perhaps them offering unlimited data was the mistake. Even residential ISP's have methods to prevent abuse of "unlimited" data though. Perhaps they could try some of those (as long as they are clearly noted in the contract) instead of dictating how you use your phone, which isn't a valid method.



    *The question of whether or not a subsidized phone is actually yours is really the only possible way to justify allowing carriers to dictate how a phone is used. If it's yours, they have no say. If it's theirs they may have a say. The simple solution would be to not subsidize phones that offered tethering. Carriers have done a few irresponsible things over the years to encourage sales, two of them would be subsidies and "unlimited" plans. If those things come back to bite them in the ass it's their own damn fault. They are responsible for delivering the product they advertised.
  • Reply 56 of 135
    Let's see

    - I have a product I want to sell.

    - A third party comes along and provides a huge marketing boost so I can sell A LOT of my product

    - I have a capacity problem therefore...

    - I charge the third party for helping me out??????



    This is the strangest business model I've ever seen. There are sooo many better solutions the easiest of which is tiered usage. If it really costs so much then charge more!!!!



    I can see NO VALID argument against tiered usage if it costs more money to provide it. The carriers started with excess capacity and used a shortcut - give it away - to get customers. Now they have to change. Very very simple.
  • Reply 57 of 135
    newbeenewbee Posts: 2,055member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by chronster View Post


    Looks like I wasn't entirely wrong, and the only insult that should be made right now should be directed at you.



    Oops!



    The bottom line is this: AT&T profits up 25 percent on wireless growth



    Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-10...#ixzz17Xo9DkTw



    For every story there is another (and opposite) story
  • Reply 58 of 135
    Carriers are dipsh$ts. I'm already paying for data. Where I get my data is irrelevant. Sounds just like Comcast vs Netflix trying to double dip in order to deliver movies requested by Comcast's own paying customers
  • Reply 59 of 135
    cmf2cmf2 Posts: 1,427member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dreyfus2 View Post


    I am the last one to defend the carriers, but that picture is not really complete. Volume is only one aspect, usage patterns are the other one. There are devices that are commonly using low amounts of data that accumulates over time (e.g. conventional mobiles) and there are devices that consume huge loads of data in no time (set-top boxes, computers). In other words: it makes a difference if I accumulate 2GB of email on a Blackberry over 30 days, or if I consume the same 2GB by downloading 4 issues of Wired to my iPad in one hour. Current mobile networks have not been designed to support the latter, and in several places phones like the iPhone (and others) have caused network management issues.



    Still, instead of whining and begging for more money, the carriers should be transparent about these things first. If my contract says: 2GB/month with 100MB/day maximum (just an example), I might not like it, but at least I know what I am buying and might decide to buy a more expensive contract without such a limitation.



    All I've been saying is that it's the carriers responsibility to deliver what they advertise. If that's what they advertised, I'd have no qualms with them delivering that to whomever chose to pay for such a plan.



    It's not the consumers job to feel pity for the wireless carriers if they make some bad decisions, they definitely don't take pity on the consumer.
  • Reply 60 of 135
    Why would Apple pay for carriers to upgrade their networks??? If The carriers were properly maintaining their networks they wouldn't have to worry about this new phase of Smartphones. Unfortunately, most carriers are playing catch up at a higher cost now than it would have been before.
Sign In or Register to comment.