The hard truth is that all modern telephone systems are IP (or some sort of data) telephone systems. If you make a phone call from your cell phone, it becomes a data (ie 1's and 0's) call as soon as it hits the tower. The only difference is if you send it as a data packet from your phone, or AT&T does it after it hits their equipment.
It's all a scam and a rip off.
??? "Packets" are synonymous with well... "packet switching" rather than circuit switching. Packet switching is, in turn, almost synonymous with Internet Protocol (IP).
GSM uses circuit switching. LTE uses packet switching. The backbone of much of AT&T's telephony services is IP based already though.
"So we will be looking for ways to continue to squeeze (additional) revenue from users as this comes to fruition", he stated.
How else can AT&T increase shareholder value without becoming a monopoly or branching into fast food retail (there are things they can do but apparently they don't see that)?
Here's the problem I have with video calling: It means I need to get dressed, maybe take a shower or brush my hair, possibly shave -- whatever.
If someone calls me 1/2-hour after I get up, and I'm still a mess, I definitely wouldn't want to talk to more than maybe two people in that state. And I know women who wouldn't feel comfortable without make-up, etc.
well seeing that you're such a putz, I wonder how many incoming calls you get anyway.
I use less than 2 hours of talk time per month. I do everything via text, email, and iMessages, yet I also manage to stay below the $30/mo 2GB data cap. often I use less than 1GB of data in a month.
I wish they'd have sub-tiers within their voice and data plans for people like me.
The hard truth is that all modern telephone systems are IP (or some sort of data) telephone systems. If you make a phone call from your cell phone, it becomes a data (ie 1's and 0's) call as soon as it hits the tower. The only difference is if you send it as a data packet from your phone, or AT&T does it after it hits their equipment.
It's all a scam and a rip off.
the hard truth is that you are simply wrong, you do not understand telephone systems
whilst the bulk of voice traffic is digitized, it is not as simple as 1s and 0s, time is of the essence
it's not just bandwidth, the latency, jitter and packet loss need to be controlled, otherwise call quality plummets or the call is dropped completely
building a network able to sustain decent quality voice, manage congestion, and interoperate with all the other telco networks, is a far more sophisticated and expensive exercise than a plain ip data network where high levels of latency and jitter will have no effect on most traffic and network packet loss is recovered (eventually) by the higher layer protocol
at&t and all the other telcos have invested hundreds of billions to create networks combining the necessary performance with extreme levels of resilience, and (aside from when governments interfere) anyone on the phone network can talk to anyone else, no walled gardens
with the plain old telephone system, picking up a handset and not getting dial tone was an experience that i'd bet the majority of people in the developed world never experienced in their lifetimes
the same cannot be said for the average isp, and anyone using a mobile phone or other gsm/3g/whatever device will have experienced poor/no coverage, or problems when traffic volume overloads local base stations
most of the ip voice i've used sucks, either because it's via an internet service where there's no/inadequate qos assurance, or in the case of enterprise voip they've simply pennypinched on the bandwidth - beancounters see only money to be saved, they do not care if thousands of personnel get poor call quality
if the telcos can't find a way to retain/grow revenue, they won't be able to maintain and enhance their networks, then the price we all pay will be low reliability, poor quality, and perhaps even fragmentation into isolated voice/messaging networks
most telcos do a very good job, few things in life are as reliable as the dial-tone, don't begrudge them the money
If you are off contract why can't you ask for the unlock code and use a pay as you go plan?
America. They don't give those out. And it doesn't matter, because I'd have to go with a regional carrier (or T-Mobile) that doesn't have the iPhone to be allowed to a plan without data, anyway.
America. They don't give those out. And it doesn't matter, because I'd have to go with a regional carrier (or T-Mobile) that doesn't have the iPhone to be allowed to a plan without data, anyway.
I thought AT&T was giving out the unlock codes now. You can also use AT&T pay as you go sim.
I thought AT&T was giving out the unlock codes now.
If you no longer live in the US, have finished a 2-year contract, and e-mail them to publicly draw attention to the fact that what they're doing is a scam.
Otherwise…
Quote:
You can also use AT&T pay as you go sim.
Not with an iPhone. Well, not for long. You'll get a message about a data plan added to your account at some point.
Can you point to any links about that? If you pick up a pay as you go sim at the grocery store do you even have an account?
They go by IMEI. They'll see it's an iPhone IMEI and add the data. Gotta use an "iPhone plan" with an iPhone on carriers that legitimately have an iPhone. Everyone else is fair game, but that number is dwindling.
"(A)n increasing amount of consumers will use an increasing amount of limited bandwidth which could force carriers to raise prices or find alternative solutions."
Correction... it wouldn't force carriers to raise prices. They will use any excuse they can come up with to raise already high prices!
Not sure how this company AT&T remains in business, outside of the lock that it has on the iPhone. I just disconnected my long distance and internet service due to very poor service. Half the time my DSL would lock up and AT&T would blame it on my hardware. Left all of it for the Comcast triple play and everything works now as it should. Took that $70 modem AT&T told me to buy, back to Best Buy. They throttle grandfathered users of unlimited data plans, and think that is somehow ethical to do. Their Customer Service is terrible at best, as you continue to go through long hold times and a loop after loop of bots. The one thing that they are good at is billing you for substandard service. You can bet that their billing will be on time every month, regardless of how crappy their service is.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by phasegen
The hard truth is that all modern telephone systems are IP (or some sort of data) telephone systems. If you make a phone call from your cell phone, it becomes a data (ie 1's and 0's) call as soon as it hits the tower. The only difference is if you send it as a data packet from your phone, or AT&T does it after it hits their equipment.
It's all a scam and a rip off.
??? "Packets" are synonymous with well... "packet switching" rather than circuit switching. Packet switching is, in turn, almost synonymous with Internet Protocol (IP).
GSM uses circuit switching. LTE uses packet switching. The backbone of much of AT&T's telephony services is IP based already though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris_CA
"So we will be looking for ways to continue to squeeze (additional) revenue from users as this comes to fruition", he stated.
How else can AT&T increase shareholder value without becoming a monopoly or branching into fast food retail (there are things they can do but apparently they don't see that)?
What makes a CEO get so rich. The tens of millions of dollars. And they act like they are suffering from us using data and iMessage?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kimk69
Well apple my as well just make 3 or 4G iPods instead.
I'm so sick of hearing what AT&T thinks is good.
They make me ill when I read about what the CEO has to say.
actually it's not a bad idea as long as the rates drop since voice will no longer be part of the package ... yeah, i'm sure that'll happen!
Quote:
Originally Posted by AaronJ
Here's the problem I have with video calling: It means I need to get dressed, maybe take a shower or brush my hair, possibly shave -- whatever.
If someone calls me 1/2-hour after I get up, and I'm still a mess, I definitely wouldn't want to talk to more than maybe two people in that state. And I know women who wouldn't feel comfortable without make-up, etc.
well seeing that you're such a putz, I wonder how many incoming calls you get anyway.
I use less than 2 hours of talk time per month. I do everything via text, email, and iMessages, yet I also manage to stay below the $30/mo 2GB data cap. often I use less than 1GB of data in a month.
I wish they'd have sub-tiers within their voice and data plans for people like me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phasegen
The hard truth is that all modern telephone systems are IP (or some sort of data) telephone systems. If you make a phone call from your cell phone, it becomes a data (ie 1's and 0's) call as soon as it hits the tower. The only difference is if you send it as a data packet from your phone, or AT&T does it after it hits their equipment.
It's all a scam and a rip off.
the hard truth is that you are simply wrong, you do not understand telephone systems
whilst the bulk of voice traffic is digitized, it is not as simple as 1s and 0s, time is of the essence
it's not just bandwidth, the latency, jitter and packet loss need to be controlled, otherwise call quality plummets or the call is dropped completely
building a network able to sustain decent quality voice, manage congestion, and interoperate with all the other telco networks, is a far more sophisticated and expensive exercise than a plain ip data network where high levels of latency and jitter will have no effect on most traffic and network packet loss is recovered (eventually) by the higher layer protocol
at&t and all the other telcos have invested hundreds of billions to create networks combining the necessary performance with extreme levels of resilience, and (aside from when governments interfere) anyone on the phone network can talk to anyone else, no walled gardens
with the plain old telephone system, picking up a handset and not getting dial tone was an experience that i'd bet the majority of people in the developed world never experienced in their lifetimes
the same cannot be said for the average isp, and anyone using a mobile phone or other gsm/3g/whatever device will have experienced poor/no coverage, or problems when traffic volume overloads local base stations
most of the ip voice i've used sucks, either because it's via an internet service where there's no/inadequate qos assurance, or in the case of enterprise voip they've simply pennypinched on the bandwidth - beancounters see only money to be saved, they do not care if thousands of personnel get poor call quality
if the telcos can't find a way to retain/grow revenue, they won't be able to maintain and enhance their networks, then the price we all pay will be low reliability, poor quality, and perhaps even fragmentation into isolated voice/messaging networks
most telcos do a very good job, few things in life are as reliable as the dial-tone, don't begrudge them the money
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
No, it isn't. There is no excuse for this plan apartheid. Why should I be forced to buy a different phone?
If you are off contract why can't you ask for the unlock code and use a pay as you go plan?
Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
If you are off contract why can't you ask for the unlock code and use a pay as you go plan?
America. They don't give those out. And it doesn't matter, because I'd have to go with a regional carrier (or T-Mobile) that doesn't have the iPhone to be allowed to a plan without data, anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
America. They don't give those out. And it doesn't matter, because I'd have to go with a regional carrier (or T-Mobile) that doesn't have the iPhone to be allowed to a plan without data, anyway.
I thought AT&T was giving out the unlock codes now. You can also use AT&T pay as you go sim.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
I thought AT&T was giving out the unlock codes now.
If you no longer live in the US, have finished a 2-year contract, and e-mail them to publicly draw attention to the fact that what they're doing is a scam.
Otherwise…
Quote:
You can also use AT&T pay as you go sim.
Not with an iPhone. Well, not for long. You'll get a message about a data plan added to your account at some point.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Not with an iPhone. Well, not for long. You'll get a message about a data plan added to your account at some point.
Can you point to any links about that? If you pick up a pay as you go sim at the grocery store do you even have an account?
This is what I remember reading.
http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/148611/at-ts-iphone-unlock-process-accomplished-through-apples-itunes
Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
Can you point to any links about that? If you pick up a pay as you go sim at the grocery store do you even have an account?
They go by IMEI. They'll see it's an iPhone IMEI and add the data. Gotta use an "iPhone plan" with an iPhone on carriers that legitimately have an iPhone. Everyone else is fair game, but that number is dwindling.
Crap... So it's still another two years till I finally buy an iPhone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
No, it isn't. There is no excuse for this plan apartheid. Why should I be forced to buy a different phone?
You aren't "forced" to buy a different phone. Most of those plans all come with free phones.
"(A)n increasing amount of consumers will use an increasing amount of limited bandwidth which could force carriers to raise prices or find alternative solutions."
Correction... it wouldn't force carriers to raise prices. They will use any excuse they can come up with to raise already high prices!
Not sure how this company AT&T remains in business, outside of the lock that it has on the iPhone. I just disconnected my long distance and internet service due to very poor service. Half the time my DSL would lock up and AT&T would blame it on my hardware. Left all of it for the Comcast triple play and everything works now as it should. Took that $70 modem AT&T told me to buy, back to Best Buy. They throttle grandfathered users of unlimited data plans, and think that is somehow ethical to do. Their Customer Service is terrible at best, as you continue to go through long hold times and a loop after loop of bots. The one thing that they are good at is billing you for substandard service. You can bet that their billing will be on time every month, regardless of how crappy their service is.
Stephenson can suck it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by isaidso
You aren't "forced" to buy a different phone. Most of those plans all come with free phones.
*blink*
I want an iPhone. You're misreading what I've written.
Been there, doing that right now in Finland and enjoying it. Data only subscriptions are soooooo 2008...