Believe it or not, is will actually make sense for us to finally switch off of our Unlimited plans on our iPhones. But as someone stated, you need to have a lot of devices, which we do. In our family, we have two iPads, three iPhone 4s' and a dumb phone for dad. Here is the spreadsheet on how I calculated it out. I checked our data usage and the 6GB or 10GB will work for the family, and all of currently use iTunes Match to stream too.
In short, current bill $284.97, with the 6GB plan $245, or the 10GB plan $260. Plus the more devices the better the value gets. At first glance the plan seemed ridiculous, but taking the time and really calculating it out, it makes sense, at least for us.
unless the ipads produce revenue i'm not paying data for them. i'm not that OCD and anti-social that i need to carry around a 3g ipad everywhere to kill time
If the data is "shared", why does it matter how many devices use the data? Does it somehow cost AT&T more to serve 1GB of data to two devices instead of one?
Bingo!!!
What became of the "it's your data, use it how you want".
Put bluntly, these plans suck. I was expecting to be able to add an iPad that would be able to access "my data" on my existing plan. AT&T would have sold me an iPad that I won't be buying from them under these plans and I might even have upgraded my data plan. Now I am going to be on the lookout for someone else who offers not just what I want, but what, I think, we have a right to expect. Actually, the same could be said of the mobile hot spot bit as well. It is your bandwidth and it really is none of their business which devices you utilize it on.
There should be a call for regulatory action as it is apparent that this is a monopolistic practice, at least to me, in which AT&T is engaged.
If T-Mobile, Verizon or whomever does their plans right it will be a huge opportunity for them to acquire AT&T customers.
I don't think 9GB is unfathomable. I've used as much as 100GB in a month back when I had Unlimited access. AT&T did drop me to a tiered plan after warning me not to tether. I tried to find ways around it but I can't fault them for find ways around my ways. After all I did agree to not tether to a PC when I signed up.
Even without tethering streaming video from Dropbox, Netflix or other places could give you 9GB. Imagine if this guy has a dull job, like a night door guard. There might not be WiFi available and being able to stream media for all those hours might be a way to pass the time.
So you violated the terms of your service agreement by tethering and then on top of that used 100GB of data per month. Thank you for ruining it for those of us who wish to use a reasonable amount of data per month. People like you are exactly why AT&T has to take extreme measures to prevent this much data use.
Your comment makes no sense either. Apple is in the game to make a profit, just as AT&T is. These are not non-profit corporations. It costs Apple billions of dollars in R&D to design the best selling smartphone in the world. There is a cost to that. I know iFixIt does a tear down and shows the cost of the parts is way less than $600, but that does not take into account the labor to assemble the phone, the cost of the infrastructure to run a just in time inventory system, the research and development that goes into the device, the support network to maintain the device once it is sold, etc...
AT&T is going to a new low in sneaky deceptive advertising to get people to switch to a plan that will give you less service and make you pay a lot more for it.
Bait and switch plan is what they should call this. False advertising at best. Don't fall for it, you're better off sticking with what you have because this bait and switch plan will not offer you anything except taking more money from your bank account. :-(
I'd like to see a class action lawsuit on the following: I have paid for the bits in my monthly data charge. Those bits are paid for, my property, and are not subject to AT&T telling me how each bit can be used -- and these bits do not expire (roll-over data bucket).
At least AT&T is offering this plan as an option.....existing data plans remain.
Exactly- complaining because it's not better is dumb. It'll be better for some, great. Not for others- don't change. Geez.
My wife and I are on our company, but this will help my dad and mom who just got iPhones:
$60 700 Minutes
$10 Additional Line
$15 200mb Data iPhone 1
$15 200mb Data iPhone 2
$30 Unlimited Texting
----------------------------------
$130
For for the same $130- it gets them 1gb instead of 600mb, Unlimited Talk instead of 700 minutes, and Tethering.
Yay for them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by b9bot
AT&T is going to a new low in sneaky deceptive advertising to get people to switch to a plan that will give you less service and make you pay a lot more for it.
Bait and switch plan is what they should call this. False advertising at best. Don't fall for it, you're better off sticking with what you have because this bait and switch plan will not offer you anything except taking more money from your bank account. :-(
At least they are keeping the current plans in place for current and new customers - so everyone still has those options. This is just providing additional choices (although not great choices). Much smarter than Verizon forcing all new customers to go on a "Share Everything" plan with no option to choose from the old style plans.
AT&T is going to a new low in sneaky deceptive advertising to get people to switch to a plan that will give you less service and make you pay a lot more for it.
Bait and switch plan is what they should call this. False advertising at best. Don't fall for it, you're better off sticking with what you have because this bait and switch plan will not offer you anything except taking more money from your bank account. :-(
How is this "bait and switch"? AT&T would have to offer an enticing low cost plan that appeals to you and then when you sign up put you on a higher cost plan than what they advertised. They are clearly outlining the cost of the plan. There is no "deceptive advertising" going on here.
My wife and I are on a FamilyTalk 700 plan with 2 iPhones (1 Unlimited and 1 2GB plan) and unlimited texting with unlimited M2M. It costs us $175 / month after taxes and fees. People value simplicity and are willing to pay a premium for it - all of these new plans that AT&T has introduced in the 5 years since the iPhone has been around have made the landscape amazingly complicated. Here's my pipe dream:
ALL PLANS INCLUDE:
Unlimited voice
Unlimited text
Tethering
DUMBPHONES:
$15 / mo. / line
Data billed out by KB usage (something like $0.001 / KB, which works out to a little over $1 / MB)
SMARTPHONES:
$15 / mo. / line
Required data plan (Data shared among all devices)
$15 / GB for GB 1 - 9 (everyone must buy at least 1 GB)
$20 / GB for GB 10 - 15
$30 / GB for GB 16+
Everyone pays for what they use. No overages and if you use a shit ton of data, then you'll pay a shit ton of money for it...
OTHER DEVICES USING CELLULAR NETWORK DATA (MiFi, Laptops, Tablets, etc...)
$15 / mo. / device
* Yes, yes ... I know that you're basically paying to use data you've already purchased, but I see this as mainly an overhead charge for the device being registered on and using the network...
In this dream, if I have 2 iPhones, an iPad, and want to share 5 GB, I'm going to pay $30 + $15*5 + $15 = $120 + Taxes / Fees
If I have 4 iPhones, 2 iPads, and a Dumbphone with 10 GB , I'm going to pay: $60 + ($15*9 + $20*1) + $30 + DP Data = $245 + DP Data + Taxes / Fees
If I have 1 iPhone, 1 iPad and use 40 GB, I'm going to pay $15 + ($15*9 + $20*6 + $30*25) + $15 = $1035 + Taxes / Fees
Look how simple that was AT&T! Imagine how happy you could make your customers if you only charged them for what they used!!! Prorating the GB would be nice, but let's not go too crazy here helping your customers. If you really want to cut down on people clogging the network, then bitch slap their wallets when they do that! The last example may have been extreme. I hardly use 40 GB a month on my cable internet, but it shows that people who use excessively should pay for it. If you did this, you would freaking OWN the US cellular market. Some people might end up paying more and being pissy, but if they want to use 40 GB in a month, let them bail and clog someone else's data lines...
How on earth do you feel that they should provide you with unlimited data, text, and talk for $50 per month? Are you out of your mind?
Actually, $50/month would be a quite reasonable price. The carriers would still make piles of money, but the charges to consumers would be much less onerous. And they'd still have plenty of money to upgrade their networks, and ought to be mandated to do so if they want to keep their spectrum licenses. Instead, the carriers are allowed to follow a strategy where they build the minimal network they can get away with and control traffic on it by making it prohibitively costly to deploy new technologies. This doesn't serve the public interest. It inhibits innovation and progress. It prevents new services from even coming to market. The wireless carriers in this country have become the obstacle to progress, not the pathway to it as intended when they received their spectrum licenses.
AT&T is going to a new low in sneaky deceptive advertising to get people to switch to a plan that will give you less service and make you pay a lot more for it.
Bait and switch plan is what they should call this. False advertising at best. Don't fall for it, you're better off sticking with what you have because this bait and switch plan will not offer you anything except taking more money from your bank account. :-(
You don't understand what CHOICE is and what a BAIT-N-SWITCH tactic is. If AT&T is offering a new option that benefits many of their customers (lower price, better features), how is this a bad thing? You need to look at your individual situation and make that assessment. For me, I have 4 iPones and 4 iPads. This is a winner for me.
None of us are currently looking for or needing an upgrade, so I hope they don't force discontinuation of the grandfathered unlimited data plan.
it's a shit ton of a mess if they do it mid contract but don't be shocked if they, like Verizon has, stop the grandfathering if you go for a paid upgrade at any point in the future. Legally they can do that and they probably will. The only way you would be able to get around it is to pay full price cause that's not seen as renewing your contract just riding on the current one.
I also suspect that all newly created family plans on ATT after this launch will be on these plans and in a year or two they will find a way to force older plans to convert if you want to have any smart phone on the plan subsidized.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by Onhka
Lot of dumb assumptions here.
Best check out AT&T's site, particularly the See FAQs about AT&T Mobile Share section.
Care to be a bit more helpful, and summarize what you learnt from visiting the site?
Believe it or not, is will actually make sense for us to finally switch off of our Unlimited plans on our iPhones. But as someone stated, you need to have a lot of devices, which we do. In our family, we have two iPads, three iPhone 4s' and a dumb phone for dad. Here is the spreadsheet on how I calculated it out. I checked our data usage and the 6GB or 10GB will work for the family, and all of currently use iTunes Match to stream too.
Device
Phone Plan
Data Plan
Txt Plan
Total
Mine
80
30
20
130
Wife
9.99
30
20
59.99
Son
9.99
15
24.99
Dad's
9.99
5
14.99
iPad (3)
25
25
iPad (1)
30
30
Grand Total
109.97
130
45
284.97
Plan
Device Cost
Dumb Cost
Tablet Cost
# Smart Phone
# Dumb Phone
# Tablet
Ext Phone Cost
Ext Dumb Phone
Ext Tablet Cost
Total
6GB Plan
90
35
30
10
3
1
2
105
30
20
245
10GB Plan
120
30
30
10
3
1
2
90
30
20
260
Bummer in cut off the bottom part....
Here...
Plan
Smart Cost
Dumb Cost
Tablet Cost
SP
DP
Tab
Total
6GB Plan
90
35
30
10
3
1
2
245
10GB Plan
120
30
30
10
3
1
2
260
Damn, still cut-off...
In short, current bill $284.97, with the 6GB plan $245, or the 10GB plan $260. Plus the more devices the better the value gets. At first glance the plan seemed ridiculous, but taking the time and really calculating it out, it makes sense, at least for us.
unless the ipads produce revenue i'm not paying data for them. i'm not that OCD and anti-social that i need to carry around a 3g ipad everywhere to kill time
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bandman999
If the data is "shared", why does it matter how many devices use the data? Does it somehow cost AT&T more to serve 1GB of data to two devices instead of one?
Bingo!!!
What became of the "it's your data, use it how you want".
Put bluntly, these plans suck. I was expecting to be able to add an iPad that would be able to access "my data" on my existing plan. AT&T would have sold me an iPad that I won't be buying from them under these plans and I might even have upgraded my data plan. Now I am going to be on the lookout for someone else who offers not just what I want, but what, I think, we have a right to expect. Actually, the same could be said of the mobile hot spot bit as well. It is your bandwidth and it really is none of their business which devices you utilize it on.
There should be a call for regulatory action as it is apparent that this is a monopolistic practice, at least to me, in which AT&T is engaged.
If T-Mobile, Verizon or whomever does their plans right it will be a huge opportunity for them to acquire AT&T customers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JerrySwitched26
Data Hogs ruin it for the rest of us. They slow down the network and use more than their fair share.
I can't believe that anyone is still believing the 'data hog' nonsense that AT&T pumps out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
I don't think 9GB is unfathomable. I've used as much as 100GB in a month back when I had Unlimited access. AT&T did drop me to a tiered plan after warning me not to tether. I tried to find ways around it but I can't fault them for find ways around my ways. After all I did agree to not tether to a PC when I signed up.
Even without tethering streaming video from Dropbox, Netflix or other places could give you 9GB. Imagine if this guy has a dull job, like a night door guard. There might not be WiFi available and being able to stream media for all those hours might be a way to pass the time.
So you violated the terms of your service agreement by tethering and then on top of that used 100GB of data per month. Thank you for ruining it for those of us who wish to use a reasonable amount of data per month. People like you are exactly why AT&T has to take extreme measures to prevent this much data use.
With AT&T offering higher data plans, I wonder if they will still throttle users who go over the 3GB of data on the grandfathered unlimited data plan?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Freshmaker
A cellphone also shouldn't cost $600 or more...
Your comment makes no sense either. Apple is in the game to make a profit, just as AT&T is. These are not non-profit corporations. It costs Apple billions of dollars in R&D to design the best selling smartphone in the world. There is a cost to that. I know iFixIt does a tear down and shows the cost of the parts is way less than $600, but that does not take into account the labor to assemble the phone, the cost of the infrastructure to run a just in time inventory system, the research and development that goes into the device, the support network to maintain the device once it is sold, etc...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harbinger
Mobile access to the internet should become a right and not a paid privilege. Sure, someone has to pay for it, but not at these fees!!
I get it. Someone has to pay for it just as long as it is not you, because you're special.
AT&T is going to a new low in sneaky deceptive advertising to get people to switch to a plan that will give you less service and make you pay a lot more for it.
Bait and switch plan is what they should call this. False advertising at best. Don't fall for it, you're better off sticking with what you have because this bait and switch plan will not offer you anything except taking more money from your bank account. :-(
I'd like to see a class action lawsuit on the following: I have paid for the bits in my monthly data charge. Those bits are paid for, my property, and are not subject to AT&T telling me how each bit can be used -- and these bits do not expire (roll-over data bucket).
Quote:
Originally Posted by noexpectations
At least AT&T is offering this plan as an option.....existing data plans remain.
Exactly- complaining because it's not better is dumb. It'll be better for some, great. Not for others- don't change. Geez.
My wife and I are on our company, but this will help my dad and mom who just got iPhones:
$60 700 Minutes
$10 Additional Line
$15 200mb Data iPhone 1
$15 200mb Data iPhone 2
$30 Unlimited Texting
----------------------------------
$130
For for the same $130- it gets them 1gb instead of 600mb, Unlimited Talk instead of 700 minutes, and Tethering.
Yay for them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by b9bot
AT&T is going to a new low in sneaky deceptive advertising to get people to switch to a plan that will give you less service and make you pay a lot more for it.
Bait and switch plan is what they should call this. False advertising at best. Don't fall for it, you're better off sticking with what you have because this bait and switch plan will not offer you anything except taking more money from your bank account. :-(
What is wrong with what I just wrote?
At least they are keeping the current plans in place for current and new customers - so everyone still has those options. This is just providing additional choices (although not great choices). Much smarter than Verizon forcing all new customers to go on a "Share Everything" plan with no option to choose from the old style plans.
Quote:
Originally Posted by b9bot
AT&T is going to a new low in sneaky deceptive advertising to get people to switch to a plan that will give you less service and make you pay a lot more for it.
Bait and switch plan is what they should call this. False advertising at best. Don't fall for it, you're better off sticking with what you have because this bait and switch plan will not offer you anything except taking more money from your bank account. :-(
How is this "bait and switch"? AT&T would have to offer an enticing low cost plan that appeals to you and then when you sign up put you on a higher cost plan than what they advertised. They are clearly outlining the cost of the plan. There is no "deceptive advertising" going on here.
My wife and I are on a FamilyTalk 700 plan with 2 iPhones (1 Unlimited and 1 2GB plan) and unlimited texting with unlimited M2M. It costs us $175 / month after taxes and fees. People value simplicity and are willing to pay a premium for it - all of these new plans that AT&T has introduced in the 5 years since the iPhone has been around have made the landscape amazingly complicated. Here's my pipe dream:
ALL PLANS INCLUDE:
Unlimited voice
Unlimited text
Tethering
DUMBPHONES:
$15 / mo. / line
Data billed out by KB usage (something like $0.001 / KB, which works out to a little over $1 / MB)
SMARTPHONES:
$15 / mo. / line
Required data plan (Data shared among all devices)
$15 / GB for GB 1 - 9 (everyone must buy at least 1 GB)
$20 / GB for GB 10 - 15
$30 / GB for GB 16+
Everyone pays for what they use. No overages and if you use a shit ton of data, then you'll pay a shit ton of money for it...
OTHER DEVICES USING CELLULAR NETWORK DATA (MiFi, Laptops, Tablets, etc...)
$15 / mo. / device
* Yes, yes ... I know that you're basically paying to use data you've already purchased, but I see this as mainly an overhead charge for the device being registered on and using the network...
In this dream, if I have 2 iPhones, an iPad, and want to share 5 GB, I'm going to pay $30 + $15*5 + $15 = $120 + Taxes / Fees
If I have 4 iPhones, 2 iPads, and a Dumbphone with 10 GB , I'm going to pay: $60 + ($15*9 + $20*1) + $30 + DP Data = $245 + DP Data + Taxes / Fees
If I have 1 iPhone, 1 iPad and use 40 GB, I'm going to pay $15 + ($15*9 + $20*6 + $30*25) + $15 = $1035 + Taxes / Fees
Look how simple that was AT&T! Imagine how happy you could make your customers if you only charged them for what they used!!! Prorating the GB would be nice, but let's not go too crazy here helping your customers. If you really want to cut down on people clogging the network, then bitch slap their wallets when they do that! The last example may have been extreme. I hardly use 40 GB a month on my cable internet, but it shows that people who use excessively should pay for it. If you did this, you would freaking OWN the US cellular market. Some people might end up paying more and being pissy, but if they want to use 40 GB in a month, let them bail and clog someone else's data lines...
Quote:
Originally Posted by DustinLH00
How on earth do you feel that they should provide you with unlimited data, text, and talk for $50 per month? Are you out of your mind?
Actually, $50/month would be a quite reasonable price. The carriers would still make piles of money, but the charges to consumers would be much less onerous. And they'd still have plenty of money to upgrade their networks, and ought to be mandated to do so if they want to keep their spectrum licenses. Instead, the carriers are allowed to follow a strategy where they build the minimal network they can get away with and control traffic on it by making it prohibitively costly to deploy new technologies. This doesn't serve the public interest. It inhibits innovation and progress. It prevents new services from even coming to market. The wireless carriers in this country have become the obstacle to progress, not the pathway to it as intended when they received their spectrum licenses.
Quote:
Originally Posted by b9bot
AT&T is going to a new low in sneaky deceptive advertising to get people to switch to a plan that will give you less service and make you pay a lot more for it.
Bait and switch plan is what they should call this. False advertising at best. Don't fall for it, you're better off sticking with what you have because this bait and switch plan will not offer you anything except taking more money from your bank account. :-(
You don't understand what CHOICE is and what a BAIT-N-SWITCH tactic is. If AT&T is offering a new option that benefits many of their customers (lower price, better features), how is this a bad thing? You need to look at your individual situation and make that assessment. For me, I have 4 iPones and 4 iPads. This is a winner for me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmgregory1
None of us are currently looking for or needing an upgrade, so I hope they don't force discontinuation of the grandfathered unlimited data plan.
it's a shit ton of a mess if they do it mid contract but don't be shocked if they, like Verizon has, stop the grandfathering if you go for a paid upgrade at any point in the future. Legally they can do that and they probably will. The only way you would be able to get around it is to pay full price cause that's not seen as renewing your contract just riding on the current one.
I also suspect that all newly created family plans on ATT after this launch will be on these plans and in a year or two they will find a way to force older plans to convert if you want to have any smart phone on the plan subsidized.