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AT&T Moves Closer To Usage-Based Fees For Data
CWmike writes "AT&T has moved closer to charging special usage fees to heavy data users, including those with iPhones and other smartphones. Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, came close on Wednesday to warning about some kind of use-based pricing while speaking at a UBS conference. 'The first thing we need to do is educate customers about what represents a megabyte of data and...we're improving systems to give them real-time information about their data usage,' he said. 'Longer term, there's got to be some sort of pricing scheme that addresses the [heavy] users.' AT&T has found that only 3% of its smartphone users — primarily iPhone owners — are responsible for 40% of total data usage, largely for video and audio, de la Vega said. Educating that group about how much they are using could change that, as AT&T has found by informing wired Internet customers of such patterns. De la Vega's comments on data use were previewed in a keynote he gave in October at the CTIA, but he went beyond those comments on Wednesday: 'We are going to make sure incentives are in place to reduce or modify [data]uses so they don't crowd out others in the same cell sites.' Focus groups have been formed at AT&T to figure out how to proceed."
Welcome back to 2000. Data-usage fees per MB were common place back then. Now it's all based on the actual bandwidth, 512kbit/s, 1mbit/s and so on, like it really should be. Use how you want to. In Europe that is.
It's funny to think that USA should be the best nation with technology and infrastructure, but still your internet connections suck this much.
It's a business opportunity for other ISPs to offer unlimited access and compete with these greedy assholes.
Claim: 3% of users consume 40% of bandwidth
Telco solution: We must charge everyone based on usage!
If they can identify 3% of people are using 40%, then by all means put a 'cap' on the fixed price service that *doesn't* affect the 97% of normal users. Charge for extra service for the offending 3%. They just use this as an excuse to slap everyone with higher rates.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Yet it's still cheaper to pull data from the HST? It's really a shame we let these CEO's and large corporations rape us on a daily basis.
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
Usage distributions are often expontential or look near to an exponential distribution (other distributions would be power-law distribution or pareto distributions).
This means that a small proportion (20%) uses more resources than say a majority (80%). So it fits this case quite well.
So most people use 60% of the ``bandwidth'' or less and 3% use 40% of the bandwidth.
The problem here is that these distributions are scale free. This means there will always be a heavy usage proportion which uses way more than other users. But that's actually quite natural. It is too be expected. So when Rogers and AT&T and Bell make up these stats, they are most likely true, but they are being dishonest. They don't expect users to understand statistics enough to accept that this will almost always happen. This is expected, and for AT&T they know it is expected. You can't tell me that everyone working for AT&T lacks the stats knowledge to know this. So they are basically arguing dishonestly that power users ruin it for everyone. Well get rid of the power users.. Now there's a different distribution, are you going to rid yourself of the power users again? How long before you have no users?
This is an expected usage distribution, it is nothing to be concerned about but it is always going to be used as a club against people who actually make use of a service.
They won't want any less money than the get now so people with data plans who use 100MB or something small like that will still pay the bend-over-and-take-it price they do now. Then people who use the 5GB that is allowed on the data plans will have to pay even more. Somehow I doubt AT&T is losing money charging the average iPhone user $100 USD per month.
Corporate America: our mistakes are our customers' fault and they need to pay through the nose or else they'll never learn.
Maybe with all the extra money they'll be getting with this, they'll upgrade their network so they can actually give people what they said they would give them at the price they said they would!
This story should have been declared "AT&T Declares war on customers". For reasons unknown, AT&T just doesn't grasp the idea of upgrading their network. So they provide shoddy service and blame their users instead. They do everything except take care of their network and their customers. Why do they insist on infrastructure upgrades as a last result? How can they grow when they can't handle what they have now?
They recently ranked dead last on a major US survey of cell phone providers for every single category. In all seriousness, what are they going to do when they are no longer the exclusive Jesus phone provider? People put up with for lack of an alternative network for their Jesus phone, without that exclusive they would start hemorrhaging customers.
Educating people to let them know how much data they use will only lead them to best their friends for the maximum throughput per month trophy.
god forbid they actually improve their network to handle the equipment they sell to use on it.
Dear AT&T,
The only way to fix your problems is to upgrade your network. Stop trying to punish users. Stop neglecting your network. Stop paying Luke Wilson to beat up strawmen on TV.
If you don't get your shit together, I will be switching over to Verizon's Droid when my iPhone's contract is up.
they use the ridiculously increasing monthly fees they are charging me and improve their capacity? Like the commercials advertise? I mean, ten cents each time someone sends me a text? They tried to charge me five beans to pay my bill over the phone. They are sucking the life right out of me.
If I had a Blackberry or an iPhone, they would charge me $30-40/mo just for data for said phone. Same deal for any smartphones that AT&T sells themselves.
Fortunately for me, I purchased a smartphone that AT&T doesn't sell (got it from Nokia's website) and can get away with paying $10-15/mo for "Unlimited" (i.e. 3GB/mo) data.
That said, I don't think I've ever used more than 400MB/mo, probably averaging less than 200MB/mo. Now if they would provide a 200 min/mo voice plan, I would be much happier. I've somehow managed to wrack up over 1,500 Rollover minutes in the past 5 months with a 450min plan....
Rather this will educate the rest what their phones might be capable of doing. Everyone can stare at 3" screens.
Reminds me of the "Hunting the Mythical Bandwidth Hog" article. If ISPs are so reluctant to actually prove that these hogs exist, what are the odds that there really are these 3% of -mobile- users who are, what, downloading blu-ray movies on their iPhones?
Once more, loud and clear: build more freaking towers!
What I would like (no chance) is if they charged /less/ if you were a low bandwidth user. Instead, it's one price no matter how little data you use. Then they complain if you use too much data.
As an iphone user, I say good. If the extra fees force those 3% to cut down a little, maybe my connection won't be so slow all the time.
Then : Use AT&T and download video and songs faster!
Now: Too many people are downloading video and songs!
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
1. Sell 3G Iphone and advertise that it can browse the web, download songs, etc.
2. Tie in I-tunes, drm, and a lot of other nasty crap so that once the user starts using it, he loses everything he's purchased (music, apps, etc) if he stops.
3. Increase the price on those users because they doing something "wrong" by using it too much.
4. ?????
5. Profit
Screw that bullshit. I think I'll keep using my phone as just a phone, until these guys get their heads out of their asses. Do folks really have that much disposable income that they can drop hundreds a month on silliness like this? It's a rethorical question.
Frankly, I find the idea of paying for usage when that usage includes unsolicited ads to be appalling (and, unlike, say, TV ads, the revenue from web ads does not go to the carrier). If I have to pay for usage, then enable me to determine what is sent to me.
If they change the deal in such a significant way, can I leave without paying a termination fee?
I paid $300 for my iPhone, plus another $70 or $80 for Apple Care. On top of that, I'd have to pay $175 (I think) to leave. If I didn't have so much sunk into the phone, I would leave, because the data network simply doesn't work very well here in NYC.
If anyone is thinking about an iPhone, don't do it. The device is amazing, incredibly well thought out, extremely useful, and a joy to use. It's very easy to fall in love. But AT&T just doesn't hold up their end of the deal.
I have a Spring air card, and it works fine. I use more data on it, as well. And they never whine or claim I'm abusing them. I think they're glad that I'm a customer.
Electricity is on a per-joule (I refuse to use the so-called 'unit' of kilowatt-hour) basis, and that seems to work out just fine (this being analogous to being charged per data unit). In fact, it would be downright stupid to pay for it on a per-watt basis (analogous to per data unit/sec). Just curious as to why internet access is perceived in a fundamentally different way than electricity, in this respect.
Just ranked dead last in customer satisfaction by Consumer Reports, AT&T also illegally spied on American citizens and then successfully lobbied to get themselves retroactive immunity. Not only will they not be punished, but no one will ever find out the extent of their crimes. Technicians have stumbled into secret rooms used to "shunt its customers' Internet traffic to data-mining equipment" for the NSA.
And don't believe bloated Luke Wilson--many iPhone users I know tell me they have shitty GSM coverage.
Meanwhile, Time Magazine just called the Verizon Droid phone the top gadget of the year and Droid has been rooted, so you know it won't be long before a custom ROM comes our way.
And now AT&T wants to charge for usage? Well, their exclusive contract is almost over with Apple. And if you ask me, not a moment too soon.
I am so tired of ISP's blaming their customers for the shortcomings of their network. The problem is with the way AT&T designed their network, not with the way customers are using it. Their network was not designed to handle TCP. They break TCP congestion control by not allowing packet loss. As soon a high traffic condition is reached, every affect TCP connection retransmits even more, and the situation quickly spirals out of control to where nobody can get a packet through.
Verizon has the same kinds of customers as AT&T and they manage to handle high traffic conditions without grinding to a halt. I can't wait for my AT&T contract to expire. The breaking point for me was at a football game when my phone failed to complete a call or send a text message for hours. The guy standing next to me had Verizon and it worked fine. He let me use his phone to call a friend. I got that friend's voice mail because he is also on AT&T.
yea, I totally trust this guy. /sarcasm
So what? Why is this an issue? Use another service if you don't like AT&T's fees. There are plenty of other options out there. I happen to use Sprint. For $100/month, I have unlimited everything (voice, text, data, etc.). Pick another carrier, or don't use a cell phone at all. I fail to see how this is newsworthy of even Slashdot.
I don't respond to AC's.
Does this mean I can get out of my 2 year contract then? This is blatant false advertising and breach of contract. I did not get an iPhone to have stone-age metered internet access.
"AT&T has found that only 3% of its smartphone users — primarily iPhone owners — are responsible for 40% of total data usage, largely for video and audio"
And, this is different from ISP traffic and users how exactly? Give me a break. Stop playing the part of ignorant moron provider here whining about excuses.
If you're gonna raise our rates, then fine, raise them. Yeah, I know it's to line your greedy pockets, so don't sit here and make me think that my "misunderstanding" of what a fucking "wireless" megabyte is the reason you're doing it.
How about not selling people bandwidth that you don't have?
Dear AT&T,
I could've sworn I remembered seeing something on my monthly iPhone bill... Ah, there it is.
" DATA PLAN IPHONE 12/02-01/01 30.00 30.00
Data Unlimited 12/02-01/01 0.00 0.00
Includes:
DATA ACCESS "
See, AT&T? It's right where you printed it. Unlimited data for a predetermined cost.
Now, AT&T, if you would please GTFO of here with this talk about billing me based on usage or prepare for me to take advantage of change in ToS so I can get out of my contract without penalty.
Best regards,
A guy who's looking forward to his contract ending so he can get an Android on a network that hopefully sucks less.
If those worthless twits at AT&T, who already have the lowest satisfaction of any cell provider, and already charge at a very high rate (for two iPhones and a big rollover + unlimited texting - I pay $260.00/mo) add on a data surcharge I'll drop the cell contract instantly - and I do mean instantly.
It is a recession and tossing $3k/yr out of the office account into two iPhones only to see the brilliant minds at AT&T come up with this idea - well, let's just say that the iPhone will become a touch/Skype phone and I'll let Credo buy out my account.
AT&T has really bad service - to the point that they now have an app to report their really bad service! Their apology: we'll charge more because we have an exclusive deal with Apple!
2. Tie in I-tunes, drm, and a lot of other nasty crap so that once the user starts using it, he loses everything he's purchased (music, apps, etc) if he stops.
Except for some time now, music you buy from iTunes has been DRM free. It's in AAC, true, but that's an open format - you can play it on a Zune or a 360!!
As for the apps, that's a platform thing and not a DRM thing. The apps themselves do not have DRM (they are signed but that's kind of the opposite thing).
It's true video sold through iTunes does have DRM, but honestly how many people buy video there they plan to keep? I use iTunes for some video but I always think of it as extended rental rather than purchase, and there's very little video I really want to watch again (and that I buy).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Support publicly owned providers whenever you can. It's the only way to fight the monopoly-monster.
AT&T's goal is to charge you exactly what they can get away with. A public provider's goal is to charge you what is fair.
They advertise the Iphone and the other media phones as being able to get streaming music, check football scores, write email, do all this neat stuff with AT&T! .....and then they get pissed when people actually DO it?
Huh. My phone stopped working. WTF?
Personally, I'd be *happy* with usage based fees, if they were 'reasonable' and if you could easily check how much you were using real time (without incurring more usage, similar to checking one's balance on a prepaid phone). I'd be happy with it, as long as the minimum went very close to zero if you didn't use it. (A small fee to have 'access' to data along with voice seems somewhat reasonable.) In other words, I'd like the ability to use an iPhone on current prepaid phones where you can easily get under $5/month with little usage.. and if the balance (which you can never get back) worked for the data fees too, great.
I admit I don't have a value for 'reasonable' fees, but something that came close to the current fee for the current average usage seems like a good value with which to start. I suspect instead they'll go with the current fee and go UP for high volume users.
Assholes. They already do that. There's a couple of different "unlimited" plans, depending on how much AT&T thinks you'll use that specific phone on the network. I pay $30 for unlimited internet, others pay $15. No cheating and using a crap phone to activate and then changing SIMs either, if it's an AT&T branded phone, they know and kick you off your plan.
Since that is what people with faster bandwidth in Japan, South Korea, and the EU pay.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I wish we could all get together in some way and finance a lobbying group in Washington to try and undercut these douche bags like ATT, Comcast, ETC and regulate them, open the network and get some form of sane Network Neutrality.
I have to say I would prefer ATT and Comcast as dumb pipes, because I have yet to see either of them offer any content I would want and if they focused on their core business (the aforementioned dumb pipes)they should get their profits without the slash and burn the user business techniques..
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I keep predicting some sort of per-byte fees are inevitable, and people keep arguing with me. "It's not the tragedy of the commons because they can always build more bandwidth." No, wireless bandwidth is regulated by the FCC and finite. Why some people are so violently opposed to using simple economics to keep a few users from adversely affecting everyone else's user experience is beyond me. Sure, AT&T could build a better 3G network, but if you expect that grandma (that only uses a data connection to check her email once a day) should be subsidizing your addiction to streaming porn videos, you are one selfish son of a bitch.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
It's politically incorrect for the USA to be the best nation in anything nowadays.
Hey, we're #1 in a lot of ways:
Free Martian Whores!
Meanwhile, this AT&T network bog-down caused me -- and I'm assuming others as well -- to switch from other carriers to T-Mobile because of their Fave Five plan that allows unlimited calling to a specified five numbers. One can be "in-network" on AT&T without suffering the AT&T network on both ends of the connection.
Our new device is really cool! You can watch video, listen to mp3s, and surf the web. But please don't do any of those things. Our network isn't designed for it. If our device changes your life like we advertise we'll need to charge you a lot of money to keep using our network. Because people who use our network as advertised our bandwidth hogs. Ok? Sound good? Great!
Whether it is AT&T (my carrier) or not, the first wireless company to do this with will drive away smartphone users by the millions. Once that first usage-based bill hits, the cancellations will come rolling in.
I am willing to pay $30/month for mobile Internet. I am NOT willing to pay $100/month in the future for the same usage. I'll either switch phone companies, or failing that, I'll just switch back to a phone without the data plan and do without mobile internet access.
Necron69
Internet by cell phone is becoming viewed as a right. In the US, the longer we have a service or something more and more people use, eventually people see it as a right to their existence in the US.
Soon will come the time when our senators will tell us that too many people in the US are unable to get affordable internet at reasonable and competitive prices. We can then look forward to a new government agency that will help bring the Internet to everyone in the country via their cell phone...and of course, only the rich in America will have to pay for it.
Come on!!! Let's stop being spoiled brats and simply go to the services that treat us the way we want and get what we can afford. If we can't afford it, then spend your wasted hours without internet thinking about the 2 billion people in this world that live on less than $2/day.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
Hey AT&T and Comcast.... Can you also make my cell phone plan, my land line plan, and cable plan all charged on what is used?
For instance... if i only use 150 minutes in a month on my cell phone, can you charge me just for that?
If I only watch 5 cable channels, can you charge me 5/1000 (or however many channels provided) of my normal cost? What about if i only watch for an hour a day instead of 24?
If i have a land line, can you cut my cost to $0 if it's only for emergency purposes and really never use it?
Or would that cut too much into your profit margin?
For text messages, they charge $1.5 million per gigabyte.
It's different than other data, though, because each gigabyte of texts comes encased in 87 pounds of solid gold.
In other words kill iphone usage despite the billions of dollars collected to upgrade networks..
Fred Grott(aka shareme) http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com
Sounds like they are just trying to curb usage not use the money to meet demand. In my book that = FAIL
Anyone know what the nominal bandwidth is for one of their cell towers?
I could see it being a severe problem in a populous area where they do not have the ability to deploy more towers to meet demand limits the overall capability.
If a densely populated area exceeds their capacity how does charging more on a nationwide level fix the problem?
AT&T is just ripe to be surpassed as the next mobile company overtakes their network capacity.
AT&T is just upset because geographic areas of interest shortened the time frame before they have to upgrade their infrastructure.
Will your isp roll out better quality?
No they will just spread out data plans to distract and then bundle lock ins over 1-2 years.
Any roll out will be seen as a cost, any cut backs a savings.
They can keep rust belt tech glowing and spin that your living in the future.
Fight it, set up community isp's, get politically active to change local laws to get real some real capitalism in your area.
Once this system gets hold, all the small isps for a cartel with larger telcos and just sell data vs live US support, ie a race to the bottom.
All I can say is, dont let this happen.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Instead of investing in infrastructure to improve supply, AT&T changes the pricing model to increase profit margin with ZERO (well, near ZERO) cost to themselves. This is neither a surprise nor news.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Data has shown that iPhone users average 400MB/month. This is far and away the most by any group. AT&T charges $30/month for the iPhone data plan. That equates to over $60/GB but AT&T and just about every other carrier charge that amount for 5GB/month data plans. Doesn't make sense does it. Carriers are claiming they can't make money at $60/GB data while they charge only $12/GB on data only plans.
I think we would all be giddy as school girls if they just charged everyone $12/GB for data making the average cost for data for iPhone user drop from $30 to $6. But for some reason I doubt that will happen.
It will be interesting to see the reaction from a lot of iPhone users. With current defensive commercials AT&T releasing, you would think, they would try to keep more users on their network. This way you are making people pay more, so why should they stay with your crappy network, they will either flee to bad & cheap network, or good & expensive network. You want to sell bad & expensive network. This is total BS.
Well I tested Opera mini against symbian browser in my Nokia, but still:
;)
BBC main mobile page:
Operi Mini: 7kB (!); 3 good q thumbnails
Symbina in build browser: 26kB; one thumbnail more - commercial
CNN main mobile page:
Opera mini: 13kB
Symbian in build browser: 68kB; one thumbnail more - local weather
Engadget main page, tested several times, couldn't bealive the results:
Opera Mini: 177kB
Symbian in build browser: 2.50MB (!)
Ofc, App store would never allow Opera
Even dough Opera uses their proxy servers, for compressing the data and sending it to clients, the loading of pages is still faster because of the good compression and add-blocking.
It is not a good decision to try and convince your users to use your service less. AT&T may want to re-think this, as their heaviest users are possibly also the most loyal, least price-sensitive, and more likely to upgrade.
Then again, if ditching 3% of your users gives you a 40% capacity gain, the choice is obvious. They are gone.
But this is about more than just bytes. If there are geographic concentrations of heavy users, then billing is a way to smite those who are causing others some pain. It sure is easier than managing your network correctly, or expanding capacity, or getting the lower-volume users to pony up more money for nothing.
I'll be watching to see how AT&T can convince users to use less.
Of course, this is the beginning of the net neutrality fight on cell networks. Expect AT&T to start blaming content providers for making such attractive nuisances. Then the phone manufacturers for making such demanding devices.
Except for Apple. They will be blameless, since AT&T sees them as the source of revenue that makes it all worthwhile.
Pathetique. I wonder how many executives at AT&T remember the Sprint debacle?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I hear that my iPhone is bogging down your network. I would like to help you with your problem. Release me from my contract without early termination fees, and I will take my traffic (and business) to Verizon.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Dear customer - To remain competitive in terms of salary and bonuses for our officers, we must ever increasingly find new ways to milk you, thereby providing our shareholders value to justify diverting our ever larger lump of our income to their compensation packages. As such it is much more expedient to change the pricing model instead of improving our network. The former instantaneously increase our income with near zero cost to us while the latter would cost us dearly in the short term, and is sure to draw the wrath of our shareholders and thus will most certainly be detrimental to the compensation packages for our officers. As such you can surely see the obvious choice of the two options.
We like to also take this opportunity to thank you for having taking it from us in the rear. If you desire a more pleasant experience using our service, may we advice that you bring your own Vaseline. If you do not have access to a supply of Vaseline, we will be happy to provide them at additional cost.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
http://blogs.broughturner.com/2009/10/is-att-wireless-data-congestion-selfinflicted.html
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
every right-thinking American should sponsor a student in an Indian MBA program.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
They are charging a per-song fee? I haven't bought any DRM music from anyone, so I haven't run across that. What is the upgrade program?
It's something like $0.20 c/song.
I mostly avoided DRM music myself, so it wasn't much of an impact...
However there is some benefit beyond the obvious one of having music you can use anywhere and transfer around, the DRM free versions also are encoded at a much higher bitrate.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...and all I see are the same types of statistics that are strolled out by the ISPs when network usage and congestion become a problem. "Blame the top 3%!" "Bandwidth hogs!" "Piracy accounts for 75% of lost revenue!" Whoops, that last one slipped in but I think you get the point.
There are always going to be maximum and minimum users - the whole idea is that, on average, you can handle the load. If you can't handle the load the problem is not the end user - it's you.
AT&T has received plenty of money with which it could expand it's infrastructure. It could relieve the bandwidth bottleneck by releasing the iPhone exclusivity. It could have realized that unlimited users are going to consume as much as they can. Now they're on the hook and they want to blame the user? No, that doesn't float.
(And if I see one more "unlimited*" notation I'm going to scream. When did unlimited get redefined as "limited to ..."? Why is that not false advertising?)
My reality check bounced.
"AT&T has found that only 3% of its smartphone users -- primarily iPhone owners -- are responsible for 40% of total data usage"
Or, put another way: AT&T has found that 97% of its smartphone users are not using anywhere close to the amount of bandwidth they are paying for.
As a result, they should have plenty of extra capacity and plenty of extra cash for network upgrades, right?
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
'The first thing we need to do is educate customers about what represents a megabyte of data...
Excuse me, but aren't you the people who charge me for 1MB if I download 1byte?
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
Does this mean they're going to filter out all the shit you don't want to download like video ads or ads full stop?
While the internet isn't strictly like TV, the idea of paying for TV based on how long you use it would be silly.
ISPs want the best of everything. They get to offer you the world for a small fee but if you dare use what they offer then they punish you. If they can't provide 20meg connections to all their customers all the time then they should be more realistic and only offer 10 meg or 5 meg connections with unlimited use.
It really annoys me that ISPs aren't held to the same advertising and quality standards as anyone else. They can more or less do what they want and rarely actually come through with what they promise.
... sounds like a good place to start.
Why some people are so violently opposed to using simple economics to keep a few users from adversely affecting everyone else's user experience is beyond me.
Right, we either have price rationing or rationing by corporate dictate.
On a per-bit basis, AT&T's pricing will become transparent, and with that information buyers can shop providers on an equal footing.
Ah, so perhaps that's why none of them do it.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Economics has already won here. It's call the law of supply and demand. Customers demand unlimited data packages, so AT+T has supplied it. There's a reason why no one does those metered fees any more... because consumers don't want them! This isn't economics, it's greed. I'm worried that it will come to pass not because of economics, but because the companies will find a way to make customers accept it. However, I'm hoping that they realize that this will kill the smartphone market because no one wants to buy a smartphone and put up with that kind of plan.
It was just posted in another article that we download 34 GB of information a day last year. A DAY! LAST YEAR!!! AT+T wants to figure out how to capitalize on that because they want to artificially increase their profits. They whine and moan about people are making their network slow, but the only one making their network slow is AT+T, by not upgrading it. AT+T financially is doing just fine and making a profit, now it's up to them to provide me with a service. The problem with this and other US carriers is not that they are too regulated, it's that they aren't regulated enough into providing a decent level of service. They are also motivated by greedy investors to maximize their profits, often at the expense of better service because they make more money by trying to screw us than by trying serve us.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I was talking to my fiend the other day about ATT's outrageous prices for iPhone customers. You know it's bad when even a Verizon user thinks your service is expensive. ATT says that the problem is iPhone users require 5 - 10 times more bandwidth than other users. As of today, they can charge what they want because no one else has the iPhone on their network. There has been a lot of speculation that the exclusive contract is about to end, if that's true this news makes sense, as ATT will be looking for ways to increase their perceived value in order to stay competitive in a market where they no longer have an exclusive contract.
Simple as that.....
This just to beat lameness filter.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Hey AT&T - GO FUCK yourselves!
the amount of money some folks pay for the "golden tether" is just ludicrous.
they sell the blinkin' magic and charge an extra $50 a month to use it, folks, the fee is already paid.
maybe their business model is flawed, in which case ATT mobility may be headed to the dumpster... or they will antagonize all the iPhone fanbois and lose their customer base.
the present high price of poker in the magi-phone category is why I don't, and won't, have one on my own dime.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I would be happy to pay per bit as long as my phone can go out and query all available wireless providers for the lowest rate on a connection by connection basis.
I think you can "thank" Australia's (then) gov't owned monopoly - Telstra "Big Pond" (ISP) for this "contribution" to the larger World's Internet markets.
This Aussie ISP still retains its $150 / GB "excess" usage (ie, above ISP allocated data quota), causing uncountable snarling in family homes and - for International students, studying in Australia - it has meant having to forego affordable access to Big Pond Cable & ADSL, eg, in share-houses (the Aussie counterpart to frat- or sorority houses...?).
Even in its very recent plan / price announcement, Telstra's Big Pond -retained- this excessive "excess" usage fees... but -only- for its low-end plans (ie, the ones that naive Internet users, often on low-incomes try to get by on).
We call this obsolete fee Telstra Big Pond's "pverty trap" since anyone, who signs up, who's on a low income is very likely to be trapped by it into committing to paying al LOT more than they'd planned.
(Consider the case of a pensioner - eg, granny - who has the grandkids over for a weekend: "Oh, good, Nan, you have Internet, can we have a go? Puh-LEASE???" "Sure, go ahead, but don't look at porn." "Sure, Nan, we'll just get us a "Sound of Music" DVD to watch later tonight..."
In a coming month, granny has to pay an unexpectedly large Big Pond bill... and maybe forego some of the things that make her retirement sweet for 6 months. Thanks Telstra!)
I've met people who say they've received bills over $1,000.00 for a month's usage!
Folks, even though your Debt Collectors & Bancruptcy Courts may enjoy more business, learn from the French and Swedes about Internet pricing:
Cf: http://free.tv/ (unlimited phone / Internet / TV services, including a cool HD TV recorder / gateway (etc.) box for contract customers for about Au $50.00)
Track down prices for up to unlimited, symmetric 100 Mb/Sec Internet plans (3 to choose from - 10 / 10, 100 / 10 & 100 / 100) from StockholmsStadnat for less each month.
I have NO DOUBTS that, in such places, there are far fewer quarrels over Internet usage, because no "bean counters" are ready to set alight the family's budgets, eg, with a massive "excess" usage bill.
France & Sweden aren't perfect, but - if these unlimited Internet plans are any indication, they're doing much better than we Australian are, for their Internet saavy people.
The French go farther than the Swedes, ie, by making it easy for families to stay in-touch, by phone - all over France.
I have a lot of respect for both cultures!
It would be just as correct to say that they found that 97% of their users are not properly taking advantage of their *unlimited* data plans. I've heard their argument with regard to home cable internet service. "1% of users are responsible for 90% of bandwidth usage". Well, when 99% of your users don't really need 6Mbps, but are paying for it anyway, they're being oversold. Those that take advantage of what they pay for are making good use of it. We need to turn this problem on it's head. Maybe automatic tiered pricing up to the unlimited plan. That would be more fair to light users. Of course, in that case, it is in AT&T's best interest to do nothing.
I guess $30 per month x millions of iPhone subscribers isn't enough for these greedy bastards.
"Here's our cool phone that can surf the internet no matter where you are and you can download and watch videos! Buy us! Ok, thanks. Now just don't actually do that too much."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
They have to figure out how to screw the customer?
Just change the TOS and start charging. then hope the competition ( what is left anyway ) doesn't undercut them.
Also: "We are going to make sure incentives are in place to reduce or modify [data]uses so they don't crowd out others in the same cell sites." incentives my foot... they aren't waving the carrot around, they are threatening to use the stick.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I am constantly blown away that the telcos seem to have forgotten one basic rule of good business: give the people what they want. Mind you, I'm talking about the idea that it's better to make your customers happy than it is to get the most profit out of them. Telcos have fallen into the idea that they must simply find ways in which to entice people to buy their expensive phones and data plans (ie:marketing), instead of turning it around and asking, what can we actually give to the customer that would make them happy to be with us? How many people would jump on the iPhone in a heartbeat if they simply said, you know what, we're going to give you bandwidth up to 5GB/mo. FOR FREE. It's part of the same basic plan. You buy the phone, you get the bandwidth. I know, I know... the contract subsidizes the hardware, but it you OWN the market share, who freaking cares! People are being nickel and dimed to death. And they HATE IT. They HATE their carrier. Congratulations AT&T, you have found the perfect way to make people despise you. Way to go! Your marketing department should be proud!
That could maybe double the bandwidth available, no?
http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3597701/EFF+Charges+ATT+Assisted+NSA+in+Surveillance+Plan.htm
http://www.eff.org/nsa/faq
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdawg/93928749/
Yes, that's the way to do it. Before the industry even comes close to reasonable wireless throughput, they're going to take careful aim and shoot themselves right in the foot. With wifi becoming more and more ubiquitous, and providing a user experience an order of magnitude better than 3G, and more and more devices coming out with wifi standard, what the hell do we even need data service for? It's expensive (a wireless data plan costs as much or more as a DSL line) butt slow, quirky, has huge latency, and now, it's going to be even more expensive. Way to kill an industry.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
If AT&T does decide to change their pricing model, I see the lawyers having a field day. Class Action suit, here we come.
At&t shouldn't worry about "over usage" of iPhone users. When other carriers get the iPhone, there will be a drove of iPhone users leaving at&t, at least if you gauge the ticked off iPhone users on the at&t users forums.
In Japan is pretty common to get a data plan. It starts with a small fee for the first N packets (starts at ~$10 USD) then when you consume too much it starts going up and up until you reach the maximum (about ~$70) but you can keep transferring at normal speed, they don't throttle or cut off the server.
In short, if you are a heavy user you would pay each month the maximum amount and if you are not, then just $10.
The iPhone has opened the data usage floodgates, and those gates will never be closed again. The horse is out of the barn, the toothpaste is out of the tube.
EVERY smartphone from now on will be a heavy data usage device. Droid is the next data heavy product. Heavy data use is the new "normal".
What will happen to these carriers when not only smartphones, but EVERY phone heavily relies on data service?
My advice to the carriers: build baby build. Data service is going through the roof in the next 5 years. LTE can't come soon enough.
-ted
Increasing fees per MB now will provide a short-term increase in revenue - but it'll also open a window of opportunity for their competitors. Does AT&T want to be part of the future or would they prefer to be a "has been" on the sidelines as progress marches on?
I'm paying a fortune for my iPhone.
A lot of applications really need to just send a few packets a month (alarms, metering, etc...) but all of the US wireless carriers insist on minimum charges of $30-$60/month for each distinct piece of hardware that sends data. Funny how the carriers don't care to meter usage in a downward direction.
If anyone has ever looked at the network usage of a "smart" you will have seen INCREDIBLE waste. For example, I've looked at youtube access on the iphone; the app makes *multiple* requests for the same video (using HTTP byte ranges) at startup. We're talking thousands of bytes wasted on each view of a video. So basically we're paying for the application engineer's terrible network programming. Not cool.
using System.Awesome;
I've said this before in other forums. The beauty of this idea is that there will ALWAYS be a top 3% list of of abusers. This is just a scam by AT&T to get more money. If/When Verizon get's the iPhone, people will bail on AT&T in droves. This will have the effect of reducing AT&T's overloaded network, but it will still leave the users with the bill...
I can get by just fine using only wifi. If AT&T is serious about this they need to give the option to not carry a data plan. I would be a part of any class action lawsuit if they go through with this. They can't force me to carry something and then tell me I can't use it how I want.
It was a moderately nifty piece of hardware. Too bad they tied the anchor of AT&T's service to it and tipped it into the river.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
isnt it THAT simple ? doing business i mean ? since the dawn of civilization ?
i pay you something, you give me the product. it HAS to be that way.
just charge me your unit of bandwidth and a percentage of profit per each unit i use, and make sure i get ALL the bandwith I PAY FOR. doing anything other than this is SCAMMING people.
Read radical news here
May I suggest that "regulatory capture" is the term you are seeking?
For additional fun/depression, check out "iron triangle".
Perhaps phone companies really ARE evil, don't know.
But here's the way some of this works as a business:
1. Spectrum auctions (and landlords charging for antenna locations) are economically perfect mechanisms to drive the business case for wireless services to nearly non-existence. Spectrum auctions almost necessarily push telcos to pay nosebleed prices, just to participate. (The UK auctions were manically unhinged: they had a rider saying that BT would lose its GSM license unless it bought 3G spectrum. In consequence BT just about *had* to pay whatever it took, just to stay in business.) Auctions are not about valuing assets, they're a hidden tax. The cost of equipment is not nearly as critical a cost factor as the cost of cell sites (~100,000 per major carrier in the US) and the spectrum; both lack competitive supply/demand forces to contain them.
Likewise, landlords are armed with economic models and consultants that drive every last red cent out of business models too. Hey, that's how business works.
The cost of equipment is not nearly as critical a cost factor as the cost of cell sites (~100,000 per major carrier in the US) and the spectrum; both lack competitive supply/demand forces to contain them. Operating networks with tens of thousands of nodes in the USA's large landmass ain't cheap.
2. Along come smartphones and these and and apps, (and misleading marketing) create soaring basic demand;
3. Bloated apps (Skype, ugh), IP and (e.g.) the Van Jacobsen quickstart algorithm then take said traffic and inherently drive it to network saturation.
So: perhaps telco execs are satanic, let's get pitchforks and blazing torches.
But, the economics and technical dynamics of the marketplace are in inherent conflict. US gov't policies are at least as much to blame. And so are landlords.
The analysis can get much deeper - but without revealing a useful solution for the US, alas.
Just follow the way plans work in celphone heaven Japan: tiered rates just like your water and electricity bills. It's low if you stay below certain ranges, and more if you go higher.
Fair for everybody.
I'm going to get modded a troll for this, I just know it, but anyway...
I've just recently moved, and it's a houseshare. I'm hobbling along on an old pmac G4 and it does not, currently, support any wifi stick which I readily have access to (which I'd need to connect to the Internet, the landlord doesn't allow whacking great Cat5 cables running thru the house).
So at the moment, I'm having to hook up my mobile phone, which is on 3 UK, via Bluetooth to said box.
Doing so has instilled so much bandwith restraint in me, it's unreal. When I had access to unlim 20Mbit SDSL via ethernet in the previous place I was living I'd torrent until the cows came home (or ran out of disk space). Now, having to pay £10/GB, I don't torrent, I cache where possible, and really have to watch my bandwidth usage. It's also turned me toward trying to find legal means that don't tax bandwidth as hard to get my entertainment fix, like Spotify and its offline playlists.
I think ISP's should have done this from the start, instead of creating the huge PR disaster that is 'unlimited data', because that's not something they can realistically provide without it bringing the network to its knees. They do, of course, need to actually use the extra revenue to increase capacity in their network, rather than using it to fund the CEO's yacht or the shareholders' champagne.
They've been doing this ever since I can remember. If you buy certain phones, you can get the "unlimited" MediaNet for $15/mo... If you have a PDA-type Phone, they make you buy a more expensive plan that, last I checked, did not have an unlimited option.
Per AT&T website: $60.00 for 5Gb data plan. That breaks down to $12 per Gb. So , why are they charging $35.00 per 200 MB. So why are they charging $35.00 for 200 MB which would be just 0.2 GB? I think that the FCC should look into that. I have no problem paying $15.00 per Gb. And an additional $5.00 per half Mb. It would work out that if I use 1.25 Gb I would pay that month $20.00 = 15 for the first Gb and 5 for going almost to the halfway mark. I pass the half way mark then charge me $30.00. That would be reasonable and would keep me a loyal AT&T subscriber. Of course that could increase subscribers on their network. A network that they haven't upgraded to deal with network usage. Look at their 3G map. Yes the cell network covers a very large area but not their 3G network. And the next generation network is being built by everyone but them. It's a shame that when Apple listens to their consumers and leaves AT&T there may just be a massive exodus of iPhone users. Are they prepared for that? Most people don't mind paying for extra things but give them a good reason. Their messed up network and penalizing their users for it isn't a good reason.
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
I wonder how much data is pulling images from Google Maps? I wonder if the maps application cached images better if it might help. It is silly when I have to wait to get a map of an area I was just in yesterday. I know the Google Earth desktop app can cache gigabytes of data. My 3GS has more than enough space to have a comparably sized cache.
And the service is terrible.
OK, you don't want me? The second I can get out of my contract I am buying a Droid and you won't ever have to worry about me overpaying for the 300 MB I use in the average month.
Jerks.
Dog is my co-pilot.
How about putting a stop to the stupid apps that have ads in them? (Sure, it's my choice to not use them, but a few actually useful ones do have them. *sigh*) I can't believe with these tiny screens and tiny batteries and limited bandwidth that we (and "they") are putting up with apps that suck up my battery to suck up their bandwidth to fill up my screen with a stupid advertisement that I will NEVER, EVER tap on. You know what? Even if I was interested in their product (which I'm not, and don't have disposable income now), I wouldn't buy anything from them on principle because they're contributing to the problem by buying ads that end up sucking up my phone's limited resources! Grr!
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Fuck adapting to our users, LET'S CHARGE THE SHIT OUT OF THEM! Yeah, way to go AT&T.
Boredom is bliss.