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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Or they could stop rewarding millionaires with stock options, spend that loot on upgrading their POS network and make everyone happy.
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.
Sure we can. If they foist extra fees that are not included in the contract I signed, then the contract is void and I can leave immediately.
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.
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!
That's socialist. We aren't socialists in America. It is AT&T's God given right to make what they can make.
Yeah. Metering just causes too many social problems. Many people just write off entire services if they have to keep track of how much they use.
I've always been in favor of you get X MB uncapped per month. Once you cross X MB, then you get throttled (yes... evil throttling...) . I think lets the user get away without worrying about anything. It also allows ISPs to target that 3% of users who are streaming videos all the time.
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.
Well ultimately their intent is not just to make the 3% pay more for the extra usage, but to make *everyone* pay more. It's just that they need an excuse to do it, and blaming other users for over-using the service gives them that excuse. These cell carriers want to advertise data services, they want to charge for data services, but they don't want to actually provide those services unless you pay extra.
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
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?
...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?
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'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.
I understand AT&T's position. They simply cannot grow their network fast enough to keep up, and the lack of bandwidth is a pain shared with all customers. The problem AT&T is having is that the iPhone isn't unique anymore. There is Droid and Palm and they'll still have unlimited data plans. Plus, if the iPhone U.S. exclusivity ends, the other carriers will quickly start offering the iPhone too.
AT&T can't charge for data plans if no one else does.
You believe AT&T? Based upon what data? Their FCC reg filings show them in compliance with their cell network...
Of course, they did screw all of us over the E-911 and have to pay a $2meg fine. See, http://www.fcc.gov/eb/News_Releases/DOC-227226A1.html
So, in sum - AT&T reports to the FCC that their network is within regulatory standards and AT&T has a corporate history of lying and ripping off its customers.
You elect to believe AT&T, eh? I have a bridge on the south-east side of Manhattan I'd like to sell you and, yes - I do take Paypal....
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.
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'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...