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."

Comments

Re:Time Machine

[cromar]

One can see how in your insular world you might believe that. The only people who use the term "politically correct," or who are concerned about it philosophically are those opposed to "it." It's really a way of putting other people down for being careful with their words. Also for making yourself look persecuted by the imaginary speech police. Have the balls to say what you want and let other people do it too.

WE'RE NUMBER ONE!!!!!

[mcgrew]

It's politically incorrect for the USA to be the best nation in anything nowadays.

Hey, we're #1 in a lot of ways:

• We spend more on health care per capita than any other nation (too bad the actual care isn'n near #1)
• We have the world's deadliest armed forces
• We incarcerate more people per capita than anyone else
• We have the world's greediest corporatti (although it can be said that the corporatti belong to no nation; nations belong to them)

Re:Time Machine

[Grishnakh]

While neo-cons in the USA like to point to Europe as some kind of haven for liberals, the liberals in Europe are really much more sensible in general than the loony liberals we have here in the USA.