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Time For Universal Data Plans?
theodp writes "Between multiple cell phones and their add-ons, high-speed Internet connections, and digital TV subscriptions, most households are paying for data delivery at least three times over, often paying the same provider twice. It's time for a universal data plan, [CNET columnist Molly] Wood declares. 'I want to pay once for data, I want that data to be unlimited, and I want to be able to use it in any fashion I choose.' Still, she has hopes that the-times-they-will-be-a-changin'. 'It's only a matter of time before regulators catch wind of just how many times we're being charged for the exact same thing.'"
I, too, wish I could pay once for my data stream. I, too, wish companies would just let me "pay once" for the service. And what are the chances in the U.S. of having telecoms wake up and declare, "Folks, we're just making too damned much money! It's time to think of customers, give them better services and charge them less. I hereby renounce all bonuses and profit!!"
Sig Registration Form 34c_766(a) submitted to Ministry of Signature Management. Approval pending.
I want to pay once for data, I want that data to be unlimited, and I want to be able to use it in any fashion I choose
So what, all the mobile and fixed line operators have to merge? How about TV service providers, does every infrastructure provider have to buy one of those too? Fucking idiot.
"Now, though, with the FCC breathing down carriers' necks about tiered usage plans, it's only a matter of time before regulators catch wind of just how many times we're being charged for the exact same thing"
Granted we're paying multiple times as noted, but...
Why would the government care to do anything about it? I can buy a song on cassette, album, cd, mp3... government hasn't regulated that. Why would it regulate multiple data-plan channels?
--- Mercutio was right.
Very true, but sadly the profit motive is more-or-less the same everywhere. The real hope is that governments will start regulating ISPs and data stream providers.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
I don't think "unlimited" plans ever made much sense because some people will abuse it. Costs are proportional to volume, so pricing should be too.
Reasonably priced universal plans do, however, make sense. In Europe, you can get data plans for something like EU20 / month for 5Gytes with no restrictions on how you use it (cell phone, laptop, etc.). Some companies even give you multiple SIM cards for the same account.
No, asking for it is very capitalist. Providing it is what goes against the very ideas of capitalism.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
wish that radio spectrum wasn't finite and would allow for unlimited bandwidth and removal of traffic caps. However, reality begs to differ with my point of view.
'It's only a matter of time before regulators catch wind of just how many times we're being charged for the exact same thing.'" They do know this. they do not care. The regulators are in the pockets of those they regulate. Look at any regulated industry. Most of the time they support being regulated because they use those regulations for their own benefit. Oil, gas, Finance, banks, autos, pharma, etc. Even if an industry fights against initial regulation, they support it afterward, when then end up controlling it. They use the regulations to justify anti-consumer actions and to drive UP the cost of entry to keep competition down. Or even to eliminate competition if they can slip in a regulation that damages competitors. That is why lobbying is such a big business. the lobbyists win no matter what happens with regulations. They get paid to fight against or for any regulation that comes up. They are worse than lawyers.
If I pay for electricity at home, why should I be forced to pay for it again at work.. Or at the mall. Or when I'm overseas.. That's not fair.. waaaaaaah.
-Michael
The real problem really isn't the data limits per se, but what happens when you go over them. It's really easy to accidentally go over your limit(for instance if you think you are on wifi but are actually on 3g), and when you do you have to pay out the ass. It would be nice if regulators forced providers to offer an option to block internet access until next billing cycle if you go over instead of only finding out after the fact that you now owe hundreds of dollars because you accidentally misconfigured your device.
Monstar L
What is even more surprising is brazen device profiling, where you are forced to buy a data plan, even though the quality is bad, just because you have a "smartphone".
Still, some places manage to get better deals. Some (usually those needing it the most & with not great ability to afford many things) - much worse...and BTW those are primary the ones where great progress in avaiting to unfold thanks to, eventualy, cheap & easy means of communication. However we like to bitch about costs of internet connection, they aren't exactly limiting to us; many people aren't that fortunate.
PS. Keeping with the spirit of "I want a pony" of this discussion - would be nice to have a "child account" for, well, kids; one which covers communication with few selected numbers but works like prepaid for the rest (without limiting communication with few selected numbers once prepaid credit runs off)
One that hath name thou can not otter
She wants unlimited data.
Someone has to pay for that.
Those who don't want, need or use the unlimited data end up paying for her desires.
Like me.
Let her pay for her own usage and abusage.
'I want to pay once for data, I want that data to be unlimited, and I want to be able to use it in any fashion I choose.'
Here's what such a plan would feature: A monthly cost of $240. How about that?
You are paying for _access_ to data. You may also pay for the data itself, too. I don't understand what this person wants.
Costs like these(and taxes) are not paid multiple times, it's just devided.
If you want to have unlimited internet at home and in your cellphone you have to pay for it.
If both cost X$, giving you an total cost of 2X$ you still have to pay 2X$ for your "universal data plan"
home plan + phone plan = 2X$
universal data plan = 2X$
Or actually you would most likely have to pay more for the "universal data plan" or only be able to use one at a time.
What I never understood is on cell phone plans why voice, text, pics, data are all separate charges. It all data, it's all digital, it's all on the same (cell) network, why does it matter? Maybe I'm missing part of the story but it seems to me it should all be one charge.
Between going to the pub on Monday, then the supermarket on Tuesday, and the pub again on Friday, many imbibers are paying for beer three times over!
Hope it's not for the same beer.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Because you are paying for different infrastructure. When I pay for my Internet connection to my house, I'm paying for the cable connection that comes in, and the fibre connection that it converts to further up the line. The cable company maintains that physical network and it does cost money to do so. I'm then also paying for their connectivity, which is a fair amount given that it is a fairly high bandwidth line.
For my mobile phone, I'm instead paying for the cell towers, and the equipment that drives them. I'm also paying for the lines and phone switches and so on further up the chain. There too, I'm paying for bandwidth for the provider though less in that case. The costs there are more the physical infrastructure.
Saying that I should pay one bill because both services access the Internet is silly. They are different physical systems and in my case different companies. Even in the case of the same company, you need to account for the cost of all the infrastructure and support. It is not free to build and maintain a large network, wired or wireless. It is quite expensive in fact. You can't demand that you be provided with Internet in all forms just because you happen to pay for it in one form.
Now, as far as cable TV goes, I can see some point there, but still it is a different thing. Different system, other than the final delivery to the customer, different hardware, different providers. Remember that cable isn't free to your cable company. They have to pay to carry many channels (though some, like shopping channels pay them). That's why sometimes you'll find a cable service that doesn't carry a given station, they get in a fight over rates. Cox here nearly cut ESPN off because of a rate fight.
I can certainly see the argument that perhaps things should cost less than they do now, but this idea that you should only have to pay once is silly, especially when you are talking different formats. The money you spend on a HFC network is different from the money spent on a broadcast satellite is different from the money on a cell network. They all cost a lot to build and operate.
'I want to pay once for data, I want that data to be unlimited, and I want to be able to use it in any fashion I choose.'
Have you considered your own bacup system? I can't swing a dead cat around my head without hitting a hard disk offering for about ~€100.
Keep the backup at a safe place, that you never visit . . . how about your parents' place :-)
But seriously, make backups often, and keep them someplace that you are not inclined to got to that often.
The weather in Iceland seems to be nice right now. If you excuse the volcanic ash . . .
If Iceland is too cold, just send your backup disks to some trusted relatives who live elsewhere . . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I agree with others who have posted here that a truly unlimited plan is way over charging the average user or is going to be much more expensive than what we currently have just to make it 'reasonable' for the average user. That being said the current trend is absolutely ridiculous. How can AT&T justify having a pay per byte plan where the paid for data does not roll over and if you go over any amount you get double charged even if it is the last day of your billing cycle?
Personally I would like to see two plans: 1) truly unlimited with a monthly fee of about 50 and 2) a truly pay per byte at something like 7.5 cent/MB ($15 for 200 MB), these bytes have an expiration of 1 year. Both plans you can do with the data pipes as you wish: tethering, streaming, etc.. This gives everyone the flexibility they want.
What I do want though is for someone to see how badly they are robbing us in text message plans and the fact that we pay so much more for an outdated infrastructure and none of the costs are balanced. When everything moves to LTE it'll be more of a nightmare when we're paying for multiple services and they all use the same infrastructure. It will support voip for calls and we don't really need SMS to do texting, the phone company just likes to charge us through the nose for it.
Uhm, yes nobody said profit motive is bad. But when the places in the US aren't really competing, well it sucks.
In Japan things are more expensive in general (because quality is higher), but on the other hand I don't get people trying to triple-dip either.
I can't blame a carrier charging separately for a mobile data and land-line data, because they are probably two different divisions, and anyway use different infrastructure. The whole "We need to charge extra for tethering", etc., is BS though. That comes from "Unlimited" really meaning "How much we can estimate they will use and allocate for." For a phone "Unlimited" = XX megabytes/month, and for a computer it would be XX + YY since computer users use more. I think it would actually be better when they simply charge per MB, because it would make price comparisons easier. Once people realize how much SMS messages and such cost per MB, there will be outrage.
Back to Japan, I pay 3 data plans right now.
1. (Sort-of data) My cell phone.
2. My e-Mobile wireless broadband (Kind-of like MiFi). This works with my laptop, skype phone, ipod touch, whatever.
3. My OCN/NTT/Flets (kind of like FiOS). This is 100Mbps to my house. I will cancel it soon, as soon as my 2-year contract is over.
Really, I can use #2 for everything. The battery life isn't as good for VOIP as native mobile phone yet, so I pay for a real cell phone still. Other than that, I don't have to pay for data more than once if I don't want to, #2 I can take anywhere, and it's reasonably fast. If I had a newer phone with WiFi, I could even use it in place of a data plan.
In TFA it talks about "mandatory" data plans. That's BS. Buy the phone on your own, and you have no mandatory plan. If you buy it from the carrier with a subsidy, well, that's because they want you to pay more per month - that's why they give you the subsidy (duh).
At any rate, I can get all the data I want, anywhere I want for $50 a month. If I want to keep my fiber land line, you're talking $100 total. Voice is still separate in general, but if you want to use VOIP in a well supported way, you can get the WiFi blackberries from T-Mobile and try that method.
Yeah I suppose she would support an unlimited energy plan. Paying for gasoline at the gas station, natural gas from gas company, and electricity from the electric company is all too much. It's all just energy anyways. What a pinhead.
..."the exact same thing"?
In any case I want no "universal data plan" optimized for people who watch movies on their cellphones, view six hours of tv a day, and download thousands of hours of music forced on me by government. If I want anything it's metered service (that's metered, not tiered).
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
You already are paying one very low fee to use the Internet: zero dollars.
What you're paying real dollars for is the right to access the Internet by means of various physical carriers: price to be negotiated between carrier and user.
Peronally I prefer the Asok (Dilbert's intern) sewage activated access. Whereever you have a sewer pipe, then you have turdo-charged access!
:-]
digital TV is multicast and that is not the same as other data that is just for you.
multicast sends out the same data to mean people at the same time changeing that to each user have there own copy of the same thing will just eat up much more bandwidth.
I have to wonder how many people really do have the same provider for cell, and internet, which is where this seems to be going. For instance, I get my internet via Time Warner, but my cell service via AT&T. I am not totally opposed to paying per byte for internet, but I would expect the price to be fair, and looking at all of the existing plans, none of them are. They charge exorbitant fees for a paltry 5GB of data on cell networks where they currently provide unlimited data via land lines for the same or less per-month charges. There is a huge disconnect between the value perceived by the user/customer, and the costs being claimed by the likes of AT&T/Verizon/Comcast/Time Warner, etc.
The cell providers have had years to build out these networks, yet the price hasn't dropped, they still charge huge sums of money for simple text messages, and offer no unlimited plans with the exception of the iPhone plan, and that one is already endangered as well. All of the other cell data plans are capped at 5GB or thereabouts.
At some point, they have to understand the frustration that we get unlimited internet access via land line, but restrictions and high costs for cell data, all to the same internet and probably through the same backbone once it leaves the cell network.
These services are *not* the same, and anyone who thinks otherwise is obviously not qualified to talk about. I mean, really, can't these idiots tell the difference between wireless and wired data plans? Not that I'm defending communications companies, but you can already get bundles that give you discounts for these sorts of things. Not to mention that there are some of us who don't use one (or more) of the aforementioned services and don't want to be charged for them (and if you think that bundling all these services by default and reducing choice will make them cheaper overall, you're even stupider than the lady in the article).
Now don't get me wrong, I realize there are problems with things the way they are, but conflating Network Neutrality with this sort of nonsense is holding back the cause; we need to call these idiots out and reject them; Network Neutrality is a reasonable goal, but getting distracted by bullshit like this only hurts the users of data plans.
Nathan's blog
I can buy a song on cassette, album, cd, mp3... government hasn't regulated that.
Title 17 of the United States Code heavily regulates that.
Or do they actually think that somehow changing the billing structure will automatically cut the price in half (or thirds)?
Comcast gives substantial discounts to customers who have the "televisiphonernetting" triple-play package.
But how much does a good USB2 or eSATA enclosure for these drives cost?
"Between multiple restaurants and their specials, all-you can eat buffets, and grocery stores, most households are paying for food at least three times over, often paying the same provider twice. It's time for a universal food plan, [Cnet columnist Molly] Wood declares: 'I want to pay once for food, I want that food to be unlimited, and I want to be able to eat it in any fashion I choose.' Still, she has hopes that the-times-they-will-be-a-changin': 'It's only a matter of time before regulators catch wind of just how many times we're being charged for the exact same thing.'"
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
$15 for 200 is to low. 200 is like 1 month of windows updates. So $15 per system just for OS updates and don't even think about onlive / youtube or any other high bandwidth use thing if you don't have like $500+ per hour.
digital TV is multicast
This is true of satellite TV and of "channels" on cable TV. But as I understand it, video on demand is unicast over cable TV just as it is over cable Internet.
Example: start torrents on home network and travel around using mobile data If you want to pay once for data, then have your home network disabled while you use mobile data. It'll never happen.
Great idea. While we're at it, let's have universal internet plans from ISPs. We could have universal pricing on vehicles. Universal pricing on gasoline. We could all pay the same money for a house - universal housing! Oh, and universal restaurant pricing - everyone pays the same amount for a steak no matter where ya go. Think how grand it would be if the government set prices on every single thing sold in the US. It would make things so much easier to take away that pesky free market. I mean, who REALLY wants to have to bother with having to make their own decisions in their life? It'd be so much easier to just let our government make all our decisions and run every aspect of our lives. Eventually, we could just depend on government run services for everything from food, clothing, transportation, toilet paper, etc. /sarcasm
What is even more surprising is brazen device profiling, where you are forced to buy a data plan, even though the quality is bad, just because you have a "smartphone".
In the US, if you are on a GSM carrier - where you can swap your SIM card to another phone to change phones (rather than having to go in to a store) - you can essentially pair any phone with any plan. I am using a blackberry on a GSM network right now with no data plan, because I bought the phone through an alternate channel (rather than through the provider). Hence they had no opportunity to force me into a new data-plan-based contract.
On the other hand, other networks have a lock on how you activate a phone. Even if you buy your phone second-hand you still have to take it to their store to activate it; where they are free to say "we'll activate it only if you sign this (contract)".
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
This idea just doesn't make sense. The various suppliers (whether for bandwidth or electrcity, or water - bottled, mains, rainfall etc.) all have different infrastructures, cost models, shareholders, benefits and overheads. Same for transportation, same for food sources. I don't thing the poster has thought through much beyond the I want ...... stage
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
You want regulation by the FCC? The same toolbox that can't even regulate Net Neutrality? You're smokin' crack...
The reason behind unlimited plans is simple human mentality. They want the ability to use things an unlimited amount for one price, even if it can be shown they'd save money metered.
ISPs discovered this with businesses back in the early days of the Internet. The only way to offer bandwidth for reasonable prices was very heavy oversubscription, since lines were so expensive at the high level. Hence, you'd sell metered service to ensure that everyone could get their fair share. Well businesses hated it, they were always asking for unmetered connections. They'd pay a lot more for it too. Even when the ISP showed that worst realistic case scenario they'd still pay less, didn't matter they wanted a fixed monthly fee.
Same shit later with dailup Internet. ISPs charged per minute or hour of access time, or has limits with certain plans. Reason was again oversubscription. Phone lines were (and still are to an extent) expensive. You could be paying $50-80/month per line as a business, especially if you had digital lines which was needed for 56k. You needed to pack users in fairly heavy, maybe 10 to 1, to make a profit on that (there were other costs too, like your Internet connection). However people hated it, and the ISPs that would sell "unlimited" connections won out, even if it meant more busy signals.
Hence, we get where we are now. You can see it in web hosting too. So many web hosts these days are "unlimited" bandwidth. Of course there's no such thing, it just means that your service won't be as fast. Doesn't matter, that's what's popular. The webhost I like (Pair) is rarely one people want to go with because they limit transfers. I'll recommend it and people will say "But what if I go over?" I'll explain that their limits are massive, I host gigs of files on my site and don't hit it. However, they'll go with an unlimited host instead.
Metered connections would make a lot of sense. It would allow for more flexibility in terms of bandwidth vs cost. It is feasible to provide 100mbit+ to the home, and have people get that kind of speed, so long as the play nice and share. You see it on office WANs all the time. There the playing nice is enforced by IT. However at home, metering could do it. You could pay a small amount for a fast connection, but little transfers. So your net is fast, but you can't use it all that much. If you need more usage, pay more money.
Just isn't going to happen though. The company that tries it will find their customers jumping ship.
Between multiple restaurants and their appetizers and desserts, grocery stores, and milk delivery subscriptions, most households are paying for food at least three times over, often paying the same provider multiple times per month. It's time for a universal food plan, [Cnet columnist Molly] Wood declares: 'I want to pay once for food, I want that food to be unlimited, and I want to be able to eat it at any location I choose.' Still, she has hopes that the-times-they-will-be-a-changin': 'It's only a matter of time before regulators catch wind of just how many times we're being charged for the exact same thing.'
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
If customers are willing to pay that much that way, providers are willing to take the money.
Nobody is forcing customers to get such an array of services. Those willing to put in a little effort and withstand slight inconvenience can pay much.
There is no right to convenient data plans so great as to compel, under threat of imprisonment, providers to concoct such a "universal unlimited" data plan.
Quit being greedy. You want premium variety, you're going to pay thru the nose for it.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Sorry, make that "pay much less."
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Since moving from dialup to ADSL, cable and 3G, I've never seen a "limited" data plan here in Finland. You pay a monthly fee for a given speed, and that's it. ISPs usually reserve the right to throttle, but I've only rarely seen it with 3G, never in wired connections.
I currently pay 9.80 euros for the slowest possible 3G, 384/384 kbps. This is actually better than it sounds, since for example a 1M/1M ADSL gives you about 103 kbytes/s max, but 3G uses a different encoding, and this 384 kbps translates to about 55 kbytes/s.
The faster 3G plans are likewise unlimited for a higher monthly fee, but it's probably not worth it, given all the complications with radio networks.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I don't know why they can't just use QOS on their own phone network. They could mark the first 2-5 GB of capacity as high priority, and then the rest low priority. With a fair queuing system, the average user who doesn't use that much data would not have the appearance of being slow, just the guy streaming netflix movies all the time. But with buffering, perhaps the play delay would compensate for the saturated network.
Still they do need to upgrade their network somewhat. I mean if it is the age of video and everyone is streaming video (we aren't quite there yet), they are going to need to increase the initial data cap as well as upgrade their network. Also if they get 25% more subscribers, they will need more network capacity. QOS is not the magic answer to never upgrade your network until 2020.....
And what colour pony does she want?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'd like to see the energy crisis solved this way. I shouldn't have to pay separately for gas for my car, heating oil for my house, and electricity as well! The fact that I've already paid for energy once should be enough. Corporations are so damn unreasonable these days.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
You are paying for bandwidth. "Unlimited" means as much as you can download in a month. A month has ~2592000 Seconds. At, let's say, 2 mbps, you can download ~632 GB per month.
If you have 2 connections with the same characteristics, you can download up to ~1265 GB. I am not defending the ISPs, I am just saying the article is unreasonable. The internet is expensive. If the internet doesn't grow, or if it's not maintained, it dies. There is no central structure, just a lot of peers. Each spends money on laying fiber, buying routers, and administrating that infrastructure. ISPs spend money on the last mile. Then, they sell each other bandwidth. That's it. Real, pure bandwidth means a symmetrical and dedicated CIR connection. ISPs cut that bandwidth, and sell it in a different way. Buying a CIR link with a nice SLA is expensive. ISPs buy those links and sell them in different, cheaper ways. When you pay for an "unlimited" data plan, you are paying for an statistically calculated share of backbone bandwidth, plus the cost of the last mile, administration, etc. You will have to pay for all those costs eventually, one way or another. If you don't want to be metered, or don't want to pay for additional things like tethering, then buy your own real bandwidth and share it however you like.
The real complain here is that ISPs are guilty of false advertising, and people have bought into that false advertising. They truly do believe you can get 10 mbps for 80 bucks a month. Guess what, there is no way you can actually get such a connection. You are paying for a 10mbps asymmetric MIR. A statistically calculated share of bandwidth. Of course, then they wonder why, oh why do they have to pay extra for a few MB on their mobile phone when they already have all the bandwidth in the world on their "unlimited" home broadband.
The real complain here should be that ISPs are just charging way too much for extremely limited services, and that their prices don't scale up nicely. When you want to buy anything better than their usual plans (for example bigger upload bandwidth) they make you pay through the nose. Asking them to drop their prices and to scale up fairly when you want a little bit more is fair. But pretending that bandwidth is a free resource and that you already paid for it in your "unlimited" data plan is ridiculous.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
I disagree If someone is willing to pay for it, a capitalist society will deliver it. Service providers would be willing to offer contracts similar to this. Look no further than the bundling plans that cable and telco providers have been shilling over the last several years. Including an unlimited mobile data plan in there would not be a problem for a company like Verizon. The question is, is the price they would ask for truly unlimited service on a truly limited network is what Woods would be willing to pay?
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Don't forget that the carriers would always have full pipes and congestion with a flat "unlimited" plan. Us users are clever enough to find ways to not worry about rationing.
The reason we have flat rate data connections for our wired Internet is because the edge of the Internet has competition between ISPs, and because the Internet itself was started as a lot of independent networks cooperating for complete coverage.
But since the time when the Internet started, it has grown to have much less competition at the edges (telcos killed DSL competitors, and broadband is usually at best a cableco/telco duopoly), while the backbones have consolidated to cooperate in a cartel to keep prices high and investment in speed low.
Mobile phone telcos got going right as the Internet corps got into full swing away from that original business model. They were stuck with the legacy of flat-rate Internet (though they're working to get past it), but did everything they could to keep wireless Internet as monopolistic as possible.
If every mobile phone could connect to any wireless network whose frequency the device can transceive on, without special "roaming" charges or plain lockout, the wireless networks would look a lot more like the Internet, and encourage the flat rate pricing. Telcos especially could be set up to bill the device's own company without a special fee, as their entire voice industry has been based on billing the telco of the incoming call when it reaches the recipient, who are usually on different networks. Such a system would be much cheaper to bill at flat rates, instead of charging for each connection, especially from moving vehicles passing through different networks in a single session.
When the wireless "last mile" is operated like the wired Internet, it will be ready for Internet style flat rate billing. But until telcos are forced to share their market of mobile users, they will never operate that way.
--
make install -not war
'It's only a matter of time before regulators catch wind of just how many times we're being charged for the exact same thing.'"
Next they'll go after the newspapers, magazines, blogs, radio, and television for all charging me for their services when I should just get it all in unlimited form from one place for one price.
that doesn't even begin to make sense.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
The proposal is not much different from existing family plans. Multiple devices share data and voice plans in some way. It should not be that difficult to have multiple devices attached to the same data plan.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
Funny. I get truly unlimited wireless in Japan for $40/month. Been using it all month for 3 months non-stop- no complaints.
It's estimated AT&T's 3G network costs them $3/GB. http://www.circleid.com/posts/20100215_absolutely_no_wireless_spectrum_shortage_in_2010/
Obviously 3.9G (WiMAX and LTE) are more efficient with spectrum, and true 4G (LTE Advanced and WiMAX 2) blows everything out of the water. So in other words as AT&T's costs to provide bandwidth drop, they have lowered caps and increases prices. Gotta love corporate America.
This is completely ridiculous. You are paying multiple times for multiple services. Plain and simple. If you really want to solve this problem get rid of all unlimited plans and charge per megabyte. You'll get exactly what you pay for.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
Jesus, what a stupid idiot. I won't go into all the different ways this story is full of idiocy, most of the previous posters have covered that all very well. But seriously, if no one at CNET is looking to fire this moron, then the whole site can just go away. I don't think I'll bother reading anything more from them, since they apparently hire trained monkeys to write there reports.
- No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades really cramps his style.
If there was say 3 or 4 ATT sized providers then it would make sense for each one to have a Single Signon so that you could login and receive all the benefits of being a customer of %Network%
need to make a call on your phone?? %Network has a tower in range
close to a %Network wifi hotspot ?? your call will be routed by way of the hotspot
Wanna watch a movie ?? slot your %Network FlashKey type your PIN and go for it
How many of us would pay US$120 to US$$250 a month (depending on how long a contract you want to sign) to get 720 degree data coverage??
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
swooosh!
You're paying for it if you subscribe to TV Guide. You're paying for it as part of your cable subscription which includes the TV Guide Channel. You're paying for it to make your Tivo, ReplayTV, UltimateTV, other DVR, etc, work. And you're paying for it again for each additional DVR, even though you've already paid for it from the same provider.
What makes this observation a little different is that there's no ownership involved. You talk about cable operators owning the cables, FiOS owning the optical fiber, mobile phone operators owning the towers, Starbucks owning the WiFi router, etc, but in this country (US), at least, you can't own facts. You can protect facts as trade secrets or other privacy protected information, and the government will cooperate with you on that, but you can't own the fact that something happened. That includes the fact that something was put onto the schedule to happen in the future.
I don't see any outrage at all on this topic (being sold the same free, publicly-available information over and over and over again, information that the content providers want to publicize). There's a fertile market for open source competition in this area, I think.
you could just buy it once and then download it again for free, and possibly legally given Fair Use rights. Right?
Not under current U.S. copyright law. See UMG Recordings v. MP3.com .
The new AT&T plan has a very reasonable $10/GB overage fee for the 2GB/month plan they are offering mobile users.
Alas, the 200MB plan has a very unreasonable $15/200MB overage fee. Though in theory if you notice before your bill you have gone over you can switch to the 2GB plan (so why does it not auto-switch? A mystery).
But anyway, the higher end overage is a much more sane number than has been traditional.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You didn't think all that "free markets, small government" stuff was just talk did you?
As more and more people ditch their landlines for cell phones for telephone service, eventually, we'll see people making the same calculation with data. Why pay for the same utility twice? I think the first company to consolidate their land-based broadband service into mobile data service where you pay one provider once, will position themselves best for the future.
It's like going to the "all you can eat" buffet, and getting yourself two orders.
You don't need an enclosure for every drive. Just one hot-swap enclosure.
There you go, the floppy disk is dead, long live your stack of 2TB hard disks.
Well, you share in the ignorance. Land-line companies are not heavily regulated by the government anymore, as you are attempting to suggest(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996). Wireless companies are regulated pretty much at the same level as land-lines providers(which most of the big wireless carriers are run by..wait for it...wait for it...land-line companies), as the wireless companies use public airwaves to do business(if you are not aware, "The People", not corporation, own the airwaves). You have to also remember that those wireless towers are fed by wire-line companies(which are not always the same company that owns the antenna), so that line running up to the cell tower is regulated by the current laws for wire, not wireless.
AT&T Wireless and AT&T Wireline are the exact same company, they are just run in differing way. My girlfriend, who works at AT&T Wireless, get extremely cheap wireless accounts, free long distance on her home phone, and free DSL. This is because AT&T covers all AT&T brands(though AT&T is not really AT&T anymore, it is SBC under a different name, but with the same bad management).
AT&T made well over $12 billion USD last year, in profit, and in that is AT&T Wireless's profit.
Did you work at AT&T when "Ma Bell" and the "Baby Bells" existed? I am not asking to make fun of you, I am asking in all seriousness. I can understand your stance if this is the case, but if it is not, then you probably were not trained properly when you working at AT&T(which is a big problem at that company).
And we want some of whatever it is you are smoking :) While it would be nice and logically should be that way, that isn't where the world is heading. Now that people are 'hooked' on data they are going to milk us dry.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Unlimited would be great... unfortunately most people forget the most ubiquitous limit: borders. All plans are limited as soon as you cross an international border. There are lots of world travellers who want a low-cost single provider solution. I want something to cover me in New York and Paris and Abu Dhabi.
Things are more expensive, generally, in Japan because demand is high (and supply is limited, in some cases). It has nothing to do with quality.
would be nice to have a "child account" for, well, kids; one which covers communication with few selected numbers but works like prepaid for the rest (without limiting communication with few selected numbers once prepaid credit runs off)
So, something like T-mobile Family Allowances then?
It presupposes that you, as the parent have a line on the same plan.. but that's a pretty safe assumption, rite?
People willing to trade their freedom of expression for temporary entertainment deserve neither and will lose both.
Actually, I can already tell you of one company in the US that does this. Cincinnati Bell offers home phone, DSL internet, and wireless phone services. They have a deal called "Why pay for two?" where if you purchase your home DSL internet through them (two speeds, 768Kb for dirt cheap and 5Mb for only $15 more) and have your cell phone through them, you pay $0 for unlimited texting and unlimited internet on your phone because you're already paying them once for your internet.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
At some point, they have to understand the frustration that we get unlimited internet access via land line, but restrictions and high costs for cell data, all to the same internet and probably through the same backbone once it leaves the cell network.
No, I don't think they "have to" understand that. They also don't "have to" know how tragic mortality is for me, as an individual. They're not really in a position to change either one.
Put simply, if you think an ISP's major financial burden is backhaul infrastructure and connecting to the same internet that everyone else does, then you probably also think that a farmer's major financial burden is in purchasing seed stock. Working square miles of farmland with a quarter million dollar combine and watering it with patch-rotary sprinkler chains a half mile long must be peanuts compared to getting your hands on some seeds.
So put this in perspective. Which do you think costs more? Getting 100Megabits per second to a large building somewhere, or getting 5 megabits per second to each of 20 people in a given neighborhood? How much more would one cost than the other?
Here's a hint: getting 20 people 5mbit involves as a necessary first step getting 100Mbit through a building or switchpoint somewhere. So, the first problem is a an inevitable subset of the second.
Here's another hint: once you string cable somewhere, the cost difference per mile of 100 strands of gigabit glass fiber and 1 copper pair of cat-3 telephone wires is minuscule compared to right of way costs. Put simply, distance costs money and the width of the pipe costs very little.
So the upshot is that each backhaul to a neighborhood costs your ISP barely more than an individual user's connection does. They pay maybe double to get 100 megabits into a neighborhood switch box what they pay to get 5 megabits to the very first customer off that switchbox. That means the last mile cost exceeded the backhaul cost as soon as the second customer signed on, and 100 megabits with generous oversubscription rates will serve 50-80 5 megabit customers.
So a reasonable estimate of serving just 20 customers off of a switchbox costs 12 times as much as simply lighting up the switchbox itself. 12 times as much for the same bits and the same internet, just to get it delivered to each of those homes.
So if you want two pipes into your house, guess what: you're going to pay for two pipes because you've doubled how much you're costing the ISP. The backhaul is peanuts compared to getting those bits delivered to your doorstep. If one of the pipes you want is wireless, then you will pay for the load you are adding to the wireless distribution network and you'll pay for that shiny cable to the house, too. Nobody cares that all of the bits dump off at the same place, you want two helpings of the expensive part of the network.
You are not buying the internet, you are not purchasing bits, you are paying to have them delivered to you. It's the same as the newspaper. Read it for free at the coffee shop, or pay to have another copy printed and bicycled to your doorstep. Want a copy at home and at work? Yeah, you're paying twice. Who cares that it's the same news in each one? You're the one that wants it, and someone has to print it twice and deliver it to you two different ways.
People willing to trade their freedom of expression for temporary entertainment deserve neither and will lose both.
There you go, the floppy disk is dead
But what replaces the floppy disk for giving somebody a physical copy of a digital work? DVD+R?
Pretty close, yeah - though I really do think that setting the credit limit for "extra" usage (the one except "always allow") should be via classic prepaid mechanism; a hybrid kind of account, basically. If the kid needs to cover that part from own general funds, it's beneficial IMHO on several levels.
Anyway, this service is not available at my place...even though I have a provider that is for a long time fully owned by T-mobile (and reasonably integrated with them)
One that hath name thou can not otter
PS. Wait, I take it back - I checked the website of the mentioned provider owned by T-mobile; and, since I did so the last time, this one quite recent "family network" offer showed up (easily found; new & promoted) - one which is even better than from T-mobile US; one which is exactly what I wanted (a prepaid account can participate in "family network" and gets huge credit (that might be actually better than "unlimited" ;p ) for calling with said network)
Oh well, it's getting better and better...
One that hath name thou can not otter
... and keep allowing it. The telco lobbies will make sure of that.
Before you design for reuse, make sure to design it for use.
The real problem is not that Americans pay twice for internet access. Americans are being forced to pay twice for internet access. Smartphone customers should not have to pay for a data plan just to own the phone. They shouldn't have to do it if their land based internet with wifi is sufficient. I suspect that smartphones will replace simple cell phones soon and more customers will be forced to buy the plans. Now, if people want both unlimited access at home and some access anywhere else, let them pay for it. I suspect that there is a significant market for telcos to provide a service and make a profit. Consumers should be able to choose how much internet they want for their devices. My concern is that this decision is made in a board room.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Those are contractual agreements between publisher and middleman covered under contract law.
Someone who buys a console and jailbreaks it is privy only to the agreement between the owner of the particular console and the store, not to the standard publishing agreement.
To refer to [DMCA-enforced cartels] as [regulation] is like referring to homicide laws as regulating murder.
Yes, the government regulates murder. It expressly permits some premeditated homicides, such as capital punishment and killing enemy soldiers. And regulation doesn't become no longer regulation if it's outsourced to a cartel. Just ask the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which outsources a lot of monetary regulation to the (private) Federal Reserve System.
Get yourself a 4G MiFi device and take your connection with you. You don't need a cell PHONE. You need a cellular network data connection. Voice Over MiFi. At home? Your MiFi is docked for power and your devices all run through that. On the road? Your "phone" and laptop and iPad and Kindle and Nintendo DS and and and all connect via the MiFi.
One data plan to rule them all.
You *might* want to have a second MiFi for your house so that you can SlingBox your TV shows, but with so much of it going online now, you could probably just get by with Hulu and Netflix streaming.
You could also ask the question, "Why the fuck do I have to by extra for texting, when I am already paying for a data plan?".
5000-7000% markup is why.
An even better question could be, "Why the hell is there 5000-7000% markup on text message data in a competitive free market economy?".
Indeed.