AT&T Lowers Data Access To Just $500/GB

GMGruman writes "No doubt in a move to demonstrate how having fewer carriers (once it buys T-Mobile) will be good for US cellular customers, AT&T has announced lower data pricing for customers not on contract: On a per-gigabyte basis, GoPhone users will only pay $500 rather than the previous $5,000. Such a deal. The pricing is indeed lower, but even the best option for such users is five times more than regular customers pay. And given that pay-as-you-go pricing is what the poor and people living paycheck to paycheck use, the result is those who can afford the least still pay by far the most."

Comments

How silly

[tripleevenfall]

"And given that pay-as-you-go pricing is what the poor and people living paycheck to paycheck use, the result is those who can afford the least still pay by far the most." What a silly comment. First, I doubt that people who are poor and use pay as you go generally have smartphones, and if they do, they are far less likely to be data users. Second, we are not at the point where smartphones with data are a can't-exist-without-it commodity. If you are this poor, should you be wasting money on any data plan? Certainly data prices from mobile providers are shockingly high, but this is a silly "think of the children" style fallacious appeal to emotion.

canada overage costs

[ustolemyname]

Canada:
TELUS: $50/gb
Rogers: $30/gb

Re:Willingness to pay

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Yes and no. Yes in that willingness to pay is the proximate criterion on which prices are set. No in that one of the major determinants of somebody's willingness to pay is what other providers of similar or identical commodities are charging. In reasonably competitive markets, price competition between approximately equivalent providers of a given good or service means that, in the end, willingness to pay is approximately equal to the lowest price, which is based on the cost structure of the outfit providing that price.

In hilariously non-competitive markets, of course, willingness to pay and cost are more or less completely decoupled. The same is true for 'ahead of their time' products(where everbody's cost is much higher than anybody's willingness to pay, so the product stays in the lab). In a competitive market for a mature product, though, willingness to pay and cost are fairly closely related.

Re:for pete's sake

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Owning a smart phone with a data plan isn't a human right. Don't want to pay that much for the data plan? Don't. Live without it. Billions do it every day.

Controlling a piece of a the public airways isn't a corporate right. Don't want to charge reasonable rates for data plans? Don't. Live without that government granted monopoly on public property. All the other corporations do it every day.