AT&T Introducing Verizon-Style Shared Data Plans

zacharye writes with news of some exciting rate changes for folks on ATTWS. From the article: "AT&T on Wednesday announced the upcoming availability of new shared data plans. Following Verizon's lead, AT&T's new plans will allow subscribers to share data between family members and also between devices. Dubbed 'AT&T Mobile Share' plans, the new offerings start at $40 per month plus $45 per device for unlimited voice minutes and messaging and 1GB of data, and top out at $200 plus $30 per device for unlimited voice and texts plus 200GB of data..." My favorite part is where you pay per-device and get nothing in return.

Comments

Oy

[Daddy-Oh]

I had high hopes that Verizon's shared data would be the right thing for my family plan. None of need 2GB of data a month - we could easily share that. But, the new plan actually costs significantly more.

And, the unlimited voice has no value to me - we never reach our limit on the shared smallest family plan now.

Angry (er).

Re:Oy

[HarrySquatter]

None of need 2GB of data a month - we could easily share that. But, the new plan actually costs significantly more.

Because you were naive enough to think these plans were to save you money rather than make the telecoms more money?

Re:Oy

[h4rr4r]

I am in a similar boat, but worse as I easily exceed 2GB and the other phone comes close. We are both on unlimited data plans, have the no longer available 250txt plan and 500 minutes which we never go over.

I will be dropping Verizon the second they make me switch. I will not pay full price for a phone without a discount on the plan, so that stupid idea is a no go for me.

Re:Oy

[PopeRatzo]

But, the new plan actually costs significantly more.

That's the idea.

Internally, AT&T executives refer to it as the "Blood from a Stone Plan".

The country's largest ISPs believe that you have too much money and that they deserve what you have worked for. It's what I called "Privatized Class Warfare" and is another of the hallmarks of late-stage capitalism. This phenomenon can be identified when a company decides they are going to charge you significantly more while giving you much less. Another identifying characteristic is that the two or three companies in the respective sector all do it at approximately the same time so they don't have to worry about that inconvenient "competition" that is so destructive to terminal-stage capitalism.

Countdown to AT&T and Verizon merger starts....now.

Re:Oy

[PNutts]

In some cases the full price for a phone without a contract is cheaper.

Re:Oy

[jonnythan]

Interestingly, Verizon's new plans saved me about $20 a month over three phones.

Re:Oy

[h4rr4r]

I am sorry, I was not clear. You are correct a full price phone on a prepaid plan is often cheaper.

I was referring to Verizon's "helpful" advice to unlimited customers that if they pay full price they would be allowed to keep their old plans.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

"hallmarks of late-stage capitalism"

You have no idea what the term capitalism means.

Re:Oy

[jellomizer]

It seems none of these companies knows what people really wants.

1. Reasonable Rates. Data plan should be an extra $20 a month unlimited... Or at a rate where we can use our phones without worry about hitting the peak. Unless we are crazy and do a lot of big downloads, say 8 hours of streaming video a day.

2. Family plans that give us value. The more people the better the value. So for an extra phone $10 per month added.

After paying hundreds of dollars for a phone. A family of 4 shouldn't expect to pay more then $100 a month for phone service.

Re:Oy

[FatAlb3rt]

But this is supposed to get cheaper over time. Sure, let them enable more phones for data, but the price per phone needs to go down.

Re:Oy

[jimmyfrank]

My plan got a little cheaper when I switched to shared.

Re:Oy

[Skarecrow77]

No, they know what we want. They just don't care. They figure if you can afford a smartphone, you can afford damn near whatever they want to charge you.
$40 a month plus $45 a device for 1gb? That's a deal so bad it needs to come with a complimentary tube of KY jelly, yet people are going to pay it, because there are no alternatives (or the alternatives suck).

1gb. seriously 1gb? What is this, 1995? I go through about 200mb a day of wireless data usage, and that's being careful where I visit, using noscript and adblock to keep data usage to a minimum, and generally restraining myself. if I wasn't paying attention, I could do 1gb in less than a half an hour at 4g speeds.

obligatory slashdot analogy:
telco - "Ok, here is your 200mph 4G car. it's going to cost you a damn pretty penny, but you've got it!"
me - "sweet!"
* vroomm 50mph, vrooooommmm 100mph, vrooooooomm 200mph! screeeeeeeeeaaaachhhhalt.*
me - "what the hell? It only worked for 30 minutes, now it doesn't work anymore"
telco - "oh, didn't we tell you? you can only drive at 200mph for 30 minutes a month unless you want to pay us again. pretty much the same ammount. for another 30 minutes."
me - "why would you advertise that your network is that fast if I'm not allowed to go that fast for anything more than a few minutes?"
telco - "you're new here, aren't you? just turn around and bend over."

Re:Oy

[poetmatt]

we're in a near monopoly of only 3 major carriers - and every "minor" carrier is owned by the majors or runs along their networks.

We lack so much competition it's a lie to simply act like it makes a difference at the moment. They need to be regulated into common carrier status instead of abusing it.

To act like rates are going to fix this is to not pay attention to what is causing the rates: the greed/taking advantage of the situation.

Re:Oy

[PopeRatzo]

You have no idea what the term capitalism means.

Sure I do. It means you make money by having money, and that having money is worth more than working.

This is why investors pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than workers. The idea being a pile of money is worth more than the labor of the people who are actually making stuff.

When you actually look at if for a while, you start to see how it's not sustainable and how it will inevitably end with a very few really rich guys and everybody else with very little money or power.

As Merriam Webster puts it,

an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market

The main problem being that there is no such thing as a free market. Remember, the people who came up with the idea of capitalism also believed in perpetual motion machines and transmuting lead into gold via purification.

Re:Oy

[poetmatt]

This just in:

existing cell phone plans don't get cheaper with time - they go up with additional fees and cramming.

Re:Oy

[SJHillman]

You'd think you could build your own plan by now. My data use varies greatly month to month, but rarely tops 2GB (mostly because my phone doesn't run Netflix well), I average under 50 texts per month (sent and received) and rarely use more than 30 minutes of voice a month. I get unlimited everything from Virgin Mobile for $35/mo, which is a reasonable price imo but Sprint has sucky coverage (including at my apartment and at work). ATT and Verizon have good coverage here (both have cell towers on top of the building where I work) but their cheapest plans that would work for me tend to cost significantly more than I pay for both my cell phone and my landline together.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

I had high hopes that Verizon's shared data would be the right thing for my family plan. None of need 2GB of data a month - we could easily share that. But, the new plan actually costs significantly more.

What? You actually and honestly thought they'd do something that'd save YOU money?

Heh... They've done something now that'll wean me off of doing the every 1-2 year upgrade thing. Next phone will be retail price. It'll be cheaper by several hundred dollars over the new plans for me to hold on to my current contracted plans for my lines and buy retail price on the phone and USB dongle. Just got to save the money up-front for the devices now, is all.

Way to go Telcos, way to go.

Re:Oy

[SJHillman]

In most cases, it's cheaper - the exceptions tend to be A) if you replace your phone very often with the newest and bestest model and B) if your data/text/voice usage is very high so you need the unlimited plan

Even in both of those cases, contract-free monthly plans like Virgin Mobile are cheaper. I paid $160 for the phone plus $35/mo for unlimited everything. Over the course of two years, I pay $1000 including the phone. Last I saw, ATT/Verizon had plans over $70 that weren't even close to unlimited anything. At $70/month it comes to $1680 (let's assume your phone is "free" with the contract, so no extra cost there). $340/year is quite a bit extra for most people... especially when you consider you're still not getting unlimited everything and there's additional fees for breaking the contract early.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow you Yanks are getting raped by the telcos. Here in Ireland the plans are getting cheaper. I can get a bunch of calls and texts with unlimited data and a free iphone for E 30 per month - and that's including all taxes. Oh, and we don't pay for receiving calls or texts.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

It actually makes sense, though. I recently bought a data-only device and they tried to convince me a sharing plan was cheaper, but it ended up being $40/month more expensive than just buying a separate $30/month data plan.

If I upgraded my phone with subsidy, I'd be forced into that sharing plan which would cost $960 more over 2 years.

It'd be cheaper to pay full price for a galaxy nexus($650) from Verizon and keep the unlimited plan.

Re:Oy

[tripleevenfall]

Right, we are all familiar with the model - much like AT&T's previous bait and switch with the data plans.

1. We offer unlimited data!
2. We are introducing limited data plans as an option, unlimited still available!
3. We're phasing out unlimited plans, but users who have an unlimited plan can keep the plan!
4. Users with unlimited plans have to choose a limited plan, but don't worry, very few people exceed it and incurr the pornographic overage fees
5. (over time, content changes requiring users to use more data to get the same content, and fees ratched up 'naturally'

So based on that, the future is....?

1. We offer shared data plans! (if you pay obscene fees that render this a non-money-saver)
2. We're phasing out any other form of data plan.
3. We're doing things to your wallet that you can usually only see in a barnyard, due to your inability to control data usage simultaneously for 5 people.

Re:Oy

[Glendale2x]

They know what we want, but they also know we'll pay more for what we don't want. Sure, we'll whine about it and threaten to leave, but almost everyone will just pay what they say. (Cue Fry: "shut up and take my money")

Re:Oy

[PoolOfThought]

That's amazing! I read the definition YOU provided in your comment and came to a completely different conclusion about capitalism. It's almost like you decided to read whatever you wanted... actual words be damned.

Sure I do. It means you make money by having money, and that having money is worth more than working.

I wonder where those with the money to invest got it? I wonder if they worked for it to start with? No... it must have been given to them by some evil invisible force that's out to get the little man. But wait, some of those with money were the little man at one point... how can this be?

And just what do you think will happen if these people with money (your nemesis) guess wrong about how they should invest their money? What if they put their money to work paying someone (someone like you for example) to do something that the market doesn't want? Their money goes away. It doesn't disappear though... it just goes away from the person who put it to a crappy use and goes to someone who will put it to work doing more sustainable (profitable) things.

I'm on a bit of rant. But it's a rant of grief, not so much anger. The country in which I grew up, the USA (I don't know where you're from), is not what you seem to claim it to be, and it disheartens me to hear comments such as your own - where the big bad world is geared towards crushing those without money. Where those who labor believe that those who pay them are evil. Where those who labor choose to spend their free time watching american idol instead of doing something productive for the economy like starting their own business, reading a book, writing a book, or inventing something useful. A little "bubble gum" time is fine However, if your biggest attempt at contributing to society is getting up and going to work and being pissed at everyone else whose chosen to take risks with their time / money (in order to start a business a pay you to work) then your attempt is lame, and you, sir, are the reason for your own problems.

Re:Oy

[cpu6502]

Oh well.
The ATT plan looks better than Verizon though, because if you're single you just play $40 a month. Verizon makes single persons pay the full $90 as if you were a full family. :-o

MY phone is VirginMobile. For $5/month I get 30 minutes which rollover. Right now I have somewhere around nine hours accumulated since my phone is mainly for emergencies or urgent calls. For internet I use my Kindle G3 which is slow but free.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sure I do. It means you make money by having money, and that having money is worth more than working."

Thus it is proven.

"there is no such thing as a free market."

You cannot support that. Try using reason young grasshopper, god gave you a brain, use it!

Re:Oy

[Plekto]

This is also exactly what oil companies do as well.

Sure, there's no actual collusion, but they watch each other minute by minute and move in lock-step to protect their shared interests. Since they have a captive audience, economic theories that you waste your time learning in colleges no longer apply. In the end, those pretty-on-paper theories all fall apart when people get involved and decide to abuse them to their advantage.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

No... it must have been given to them by some evil invisible force that's out to get the little man.

We call this force "inheritance". When Mitt Romney can casually suggest that you make yourself rich by starting a business by borrowing twenty grand from your parents, without even realizing that not everyone has that kind of credit limit at The Bank Of Mom And Dad, we've slipped. I was told that all men were created equal, that you shouldn't have more rights just because of who your parents were. I thought this place was founded on that idea. Then I realized we only got rid of the formal titles.

Re:Oy

[KingSkippus]

Sure I do. It means you make money by having money, and that having money is worth more than working. This is why investors pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than workers. The idea being a pile of money is worth more than the labor of the people who are actually making stuff.

You just made my day, knowing that there's someone else out there who "gets it." It is a source of endless frustration to me, the notion that a lot people out there have, that making money off of having money should be taxed at a lower rate than actually working. It drives me friggin' nuts when this is pitched as "class warfare" or "wealth envy." It is not wealth envy to expect people to pay at least the same tax rate--possibly even more--on money made off of having money versus actually working for it.

Yes, I do believe that there's class warfare going on, but it's not the lower- or middle class that's instigating it; it's the wealthy who are constantly looking for new ways to get out of paying taxes, getting "bailouts", getting subsidies, all the while complaining about the audacity of a poor person wanting health care.

I know I'll probably be modded down as Flamebait, and truth be known, I probably should be because I know it's a touchy topic. Still, I wanted you to know that you are very, very right and I wish there were more people out there who recognized how insane, unethical, and unsustainable the capital gains tax rate is. (Meanwhile, some people are actually pushing for it to be zero, go figure.)

Re:Oy

[Vancorps]

I like your optimism that the American dream is still alive but you're also delusional if you don't think the lower income people are under full assault right now. Rather than set taxes to pre-Bush era the fight is simply to cut programs that were created and solvent prior to the Bush tax cuts which Obama extended. Given the amont of rhetoric coming from the Republican party which has a significant amount of influence over what is going on these days, I find it hard to just scoff at the idea that lower income people aren't being taken advantage of. When tax disparity is as high as it is these days it's really hard to draw another conclusion.

Also, as someone who started his own business more than a decade ago and I pretty easily state that it is significantly harder to start up and become successful these days. Unless you start with money it is becoming an NBA allstar odds type of game. Sure, it still happens but it's few and far between, like people that drop out of college and become billionaires.

Most of the time big money comes from other big money. Look at yesterdays story about the people behind Dragon Dictate. They got swollowed up by large coprorations that simply raped them. They aren't alone in this practice.

The post-WW2 era was about major prosperity and growth. Since the late 90s it has been about globalizing infrastructure and socializing losses. When you or I make a bad investment we lose our investment, when Sheldon Ayers does, he changes the laws and fixes the reason he didn't make money and then not only loses nothing but gains billions.

Wake up! Rich people aren't evil, they are just given too much power and do what anybody with too much power does.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sure I do. It means you make money by having money, and that having money is worth more than working."

Thus it is proven.

"there is no such thing as a free market."

You cannot support that. Try using reason young grasshopper, god gave you a brain, use it!

OT, admin seems to enjoy deleting my posts. Hey admin, spin on it.

Re:Oy

[Grizzley9]

Related article: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-no-boom-telco-equipment-firms-4g-revolution-104449682--sector.html While the phone makers are making the money, the networks are not seeing the same profits let alone the equipment makers. As we can do more with less, there is less $ to be made and that market looks to be shrinking as well even as we do more and more things with more data on our mobile devices.

Re:Oy

[h4rr4r]

It would be even cheaper to pay retail for a GSM galaxy nexus $399 and find another carrier. If they want me to pay their joke $650 then they will have to discount my plan.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

"the Republican party which has a significant amount of influence over what is going on these days"

Not so much. We have the most radical leftist president that this country has ever seen, supported by a majority in the Senate and not that long ago super majorities in both houses, not to mention a significant portion of the judiciary supported by outright statist revolutionaries. Add to that the popular media and we have a society that is all but totally ruled by socialist radicals.

The Republicans that do have power in many cases are not conservatives - hence the purported statement that the "right" has significant power is totally absurd.

But you are correct, rich people are not evil; yet when those with money conspire with those who have political power they become a force of evil that is difficult to overcome and the individual is the one who pays with their liberties and in many cases their very lives.

The constitution is effectively ignored, we all can see this.

Who is John Galt?

Re:Oy

[gothzilla]

Yes, these new plans will save me money. I have a family plan with three smart phones and one dumb phone. My bill will go down by $40 and I will gain tethering which I don't have now. If all you want to do with your phone is talk then stick with a prepaid dumb phone. These plans are for the majority of people who use text and data more than they talk.

Re:Oy

[afidel]

There's 4 major carriers, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile with the size being in that order.

Re:Oy

[IVI V K]

This is pure collusion, that proves that ATT and Verizon have no intent on competing. If this continues, market regulation or breakup may be required.

Raising the cost of data from $30 for 3GB to $40 for 1GB is a 300% price increase and unacceptable in any mature market. As unlimited text and calling plans become redundant to cheaper internet based services, the mobile companies are trying to lock in current income for specialized services people will no longer need.

AT&T and Verizon have developed these plans to protect themselves from the inevitable switch from charging as much as the market will bear for voice, text or data to all services becoming part of the data stream with the next evolution of LTE. These plans are an attempt to challenge the prospect that they may become "dumb pipe" providers of data in place of more expensive add on services.

Once voice calls are just data streams on the data network, the mobile providers will give you that data for free when using their services, as opposed to charging you for the data if you use skype or another ip phone system. They will still charge you outrageous foreign call rates and international roaming charges when ever possible. This would be a definite violation of network neutrality as they would be providing preferencial treatment to their own, non optional unlimited voice and text plans over competing internet services.

The new share everything plans acknowledge the diminishing importance of voice and text services, by requiring you to buy unlimited service and shifting the current fees for these services to the first GB of data.

Even though you some people may actually pay less under these new plans, they are designed solely to protect loss of income that will result when people no longer need high voice minute plans because the competing data based voice plans will be identical in delivery and quality to the mobile provides plans yet without added rates.

This is a strategy to increase data fees while delivery costs drop to further increase profits while fooling the public into thinking they might be getting a deal.

Re:Oy

[hazydave]

Of course it costs more. Verizon used to charge a flat fee for the "Family" plan, $10 for any device added, and then data based on the device and your requirements. Thus, my smartphone cost me $30 more per month than a dumb phone, and that's unlimited data (still is, as long as they don't just decide to void the contract and kick us to the new plan).

Now, they're charging you twice for the smartphone.... it's $20 or so more than a dumb phone doing exactly the same things. Sure, I might use voice and IM less on a smartphone, but that's absolutely not costing Verizon anything, since all the non-essential services are now unlimited. And I'm paying dramatically more for way less data, on top of the extra fee just to have a smartphone hooked into their system.

In short, they're just gouging smartphone users. No other reason but "we can". I would leave Verizon for Sprint, even with their lesser coverage, if I couldn't keep my current plan. Not even much of a choice.

Re:Oy

[hazydave]

Per GB of total plan availability? Or did you just decide to go with less?

Re:Oy

[hazydave]

The real key is that you HAVE to buy the full price phone from Verizon, and they're certainly going to keep those full prices very artificially high. In reality, they don't offer much of a discount over the price a phone would actually sell for in a free market. Look at my Galaxy Nexus. That cost me $299 plus a 2-year contract agreement. Verizon will sell you one for $650 or so off-contract. Google will sell the universal GSM version through the Play Store for $399 (fully supported on both T-Mo and AT&T -- they finally got that right). So that's more or less the real street price you'd pay for these if the whole system wasn't rigged. Verizon and the others are getting these long-term commitments very cheap.

Re:Oy

[Karlt1]

AT&T and Verizon are making plenty of money - just check their quarterly results. The telecom equipment manufacturers aren't making much.

As far as the "phone manufacturers" - only two of the majors are making any money. Apple only makes most of the industry profits with Samsung making the rest. HTC makes a little.

http://www.asymco.com/2012/05/03/the-phone-market-in-2012-a-tale-of-two-disruptions/

Re:Oy

[jimmyfrank]

No, I'm sure the per GB is more expensive but I checked my history and only came close to using 2GB once. I switched my wife to a smartphone too so we now share 4 GB of which she won't use any probably. I actually like the unlimited text/talk, I only had 250 txt before and went over from time to time.

Re:Oy

[s0nicfreak]

I imagine that will end when more and more people realize that there is free wi-fi all over the place they can just use instead, and the price of buying phones outside of being forced into a contract continues to go down.

Re:Oy

[s0nicfreak]

Money only = power if you let it. If the purpose in the things you do in life is money, then yes the people that control the money will control you. It doesn't have to be that way, though.

Re:Oy

[hazydave]

It is the density of towers... but It's not just the towers. AT&T and Verizon both have 850MHz for voice and data, and 700MHz for 4G, which propagate better, not to mention not getting so attenuated by buildings, forests, etc. (AT&T does need 1900MHz for one direction on their 3G connection). Sprint and T-Mo have only the 1900MHz channel for voice and Sprint's 3G. Sprint put WiMax at 2500MHz, which is worse yet... T-Mo's 3G is at 1700MHz and 2100MHz, so less robust. Sprint's putting their LTE at 800MHz, on the old Nextel frequency, so things may eventually get better with them... but that's a couple of years off, I suspect. And data only right now.

AT&T has also had a tower problem in some areas. When Cingular bought AT&T's mobile phone division, they nixed the old DAMPS system and put the whole company on GSM. But DAMPS had better range per cell. So in some areas, you have coverage that's spottier than it was intended to be, simply because of this (I'm sure they filled in extra cells in cities to deal with this, but it's still an issue in rural areas... one of the reasons AT&T drops more calls, the other being issues with the way GSM 2G does cell handoffs).

Re:Oy

[YesIAmAScript]

You don't have to be naive to think that the plans could make some financial sense.

The companies are offering these plans in the hope people will buy more cellular connected devices. Right now there is a disincentive to do so because you have to have a separate contract for each. Merged plans at a reasonable price could cause people to use a lot more cellular data, putting money into the carriers' pockets.

Instead we just got huge per-device cash-grabs. I think they've cut their own legs out from under themselves.

Re:Oy

[hazydave]

Not so much. We have the most radical leftist president that this country has ever seen, supported by a majority in the Senate and not that long ago super majorities in both houses, not to mention a significant portion of the judiciary supported by outright statist revolutionaries

Yes... he's so leftist, he's managed to push through things like the Republican Party's original healthcare plan. And the lowest taxes since the Truman era.

It's sad that the state of education in this country has fallen to such a low level that so many people don't even understand what a "radical leftist" actually would be, they just use the words that Rush Limbaugh taught them to use, without knowing what they mean.

Re:Oy

[cpu6502]

The "per unit" cost reminds me of Comcast or Dish. Comcast charges an extra $10 per TV, and Dish charges an extra $7. That means paying comcast $96 for my 4-TV house! Nuts.

At least the ATT plan looks cheaper than Verizon though, because if you're single you pay $40 a month. Verizon makes single persons pay the full $90 as if you were a full family. :-o

MY phone is VirginMobile. For $5/month I get 30 minutes which rollover. Right now I have somewhere around nine hours accumulated since my phone is mainly for emergencies or urgent calls. Their unlimited plans are cheaper too: $35/month.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you can understand why the tax on capital gains and dividends is fair you must understand the basics of taxation. The money that is flowing to investors through capital gains and dividends has already been taxed at a much higher rate than the 15%. The corporate tax rate in the US is 35% and then some states have a tax as well. The company must pay these taxes before they distribute money to the investors. Then the investors pay another tax on the money when they receive it. This is called Double Taxation.

Wager earners are not subject to double taxation. A company is allowed to subtract wages from revenues before paying taxes. In other words, imagine if wages were paid like this:A company pays taxes on revenues, then pays all employees a proportionately reduced wage due to the lower profits, and then that wage was taxed again.

The short of it is that passive income from most investments is already taxed more than wage income and is often taxed twice or more by the time an investor can spend it. Your ideas of class warfare come from ignorance, not genius or higher understanding.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who drives their car at the maximum capable speed on an open road WILL be without their car in about 30 minutes... Idiot.

Wireless providers have a brand new commodity: 4G. The speeds in covered areas rival or exceed most hardwired internet connections. This is a service that they know they can charge dearly for, and they are. If you have a way to make unlimited 4G service to every subscriber available for a low price, Sprint would love love LOVE to throw money at you until you give up your secret. As it is, Verizon and AT&T already know its not possible and their products are being shaped around that eventuality. Get your head out of the sand and get with the times.

Re:Oy

[hazydave]

It doesn't even have to be unlimited. I'm happy with my unlimited plan -- I get all the data I've paid for. That works both ways... I get what I need, but I'm not compelled to use up what I don't need, and I'm not paying for unused data.

Moving to these limited plans, though, everything's set up in the carrier's favor. If I buy 2GB, I should expect to get that 2GB... nope, you can use up to 2GB, otherwise you lose it. Imagine if your local gas station charged you for a full tank every time you came to refill, whether you needed it or not. Or your electric company charged for 2000kWhr per month, even if you used only 1000kWhr... and charged you an extra $50 for every 100kWhr over your limit?

In short, the things we're letting the telcos get away with are not acceptable for pretty much any utility. They really need to be shown, economically, that we won't play this game. I certainly will not. A flat rate per MB, even a flat $10 or whatever per GB would be acceptable... it doesn't have to be unlimited. I just shouldn't be paying excessively when I need more in a month, or paying for usused data (within limits... not suggesting they charge by the KB, but they certainly could) when I have lower needs in a month.

They'd probably rethink the plans if every customer had a way to just burn off the excess data they've paid for every month. The telcos like the plans as is because, like most of us, we like it when people just give us money and don't expect anything in return.

Re:Oy

[yacc143]

Well, actually, I'd consider €30 being raped, but then I don't put a high value on that iIdiot thing.

Re:Oy

[Billly Gates]

"You just made my day, knowing that there's someone else out there who "gets it." It is a source of endless frustration to me, the notion that a lot people out there have, that making money off of having money should be taxed at a lower rate than actually working. It drives me friggin' nuts when this is pitched as "class warfare" or "wealth envy." It is not wealth envy to expect people to pay at least the same tax rate--possibly even more--on money made off of having money versus actually working for it."

There is a reason for this. Actually two great reasons.

One argument is that without investment a business can not even make payroll. It is a false belief that a company uses solely profits to pay for its supplies, costs, and your pacheck. They always use lines of credit because customers sometimes payback in 30,60, or 90 day increments, costs for assets like warehouses or supplies require an upfront payment and other unforseen expenses etc. Taxing this will lead to a HUGE recession and force employers to move overseas where they can get more capital easier for day to day operations. Infact I was taught in finance 101 in college that a doubling of sales can throw you out business fast! Sounds ludicrious but you go bankrupt waiting for the checks as your short term costs go up through the roof making the money you get later. If you made cupcakes and Walmart orders $30,000,000 worth for all its stores you need $25,000,000 to make them RIGHT AWAY. Do not have that you go bankrupt before you get that 30 mil. So line of credit or investment by the rich is required.

Second reason is not all savings are the mega billionaires. What about people like my parents who are retired and life off their savings? A double tax rate would kill them. They worked hard for 30 years saving and should not be punished. You can call it evil capitalism all you want but Grandmas live off their savings and you would be effectively taxing them when they no longer can even produce an income.

I am not saying it is right or wrong but just giving another perspective. Excess money creates more money because startups, existing businesses, and widows/retirees need income and agreed to save in order to collect interest. In such a case both parties win.

The capital gains tax is low to encourage new startups and keep existing costs down so companies wont shut their doors and take their jobs to China who will practically throw money at you to leave and invest there.

Re:Oy

[glassware]

If a mobile phone provider is offering multiple plans, there should be a law that requires them to bill each customer according to the plan that costs them the least money each month.

There's absolutely no reason to punish consumers by forcing them to study arcane documents, analyze and pore over their past usage, then get dinged for hundreds of dollars of overages each month when someone accidentally uses a feature they didn't sign up for.

Make it a law. No screwing your customers by making things so complex they accidentally pick an inefficient plan.

Within weeks of passing this law, carriers would stop offering hundreds of pointless options. You would no longer have to go through a maze of plans, options, features, and worrying choices.

Government has the power to make our lives easier, and it should be doing that.

Re:Oy

[PoolOfThought]

We call this force "inheritance"...

Hate to burst your bubble here, but most millionaires today are self made, first generation. They worked hard to get where they are, many of them "laboring" and saving. According to Thomas J. Stanley's book, "The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy," only 20% of millionaires inherited their riches. The other 80% are what you'd call nouveau riche: first-generation millionaires who earned their cash on their own. Many millionaires simply worked, saved, and lived within their means to generate their wealth -- think accountants and managers: regular people going to work every day. Most millionaires didn't get their riches overnight when a rich relative died -- they worked for the money. Can you believe it? They didn't steal it and they didn't inherit it! Amazing

When Mitt Romney can casually suggest that you make yourself rich by starting a business by borrowing twenty grand from your parents, without even realizing that not everyone has that kind of credit limit at The Bank Of Mom And Dad, we've slipped.

What Romney said was an idea. Many people do have that option... even if not all do. And many of them have the option because mom and dad worked so that their kids might have that option. I think it was a stupid idea either way. Borrowing money is generally asking for trouble. The businesses I've been involved in (all small) have started with nothing but ideas, not cash. They've bootstrapped themselves up to a semblance of success, but by no means make their owners rich - yet. It just means using your time to make you richer as opposed to using it to make someone else richer (staring at the tube - often for a fee).

I was told that all men were created equal, that you shouldn't have more rights just because of who your parents were. I thought this place was founded on that idea. Then I realized we only got rid of the formal titles.

So the work you do to make better lives for your family should be reset to zero when you die? Please tell me you've got some way to make it so that when I eventually get rich by working my ass off I have some way to leave it to my kids (or whoever I choose to leave it to). I already teach my kids how to live within their means and use their resources wisely. I'd trust them with the money much more than I'd trust my great uncle sam or any of those who choose to depend on him for their well being.

Re:Oy

[alva_edison]

We have the most radical leftist president that this country has ever seen.

Please explain this, because from my view it makes no sense.
Specifically, positive examples of what would be considered leftist.
The ACA doesn't count as it involves private firms, and was developed by Republicans.

Re:Oy

[hazydave]

Cricket and MetroPCS actually do have their own networks. They may roam to one of the others, and if not, the networks are too small to be of value. But not everyone is riding on Sprint, though most of the specialized "carriers" are (Virgin, Boost, etc).

Re:Oy

[Dishevel]

Capitalism: When companies are granted near monopolies by the government and then protected from competition by the same government.
That must be the definition. It is what I see every time some idiot attacks capitalism.
I would love to attack everything like that. All Asians suck, because when you stab them in the head and then break their legs they are always noisy and slowing me down. Not to mention the mess they make.

Re:Oy

[aaarrrgggh]

Does a person that makes $10MM per year and pays $1.5MM in federal taxes not already do a pretty good job of supporting the government? If you make $60k and pay 25% marginal tax rate, it is just $8,000, or 1/200 what the millionaire makes. Does the millionaire use 200x the resources? A bit of a stretch.

If the millionaire paid $2.5MM in federal taxes, or 300x your taxes, do you really think that is proportionate in any way?

Now, saying that every person should pay the same amount is stupid, and that the tax rates should be progressive is logical enough, but it has to be rationalized somehow. I would argue that since businesses have decided to use the public welfare system rather than corporate responsibility in hiring and firing practices, there is clearly cause for higher total taxes, as well as the "social good."

When you factor in AMT, someone that actually earns a meaningful percentage of their income is paying at least 20% in taxes. If it is all from dividends then the money has be taxed at a much higher rate. Capital gains are a bit different, but when it comes down to how these things are structured it gets hard to separate.

Re:Oy

[Billly Gates]

I noticed there are people in two camps under 35.

Those who got in when the economy was hot and kept their jobs and do not see a problem and think people are poor because of poor choices they made and are indifferent. Those who graduated in 2009 (like me!) who paid 3x as much for student loans from the same school the other group paid for 10 years earlier who HR considers unhirable because they work at Target and not in their field (not me thank god but many exists that I feel sorry for).

It is those 2 extremes I see. If the economy improves these adults working at Target with their degrees can get back to work and then build their wealth. Part of the problem is not the rich. It is just in this new economy if you are not good you are finished!

In the old days you could buy a house and live a comfortble lower middle class life with a car and even go on vacations with just a higsh school diploma. Today a degree does not get a free ticket anymore. You have to be great and be given a chance.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

"the Republican party which has a significant amount of influence over what is going on these days"

Not so much. We have the most radical leftist president that this country has ever seen, ...

LOLWUT?

You really, really, need to get your lips off of Uncle Rush's ass...

Re:Oy

[Skarecrow77]

A. you've apparently never been to anyplace out west where roads are straight and flat for miles and miles. Or portions of europe for that matter.

B. if it's a "omg 4g costs so much" problem, explain why 4g data access and 3g data access costs the same?

Re:Oy

[ak3ldama]

Wager earners are not subject to double taxation. A company is allowed to subtract wages from revenues before paying taxes. In other words, imagine if wages were paid like this:A company pays taxes on revenues, then pays all employees a proportionately reduced wage due to the lower profits, and then that wage was taxed again.

Ahh, but they are. They get taxed on their income. Then when they spend money it gets taxed with local and state sales taxes to varying degrees. Can an individual write off their housing, fuel and food stuffs before they get taxed on their "remaining" income? The government only selectively allows these to be pre-tax exempt or deducted: for their pet industries of health care via HDHCP/HSA and then also housing/schooling via deductables for interests paid on school loans and "owning" a house.

Re:Oy

[PoolOfThought]

I like your optimism that the American dream is still alive but you're also delusional if you don't think the lower income people are under full assault right now. Rather than set taxes to pre-Bush era the fight is simply to cut programs that were created and solvent prior to the Bush tax cuts which Obama extended. Given the amont of rhetoric coming from the Republican party which has a significant amount of influence over what is going on these days, I find it hard to just scoff at the idea that lower income people aren't being taken advantage of. When tax disparity is as high as it is these days it's really hard to draw another conclusion.

I don't think I'm delusional, and I don't believe that lower income people are under "full assault". I do believe that the standard leaning of the republican party is that people in general are rational (in psychological speak). People will make the rational decision to do nothing and get paid rather than expend energy and get paid. Hell, if I could get paid what I do at my day job to do "whatever I wanted" instead I would almost have to take that opportunity. Granted these folks aren't seeing my salary come through in their checks, but 99 weeks for most people means they got paid close to 100k as long as they said they were looking for jobs. The republicans see this and offer up alternatives like "you don't work... you don't get paid anymore". Why is this a problem again? If more people were working IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR there would be more tax revenue and more of these programs would at least be solvent. But the government tends to both want to crush the private sector with taxes and then give away that money to people who choose not to participate AND then also grow government's payroll by hiring! In that case government is the problem... not the tax rate being to low on the most productive (who pay close to half the taxes anyway).

Also, as someone who started his own business more than a decade ago and I pretty easily state that it is significantly harder to start up and become successful these days. Unless you start with money it is becoming an NBA allstar odds type of game. Sure, it still happens but it's few and far between, like people that drop out of college and become billionaires.

I run a fantasy basketball website called SignAndTrade.com... I started it with nothing but some free time and an idea. I actually have less than nothing now (borrowed from my own retirement from my day job retirement plan). I've got friends that see my website and go "damn, man... you must be makin' some bank!". I've had friends, swear to God, as me for a referral fee (jokingly) because they referred someone to the site. And I don't even charge! Five years later I've figured out that ad revenue isn't going to cut it and that I've got to either punt or come up with other streams. I'm working on the other streams and it's almost like starting over only I've already got the site going this time so I don't have to make that initial investment. Being successful with or without seed money is hard... but you're right that it's even harder when you're bootstrapping. The truth is that nobody in the USA was guaranteed a right to happiness or riches upon birth (gaining citizenship). They were only guaranteed a right to the pursuit of happiness... many people think that means the govt should coddle them. But in reality it means the government should stay the hell out of their way and let them succeed or fail without excuses.

Most of the time big money comes from other big money. Look at yesterdays story about the people behind Dragon Dictate. They got swollowed up by large coprorations that simply raped them. They aren't alone in this practice.

I guess we have to make sure we're talking the same language here to go on any further. Big money to me may be substantially smaller to me that it is to you. I still consider having made it "big" to being a millionaire even though I know that's n

Re:Oy

[cayenne8]

How about the approx 49% of the US citizens that pay 0 federal tax?

I'll be up for adjusting all tax rates, if we quit giving so many people a free ride.

I don't care if it is only $1....everyone should have some skin in the game here.....

Re:Oy

[Mike Buddha]

At least the ATT plan looks cheaper than Verizon though, because if you're single you pay $40 a month. Verizon makes single persons pay the full $90 as if you were a full family. :-o

Uh, a single person on ATT's shared plan pays $95 for their phone and 1gb of data. Verizon charges $90 on their Share Everything plan for the same service level.

Re:Oy

[im_thatoneguy]

The poor are the ones waging a war on the poor. As a result I don't care. If they want to give me a tax cut so be it. When they start looking after their own interests instead of electing people to screw them I'll support their interests.

Re:Oy

[tripleevenfall]

I was using AT&T's data plan until recently, and I had an old, grandfathered, ultra-cheap phone service plan. Even so, there was no way to have a data plan and a bill that totaled less than $90.

The carriers create all kinds of theater around serving you better, but the only thing you can be sure of is that their plan is for your bill to increase year over year, forever.

Re:Oy

[dballanc]

Of course that assumes Verizon will even let you active a smartphone without a data plan... which they normally will not. Some of the MVNOs like page plus will let you, but I'm pretty sure verizon won't. I'm sure ATT would love to block that route too, if it could. It boggles my mind why non-contract plans aren't more popular. Looking at Page Plus (verizon mvno) you get unlimited, plus 2gb data for $55. If you can get by with wifi and 100mb mobile data that drops to $39. If you can live with 1200min on the voice plan and 100mb that drops to $29. Those are without contract. I'm pretty sure they also include the taxes, where as the contract plan prices usually don't. Simple mobile is $40 for "unlimited" (1gb data) using Tmo's network. The voice only prepaids get even cheaper (4c a min is the lowest I found at page plus) if you can get by with wifi only.

Re:Oy

[JazzLad]

You want them to pull a Charter?

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree 100%, because that's as much as I can legally agree.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sure I do. It means you make money by having money, and that having money is worth more than working."

Thus it is proven.

"there is no such thing as a free market."

You cannot support that. Try using reason young grasshopper, god gave you a brain, use it!

AC to AC, I would suggest the same. As in you should lookup hyperbole (i.e. "no such thing" is certainly hyperbole) and lookup troll (type: internet). I'm going to go lookup, troll: feeding thereof.

On the other hand, I would love to see an example of an effective truly "free market", and I mean that in the currently, fairly standard, Laissez-faire sense of the term free market. And I mean effective as in the overall effectiveness in providing products and services to an entire society.

Certainly this example of the cellular phone market is not a free market in the Laissez-faire sense. It is highly regulated and also suffers from a strong amount of regulation capture. But if we did have a free cellular market with a true lack of any government regulation, it would likely mean companies hiring people to destroy other companies towers (Police would be a form of government regulation) or jamming their airways or possibly having pitched battles (Somalia is the trendy example of a free market). I think it likely we can agree we both want some kind of government regulation (you want Police to protect your property rights?) which means we also agree that we don't want a truly free market. We just (probably) disagree on some of the particular regulations to use.

Re:Oy

[IVI V K]

I think the difference is that ATT is allowing new subscribers to get the current individual phone plans with limited minutes and no texting as an alternate to Share Everything.

Verizon now requires all new account go prepaid or Share Everything, which is a big cost increase for people who don't use many minutes or text.

Re:Oy

[PopeRatzo]

And just what do you think will happen if these people with money (your nemesis) guess wrong about how they should invest their money?

They declare bankruptcy and all the small businesses they owe money to get screwed. Then, they take a huge tax write-off on the loss and the board votes a large bonus to the CEO. The shareholders are SOL.

Remember when they "reformed" the bankruptcy law for individuals, making it harder to discharge debts that they couldn't pay? Well, they did the opposite for corporations. That's why you hear about "strategic bankruptcies" and outfits like Bain Capital Management who can make $100million by taking a $120million dollar company into bankruptcy.

That was an easy one. And no, people with money are not my nemeses. I have money. I made a lot of that money through investments but the original money came from working. I pay much lower tax percentages on the money that I make by checking my portfolio than I did on the money I made by getting up and going to work every day, actually doing something.

And don't tell me that those investments are what makes the economy go. Almost my entire portfolio are in derivatives, index betting pools that don't have any connection to capital going to a corporation so it can grow. People think that Wall Street is made up of guys who buy shares in companies and then the companies use that money to build a new plant and hire new workers. That's bullshit.

The derivative market is now worth $1.2 Quadrillion. Let that sink in a moment. $1.2 Quadrillion is 1200 TRILLIONS. The derivative market dwarfs the entire GDP of the planet. This LIBOR scandal that we've recently heard about involved fixing the rate at which those derivatives are valued. The level of theft - outright theft - by the guys you'd call "The Job Creators" is estimated to be as high as $270Trillion. So these guys stole more that 15 times the entire national debt of the United States.

But you know what the political focus is on? That retired workers getting a monthly social security check of $900 have it too damn good. That it's unthinkable that workers would be part of a union. How horrible it is that a family of four making $25k aren't paying any taxes and need to have more skin in the game while guys worth a quarter billion are squealing that if their taxes go back to the rates they were at in 1996 (39%) they just won't be able to scrape by. Remember, under the current 34% top tax rate, guys like Mitt Romney pay less than 14% (and I'm pretty sure we're going to learn that in some years they pay 0%).

Man, don't whine to me about "the country you grew up in". The country you grew up in had higher tax rates, higher corporate taxes, stricter regulations on corporations in the areas that really matter and a whole lot less income disparity. The country you grew up in looked a whole lot more like Socialist countries than the country we're in right now. I know this because I grew up in the same USA, back when a much larger portion of the work force was unionized, when almost half of all workers could have fixed-benefit pensions, when tax rates on millionaires went up to 70, 80, 90 percent on money they made over a million bucks. Of course, this was before your sainted Ronald Reagan took the snow-globe that is the US economy and smashed it against the wall.

The United States isn't getting more like "European-style Socialism", it's getting a LOT LESS like it (yes, even under the Islamo-marxist fist-bumping terrorist in the White House). People like you cry how it's all "bad for business" when business is collecting all-time historical profits (while workers are making less - substantially less). Right now is by far the most pro-business era in American history.

You're so full of shit and it's tragic that you don't even know it. You've been pumped so full of the right-wing fascist ideology that has become conventional wisdom that you have completely forgotten what the USA was like when you "grew up".

Re:Oy

[PopeRatzo]

I don't think I'm delusional

No one delusional thinks he's delusional.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

I am the AC: Are you failing to realize that someone paying for things with capital gains pays all of those as well?

Maybe this will help:

Wages: Income Tax is paid and the remaining is Spending Money*
Capital Gains: Corporate Income Tax is paid, then Capital Gains Tax is paid, then the remaining is Spending Money*

*It does not matter what the sales tax and other local taxes are because from this point forward both individuals are paying the same rates.

Re:Oy

[OldSport]

That's a deal so bad it needs to come with a complimentary tube of KY jelly

That's a turn of phrase so funny it should come with a complimentary tissue to wipe off the coffee I spit onto my screen.

Re:Oy

[jbwolfe]

You funny Pope.
With the way you see things, I'm betting I would laugh an awful lot if we were drinking buddies. Unfortunately for us, your humor is not far from the truth.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I have an AT&T family plans with three iPhones and one non-Apple smart phone. My total monthly bill is $225, including taxes. When I look at the new plans I can't see a combination that costs me less than that and almost all of them cost more.

At the moment I have 2GB of data per phone, 700 minutes standard calls, unlimited mobile to mobile, unlimited text.

So here are the options:

4 GB plan $70 + $40 per phone (4 phones) = $230

6 GB plan $90 +$35 per phone = $230 strange that isn't it!

10 GB plan $120 + $30 per phone = $240

Now see the trap. If you don't include taxes everything still costs me more than now. The 4 GB and 6 GB plans cost me the same and the 10 GB plan is only $10 more. So you feel cheated if you go for the lowest rate plans.

Re:Oy

[nazsco]

More like driving at 35mph with constants bumps and red lights

Or you are not talking about att data plan analogy?

Re:Oy

[jbwolfe]

It's not there aren't many of us who get it, it's that those who don't get scarier every day. How did 50% of the country move so far to the right? If they succeed in electing Romney, the journey to ruin that is facing the middle class will pick up pace. Maybe there's something in the water.

I know I'll probably be modded down as Flamebait...

Offtopic, maybe. But not flamebait. Since your at +5 now, its not looking too bad.

Re:Oy

[KingSkippus]

How about that being a lie?

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

this just in -- inflation is real, and cell phone plans do get cheaper (by retaining the same nominal price) as a general rule, unless you do something silly like buying a new phone and signing a new contract.

Sometimes they'll change stuff up on you, but mostly they leave old plans alone, and the random fee increases are usually less than inflation.

Re:Oy

[tripleevenfall]

I think most carriers have strategized to push most customers to smartphones and data plans, and are content offloading dumbphone users to their pre-paid subsidiary or letting them go altogether.

Not to go to the usual car analogy, but several automakers have eliminated the mid-sized pickup trucks. They figure that the people buying them can be pushed into buying the more expensive, very high margin full-size pickups if the midsize trucks are not available. For the majority it's probably true.

Re:Oy

[PoolOfThought]

You're so worried about the megacorps and megabanks that you completely miss the fact that they do not define capitalism. To you they do, but to people who choose not to let them destroy their lives they are simply an example of bad apples who will one day get their reckoning. They're not something to aspire become and they're not something to be left unchecked. It needs to be dealt with and a political climate that allows for it to be dealt with will emerge over time. In the meantime the regular rich guys (thinks millions instead of billions and trillions) recognize that all of this rallying against the evil super bastards corps are nothing but a distraction and an excuse.

That was an easy one. And no, people with money are not my nemeses. I have money. I made a lot of that money through investments but the original money came from working. I pay much lower tax percentages on the money that I make by checking my portfolio than I did on the money I made by getting up and going to work every day, actually doing something. And don't tell me that those investments are what makes the economy go. Almost my entire portfolio are in derivatives, index betting pools that don't have any connection to capital going to a corporation so it can grow. People think that Wall Street is made up of guys who buy shares in companies and then the companies use that money to build a new plant and hire new workers. That's bullshit.

I won't tell you that those investments make the economy go. But I'll tell you that there's also nothing wrong with what you did. You worked. You made money. You invested it. Someone, somewhere is finding a way to make money off of it and you've managed to bet on the right track... for now. You and I both know the tables could turn and one day you could wake up and see your portfolio at nothing. Then you'd rethink your choice about putting all your money into derivitives, but for now you're putting your money to good use. And honestly, you're no better / worse a person for having put it to work there as you would be for putting it to work at some local mom &pop shop trying to get them started. After all, then it would be them "Laboring" and you stealing all "their" money that they earned through their labor when you demand that they repay you for the risk you took when you invested in their concept.

Man, don't whine to me about "the country you grew up in"...

I don't know what country you grew up in. I do know where I grew up. And I'm also keenly aware that the country my next door neighbor grew up in may have been far different from the one I did. I didn't live on the border of Mexico or anything, I just had parents who believed a certain way and acted on those beliefs. I had parents who worked hard. And I had friends who had parents that lived off the system. I didn't even realize it growing up because my parents didn't complain about it; they just kept working on themselves and to give me a better future.

My dad is a teacher. Teachers are about as unionized as they come, but he didn't push union politics. He was happy when they got raises when other state employees didn't, but he was pissed that some teachers who sucked got to hang around at all and that unions defended absolutely shitty execution of "the craft of teaching" solely because it was a union member that was the one doing a shitty job. I learned then that unions were both good and bad. And there's no doubt in my mind that they still have their place today, but that they are also still very capable of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs... due to greed and envy more than due to the desire to exercise a god given right to the fruits of their labor.

You're the one twisting the current state of things into some horrible scenario.You're the one calling capitalism a failure. Thankfully I don't see it that way. I still see a land of opportunity and pursuit where you see a land of oppression and thievery. You say you grew up in the same USA as me? Man, we don't even live in the same one today.

Re:Oy

[PoolOfThought]

You finally said something true! Congrats.

It was true, but not complete. And intentionally misleading. Those are worth double points if you were in either talk radio or Network TV news. But seeing as how you're not... it's just being putz. I swear I even thought as I typed it "I wonder which smartass is going to point out that delusional people don't know that they're delusional". I was betting on some anonymous coward / peanut gallery type person. Definitely not someone actually in the discussion. Seeing as how that's all you found relevant to respond to this just makes me a wonder a little more about type of person I'm dealing with and if their purpose is to discuss or to distort.

Re:Oy

[Critical Facilities]

I will gain tethering which I don't have now.

Just FYI, you don't need AT&T to give you tethering nor do you have to root your phone. If you're running Android, try FoxFi. I've used it several times and it's great. It's in the Google Play store.

Re:Oy

[PoolOfThought]

Sorry to respond to my own comment, but I had a HUGE math fail above. In my haste I used benefits per month as benefits per week. The amount of benefits (cash) for unemployment was more like 30k over 99 weeks than 100k. The premise still holds true though. That is that it's far more rational to take $15k for "free" then to get up and work for it.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the approx 49% of the US citizens that pay 0 federal tax?

Wrong again. They pay not federal income taxes. They play plenty of other federal taxes, like payroll taxes. Income tax is one of the few progressive taxes in our entire system, where the rich pay more (per dollar) than the middle class. Which is why rich conservatives (and there idiotic followers) constantly harp on the federal income tax instead of the other taxes. I pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes, because I don't make more than $106800. Raise that cap and we can talk about lowering income taxes on the rich. They've reduced capital gains taxes to an abusively low level already.

This comes up so often, I can't figure out if you people are stupid or willfully ignorant.

Re:Oy

[frosty_tsm]

The money that is flowing to investors through capital gains and dividends has already been taxed at a much higher rate than the 15%. The corporate tax rate in the US is 35% and then some states have a tax as well.

Officially, yes. Very public counter-example from a year ago: GE got a refund.

(I have no disagreement with anything else in your post; I wish people realized that the only "job creators" paying taxes on their employees are ones hiring nanny's butlers).

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

In the case of pickups, I think that's a good thing. Anyone rich enough to afford the horrible fuel economy of a pickup can afford to give the automakers much more profit by purchasing a high-end high-margin model.

And anyone who really needs a truck for work should be handy enough to buy a used pickup at a giant discount and fix it up.

Re:Oy

[Grishnakh]

Free wi-fi? Where? I certainly haven't seen any. 10 years ago this may have been the case, but not any more. Wi-Fi networks are all password-protected with WPA2 these days, and ones open to the public usually require you to purchase access by the hour at extremely steep prices. Even airports frequently have pay-only wi-fi. Maybe Starbucks still has free wi-fi, but when I need data access I'm never near one of those.

Re:Oy

[tripleevenfall]

Any "rich" guy who needs a truck and has $20,000 to spend should be forced to instead give $30,000 to BigCorporation01?

Not sure I've heard such overt corporatist sentiment on Slashdot before. Was this man bailing the corporation out with his tax dollars not enough, does he still owe BigCorporation01 something more?

Re:Oy

[colinnwn]

and I don't believe that lower income people are under "full assault". I do believe that the standard leaning of the republican party is that people in general are rational (in psychological speak). People will make the rational decision to do nothing and get paid rather than expend energy and get paid. ... but 99 weeks for most people means they got paid close to 100k as long as they said they were looking for jobs.

99 weeks of unemployment would vary depending on your original salary and the state you live in, but it would be closer to $40k (or $20k/yr) than it would be to $100k.

I think the intention of the statement of lower income people being under "full assault" is that many of these people were gainfully employed during the good economic times, and now despite the fact many if not most want to work, and may not have the resouces to "make their own luck", they can't find jobs. Some of this was inflated by a failure of GB43 administration to monitor the financial industry to ensure they were acting lawfully and in the best interest of the country. Yes I know this goes back to Clinton (and really before even him). But the problem became clear in the GB43 era, and rather than addressing it early enough to provide a "soft landing" they turned their back and believed the free-market would allow everything to work out. Not so much.

Instead we are in a lagging economy where employers aren't hiring back, and public debt inflated by 2 unnecessary wars, NOW the Republican party wants to balance the budget and do it by cutting social programs that protect workers vulnerable to downturns and protect our economy from going into a real tailspin. AND they want to lower taxes on the rich, so the rich don't have to shoulder their fair share of debt our country has already wracked up, and help pay for the society and governmental security that they have received outsized benefits to (along with their own hard work). But those 2 aspects aren't mutually exclusive. If these "rich" people were born and raised in Uganda instead of the USA, probably 90% wouldn't have been successful in a different social regime.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

"When you actually look at if for a while, you start to see how it's not sustainable and how it will inevitably end with a very few really rich guys and everybody else with very little money or power."

So when is this going to happen? We've had capitalism for a few centuries right now, and last I checked, the living standard of the poor is far superior to that of other countries.

"This is why investors pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than workers."

You do realize that many of the average workers (at least in America) has a 401K plan or some kind of retirement plan, right? Would you really have those machinists, teachers, etc... pay more taxes on their retirement earnings? Raising taxes on investments hurts everyone. And, if the CEO of my company gets taxed more, that's less money in my pocket - that doesn't benefit an average worker like myself.

"Sure I do. It means you make money by having money, and that having money is worth more than working."
I really don't think this is the case. Sure, it's anecdotal evidence, but I don't think Bill Gates or Steve Jobs were born into extremely wealthy families, and their are literally countless stories of business owners who were born into a poor or average family.

What's funny about this is someone is complaining about the inadequacies of the capitalism system because they can't get a data plan for exactly the price they like, something that was nonexistent about 10 or 15 years ago.

Re:Oy

[Kryptonian Jor-El]

My alternative doesn't suck. T-Mobile Monthly 4G. $30/mo for 100 minutes, unlimited text, unlimited 4G data (or what they call 4G, anyway). Bring your own phone, and you're good to go

Re:Oy

[DocSavage64109]

I was using AT&T's data plan until recently, and I had an old, grandfathered, ultra-cheap phone service plan. Even so, there was no way to have a data plan and a bill that totaled less than $90.

That's not quite true. Before I had to add the unlimited texting (for $20/mo), my data + phone + fees was around $74/mo.

Re:Oy

[PoolOfThought]

99 weeks of unemployment would vary depending on your original salary and the state you live in, but it would be closer to $40k (or $20k/yr) than it would be to $100k.

I already addressed the math error. The original comment sat there for 4 hours without anyone saying anything. I responded to my own comment pointing out my own error and 1/2 hour later here comes a message telling me my math was wrong.

What I always find interesting when the topic comes up is that everyone seems to think they know what the riches "fair share" is. What is it? Is it somehow more (percentage wise) than everyone elses? The answer is that the value is going to be different in everyone's opinion. The "not rich" sit around and talk about it like there's some definite hard value that should be imposed on the rich like some constant of the universe that is being ignored to humanities peril. The rich know that their fair share of taxes is whatever the law says it is. So right now, they're paying their "fair share". When the tax cuts expire they'll be paying their "fair share" then. If new cuts are made then it'll be the same again. The difference we'll see is how much people are willing to pay in taxes before they say... screw it... it's safer to just not risk my money and not earn anything and not pay any taxes.

You can say that something is in jeopardy without saying it's under full assault. The reason I even got into this conversation is because a commenter tried to distort capitalism by pointing to the few crappy outlier aspects. Then we got a follow up where someone claimed that the rich are assaulting the poor. My view is that the rich are simply living and the poor are simply living. But fear and envy has people lashing out with a class warfare type attitude saying it's that guys fault because they are either greedy or lazy. Understand that I'm not calling either group greedy or lazy... I'm just saying what the arguments tend to be once the rhetoric gets to flying.

Everybody wants to blame. I hear it was Obama's healthcare. I hear it was the wars by Bush. Or it was Clinton's homes initiatives. Or it was Reagan did this. Or it was Carter did that. We've had people that have thrived through all of these. And I'm pretty sure we've had people that blamed those that thrived through all of these. What's happening in Washington is just very likely to not affect your day to day ability to get ahead. And how much taxes the rich pay above what they are already paying isn't going to be the difference maker. That's my point.

They weren't born and raised in Uganda. Well, probably not anyway... maybe one was... wouldn't that blow your theory! Or would they be the 1%? And if so... would that be bad... seems that's the 1% we want! In any case, they are american citizens and the american right to pursue happiness is theirs. How they would have performed in Uganda is completely off topic as I've never claimed these people to be "better" than anyone else - but they also shouldn't be punished or blamed for succeeding.

Re:Oy

[shutdown -p now]

Capitalism: When companies are granted near monopolies by the government and then protected from competition by the same government. That must be the definition.

It's not the definition, but it's a nearly unescapable consequence: capitalism leads to concentration of wealth, and it also leads to the society where concentrated wealth is power of its own (because it funds politicians). So, as long as you have unregulated capitalism and government, you end up with a system where the government is bought out and starts regulating in favor of capitalists. The only way you can prevent it is by pre-empt that and aggressively regulate against such a possibility before it happens; and even then you need to look out (shady deals have happened in pretty much all Western countries to date).

Re:Oy

[gothzilla]

While this does work, when AT&T discovers you're using tethering they'll automatically add the tethering charge to your bill. It happened to a couple of my friends last year.

Re:Oy

[PopeRatzo]

"When you actually look at if for a while, you start to see how it's not sustainable and how it will inevitably end with a very few really rich guys and everybody else with very little money or power."

So when is this going to happen?

Oh, we've got a comedian here. Do you realize that the Walton Family has more wealth than the bottom 40% of the US population?

You do realize that many of the average workers (at least in America) has a 401K plan or some kind of retirement plan, right?

Right now, the average worker with a 401k plan will retire with enough money to live on for about 4 years. Life expectancy is over 75, so be prepared to live on catfood for a decade. 401k plans are a total scam. Expect it to be one of the biggest scandals of the next 5 years as baby boomers retire and go broke.

What's funny about this is someone is complaining about the inadequacies of the capitalism system because they can't get a data plan for exactly the price they like

Our discussion of capitalism went far beyond "data plans" you dishonest piece of shit. Oh, and the reason that "data plans" did not exist 20 years ago is that the government had not yet made the Internet that they created available to the public at large. The Internet that they created with taxpayer money it true socialist fashion.

Re:Oy

[PopeRatzo]

Capital Gains: Corporate Income Tax is paid, then Capital Gains Tax is paid, then the remaining is Spending Money*

Now now...I take the money I made last year via capital gains (the money I worked for before I retired in 2007 is already spent, let's say). I have NOT "already paid taxes on it when it was earned" except for the 15% capital gains tax (which can easily be reduced). I invest it in derivative instruments - options, like that. None of that money ever gets invested in a corporation or in any way goes to "creating jobs". Derivatives account for several times the amount of money in the actual equities market and it's just a betting pool.

I do nothing but listen to a radio show in the morning and make a few trades. I don't use money "that has already been taxed" and I don't pay corporate taxes. I'm paying half the tax rate as the guy who picks up my garbage, except I can use IRAs and other tax exempt instruments to avoid it. Now, I have a limit to how much I can put into my IRA (yet, somehow Mitt Romney has an IRA worth over $100,000,000.00).

Don't tell me that there's is anything like a good reason why the money I make in those 20 minutes I spend at 6am listening to a radio show and making a few trades online deserves to be treated better tax-wise than the money made by a guy who is out in 105 F weather picking up garbage cans all day.

The worst thing about the current metastasized capitalism we have now is what it does to the moral compass of people like you. It appears that you just can't tell the difference between right and wrong any more.

Re:Oy

[Dishevel]

The answer is not to regulate business till it goes away.
The answer which was already though of by the founding father was to have a weak federal government. So that business could not use it against the people.
The problem is that we have allowed our governments (Federal, State, Local) too much power.

Re:Oy

[shutdown -p now]

The answer is not to regulate business till it goes away.

The answer is to regulate business, not for the purpose of it going away, but to prevent it from becoming sociopathic. Let capitalism run for the benefits it gives (increased productivity etc), but ensure that it all works for the benefit of society as a whole in long term.

The answer which was already though of by the founding father was to have a weak federal government. So that business could not use it against the people.

With a sufficiently weak government, the business doesn't need it to do malicious acts against people. It can just do it on its own. The real trick is to have a government that's hard to corrupt. The size is only tangentially relevant to that - larger government is more dangerous when it's corrupt, yes. But a government too small can't deal with other dangers when it's not corrupt.

That you speak of "weak federal government" makes even less sense. Suppose you have a weak federal government, and strong state governments. Given that most states are large enough to be a European country, you still have, in effect, a strong government running things. Why is it any better?

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

How did 50% of the country move so far to the right?

By standing our ground against the prevailing tide. (Okay, plus a little backlash against said tide. Or maybe more than a little.)

Re:Oy

[Critical Facilities]

Interesting. How could they tell the difference between internet traffic on the device, and internet traffic from a laptop through the device? Seems to me that'd be awfully hard for them to substantiate.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

"You have no idea what the term capitalism means."

So I didn't know policy here was to delete all AC posts, as the OP here was mine and it's now gone, along with many others I wrote.

How "courageous" of you. /sarc

Perhaps I will create an ID so I can keep annoying you drones more effectively.

However I have a question, do posts created by named posters that admin disagrees with get deleted as well? You people seem to have a lot of resources available to you to monitor and cleanse this board... are you all doing this from your mothers basement?

It's an honest question.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a (mostly) free market guy. And by (mostly) I mean I am not naive enough to believe that everything can be captured by the market, and I believe that government does have a proper role in market regulation when that is the case. It is the governments job in the market to regulate out externalities and to prevent monopolistic behavior.

In this case I find it truly remarkable that the obvious collusion between the limited market players has not resulted in some sort of regulatory action. I've priced phone plans from all the major carriers several times over the past few years, comparing "family plans" for my family. Every time the price has come out almost exactly the same. Sometimes to the penny, but almost always within just a couple bucks a month. Exactly what you get will vary slightly (one gives you 700 shared minutes, the other gives you 750) but almost always the lowest tier plan cost exactly the same across the board, and same with the second tier and so on.

The only logical conclusion is that they have the politicians in their pocket and the regulators by extension. The only thing I can't decide is if this is the result of over or under regulation. The bad side of well intended regulation is that it opens up an area of the market to legal manipulation. When a company does some anti-competitive behavior, it's illegal and their competitors can take them to court. When a company gives a boatload of cash to a Senator who passes a law that benefits the company, it's competitors have little recourse except to play the same game. When all the competitors give a boat load of money to a bunch of Senators to make sure they are the only ones in the market and can do whatever they want, we are all screwed.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Specifically, positive examples of what would be considered leftist."

The ACA has roots going back to Plato's Republic, you are a fool if you believe this has anything to do with healthcare, this is a statist power grab and nothing else. Nationalization of a huge sector of the economy. Do you only watch John Stewart?

"positive examples"

Oh come on. Nationalization of automobile manufacturing, ties to Unions and leftist groups that are undeniable, expansion of the welfare state, expanding government spending beyond anything ever done before, printing more and more dollars, need I go on?

Frankly I am astounded these things need to be explained to you. Public school student perhaps? Do you actually know what socialism is?

Here is a question in response, do you understand what the term "individual rights" really means? Have you ever read the constitution? Do you believe that a man has a right to healthcare? Consider the following before you answer.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=arc_ayn_rand_man_rights

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

Such an intelligent response, what can one say?

Truth be told I don't listen to Rush, I have a job.

Any other questions?

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

Lie? How is it a lie? Your very link admits the truth of the number!

"The 51 percent and 46 percent figures are anomalies that reflect the unique circumstances of the past few years, when the economic downturn greatly swelled the number of Americans with low incomes."

This posits that the "economic downturn" reflects "unique circumstances" which is in fact completely unsubstantiated at all.

The numbers are facts. "anomalies" is a theory. I say this has been planned. Prove me wrong, I dare you.

It goes on. "These figures cover only the federal income tax"

Who has said otherwise? This is the point. Nearly 50% of your neighbors pay 0 federal taxes, yet they vote in droves to elect socialists who scheme to steal your productivity. Pretty good deal huh?

Shall I continue?

"Most of the people who pay neither federal income tax nor payroll taxes are low-income people who are elderly, unable to work due to a serious disability, or students, most of whom subsequently become taxpayers."

So what? This has nothing to do with the fact that 50% of your neighbors pay 0 federal taxes, yet they vote in droves to elect socialists who scheme to steal your productivity.

More proof from your biased source?

"Moreover, even these figures greatly understate low-income households’ total tax burden because these households also pay substantial state and local taxes."

Again, the statement that 50% of your neighbors pay 0 FEDERAL taxes STANDS.

I won't bother to continue, you are free to believe what you wish. Go buy one of Obamas cars that run on Unicorn farts, drone.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure if you are calling me troll or not, which is vaguely intriguing!

Otherwise I fully agree with your points. But I would point you to the Constitution of this republic, which sought to create the best possible free market that has yet been designed. And for many many years has functioned quite well.

Of course we do not exist in a truly Laissez-faire free market; and this was also understood by the founders. Some degree of state controls are appropriate and required to prevent total anarchy. Thus was laid out specific powers and limits on the federal government. Conservatives believe that there must be some form of regulation on society, but that control must be limited. The founders understood Locke and you might find this quote familiar:

"Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and, by the establishment of a new legislative, (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society.

John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government, Ch. XIV, sec. 222"

And I thank you for a reasoned and well stated response!

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I am a conservative and I therefore know what conservatives call for. Reduction of all taxation to the bare minimum required to support necessary government functions - which are few; securing the borders, and pretty much little else.

No conservative calls for reduction of only taxation on income, that is patently absurd.

Furthermore the progressive tax is also wrong, no man should pay more than another simply due to the fact he earns more; this is Marxism. All in society who benefit from state services should pay equally - what else can possibly be more fair?

Oh, and I guess you misspelled "there idiotic followers" because you are stupid or willfully ignorant. Any other questions?

Re:Oy

[KingSkippus]

"TPC estimates show that 61 percent of those that owed no federal income tax in a given year are working households. These people do pay payroll taxes as well as federal excise taxes, and, as noted, state and local taxes.

Ergo, the statement that "approx 49% of the US citizens that pay 0 federal tax" is not just a gross misrepresentation in leaving out state and local taxes, it's an outright lie.

There's a pretty good likelihood that they're also paying into the Social Security system as well as paying federal taxes on things like gasoline, telephone service, etc. And while you completely ignore things like state and local taxes, the poor are keenly feeling the sting of sales taxes that, in some places, push upwards of 10% even on necessities like food and clothing--a regressive tax that impacts them far more harshly than the rich.

So yeah, take your "49% pay no taxes" bullshit to someone more sympathetic. I'm sure Mitt Romney will lend you an ear to cry to.

Re:Oy

[Mabhatter]

Capitalism is the term Karl Mark used to define a system where aggregation of Capital was used to leverage working terms over labor. For instance one fashion dress is artistic, 100 of the same dress, using the same materials, is a sweatshop. What one person calls economy of scale is getting more value for lower cost labor.

It's the idea that because I have more money, I deserve some kind of better deal than somebody else. In short, it is the definition of trying to break the rules of a Free Market system.

Re:Oy

[Mabhatter]

The point is that if you get WAGES of $10MM then you pay 35%. If you get stock options you pay 0% until you cash them out. All these people riding Apple and Google at $$$$ per share aren't PAYING anything on the increase in wealth... As long as they keep money in the game. Working people pay the tax as soon as they get the money, up front. If a person has wages at $100k a year, they are hitting 50% range when all the taxes of daily life add up. Somebody getting capital gains is ONLY getting hit for the 35% once... On millions.

If you have ten workers at $100k you are getting $500k in taxes. If you have one guy with a million in capital gain you get $350k-400k in taxes. There is no way that person is going to blow another $100k of their money on "sales tax" for anything.

The entire argument misses the entire point of people that sit on BILLIONS but don't actually "make money" because taxes are only paid when CASH comes out. I can have $1 billion in the bank, but if I only take a few million out a year for expenses, the rest sits untaxed. That's the REAL PROBLRM, all the wealth sitting around being protected, but not taxed. It's tied up in corporate vaults and not.moving around where it can be taxed.

Re:Oy

[PopeRatzo]

So I didn't know policy here was to delete all AC posts, as the OP here was mine and it's now gone, along with many others I wrote.

No, asshole, it's still there.

Perhaps I will create an ID so I can keep annoying you drones more effectively.

The tell here is the use of the word "drones". It's a term widely used on Right-wing talk radio like Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

However I have a question, do posts created by named posters that admin disagrees with get deleted as well?

Nothing gets deleted you rude little fuck. Maybe you don't know how to use that little link under the comment that says "Parent", or maybe your stupid comment was moderated by the community so low that it collapsed under the weight of so much scorn (which means you have to click on the subject line).

You people seem to have a lot of resources available to you to monitor and cleanse this board... are you all doing this from your mothers basement?

That's it, I'm enforcing subsection 3, Chapter 6 of the by-laws that state that a member in good standing can execute a "citizen's banning" on an Anonymous Coward. You will no longer be allowed to post here or to register a name. In fact, you aren't allowed to read Slashdot any more. Any attempt to further read Slashdot will result in a fine of no less than $200 and repeated violations may result in a revocation of all your Internet privileges.

Re:Oy

[Amiga Trombone]

It's better because the states are forced to compete for citizens and businesses, which helps keep government growth in check. Notice which states are growing most rapidly in population and aren't on the brink of bankruptcy.

Re:Oy

[Coren22]

Not to go to the usual car analogy, but several automakers have eliminated the mid-sized pickup trucks.

Huh? What? Who?

Just bought a full sized truck, so I was looking at the different manufacturers, I don't recall anyone not having a mid sized anymore.

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, ATT had a "family plan" thingy that I was looking at, called them about it and discovered through doing some simple math that it costs out the same as single plus single plus single, so I asked the sweet little saleslady why I would want to do this and she explained that if I paid off one plan and combined two of them on the family plan it would only cost me the same as two single plans. Damn, what a wizard with numbers she was!

Re:Oy

[Anonymous Coward]

The frequency thing killed me. My chinese (China Mobile) Sony Ericsssen phone on ATT prepaid rip-off plan can't always get coverage since, for example in Miami they only use their 1300Mhz band. My phone uses 800 Mhz. Screwed. in Miami anyway, in Tampa I am golden.

Re:Oy

[tripleevenfall]

Ford and Dodge have eliminated them, leaving only the (poorly reviewed) Colorado among domestics. Frontier and Tacoma are nice vehicles, however.

Re:Oy

[Grishnakh]

No one "needs" a pickup.

If you really think you "need" one that badly, and don't want to give $30k to some big corporation, go buy an old used one and fix it up. The people who actually use pickups for real work won't have much trouble with that, because they generally don't care what their pickups look like. The people who buy pickups as fashion accessories won't like that, because they want their truck to be perfectly blemish-free and brand-new looking, and won't want something 15 years old.

Re:Oy

[poetmatt]

No, there's not. Might want to look into who owns/controls Verizon - which is mostly (majority) Sprint.

Sad, but we let them do this.

[Tufriast]

AT&T was shitty before this point, but now they are no longer even TRYING to mask the fuckening. What's worse is that they have court backing. You can thank all of the "conservative" leaning judges who side with businesses from a legal angle that made this happen. I'd like to point out that left leaning judges are also a bad thing in the long haul. Hell, judges should lean neither way. In any event, a special thanks to the American people for getting us raped and smiling while doing it.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[alen]

so go prepaid. you can get "unlimited" data for $30 a month if you're willing to buy your own phone. and with the iphone about to have its 6th generation released there isn't much different every year so it's not like you have to run out and buy a new phone every year to keep up with specs

most games will play on 2-3 year old phones
email, evernote and facebook don't need dual core
in fact 99% of what the phone does is OK on a single core. i could play MP3's 15 years ago on mobile CPU's so it's not like you need multiple cores to read email and listen to music.

don't listen to the idiots at anandtech who keep dreaming that you need the latest and greatest to do simple things and you will have money. these were the same idiots who were telling people 10 years ago that you needed a $300 graphics card just to run the Windows GUI "fast"

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[game kid]

Love that word "fuckening". Sounds like "fuck" + the "reckoning" of the true nature of the current telecom market (among other markets): businesses who compete...to achieve the highest price.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[h4rr4r]

I am going prepaid once my contract ends. I am not taking your advice about sticking to outdated devices though. It will be new Nexus for me.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[orthancstone]

don't listen to the idiots at anandtech who keep dreaming that you need the latest and greatest to do simple things and you will have money. these were the same idiots who were telling people 10 years ago that you needed a $300 graphics card just to run the Windows GUI "fast"

You'll have to point me to this article on Anandtech that states everyone must go out and purchase the latest and greatest. Until you do so, I'm just going to presume the only idiot here is you for trashing a site that specializes in reviewing new equipment!

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[tepples]

so go prepaid. you can get "unlimited" data for $30 a month

Did you mean "you" or just "some people"? I was under the impression that "unlimited" plans required living in an area with HSPA+ or LTE coverage, which currently means only the largest cities, and that one needed a sufficiently large voice plan in order to qualify for such a data plan, which doesn't help people who only need occasional voice because they aren't using the phone as a land line replacement. What carrier are you talking about so that I can evaluate its offer?

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[alen]

go read the forums. full of idiots who worry about their old parents who don't know anything getting LTE for no other reason than its new. my crappy out of date motorola droid pro from my employer on CDMA streams pandora and slacker just fine.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[CTU]

You do know the comment about 'outdated devices' only meant you don't need to buy a new phone every year or two just because there is something new out. You can get that nexus and as long as it don't break, will give you years of use and not need to be tossed out because something slightly better comes out in a few months.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, your smug "scare quote laden" impressions are incorrect. Go look at StraightTalk, or the prepay plan from T-Mobile that has 100 minutes and unlimited SMS and data. Sure, it's TMo so you don't have 3G out in Centralia, PA. As Winston Wolfe said, "move out of the sticks, gentlemen!"

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[h4rr4r]

I have a Galaxy Nexus now and a D1 before that.
I will get the next nexus as well, in a little more than a year. I much rather sell my used phones or give them away then stick with outdated devices.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[alen]

Virgin mobile is $30 a month for 300 minutes and unlimited data/texting. it's on crappy sprint but since i'm on wifi most of the day i wouldn't care. GPS? i just bought navigon for my iphone for $30, downloads the maps locally. you just need a GPS signal. no need to pay money to a good network like verizon just to download map tiles as you drive

i'm personally going straight talk which is $40-$45 a month for unlimited everything and is on AT&T so i can use my AT&T iphones without buying new phones. and since it's unlimited minutes i'm going to cancel my home phone as well which is on time warner cable

cricket is $55 a month but it subsidizes the iphone a little

LTE does very nothing for me so i don't care if my phone is on CDMA or HSPA+

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here we have another slash dot political troll. Conservative judges? Anyway to back up what yer saying? Jerk off idiot, yeah lets politicize every fucking post on this site, its fucking tiresome.

One thing I'll admit ATandT sucks worse than what slash dots becoming.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, my good ole blackberry 8820 was recently retired. It's been through hell and back (literally) and only needed minor repairs. Only upgraded it because when I got back from the field a friend gave me a newer one.

Both of them work for me, as I get 100's of emails per day on it. I haven't been in a contract with ATT since I was a GTE customer. My brick phone (Nokia) lasted almost 7 years and I only switched it because I needed to go digital. I think I've had 7 cell phones in my life.

My friend who gave me his old BB did so because he's always on the latest and greatest $700 phone because you know you can't live life without the most current.

I was thinking of buying an iPhone, but I'm just not that into actually getting into a contract and they aren't cheap enough on eBay yet, plus my phone still works.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[nitehawk214]

Yeah, your smug "scare quote laden" impressions are incorrect. Go look at StraightTalk, or the prepay plan from T-Mobile that has 100 minutes and unlimited SMS and data. Sure, it's TMo so you don't have 3G out in Centralia, PA. As Winston Wolfe said, "move out of the sticks, gentlemen!"

So people wont move out of town because it has been on fire for 50 years , but will move if it doesnt have 3G coverage. Sounds typical, and sounds like a lot of my efforts at SimCity.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[h4rr4r]

That is a bet you lose. That motorola is updated to 2.3.7 and only because ICS does not yet have working video acceleration. When it does I will update that.

By stripping built in android applications I need on my actual carry device like email and sms then overclocking it 100% I was finally able to get it to run netlfix, but that is about it. It just does not have enough ram for the latest applications or much in the way of multitasking.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[SJHillman]

I got the LG Optimus Slider for $160 (Virgin Mobile, owned by Sprint) last November because I wanted the physical keyboard, but they have other smartphones with much better specs still in the $200-and-under range. Then I pay $35/mo for unlimited data/voice/text (no contract). I see this phone lasting me about 3 or 4 years before I feel the need to replace it with something better. As it is, it does most apps reasonbly although the ad-supported version of Angry Birds lags a little (paid version without ads runs smoothly) and Netflix doesn't work real well.... but it's a phone. Email, web browsing, other core smartphone functions work beautifully. My favorite third party apps are GasBuddy and Shazam. My least favorite apps are Facebook and Twitter, which I can;t remove without rooting the phone.

If you're going to stick with a phone for at least 3 or 4 years, go with the best phone you can afford. If you're going to replace it every year or two then get a more modest phone because next year's modest phone will likely kick the crap out of this year's best-in-your-budget.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a good thing that the forums are 100% indicative of what Anandtech wants you to do. It's impossible that there are irrational human beings unaffiliated with the site posting there!

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if the government is trying to make you move, of course you fight with them. Who cares if the entire town collapsed into the smoldering remains of the coal vein underneath if you can stick it to the man?

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that people move out to rural areas to "get away from it all" and then bitch and complain when they don't have pervasive high-speed wireless internet. Like, what the hell were you expecting?

"Hey, doctor, when I hit my hand with a hammer, the bones break! How unfair is that!"

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been pretty happy with StraightTalk.com Also there are cheaper plans from MetroPCS and Cricket now. Will look into those as well at some point.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[hierophanta]

I've been wanting to do the same - upgrade my hardware. but the thing is, for me, is that it is just not worth it. i really dont use my phone for much besides surfing the net (twitter & facebook ala tweetdeck mostly), taking photos, playing the occasional low fi game, & email / messaging. video on my phone, just doesnt interest me - id rather read a book. so i just dont see what a fancy new phone (Galaxy S3 is my current fav) is going do for me. this issue is compounded by the fact ive seen no new phones with a hardware keyboard which is a feature i do not want to do without. the only thing i really need in a new phone is a better camera, but that is an endless quest for an amateur photographer. all in all, a new phone would cost me something like $500 or more and I just dont see the point in spending that much money for a nominal upgrade.

please tell us more of your reasons for wanting new hardware, im interested in your use case (i hear ya on the video, but is there more than that?)

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

"these were the same idiots who were telling people 10 years ago that you needed a $300 graphics card just to run the Windows GUI "fast""

Yeah, that was stupid. Windows 7 wasn't even out yet.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[adisakp]

so go prepaid. you can get "unlimited" data for $30 a month if you're willing to buy your own phone. and with the iphone about to have its 6th generation released there isn't much different every year so it's not like you have to run out and buy a new phone every year to keep up with specs

Once the iPhone 5 comes out, you will be able to buy used iPhone 4S very cheap. The question is can you use a used Sprint iPhone 4S on Virgin Mobile for prepaid?

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[h4rr4r]

Video games. The D1 would not play the highend video games. It also could not really multitask anymore since it has so little ram.
The Droid4 is the only slider android I know of these days, and I would never buy it as the bootloader is locked.

The D1 is speedy as hell now that I stripped it down to be a dedicated media player.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[Karlt1]

Really? It took all of that to run Netflix on an Android device? My first generation iPod Touch from 2007 runs Netflix as does the very first iPhone.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[hazydave]

If you're even slightly serious about photography, no cell phone upgrade will ever be enough. You'll get better photos from a $100 P&S camera than any cell phone.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[hierophanta]

agreed. but the camera that is always with me is the cell phone camera. i cant carry my kit everywhere i go

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[tap]

Is there a prepaid plan that doesn't require you to pay per month? You buy a set amount of data that you keep until you use it up? I'd like to be able to get data about two weeks a year when I'm traveling.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[shutdown -p now]

I don't know your definition of "cheap", but you can buy a Galaxy Nexus for $350 directly from Google, and it does 3G on T-Mo's $30 prepaid plan. It will also do 3G on AT&T if you ever want to switch back.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Only on such an outdated device running a modern version of android. Stock it would have been fine, just like your stock devices iOS devices that are no longer updated to modern OS.

prepaid here i come

[alen]

i have a 4 line family plan on AT&T with 2 of them out of contract or very close to being out of contract

a few months ago i assumed i would just add more devices to the plan and they would use the existing 4GB of data my wife and I have and half of which we don't use. my father in law wants an iphone but not the extra $25 a month. and i could have made my next ipad a LTE ipad.

except now i pay more for 1GB of data instead of the current 4GB I have and have to pay a lot for unlimited minutes and texts which are almost free for AT&T to carry

smart talk can't get here fast enough since my wife's iphone 4 contract expires next month

Re:prepaid here i come

[Anonymous Coward]

"my father in law wants an iphone but not the extra $25 a month."

That is the point, isn't it? People want iPhones and Androids, but many don't want to pay for them. The networks will extract as much money as they can and from the people who will pay. At the very least, they will stop subsidizing the phones for people like your father-in-law...

Re:prepaid here i come

[darjen]

Prepaid is definitely the way to go. I got my wife a used iPhone 4 and put a gophone sim in it. I added $100 to her phone, and assuming she doesn't go overboard on minutes, the minutes will lst a whole year before they expire. I still hang on to my used droid 2 and put it on page plus for $12 a month, 250 voice 250 texts. I also have an lte iPad and that is on Verizon's $30 a month tablet plan. So I still get mobile data and only pay about half of what I was before I sold my galaxy nexus. The savings essentially pay for the entire cost of my iPad.

Re:prepaid here i come

[Delarth799]

I hope you don't use a lot of data then. After your first 250MB of data on 3G speeds they slice your data speed way down to something not much better than dial up.

Re:prepaid here i come

[alen]

most months i use less than 1GB. i'm on wifi almost everywhere. NYC is installing free wifi everywhere. why pay for mobile data?

for streaming music you can cache locally with spotify and slacker without the need to stream all the time

Re:prepaid here i come

[aaarrrgggh]

From my math, prepaid is only going to save you $110 over a two year contract (using goPhone), once you factor in the subsidy. If you add in international travel (where you don't need your US phone number) then things look better, but that is really an edge case. The bottom line is that US cell service prices are absurd.

Re:prepaid here i come

[alen]

no, go phone sucks there lots of much better options

between prepaid and cancelling cable its $2000 per year. AFTER TAX money too

Saves nothing, really.

[DWMorse]

In my case, 4 friends and myself all have smartphones together on my plan. Since nobody really talks on their phones much (what is this, 1992?) we share a 700 minute plan, and have something like 4,500 rollover minutes. But we do use a good bit of data and billions of texts are sent every month. (3 women.)

So I did some quick calculation: $90 a month for the 6GB plan with all the unlimited texting and etc. 5 smartphones at $35 a piece, yielding monthly total of $265 before taxes. Right now, our bill is $280 after taxes. That's $56 a month per person. Not so bad. The new plans would put us at $53 per person. /shrug. So we gain unlimited talk time we don't use, save $3 per person a month. Not terribly motivating.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[h4rr4r]

You think there will be less than $15 in taxes and "fees"?

I bet that $265 becomes $300 after all is said and done.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[ILuvSP]

I think the real problem is that paying $56 to have a mobile phone is "Not so bad" to you.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[DWMorse]

Oh, ok. Go ahead and reveal to me the plan available in Minnesota wherein I can wield a smartphone, use 3GB of data on a 3G network, with unlimited texting for less than $56 a month. Let's get specific, and cite that my phone is an iPhone, and assume I prefer it to stay that way.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[pla]

Oh, ok. Go ahead and reveal to me the plan available in Minnesota

You missed the point there - Not that you can get something cheaper, but that you see nothing wrong with a $300 phone bill.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[omnichad]

You could use this on your same iPhone:
http://net10sim.com/

$50/mo. and less taxes and fees on the plan.

Virgin Mobile would have been better, but wow - they have no coverage in MN.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[Norwell Bob]

You're fortunate in that all of the members of your plan are paying their own way. I'm paying for myself, two kids, and a spouse... so I'm paying almost $200/mo for my plan, and I'm the only one with data! However, let's say I drop any one of those other lines... my bill is only going to go down by about $15. It's the core of the plan that costs all that money.

And AT&T's coverage is now terrible (it was better when it was Cingular), and I am constantly dropping calls. I will say, though, their customer support is generally very helpful.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[tompaulco]

That's $56 a month per person.
Back in the day, we had to pay $20 a month for a family plan. In our case, that worked out to $5 a person. Of course, understandably there has been some inflation since then, but there has also been increases in technology which have outpaced inflation, so family plans probably ought to be down to $5 per family now.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only a problem if you have no job because you still live in your parent's basement. I can make enough money to pay my entire year's cell phone bill with only 2 days of work. Cry more, poorfag.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[HarrySquatter]

$56 x 12 does not equal $300... Your poor arithmetic skills is far more shocking than his $56/month phone bill.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[DWMorse]

I don't really see the outrage necessary over paying $1.80 a day to carry the Internet around in my pocket. I know for a fact people spend more than that on coffee every day, and I get more out of my cell than that. People pay double that for cable, and arguably all THAT is is paying for home-delivery of video advertisements.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[Lunix Nutcase]

It's only outrageous because they spent all their allowance on cheetos and pizza rolls.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Accidentally modded you down. Don't know how to do it other than post. Sorry.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[mcsqueak]

I have a similar situation, my brother-in-law runs our Verizon family plan with four of us on it.

We all have iPhones with data and unlimited text. My share of the bill is $58/mo.

I don't monitor my use, but I've never gone over my data cap, even when I was moving and didn't have internet at my home for over a month, using my iPhone over 3G exclusively for web browsing (laptop couldn't pick up any open wi-fi networks from my apartment).

Seems like a decent price for a smart phone to me, considering my last dumb-phone was on T-Mobile and by the time I added the text messaging and all that it was nearly $50/mo - and this was almost 4 years ago now.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[s0nicfreak]

Prepaid iphone, use wifi instead of 3g. Use Google Voice for the texting. The cost will be nothing if you don't make calls, a few cents if you make a couple of calls.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[Macrat]

Walmart sells a T-Mobile $30/mo plan for 100 minutes, 5GB data and unlimited SMS.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[Macrat]

Their site makes no mention of providing SMS or data.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[omnichad]

Oh. I thought that's what "$50 per month – Unlimited Data, Talk & Text" meant.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[Macrat]

On the home page, yes. But not in the "plans" page.

In general, their entire site is quite vague on specifics of anything except how to give them money.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[omnichad]

I use them for light voice. I rarely use my cell phone, and don't have a mobile data package. I'd never seen the "sim" bring-your-own site before, except to see if they'd be an option for you. I'm a customer of http://www.net10.com/

Here's what you're looking for.
https://www.net10.com/direct/ValuePlans?app=NET10

They bill everything as minutes. A text message is half a minute, and a minute of data usage counts as a minute.

Apparently online you can get the unlimited plan for $45/mo.

My wife and I pay a total of $30/mo. for 2 cell phones (150 minutes/mo. each - we each buy a $30/60 day card every other month). They are owned by the Tracfone parent company and this service uses AT&T towers.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[omnichad]

Actually, here in Illinois, there's a 1.5% E911 tax and of course standard sales tax on the prepaid card. So total taxes are well below 10%.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[Mabhatter]

If you make $40k a year it's only about 3 hours of work per month.

AT&T bugs me

[medcalf]

Carriers incur no cost for tethering (and soon for Fcae Time over cell), because the data used still comes out of the amount paid for. Carriers incur no cost for messages, because they are part of the phone's sync to the tower, or in the case of iMessages, come out of the data plan. But AT&T charges (very high) fees for messages and tethering, and soon will for Face Time apparently, in addition to the data that they use being paid for. Thing is, I'd use far more text messages, and periodically use tethering, and periodically use Face Time over cell when it's available, and all of these would drive up my data usage and thus make AT&T money. But instead, I just don't use the features, which is slight inconvenience to me, but on net must be a heck of a hit to AT&T shareholders, because their company is leaving money on the table by continuing to insist on pricing services like it was the mid-1980s.

Re:AT&T bugs me

[MobyDisk]

Carriers incur no cost for messages, because they are part of the phone's sync to the tower,

I thought the same way until a previous Slashdot comment explained how this works in detail. While the text messages use the same packet format as the phone's sync to the tower, it still causes additional packets, and bigger packets. So the bandwidth is not free. It would be like sending an email by embedding it inside DNS requests. Yes, you need to make DNS requests anyway, but sending an email through them would not make the bandwidth free.

Ultimately, this does not change your point though, it is just a nitpick. Their policies are ridiculous. Charging for Face Time over cell networks is an awesome example of why we need network neutrality. (Sorry Ron Paul - I like you but you are wrong on this one!) If I were Verizon, I would have my marketing department jump all over this one. I can use my bandwidth for whatever I want on my Verizon + Android combo.

Re:AT&T bugs me

[TheSpoom]

You are not everybody. The sooner we get this, the sooner we can stop worrying. People don't know and don't care that texting and tethering are effectively free to the carrier, and because of this the carrier charges fees and 99.999% of customers are none the wiser.

You want to change things? Blast your message out to everyone that it's cost-neutral. Here's the thing, though: You won't reach the vast majority of people, and those you reach are likely to completely ignore you. Inertia is a powerful force, and people will fight to maintain their ignorance. Understand this, and you'll understand why political leaders act like morons: because most people don't want to talk about real issues, they want to be entertained and they want to participate in a fight.

Re:AT&T bugs me

[Anonymous Coward]

Wholesale bandwidth is at most $0.12 per Gigabyte (EC2 - highest price $0.12/GB). Maybe it's just that Verizon's math skills aren't up to snuff.

It should cost no more than $10/month since even at 10Mbit you're not going to use 100GB/month on a phone. Actual 3G connection speeds are usually sub 1Mbit. Managing a network like this is pretty simple, all towers should be using 100% capacity and if the average download speed drops below 512kbit, new cells should be installed.

Re:AT&T bugs me

[hawguy]

Carriers incur no cost for tethering

That's like saying they incur no cost for voice calls. Tethering increases data use, so increases carrier costs -- even if you stay under your "free" allowance. The carrier oversells bandwidth (and voice capacity) because they know not everyone is going to use their allotment of bundled data and minutes. But if everyone tethered and suddenly increased their data use, the carriers would have to spend money increasing their cellular network capacity.

Re:AT&T bugs me

[Widowwolf]

You do realize they still have to pay for that thing that syncs to your phone. You know the tower and its upkeep, and the lease for the land the tower is on, electricity to run the tower, and all the network to run to that tower, and permits, and taxes on that tower...Its not just the cost of the bandwidth...Why do people not get this...To put up a tower in New York City alone can cost upwards of several million due to the leasing rights to someones Roof of a building. ATT just installed a new tower on a building they own in Sacramento, and it was still over $300 thousand to put it up

Re:AT&T bugs me

[cdrudge]

I thought the same way until a previous Slashdot comment explained how this works in detail. While the text messages use the same packet format as the phone's sync to the tower, it still causes additional packets, and bigger packets. So the bandwidth is not free. It would be like sending an email by embedding it inside DNS requests. Yes, you need to make DNS requests anyway, but sending an email through them would not make the bandwidth free.

In your example though, the DNS request is sent along with all other network traffic. The cellular control channel is always there IIRC, and that is what the SMS is transmitted over. So while yes it does take up bandwidth and therefor doesn't have a completely zero cost, the bandwidth it does take up would have just gone unused anyways.

I think a better example would be a congested highway that has a HOV lane with only a few vehicles. The HOV lane is the control channel. You can slip many additional SMS vehicles into the HOV lane without any impact for the rest of the highway traffic, or other traffic already traveling on the SMS lane.

During disasters in Haiti and Chile voice and data cellular communications collapsed due to overload, however SMS usage increased an order of magnitude.

Re:AT&T bugs me

[Anonymous Coward]

Alternatively AT&T has decided that they'll make more money from the people who pay the fees for tethering and messages, which according to you have 0 cost to them so that's pure profit, then they'll make from the people who would pay for more data if those items were cheaper/free to the customer.

They might be wrong and you might be right of course. But they have access to all their customer usage data and so on to base such decisions on, though they are also a large company with the associated resistance to changing the way things are done.

Re:AT&T bugs me

[Kelbear]

I disabled text messaging on my phone so I don't have to pay money for texts sent to me.

If I want to send a friend a message, I e-mail them, or use google talk to IM them. It's the same damn thing yet orders of magnitude cheaper. If they don't have a smartphone, I call them. (I hate typing on a phone anyway). I don't miss text and never will.

I'm looking forward to day when everyone stops using SMS altogether. Hopefully if more people boycott text messaging the alternatives will obtain the critical mass needed to supplant texting completely.

Re:AT&T bugs me

[medcalf]

How about "they incur no costs above what they've already charged to recover."

Re:AT&T bugs me

[hawguy]

How about "they incur no costs above what they've already charged to recover."

Unless you're claiming that users that tether use no more bandwidth than those that do, the provider *does* incur more costs due to tethering.

Even though they are selling you a plan that lets you use up to 1GB or 5GB (or whatever) of data, they don't actually expect everyone to use that much data, and their network couldn't handle it if everyone did.

Carriers have always oversold capacity, and there's really no way to efficiently run a network without overselling capacity. And few customers want to pay the price for dedicated bandwidth.

Re:AT&T bugs me

[schmiddy]

You do realize they still have to pay for that thing that syncs to your phone. You know the tower and its upkeep, and the lease for the land the tower is on, electricity to run the tower, and all the network to run to that tower, and permits, and taxes on that tower...Its not just the cost of the bandwidth...Why do people not get this...

So after all the towers have been put up, and the investment in infrastructure has been recouped, we should see prices go down. That's why the monthly prices for plans have plunged over the past few years, data allotments and minutes have become more generous, the price per text message has fallen to almost nothing, and you no longer have 2-year contract lock-ins. Right?

Re:AT&T bugs me

[Critical Facilities]

But AT&T charges (very high) fees for messages and tethering

If you want tethering and don't want to pay more on AT&T try FoxFi (it's in the Google Play store). I've used it myself and it works great (and you don't have to root your phone to do it).

Re:AT&T bugs me

[Widowwolf]

Don't try the anti establishment crap with me.

"After all the towers go up"...Yeah that's why new antennae are being installed and maintained all the time..People always complain about lack of service, so the company must always put up new towers. Investment is ongoing, therefore will never be 100% recouped.

Per the Government Accountability Office - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d10779high.pdf Cellphone plans dropped 50% from 1999 to 2009

You have 2 year lock ins for several reasons - - prevalent use of handset subsidies (which have to be recovered) - If customers wish to terminate their contracts early, there will be an exit fee to ensure all costs are recovered. - Less customer churn (going back and forth to get the best deals from either seller

You don't want a 2 year lock in, then go ahead and buy your phone for the full cost and go get a plan (no 2 year commitment required)

Re:AT&T bugs me

[medcalf]

But they've already charged me for that max capacity, whether I use it for tethering or some other purpose. They are not incurring costs they did not charge to recover. They may have charged badly, but that is a diifferent issue.

Chirp * Chirp *

[rsilvergun]

That's the sound of crickets.

Sharing?

[mister2au]

"My favorite part is where you pay per-device and get nothing in return"

Surely you get connection to the network and unlimited calls/text for the $30-$45 per device (even if you assume you no extra data because you could have used it all on the first device).

Seems reasonable if an unlimited call/text plan is normally $70 for a single device.

Re:Sharing?

[CanHasDIY]

"My favorite part is where you pay per-device and get nothing in return"

Surely you get connection to the network and unlimited calls/text for the $30-$45 per device (even if you assume you no extra data because you could have used it all on the first device).

Seems reasonable if an unlimited call/text plan is normally $70 for a single device.

$40/mo bill for services + $45/mo premium for phone ownership = $85/mo (for a single device)

This is to the exclusion of all the excise fees, taxes, and other miscellaneous bullshit telcos charge customers; I foresee a single device costing well over $100/mo on this new plan.

Re:Sharing?

[h4rr4r]

Nearly no one wants an unlimited call/txt plan. 100 of each would be more than enough for me.

Re:Sharing?

[Mitreya]

Nearly no one wants an unlimited call/txt plan. 100 of each would be more than enough for me.

You are forgetting young people (teenagers, mostly). Each of my nephews and my younger sister can go through a 20-30 texts per day without trying hard.

Re:Sharing?

[Anonymous Coward]

$40/mo bill for services + $45/mo premium for phone ownership = $85/mo (for a single device)

Look, I hate AT&T as much as the next guy, but why the hell would you buy a shared plan for only one phone? For it to even make sense, you need at least 2 phones, so you'r looking at $65/device max (plus taxes/fees).

Re:Sharing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok -- that makes me feel better. For a minute there, I was thinking that I had forgotten how to do math, given my non-shared separate data plans came out cheaper.... Turns out AT&T is just giving us a heads-up on how they're going to be screwing their customers in the near future.

Re:Sharing?

[Tauvix]

$40/mo bill for services + $45/mo premium for phone ownership = $85/mo (for a single device)

This is to the exclusion of all the excise fees, taxes, and other miscellaneous bullshit telcos charge customers; I foresee a single device costing well over $100/mo on this new plan.

This plan isn't for someone with a single phone. Nowhere has anyone said they're eliminating Individual plans, or existing family talk plans. This is for large groups, with a diverse set of devices.

If you have a single phone, stick with your Individual plan. If you have 2-3 people, stick with a Family Talk plan.

Re:Sharing?

[Tauvix]

My family, with 6 adults on the account, uses close to 1600 minutes a month, and over 5000 texts per month. I'm quite happy with getting unlimited calling and texting.

Re:Sharing?

[jellomizer]

Yes it doesn't seem like a value to me. It doesn't really scale up.

Re:Sharing?

[Archangel Michael]

So, what you are saying is "one size doesn't fit all". Yet, this is exactly what AT&T and VZ are doing, going to "one size fits all" plan.

The shittiest part, is that it is becoming clear that there is no "choice".

"You can have a car in any color you like, as long as it is black"

Re:Sharing?

[Norwell Bob]

I'm a curmudgeonly 36 year old who was dragged kicking and screaming into the world of texting just over a year ago. Between my kids and my friends, I easily blow through a hundred a day... don't forget, that's both directions. So, if somebody texts you..

"Hey U R lame."

"haha jk"

"Want 2 see Batman tonite?"

"It's playing at King's at 8:30"

"We'll get drinks after."

That's 5 texts before you even respond. People with unlimited plans aren't likely to be cognizant or necessarily respectful of those who have limited texting. A simple two-way conversation can run up to 20 or 30 texts pretty quick and, let's face it, most people are texting more than they're calling. Especially during the work day. The unlimited shared texting plan was cheaper for me than pretty much any of the other limited options once you started adding lines.

Re:Sharing?

[robinsonne]

My younger cousin EASILY does 30-40 texts/hour, which is really annoying when trying to play cards...

Some people use an absolutely amazing number of texts, that's who the unlimited text plans are for.

Re:Sharing?

[h4rr4r]

Then a 500-1000 text plan would be fine for them.

Re:Sharing?

[h4rr4r]

I use google voice.
All the texts I want for free. Sends them over data.

Re:Sharing?

[Daddy-Oh]

If you have a single phone, stick with your Individual plan. If you have 2-3 people, stick with a Family Talk plan.

Not sure if this will apply to the new AT&T plans as well, but with Verizon, you may not be able to stick with the "old" plans. Unless you want to hang on to your existing devices from here on out, or buy all new devices at full price, you will be forced to use the share plan when re-upping your contract.

I don't know who the new plans are targeted to, but they are definitely not geared toward saving money. (I know, duh)

But, as many folks have already pointed out, the carriers are artificially driving up the costs, while limited the options. Yes, some folks will actually pay less under the new plan, but we all don't require gazigabytes of data, or unlimited minutes per month. Having to pay per device to "share" a tiered data plan is not "sharing" - it's paying for data per device. And it's even worse because that tiered data amount *is* shared - just not the cost.

Re:Sharing?

[Dahamma]

His comment that "you get nothing in return" is stupid - as you said you get connectivity and unlimited minutes and texts for each phone in return. But this still isn't a good plan. Basically every year or two they completely change it up so that it's almost impossible to figure out that they basically just raised the price and gave you less.

For 2 phones it's now $45*2 + $40 = $125, with 1GB total data. My current 2-phone family plan is $125 for 550 min/mo + rollover (since in network minutes don't count I have like 3000 rollover minutes by now), UNLIMITED data for both (iPhones) and 200 texts. So the new plan gives you unlimited SMS, which basically costs them nothing, and unlimited minutes, which these days is also approaching minimal cost (especially since people are talking less and texting/emailing/facebooking more).

Well, I guess if they didn't make *more* money on it, they wouldn't bother changing it...

How is this any better?

[na1led]

Currently, I use US Cellular, and pay $30 a month for my data plan, which includes 5GB. How is paying $40 a month, plus $40 per device, and only getting 1GB going to be better than the competition?

Re:How is this any better?

[morningstar8]

Alas, US Cellular doesn't sell that 5 gig data plan for $30 anymore. See here. Also, US Cellular doesn't share data between phones in the same data plan. Hold on to that current contact!

No Duopoly Here!

[renek]

Oh good. I'm glad AT&T is going a different route than Verizon in an attempt to offer better service to their customers with the hope that rational-minded consumers will decide AT&T propostion offers better value... What? You mean the plans are extremely similar? That's crazy. Almost like there is some sort of collusion going on between the two companies that control 65%+ of the cell phone market in America, but that could never happen, right? Guys? Hello? http://www.thesimpledollar.com/verizon/

This from the...

[Anonymous Coward]

..."only network where your iPhone gets unlimited data," network (except for FaceTime.)

All those electrons must be costing AT&T something fierce for them to charge for their total movement. Makes me wonder when the electron pool will run out.

Re:This from the...

[jd2112]

..."only network where your iPhone gets unlimited data," network (except for FaceTime.)

All those electrons must be costing AT&T something fierce for them to charge for their total movement. Makes me wonder when the electron pool will run out.

You're thinking of Sprint. They still have unlimited data plans. And as long as they do they will have me as a customer. I rarely go over 2-3 GB/month but I like that when I have Pandora running I'm not worrying about how much I am paying to listen to each song should I go over my limit.

Do the math...

[Kit Cosper]

My family currently has 5 smartphones and a MiFi - about 1200 minutes on a calling plan, unlimited texting and data on everything. (an OLD plan) If we convert to one of the new bucket plans and allocate enough extra data to cover estimated monthly usage we *might* save $10 per month, but we would also be giving up a device (the MiFi) since tethering would be included for the smartphones. In short, we'd essentially pay the same and get less for it. No thanks!

Got to love that competition

[Dyinobal]

Ya got to love this competition that drives these major cellular companies to offer prices that are very competitive and it seems they are always trying to out do each other with their outrageous deals.

Re:Got to love that competition

[Rytr23]

Hmm..Not sure if missing /s or just trolling..

$15 a GB for going over??

[Joe_Dragon]

But when you have a phone on it's own it's only $10 a GB.

this is like costco 10 years ago

[alen]

i remember the inflation of the early part of the last decade. i used to shop at costco and all the food and other things you bought on a regular basis would go up in price every month.

but things like a 5 year supply of toilet cleaner or a 10 year supply of plastic wrap stayed the same. i still have a 3000 foot roll of plastic wrap i bought at costco like 7 years ago.

its crazy, some stuff at costco will outlast marriages

same here, the cheap stuff like minutes and text AT&T is giving A LOT of for less. the value which is the data they are charging an arm and a leg for. and if i have 4GB why am i still going to pay $20 for a tablet on my plan even if i don't use any data on it?

Apple and Samsung are at fault too. $700 for a new phone? they are living on fat margins which are about to come crashing down as people go prepaid and keep their phones as long as a laptop

I'm glad I switch carriers

[madhatter256]

For individual users this "bucket" plan is similar to the old plan. But seriously, this stuff is getting expensive with the big carriers. I switched from ATT to verizon years ago because I hated getting dropped calls. Never happened again in Verizon. Then I got their unlimited data and a smart phone. It was awesome and fast. Then they started capping their data and I upgraded the phone which did not grandfather me into their unlimited data plan. That's when things started to down hill... very fast.

That's when I realized I was paying way too much. I was paying $80/month for 2gig data, 350minutes and 500 txt message limit. I could pay over $100 for unlimited texting alone but everything else the same.

It was getting ridiculous and 3G was just getting slower for me because verizon would cap your speed if you went over 200mb!!! They said it was to help with people from going over the 2gig limit and to get the full speed again you have to go through a month where your data usage was less than 200mb... which basically meant you had to not use your phone at all for a month and still pay for it...

So, I switched to Virgin Mobile.

Yes, I paid $300 for my HTC Evo V 4g 3D phone, but the fact that it comes with no contract and a minimum $35/month bill for 350 minutes and unlimited texting and data* *they cap the speed if you go over 2.5gigs but once you pay that $35 phone card the limit is reseted. If you plan on having the phone for 2 years, that totals to $12.5 a month for paying the phone, which makes $35 + $12.5 = $47.5, which is still far cheaper than any plan out there from ATT, Sprint or Verizon (and TMobile). Plus you can buy the prepaid cards and not pay tax on them, so that's a true, flat $35/month payment.

Re:I'm glad I switch carriers

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh man, thank you so much for pointing this out.
The second my contract expires with Verizon, I'm switching to this as well.
(Assuming this is still around in a year. With my luck? It won't be.)

Re:I'm glad I switch carriers

[Fazeshift]

I did the same thing 2 weeks ago. I was customer of Verizon for 13 years, paying about $44 a month for a dumb-phone with 450 voice minutes, 250 text messages, no data. That was with my 20% discount via my employer (not Verizon, but a partner). Purchased a Virgin Mobile (Sprint network) HTC Evo V (aka 3D) for $300, and the bill comes to $37 per month including all taxes/fees. Virgin was able to port my number, which only took an hour. Aside from the up-front cost of the phone (and $300 is very reasonable when most subsidized phones are still $200) I am very satisfied being able to reduce my monthly expense instead of getting gouged when I get a new phone from Verizon.

Re:I'm glad I switch carriers

[daniel78]

My wife just switched to Virgin mobile too (I don't have a data plan at all , lol) .
A high, initially off-putting, cost up front, but works out way cheaper in the long run. ($30/month if you set up automatic pay) Shame their choice of phones is pretty poor (though they have iphone now too), and that they're locked to the Sprint network, but i can get over that.

Hopefully a lot of people will switch and the big 4 providers will wake up and get their act together. I too liked the idea of the verizon/at&t shared plans, naively thinking it would save money. But even with 4 lines its *still* $55 a month each (what a bargain!) and that gives you a measely 250mb/month each (if shared equally)

Costs too much for very little.

[kannibul]

My family cell plan costs $65. No internet, no texting, no bull crap. I use it as a phone. She uses it as a phone. Sure beats the crap out of paying $130/mo for the same thing, that includes internet for a smart phone...and for what? So I can do stupid crap on a phone that I can do otherwise? Why bother? I have yet to see anything that a smart phone can do that says I gotta have one...especially considering the monthly upcharge to use one. My phone is the cheapest phone I could get under my plan. It was free, but, it's so no-frills that it probably cost more to ship than for the company that has my plan to purchase it...

Re:Costs too much for very little.

[h4rr4r]

You mean stupid crap like work from anywhere?

You can get two tmobile smartphone plans for $60, so I am not so sure what you are bragging about.

Re:Costs too much for very little.

[vlm]

My family cell plan costs $65. No internet...I use it as a phone. She uses it as a phone...

That must be the worlds most expensive prepaid service... My wife and I were sending Virgin Mobile about $10 to $15 each per month so that's less than half what you're paying. Depends on use of course. One especially busy month I had to pay twenty bucks !

cheapest phone I could get under my plan

Oh, you've got a plan. Sorry dude. You can save around another 50% by going prepaid. Those endless TV commercials your plan is paying for are expensive...

Re:Costs too much for very little.

[alen]

i might have an iphone but i save on useless crap like paper newspapers, magazines and the like. why buy this stuff when the knowledge of the world is on the internet?

Re:Costs too much for very little.

[amoeba1911]

$65/mo for two lines without data? Sounds like you're getting ripped off.

Gone

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been a Verizon customer for going on ten years, but I will not be renewing when my contract expires at the end of this year. Boost Mobile and other non-contract carriers offers a much better deal for the exact same product. Companies like Verizon and AT&T currently have no incentive to stop fleecing their customers. Vote with your wallet to change their perspective, or you get what you deserve.

Allow?

[EzInKy]

Since when has it been disallowed for family members to share data? Isn't exchanging and preserving information the defining charcteristic of humankind? Perhaps if we are lucky they'll allow us to walk upright as well.

200GB at that price would have been acceptable

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, its only 20GB of data. Please editors, you're becoming the Best Buy of the blogosphere.

Someone Please Explain

[CanHasDIY]

How the hell these guys still have customers???

Let 'em stop subsidizing

[tepples]

At the very least, they will stop subsidizing the phones

Let 'em. When the customer is the end user and not the carrier, this makes both the manufacturers and the carriers more honest. The trouble is that until very recently, pay-as-you-go cost more per month than a contract.

If it's not worth it, don't buy it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gosh, it's that simple.

Most likely going to save me money

[Tauvix]

This is most likely going to save me money. I can see where someone with only 3 phones on their account potentially wouldn't save any money with this, but I have 6 on mine. Because of existing AT&T rules, I can only have up to 5 phones per voice plan. So I currently end up with 2 voice plans.

By the time I'm done, we have the following structure:
$90/month plan w/ 1 additional $10/month phone (1400 minutes, and yes, the people on this plan regularly get close to that)
$70/month plan w/ 1 additional $10/month phone (700 minutes)
5 $30/month unlimited data plans (the average usage per month over the last year being about 1.2GB per month, per user)
1 $25/month 3GB plan
2 $30/month family unlimited texting/mobile-to-any-mobile plans.

Before taxes and add-ons like phone insurance, and my company discount, I currently pay $415/month.

By switching to the new structure it'd look like this (before taxes, add-ons, and discount):
$120 10GB/month plan (including unlimited voice and texting)
6 $30/month phone connection fee

$300/month. I'm going to save $115/month by switching to these plans, and if 10GB/month isn't enough, I can upgrade to the 15GB/month plan for another $40, and STILL save a bunch.

Is this a good deal for everyone? No. But in my situation, I believe it will be a good deal for my family (yes, everyone on my plan is related to me) of all adults, who are mostly around WiFi, half of whom are power users, and half of whom are normal users.

Also, before anyone pops up with "You should go prepaid!" I looked into going prepaid. While certainly it would work for 1 or 2 of my family members, the coverage for Sprint (which Virgin rides on) is crap in my area, and some of my family regularly travels to Canada, which - the last time i checked - is problematic. Some of that may have changed (certainly not the Sprint coverage - people complain constantly in my office), I admit, but I appear to be one of the few people with AT&T who has never experienced a problem with customer service, coverage, or data speeds.

Re:Most likely going to save me money

[alen]

canada has GSM

go straight talk which is GSM over AT&T and just use a canadian SIM when you go to canada

Re:Most likely going to save me money

[Bardez]

I just broke mine down as well. I currently do a similar plan: $80 service, $30 for unlimited text, $10 for 2nd smartphone, $30 for 1st smartphone's data plan (unlimited), $25 for second's 2GB data = $175 subtotal, $196.50 with taxes.

I just combed through our phone minutes' usage, and this was surprisingly close, even went over in a month when we got engaged. Data we use is about 1.5 GB/mo between us. But, data is sold in lots of 250 MB (which each of us exceeds) and $25 or $30 for 2 GB or my grandfathered-in unlimited. There is a lot of waste in data purchase here. As for text messages, my fiancée is a texter, so unlimited is necessary.

Now, on the new plan, it's $40 service (not $80, $90 with second phone), but up to $130 for two phones. But no texting plan charge. So it's really $130 vs $120. Now let's look at data. Currently, I pay $55 for a lot of data that I don't use. For the same I could get probably 5 GB for $60, which is excessive for our use case. 3GB is fine even if I get tablets in on it, so let's say $30 for data, making it $160 (new) vs. $175 (current). So, maybe the new plan is a bit cheaper, maybe more expensive, depending. I think so far it's fair for a shared plan.

Now let's put tablets into play. On my current plan, it's be somewhere like $35, but let's say $30 based on this. I have an iPad. I have an iPhone. iOS devices really only shine with internet access. My iPad is only Wi-Fi because I don't want to shell out $30 more per month due to data that I never use the entirety of plus whatever device connection charge there will be. But I don't use it as much because I can't whip it out and go to Google without searching for WiFi, or worse, asking my friends for their WiFi passwords. With the new plan, it would be $10 per tablet. It'll be a lot more tempting to get an Android tablet, Win 8 or the next iPad OMG NEW pwnie if I can take $10 and pool it with the same data. In the end, I can tack on $10 for a new device to get $170 vs. $205. Say I want one for me and one for her (I *might* need another GB now); $195 vs $235. Without the 4th GB of data, it would would be $180 vs $235. Wow.

I'd post a tabular comparison if /. allowed tables.

Re:Most likely going to save me money

[Tauvix]

The AT&T Go Phones weren't around the last time I was looking at prepaid, at least in this area, some 4 or 5 years ago, as far as I recall (I may be wrong).

Taking a quick look at the plans, for smartphones, they require that you obtain a plan with a data package:

From http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/plans/prepaidplans.html#planlist-ptip_sku5240223 :

Smartphone users must purchase a data package to use data services on eligible plans. Pay-Per-Use data is not available with smartphones.

The $50/month plan is the only one that comes with a data package.

So 6 smartphones * $50/month, I end up paying the same $300/month that I would under the new Mobile Share plans, with the advantage that roaming internationally is a quick phone call to activate a feature, and my father doesn't have to deal with swapping a sim or dealing with having separate phone numbers.

Re:Most likely going to save me money

[alen]

www.straighttalk.com

forget at&t and their crappy prepaid

Re:Most likely going to save me money

[Tauvix]

The $5/month I would save over AT&T is not worth the hassle of changing carriers, porting numbers, and having to deal with Walmart. I'll take dealing with my corporate account rep at AT&T any day of the week over dealing with anyone associated with Walmart.

I recognize that my opinion is in the minority in that I choose to deal with a company based off the quality of the goods and services that I receive. I will happily pay a few dollars more to deal with a company that gives me good service. I also recognize that many people feel about AT&T the way I feel about Walmart, and I respect their opinion to not do business with them. In 14 years with AT&T, I have been quite happy with the level of service and coverage that I have received for the type of business and areas that I have lived in. I have yet to receive good service, or a quality product, from Walmart. Your experiences may vary.

Re:Most likely going to save me money

[Grizzley9]

If you are currently "mostly around WiFi" how do you accumulate 1.2 GB on average per phone? It's not that much overall but on avg and when you're usually around WiFi makes me question one of those statements.

Re:Most likely going to save me money

[Luyseyal]

I'd post a tabular comparison if /. allowed tables.

Considering how bad the ASCII art trolls used to be on top of the difficulty of fixed width tables on mobile devices, I think I can live with that limitation.

OTOH, if it defaulted to hidden but you could click a "show table" link to unhide it, that could work.

-l

Re:Most likely going to save me money

[Tauvix]

My apologies. I misspoke (it was pre-breakfast for me), and I did not mean "per phone," but an overall average. I was also going off of my own memory, which seems to have inflated the numbers a little.

Looking at last month's bill:
3.5GB
950MB
730MB
190MB
150MB
375MB

I have two road warriors on my account. They use about 1GB+ per month. I'm on WiFi at home, and on cellular at the office, putting me at about 6-800MB. The other 3 people average somewhere between 200-500MB, usually.

So, our average is about 982.5MB last month. Admittedly the 3.5GB is a higher than normal for that one person, but they usually are somewhere between 1.5-2GB per month. Figure add on some extra for months where people are traveling more than normal, or what-have-you, and 10GB a month is pretty solid for us, and 6GB would be a squeeze leaving us with little headroom.

Regardless, the new pricing structure would save us a not-insignificant amount of money at 10GB, while giving people a little room to breathe over their normal data usage.

Smart Talk?

[Andy Dodd]

Did you mean Straight Talk?

Once my AT&T contract is over (maybe before - going to look into whether my ETF is prorated) I'm going to ST + unlocked phones (possibly the next Nexus now that Google is selling them on the Play Store.)

Through my employer, I get 25% off of my plan and 50% off of my accessories, however:
1) I still am spending $25/mo more on AT&T than I would on Straight Talk
2) AT&T's phone selection sucks, and their software update policies have been atrocious. Every official update for the Galaxy S II was a horrific bugfest compared to the software available for the international version - even though getting I9100 firmware fully working on the I777 required only a weekend of kernel hacking for one guy (me).
3) Because I am now using international unlocked devices, the 50% accesory discount is useless to me.

Unless I can bring an unlocked phone WITHOUT paying a contract subsidy penalty by the end of my contract, I'm gone. Fuck you, AT&T.

Re:Smart Talk?

[Mitsoid]

Unfortunately ST is acting like old carriers still...

They proclaim avidly they are unlimited and hide behind their TOS whenever you ask them about data limits... or dodge the question entirely on their support forums...

as an AT&T MVNO they probably have a 2GB limit per billing cycle

Re:Smart Talk?

[Andy Dodd]

While that's pretty shady, it is "the least of all evils"

I really don't care if it's unlimited or 2GB - I don't come remotely close to 2GB.

My favorite part is when

[ackthpt]

You already own your phone, but still have to sign a 2 year contract, with all the credit checking and data sharing among businesses.

Continue to count me out.

Re:My favorite part is when

[tmshort]

They force you to continue to upgrade.

The pricing supposedly includes the subsidy. So, when your 2 years is up, the subsidy is paid for, so your phone bill should drop, right?
No, they encourage you to upgrade again. If you don't, in effect, you are continuing to pay off the subsidy.

Re:My favorite part is when

[scream at the sky]

2 year, even if you own the hardware? Don't you have the option of just going month to month? I'm in Canada (land of the 3 year contract!), but I will gladly sign a person up month to month if they own hardware, or are willing to purchase it at retail price.

The credit check I totally understand, the carrier needs to know that you have a habit of paying the bill. That parts makes sense, and shouldn't be a problem.

Re:My favorite part is when

[ackthpt]

2 year, even if you own the hardware? Don't you have the option of just going month to month? I'm in Canada (land of the 3 year contract!), but I will gladly sign a person up month to month if they own hardware, or are willing to purchase it at retail price.

The credit check I totally understand, the carrier needs to know that you have a habit of paying the bill. That parts makes sense, and shouldn't be a problem.

Handing out my personal information to, yet another party, always makes me edgy. Particularly since it appears someone pretended to be me and I'm getting a lot of unwanted calls now. On T-Mobile I'm on the pay-as-you go plan, which keeps my phone rate very low. I rarely text, so that's no problem, either. I can, with a smart enough phone, go for a Day, Week or Month of unlimited service, for what seems a fair rate, considering I don't often need (nor have made myself dependent upon) connectivity to everything + cat + dog.

I wish I could tell you to go with Sprint

[Picass0]

At least Sprint has an unlimited plan. But they have pathetic 4G LTE coverage and their 3G painful at times, so good luck using that unlimited data to it's full potential.

Re:I wish I could tell you to go with Sprint

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, yes, they only have 10%-20% of their LTE towers activated in the first round cities, but they are rolling out new towers VERY quickly. They are in the process of upgrading EVERY SINGLE TOWER to LTE and faster 3G, so things will improve dramatically in the next year. My area already has upgraded 3G towers, and I am getting 2Mbps speeds regularly.

Oversold

[tepples]

Carriers incur no cost for tethering

The explanation I've always been told is that mobile data networks' capacity is oversold, and carriers rely on customers to underuse their allotment. Customers who tether are more likely to use their full allotment.

Carriers incur no cost for messages, because they are part of the phone's sync to the tower

It costs more than zero to route the messages through the back-end network.

their company is leaving money on the table

...by pricing services so as to grow at a rate that the carrier can maintain.

Glad I live in Europe where prepaid options ...

[acidfast7]

... are abundant resulting in significant competition.

A floor price on these plans of roughly 100 USD/month for 2-years is ridiculous.

Re:Glad I live in Europe where prepaid options ...

[RivenAleem]

The more I see US tariffs, the more I love my 3 network. they gave me Galaxy S2 and unlimited Data for €40 a month (on a 2 year contract) with 300 points (shared between minutes and texts, 1 point = one minute or 2 SMS) which I never use (yay for skype). So I think we have it quite lucky here.

In other words ....

[DaMattster]

Big Telecom has found a big, legal way to bilk people out of their money. These shared data plans are a scam! I can't believe they so brazenly do this when there are clear, viable alternatives. I've been with a prepaid carrier since 2009 and contract free and I'm not "credit challenged." It makes sense for everyone to investigate prepaid. Buy your phones refurbished or gently used at significant discounts and then activate them on prepaid carriers. I got my brother, mom, and dad on Page Plus Cellular. My mom and dad use about 1200 minutes per month so they are on 29.95 per month plans and 100mb of data. My brother and I use more so we go with a 55.00 per month talk, text, and 2GB of data. So, between all four of us we spend 170.00 per month. This is a great deal. We gave my dad a blackberry since he only cares about data as far as stock reports and emails. My mom just has a basic feature phone. My bro and I have smart phones.

No Android 4

[tepples]

These prepaid MVNOs tend to run CDMA2000 without CSIM, and CDMA2000 without CSIM generally works only with phones sold by the carrier. I couldn't find a phone running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) or Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) on Cricket's web site. What am I missing?

Re:No Android 4

[h4rr4r]

Go with straight talk or T-mobile or Simple Mobile.
Then buy a Galaxy Nexus from the play store.

You could also get a Verizion Galxy Nexus and port it over.

Re:No Android 4

[jforr]

It isn't perfect, but I've been on Cricket for almost two years now and have been happy. You can complain all you want about not having all of the features you want, but the big players won't change their game until enough of us switch to a carrier not out to completely goatse us.

Car vs. bus

[tepples]

So I can do stupid crap on a phone that I can do otherwise?

Do you drive, or do you take public transit? I think the ability to do things on a phone that you could already do on a PC might be more popular among people who need something to occupy the time on public transit. But even among people who drive, a smartphone is useful for getting directions from your (unfamiliar) current location to your destination.

T-Mobile

[zenyu]

The T-Mobile family plans are much more affordable if you bring your own phone.

Look at the 500 minute value plan. You can get 0GB, 200MB, 2GB, 5GB, or 10GB data on a per device basis, so you can get 2GB for someone who just does some web browsing, 5GB for those who listen to podcasts and does occsional tethering, and 10GB for those who do a lot of tethering. The 5GB and 10GB plans allow tethering without jumping through any hoops.

The coverage isn't as good as Verizon or AT&T, but it is pretty darn good in most major metropolitan areas.

PS T-Mobile does make it a bit difficult to find the best plans on their website and you really need to buy the phones on Amazon because their website is terrible and their store clerks are rip off artists. But their text chat representatives are great and their phone reps are nice even if not quite as knowledgable. The phone reps are the best route for plan changes since the customarily waive service change fees.

Re:T-Mobile

[ebs16]

I'm currently on Verizon, but once the iPhone 5 comes out I'm seriously considering buying one at the full price and moving to T-Mobile. They'll be further into their LTE rollout by the end of the year and they're the only major provider that actually offers a discount for bringing your own phone. The only issue I'm worried about is the iPhone's incompatibility with T-Mobile's HSPA+ network. If there's no LTE service, iPhones will be stuck on EDGE. I'd go with Straight Talk, but I've heard nightmares about their customer service. I've read stories of people having their account shut down and numbers sent back into the national pool due to billing errors.

Data Caps are the new "Long Distance"

[Picass0]

Before everyone had a cheap cell in their pocket we all bitched about Long Distance costs and how artificial they were. After all, it didn't really cost phone companies anything to send a call through a few extra relays.

Now you place a cell call anywhere in the US and it's only a question of whether you are using minutes. In order to soak us service providers have switched their punitive pricing to data. SMS costs are ridiculous for the tiny amounts of data involved. Data caps and throttling keep people from getting the full potential out of their smart devices.

The cell industry is setting itself up for someone like Google to come in as a new provider and undermine their business model.

Hypocrisy at its best...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just laugh at both AT&T and Verizon. They complain their networks are being bogged down by data users. THEY are the ones that forced the data plans on people in the first place. Want a smart phone? Not without a data plan.

This is what has stopped me from getting a smart phone since my Treo died several years ago. I wasn't required to get a data plan with my Treo and that was fine with me as I could just download apps on my computer and transfer them to the phone.

I would be very happy to get a smart phone with wifi and download apps that way, but again, they wont sell me a smart phone without a data plan. Perhaps if I purchased a completely unsubsidized phone I could get it without a data plan, but honestly, paying $400+ for a smart phone is just outrageous. I would rather go buy a laptop for that money.

For now, I am content with my AT&T gophone. No bells and whistles, costs me $25 every 90 days.

Re:Hypocrisy at its best...

[KillaBeave]

... Perhaps if I purchased a completely unsubsidized phone I could get it without a data plan...

No you couldn't. They're detecting what device it is and switching it to a smartphone plan if it detects a smartphone on the other end. At least this was the case when I looked into buying a cheapie android off of newegg without a plan.

Re:Hypocrisy at its best...

[darjen]

maybe that used to be the case, I don't know. but it's not true in my experience. I got my wife a used iPhone 4 and put a goPhone sim in it. I added the $100 refill which should hopefully last her for the full year if she doesn't use it too much. it works fine with just voice and texting. she only uses the smartphone features on wifi. she also uses the gps to keep track of her running distances.

In the meantime we still pay a $10 surcharge...

[Picass0]

...not to mention until recently every 4G phone Sprint sold was non-LTE.

Sprint has zero roaming for voice and data, but they have no arrangements in place to offer 4G in areas where they haven't turned on the new towers you've mentioned.

I'm with Sprint because my employer gets a 17% corporate discount so they're the cheapest option for me.

You never save when upgrading

[sl4shd0rk]

I have never, ever saved a dime when changing, or re-rolling my contract. About all you have to look forward to is a price break on a new phone every two years. It seems the mobile carriers always have it worked out so that you can choose between being nickel-and-dimed to death in monthly data/text/voice charges, or slayed with the sledgehammer of monthly "premium data" contracts.

I've not removed the wires for my landline yet and still have an answering machine in a box in the basement in the event I go back to the 90s. I'm thinking it might be kind of nice to go back to not being jacked-in all the time anyway.

Wait, WTF?

[wbav]

So let me get this straight

If I have 3 people (myself, wife, mother in law) and 4 GB of data for me alone the price is $170/mo?
If my wife and I have smart phones it is $180/mo?
By comparison, if I get 1400 minutes/mo between the 3 of us that's $80. Add in the $25 per smart phone for 2 GB of data, $30 for unlimited messaging and $20 for the two extra lines it'll cost between $155/mo and $180/mo.

I guess the math does work out.

And if my wife and I can keep the data usage low it would work out to be approximately $160/mo for two smart phones or $145/mo for a single smart phone.

So basically if you have a single smart phone you can go from 2 GB to 4 GB for a jump of $25 or go down to 1 GB and save ~$20. It does seem to work out as a good thing.

The new chocolate ration

[swb]

Obviously the chocolate ration is being increased again. Last year it was 30 grams, this year it is 25 grams.

+1 Prepaid

[hierophanta]

My prepaid (T-mobile) plan is $50 a month. that includes unlimited voice and text and 100 meg of 4g data and unlimited 3g data. ya'll should really think about this.

i was paying for the biggest plan - $70 with all of the above but 5gig of 4g, until i recently got a Clear hotspot - now i get unlimited 4g through the hot spot which I also use for my home. that being said id much rather have comcast or something truly high speed, but the wiring the building is too shitty for that to work.

note i DID pay full price for my device - an HTC G2. but like OP said, you can get last gen phones (such as mine) for dirt cheap.

Re:+1 Prepaid

[Kryptonian Jor-El]

If you don't need the minutes, get the $30 Monthly 4G plan. 100 mins, unlimited text/4G data. I didn't buy a fancy phone to go with it, but you can. I have skype credit and use that for any calls I have to make past the 100 minute allotment

Still chugging along with AT&T 3G unlimited

[alispguru]

But we'll drop AT&T like a hot rock the moment they cancel our grandfathered $30/month data plan.

Competition as a cost control mechanism is dead

[anomaly0617]

The whole point of a competitive marketplace is to keep costs low. In America this concept is dead. When Verizon put out their Shared plan I looked at it and thought it was outrageous, but that AT&T would offer something a little lower and the cost would eventually drop. But it looks to me like AT&T mirrored Verizon's Share Everything plan with a change here or there. So what's the point in competition if all the participants agree to gouge the customer? It seems to me like it's time for a government breakup of the large carriers, similar to what happened to the Bells in the 80's.

Re:Competition as a cost control mechanism is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Will never happen. The carriers have too many politicians in their pockets now.

20 GB for $200, not 200 GB

[IDreamInCode]

Typo in the summary makes the $200 plan seem reasonable for giving you 200 GB of data when the article shows it as 20 GB of data.

Imagine. Pay to view what you can do on internet

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait till they start charging by the page on the internet. I can see it now. one cost just to have access to the internet, then a second cost per item you want to use on the internet. You want to listen to streaming, pay separate for that, you want music pay separate for that, you want communication pay separate for that, you want tv shows or movies pay separate for that, you want news or magazines pay separate for that. Remember not only do ou pay for the access (the internet) you also will end up paying for things that ride on the internet, kind of like roads, you pay for the street upkeep though gas tax and what not and then you pay for the stores that you shop at and the car you drive on that road.

Verizon can suck it

[paiute]

Last week I went in to make a minor change and they offered me the great option of a new plan where we could share 5 GB!!!!!!! I told them that the several devices we had now had a total of 7 GB, unshared, and they said BUT YOU CAN SHARE!!!!!!! Then I asked how much the over charge was. Turns out to be a measly $1.99 per MB. BUT YOU CAN SHARE!!!!!! Then I said $2 GRAND A GB????? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???!!! I declined their offer.

Re:Verizon can suck it

[IDreamInCode]

For any of the shared plans, it is $15 per extra gig. $1.99 per MB is only for the basic phones. Yes, Verizon sucks.

Re:Verizon can suck it

[Anonymous Coward]

My contract with vzw is up in less than a month. Everyone I know already knows my email, where I live, etc, so why in hell would I pay them for this BS?

Easy Solution - While it Lasts

[Plekto]

I recently bought an Android phone from AT&T (this model is the Fusion). I'm on prepaid and it costs me a flat $25 a month (give or take). With no data plan at all, it works like a fancy PDA. It does get wireless, so if I'm on a wireless network, it costs me nothing for data.

Why I said "while it lasts" is because the older Fusion is $125 and works better than a 2nd generation iPhone did. The newer replacement version is $130 and while it has a better camera (joy!), it's missing a ton of small but important features. I pull down the top menu on the main screen, it gives me a list - wi-fi/bluetooth/gps/data. I can turn them on and off on the go in literally 1 second. The "better" phone has that all buried in sub-menus and is obviously not wanting you to mess with the settings. AT&T wants to make it extremely difficult to use the phone in anything other than "lots of data is running in the background all the time" mode.

Also, the older device has a GPS built-in that is easy to use without a data connection. It at least will show you your location on a basic map (no data required if the app keeps a cache of local maps, which a couple do) - which makes it useful for Geo-caching and similar off-grid tasks. Load up the local maps and go - no need to use Google maps since all you really want to know are things like where the nearest onramp or exit is.

So that's how you do it, folks. Get a prepaid Android device. Make sure it is simple to turn on and off services on the fly, especially data. Turn on Wi-Fi on your router or motherboard. Or get a $20 wi-fi card. 10 cents a minute, and sure, you're not connected 24/7, but hopping from wi-fi to wi-fi spot isn't difficult. It sure beats paying 80+ a month and being locked into a two year plan. If you need to download a new app, get on the Google Play Store site from a PC, find what you want, and set it to queue up. Then go to your local wi-fi spot and let if do its thing in the background while you're drinking your coffee.

Re:Easy Solution - While it Lasts

[kermidge]

Good thinking. Thanks. I get by easily with Net10 just now - half of friends and relatives are already dead, the rest of us communicate mostly by email. But if I can get my Social Security crap straightened out, I wouldn't mind having a tad more portable connectivity as there are times it'd come in handy.

Re:Easy Solution - While it Lasts

[Plekto]

The issue, though, is that only AT&T and T Mobile offer per-minute plans any more as well as Android phones. Boost mobile does, but it's 20 cents a minute. Net 10 doesn't offer any decent modern phones. That's why I said "while it lasts" as Verizon and Sprint have already moved to monthly plans and effectively killed off their 10 cents a minute offerings. AT&T will likely do this as well in the next year, and T-Mobile in probably another year or two after that.

I guess you could buy an unlocked phone and use it, but the cheap plans aren't likely to stay around for much longer. I just like owning the thing outright. It always seemed wrong that essentially to get an iPhone, you had to pay a 2 year rental charge.

Re:Easy Solution - While it Lasts

[kermidge]

Yeah, jack up the rates, cut services, introduce new restrictions, close out existing "loopholes". It's getting way past slim pickens', and I don't think guerrilla mesh grid is gonna fly. Not sure I want to live long enough to see how bad it gets, on the off chance things'll get better.

Wow, swell!

[mikkelm]

Somehow this still costs more than what we pay T-Mobile for two phones with unlimited minutes and text, and 2GiB for each phone.

The U.S. is a third world country with respect to cellular providers.

Weird Pricing

[tmshort]

I currently pay $220 + tax:
400 minutes = $60 + 4x lines ($10) = $100
Unlimited messaging = $30
Data: 2x 2GB ($25) + 2x 200GB ($15) + unlimited non-smartphone ($10) = $90

There is a sweet spot in this plan for me. I have 4 smart phones, plus a messaging phone, which gives the following:
4GB -> $260 + tax
6GB -> $260 + tax
10GB -> $270 + tax
Why would I pick 4GB if 6GB is the same price?

If I were to have have 5 lines, so the price of 5 smart phones is:
4GB -> $270 + tax
6GB -> $265 + tax
10GB -> $270 + tax
Still, why would I pick 4 GB if 10 GB is the same price?

This is not much of a discount for me... unless my other lines had 2GB plans and/or I was tethering and/or I had a 3G iPad.
Tethering seems to be included, however.

More Pointless Network Neutrality Worship

[SuperKendall]

Charging for Face Time over cell networks is an awesome example of why we need network neutrality.

Look, I think charging for FaceTime is bullshit but HOW is your Network Neutrality deity going to address that?

At this point anything that people perceive as being wrong with cell networks, they think Network Neutrality will magically fix. It's just not so, Network Neutrality is as much a play by the telcos to maintain power as anything. You are just playing right into their hands begging for the chains to be placed upon you.

Re:More Pointless Network Neutrality Worship

[slimjim8094]

Net Neutrality just means they can't charge more for one kind of data than another, especially not for business reasons. FaceTime traffic is just normal Internet traffic, but they want to make it a separate "service" and charge more for it. The doom-and-gloom analogy from a few years back (that's actually happening now!) was Comcast charging Netflix more than their own VOD solution, which is what they've gone and done. You're already paying for the connectivity, and so is the provider, and now they want to double-dip that.

Straight Talk with Verizon?

[Cutting_Crew]

I have looked into Straight Talk but they said online that I couldn't get a plan because i have a CDMA phone. What would the process be of getting straight talk on my HTC android phone(CDMA)??

Re:Straight Talk with Verizon?

[alen]

virgin or cricket

cricket is the verizon mvno carrier

Re:Straight Talk with Verizon?

[Cutting_Crew]

does this mean that wherever verizon has coverage I will get service? Because looking at their coverage map in my area, if i go anywhere outside of the main town area(including looks like the lot where our new house will be, 15 mins from town) i wont get service...unless they allow roaming on the verizon towers.

iPhone 5?

[Grizzley9]

It will be interesting to see if they still allow all the grandfathered unlimited plans stay if the new iPhone comes with 4G. Talk about using the network. My buddy has a 4G One Note and was getting 35Mb/s on 4G in Houston. I'm betting the $30 unlimited plan days are going to be gone fairly quickly.

Android 4.0 ICS Data Usage

[sayno2quat]

Android 4.0 now lets you monitor your bandwidth consumed over 3g. Which shared data then renders useless!

Here's hoping the next version of android (4.2/5.0/Candy Cane/Kandy Kane/whatever) will you link phones together and show usage of all of them combined. That would be a useful feature.

I beg to differ...

[fuzznutz]

Saves nothing, really.

For very large values of nothing.

I just left AT&T for a SIM only plan on Straight Talk. I now pay $45 per month for UNLIMITED minutes, UNLIMITED texts, and UNLIMITED data. If I want to pay for a year up front, it goes down to $41 per month. I started out using my 3 year-old phone but I recently bought a used iPhone. I am extremely happy. Sounds like you could save at bare minimum $11 (19.6%) per month , and have the benefit of not being locked into a two year indentured servitude. Also, you and your friends will not have to be tied together, so if relationships go sour, some poor bastard's not on the hook for a $280 phone bill each month.

Incidentally, I was paying AT&T almost $45 per month for my 450 minutes and *NO* text or data. Switching or not didn't require a PhD to figure out.

Mini-bundlers

[Overzeetop]

Guess it's time to get together with my extended family and see if we can pool our phone resources. Me, wife, mom, dad, two in-laws, plus three tablets:
10GB/$120 + 6 phones @ $30 and three tablets at $10 = $330 split between us.

It's interesting that for a 3 phone household, the prices separating 1GB and 10GB are less than a single GB of overage, and the 6GB is actually more expensive than the 10GB plan!

1GB $40 + 3x45 = $175
4GB $70 + 3x40= $190
6GB $90 + 3x35= $195
10GB$100+3x30= $190

I wonder if the big V will try to match the $30/device level that AT&T is offering?

What the everloving fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

$40 plus $45 per device for 1 GB? Even if that's 1 GB per device, rather than 1 GB shared, that's insane. That's a minimum of $130 for two smartphones. And no option with less than unlimited minutes? I use maybe 300 minutes a month - my wife maybe 100. My wife uses 1-2 GB of data, I use 5 GB+.

This only makes any financial sense if you have at least five devices (where some are laptops/tablets.)

What about iPhone with no dataplan?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was hoping for a plan that lets me use an iPhone with limited (or shared with other phones) voice minutes, unlimited texst, and no data plan so the iPhone could only use WiFi for data. I would consider that for my teenage daughter.

Obvious solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Guys, switch to T-MOBILE. You can get 500 min voice unlimited text and 2GB data for about $50 + tax. I am a bit upset about them moving some customer service to the Philippines but most are still in the US. I simply don't understand why people choose to pay so much more with the other big companies. But then, I am not an iAddict and don't own any apple gear. Also TMO 4G speeds are amazing.