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AT&T Brings Back Unlimited Mobile Data To Lure TV Subscribers (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Five years after AT&T discontinued its unlimited mobile data plan, the company is bringing it back with a catch: users must be subscribed to DirecTV or U-verse TV as well. The service will start at $100/month for a single subscriber. Two additional users can be added for $40/month each, and the fourth is free. There's also one more caveat: "Customers that exceed 22 gigabytes of data use in one month will have their speed throttled during peak network traffic periods." AT&T looks to do battle with T-Mobile, who has a similar four-person plan. This is one of the first major consequences of AT&T's acquisition of DirecTV last year for $48.5 billion. The company says it will soon roll out other plans to combine the services.
>> catch: users must be subscribed to DirecTV or U-verse TV
I'd expect the other catch is "also, we can cancel or change the 'unlimited' bit at any time' - only suckers need apply.
You mean they had it before and took it away and now they expect that I'll think they won't do it again?
att 6 years ago: unlimited data for a low low monthly fee, browse all the tubes. browse too much and we cancel your service.
att 5 years ago: nevermind. we dont like this.
FCC: net neutrality. it doesnt matter what your provider likes, they cant throttle or cap or inject ads. common carriers are common carriers...
Comcast:cant hear you over the hold music.
Time Warner: fuck your shit.
fcc: guise...seriously...
T-Mobile: unlimited data forever for a low low price also if you use too much or too little or certain kinds of sites we will throttle you to oblivion
ATT:Ditto we have this too also ATT is best TT.
fcc: ok assholes come on...common...carrier.
comcast: have fun in our corporate cheerleader thunderdome this year AKA the supreme court.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Years back I had Dish Network and Netflix and canceled Dish mostly because the content was lame - there was hardly anything worth watching aside from a few PBS shows. Even Star Trek sucked at the time. I'm not aware that the situation has changed - AT&T may just be rate-limiting sign-ups with tie-ins to see how their network holds up.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I would LOVE uverse... But your refuse to build out the fiber to cover the city. Instead you stopped 5 years ago just outside of town and have done nothing at all since.
If you want more Uverse subscribers, freaking build it out so that people can actually have it as a choice.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Really? I dont have any torrenting going on and I see lots of data use at night while computers and devices pull software updates. home automation and security cameras as well.
Maybe back in 1999 when everyone owned one computer only they turned off at night this was the case, but today you have a constant data use stream on the internet with all the phones, tablets, smart watches, security, cameras, etc all pull updates at night and pull data streams for information updates.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It hasn't. there is ZERO reason to have cable TV or satellite TV anymore.
Even the sports wierdows can watch it online with far better coverage than what the TV channels deliver.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yeah watching movies on a 5 inch screen sure is awesome.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
And there's the rub ... because now everybody is starting to lie to us about how awesome 4K video is going to be.
They can't even keep up with streaming current video without giving you an absurdly crippled usage amount. WTF do they think will happen with the 4K video they want to tell us they can do?
Internet and mobile companies have been lying to us about just how awesome their data plans will be for years. They love to say how we'll be able to watch all this stuff, but if we ever actually did they'd immediately change the terms as they get reminded of just how badly they're selling more than they actually have.
So, yawn, mobile data is never going to live up to the claims. Film at 11. That never stops them from telling us how their network is going to be the best for whatever new thing comes along.
This is why I still buy DVDs, and still watch them on my home system ... because I don't need some asshole's permission to watch it over again, and my DVD player which isn't connected to the internet doesn't need to ask permission to do so.
Stream everything from the cloud to a tiny little screen? Why the hell would I want to do that?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
... just keeps getting more expensive. In the grand scheme of things, that $5/mo price increase for my age-old unlimited data plan is not a big deal. The problem is that it reminds me just how far we can trust these companies. They expect us to hold up our end of the bargain (2 year contracts, phone leases, etc) but they don't do their part (SLAs, uptime, throughput that matches advertised speeds, etc).
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