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AT&T Offers Unlimited Plan Deal For First Responders, But It Can Be Throttled (theverge.com)
AT&T is offering a new promotion for first responders and their families. Firefighters, paramedics, and police officers can opt for 25 percent off either of the unlimited plans AT&T announced back in June. But in the fine print, as The Verge points out, "AT&T admits it may throttle data speeds 'when the network is congested.'" The promotion comes soon after Verizon came under scrutiny for throttling firefighters' data as they fought wildfires in California. From the report: AT&T says that first responders looking for completely unlimited internet without data speed caps can use FirstNet, the network it recently began operating specifically for first responders. AT&T was contracted by the U.S. government to built out FirstNet, which offers features that specifically cater to first responders. The company says that it's actively promoting FirstNet, but at the same time, its promotion page doesn't make a mention of the superior plan at all. In an email, AT&T clarified that the promotional plans subject to throttling are for first responders' personal use and family plans. "We're offering first responders and their family members a discount on the consumer plans available today for their personal use," a spokesperson said. "These lines and devices are separate than the FirstNet lines purchased and issued by the first responder agencies, which do not have a data limit."
The deal allows first responders to choose between the AT&T Unlimited & More plan or the Unlimited & More Premium plan, which has more entertainment add-ons to choose from, including HBO, Showtime, and Amazon Music. With the ongoing promotion, a single line alone on Unlimited & More will cost $52.50 a month, while four lines on a plan would cost $30 a month per person. Unlimited & More Premium costs $60 a month for a single line, and $35.62 a month per person for four lines.
The deal allows first responders to choose between the AT&T Unlimited & More plan or the Unlimited & More Premium plan, which has more entertainment add-ons to choose from, including HBO, Showtime, and Amazon Music. With the ongoing promotion, a single line alone on Unlimited & More will cost $52.50 a month, while four lines on a plan would cost $30 a month per person. Unlimited & More Premium costs $60 a month for a single line, and $35.62 a month per person for four lines.
You're under the assumption that this is just short range voice communications... nor is this story pertaining to actual firefighters on duty but rather their and their families personal use.
When did "Unlimited" start meaning we throttle speed or charge you more if you actually attempt to use what is promised?
If you sell me a 15Mbit connection I should be able to saturate the line at 15Mbit 24/7 for the entire month with no slow down and no extra charges.
Would you accept it if your "Unlimited" rental cars top speed was cut in half if you went more than 200 miles in a day? Or if after 300 miles you had to pay an extra millage charge.
So stop calling it "Unlimited" and call it what it really is, "Extra charges will apply". The argument I usually hear is that the network can't handle that kind of traffic and they "have" to slow your network speed. If that is the case then sell what you can support; stop over selling or stop under providing!
How about the Fuck You We Own the Government Plan? The first 3GB per year are only $1200. Each gig after that is throttled down to 19.2k (2400 baud) and $50 per GB. BTW, fuck Ajit Pai
Honestly, throttling when the network is overloaded is perfectly fine to me. It's throttling 24/7 once you pass a threshold that is a problem to me.
Whether they should have some sort of access priority (if it's even technically available) when a First Responder etc is a different issue. This would likely be something only important during large-scale emergencies when networks get overloaded, though may not be technically practical, could be looked into.
Can't *first responders* use, like, radio?
Sure, for group half duplex voice communications only. It doesn't do any good for your laptop, tablet, handheld fingerprint scanner, wireless firefighting temperature sensors, etc. Oh, and good luck talking to anyone on the radio who doesn't have a compatible radio - like the doctors at the hospital, the mayor... so on and so forth.
"95% of all Slashdot
Rather than selling an "Unlimited, except with usage caps, except for you, except when you use too much YouTube", etc, etc, lawyers ten levels deep, why don't they just have a plan where instead of "Up to X Gbps", you can get "At least X Mbps", where X is determined by what the units need to do their jobs?
The problem we've seen with AT&T is that any members of our text groups that have AT&T lines can't reply to group text messages with more than 10 people. Their phones truncate the group to 10 - so now you have another group and have to figure out who didn't get the reply. Primitive guys - up your game. That's enough to prevent me from bringing your promotion to our fire department.
https://forums.att.com/t5/Data...
Maybe something like FirstNet which is clearly pointed out? (Except for, perhaps, the "low price" feature.)
Although, since these plans include "Preemption - priority access to the domestic AT&T 4G LTE network", they may not be able to offer them in California if it passes the pending "net neutrality" legislation (or any other state that legislates "net neutrality").
I don't see any reason for such plans to necessarily be "low price". Private enterprises should not be expected to provide governments with "bargains" that they wouldn't offer to other similar volume users. Should Ford sell SUVs to police departments cheaper than they would to a similar volume non-first responder, non-governmental organization? Why?
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Let me get this straight.
It's for people who help during emergencies, and they need phone service and texts then.
At precisely the time when the networks are stressed out from overuse (oversubscribed is what we used to call this) and equipment failures.
From disasters. Like fires. And earthquakes. And floods.
So it WILL be throttled DURING THE EMERGENCY.
Making it ...
useless
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Subject says it all. Can't figure out why. I can grasp a moral reason for a non-neutral internet service - say for instance in the event of an emergency - firefighters / emergency personnel get prioritized traffic over us plebes. What I cannot grasp is a reason for throttling anyone based on a seemingly arbitrary corporate policy rule. I get that bandwidth might cost a little money, but these costs are 99.999999% of the time passed on to the consumer anyways, so what's the big fucking deal? I very seriously doubt any major ISP has a 'lack of bandwidth' issue.
It seems like scarcity is invented for the purposes of pushing an agenda.
There are also a host of other huge issues with FirstNet
* They have a limited (meant minimum to meet requirements) number of mobile cell trucks to respond to disasters that take out cell service (ie. if an incident/disaster knocks out all the cell towers in the san francisco, they'll have enough to give basic level service [text, some analog calls, and emails], but if disaster strikes anywhere else in the region, they won't have enough trucks to support the greater San Francisco Bay Area).
* Network is nowhere close in terms of coverage than current LTE, 3G UTMS, 2.5G(EDGE), and 2G(GRPS) coverage.
* No bandwidth limitations, but they'll have limited equipment so it'll be poor in service where current cell service is poor
* Verizon didn't put up a proposal during the RFP process because they knew that it would cost too much and that they wouldn't be able offer a level of service deemed acceptable to the letter of the contract. Verizon is known to not give out an RFP when this is the case for many projects open for bid, whereas AT&T's game is often to provide a service through a 3rd party subsidiary, collect the money, have the subsidiary stand up a garbage product, and then cut the 3rd party loose if there are any charges of wrong doing or contract breach.
FirstNet is garbage. Check out the meeting minutes at firstnet.gov
What is mentioned in the linked text is a set of "personal use and family plans" for " first responders and their family members".
Thats very different to "emergency" protected networking all over the USA.
ie "personal use and family plans" and the mentioned "secondary or retired responders" in some states.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
It doesn't do any good for your laptop, tablet, handheld fingerprint scanner, wireless firefighting temperature sensors, etc. Oh, and good luck talking to anyone on the radio who doesn't have a compatible radio - like the doctors at the hospital, the mayor... so on and so forth.
This has nothing to do with actually fighting fires - couldn't you even be bothered to read the first sentence of the fine summary:
AT&T is offering a new promotion for first responders and their families.
Ken
Correct, Ajit Pal should be in prison alongside treacherous American President Donald J TRUMP
One again, this article is about discounts for first responders and their families - NOT THE FIRE DEPARTMENT.
It's literally the first sentence in the summary.
The editor decided to take two completely different offerings by two different ISPs and try and create a conversation that conflates first-responder family discounts offered by AT&T and a data plan sold to a fire company by Verizon.
Ken
O M G - This has nothing to do with actual firefighting, it's a discount on home broadband service for firefighters and their families.
AT&T is offering a new promotion for first responders and their families.
Ken
Perhaps some of AT&T's buildings will burn to the ground.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
I very seriously doubt any major ISP has a 'lack of bandwidth' issue.
Right, because every internet link in every ISPs data network has infinite capacity, there are no limits on bandwidth at all - none.
Let me guess, you work in Network Capacity Planning for AT&T? Verizon?
Ken
How "neutral" of them.