AT&T CEO's "Only Regret" is Offering Unlimited Data Packages

PhxTriode said:

But Apples not the one crying the blues either.

AT&T made plenty of money when they were the only fish in the pond with the iPhone. Now they have some competition and its poor me. Business changes everyday you either keep up and be dynamic or get left behind its no different if your selling hotdogs or or data.

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AT&T was the only carrier that would work on Steve's terms. Verizon was on the plan but it died in the final hour when they made some performance criteria that Steve refused budge on. Many say one of Palm's biggest problems was having the carriers control the features.

There is the mythical "PalmTalk" feature that let you do then primitive version of VoIP between Treo's via WiFi bypassing the carrier all together. Supposedly it was working on the Treo prototypes and the final hardware was altered so the microphone fed directly into the cell chip and not an arbitrary ADC connected to the ARM processor running the PalmOS to make this not possible sans a major board mod.

So he has no issue with Apple's phone subsidy. Which helps provide clarity that, Apple's subsidy is counterbalanced by the fact that they handle all of the marketing efforts that other handset makers often leave to the carriers to do. Plus, the reported lower return rates, Apple Stores providing service & support, not to mention selling phones for the carriers. Seems to sum up that Apple's negotiated subsidy is really a win-win for everyone

Cheers !

Le Big Mac said:

+1. I wonder if Apple would have been so quick to develop iMessage if text messaging were more reasonably priced (i.e., included with voice).

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Probably not, imo. Also, let's not forget they want to keep your data capped very low so you can't try your hand at VOIP. They know that's a killer.

Tones2 said:

Well, not small but MUCH smaller than Apple's. Apple made $11.6 B on $39.2 B in sales last quarter, or a profit margin of 30%. AT&T's was something like 12% - still good but nowhere near Apple. Why not cry for Apple to give us a price break or subsidize the cell costs in some way? You wouldn't. So why should AT&T give us something that cuts into it's profits? It's the same thing really.

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Apple charges users for hardware and electronic downloads.
AT&T charges users to text (when it doesn't cost anything for AT&T). FURTHERMORE AT&T offered an unlimited data plan that they knew they wouldn't be able to support.

It's one thing to buy an expensive product and then use the product. It's another thing to buy something you never get.

Here's AT&T's Problem

From their rapacious days in the late '90s when they reconstructed wired AT&T in the wireless mode by buying up regional wireless companies -- most the old Ma Bell -- they left behind a complicated system with most of its resources going to redundant and confusing billing departments. How many separate billing departments does it have? Eight?

So this is why they're slow into LTE and real 4G. They're trying to get away with the bare minimum investment in the customer.

It would be nice is they trimmed a few products off and just concentrated on a few services, like U-Verse TV and wireless data. Anybody know what to do with the old copper wires and switches? Sell it for scrap?

Meh, if he thinks iMessage is a problem I wonder how he feels about google voice. It also doesn't use the phone's messaging bucket, but it has the added benefit of working with any phone.

bwillwall said:

Apple makes profit fairly. Cellular companies charge people ridiculous amounts for almost nothing. Being a company that charges monthly they are accustomed to force people to pay ridiculously huge bills... You don't get this attitude from Apple. Can you imagine Tim Cook saying something like this? Apple things have gotten way cheaper over time as technology gets better. Why should carriers get to charge more and more because they get more use? The more use should give them more business and more money... It's the mindset... If you cannot see this then you have no place on this website.

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Attitude wise you're right, but when it comes to the technical part you're wrong. I have a family member who is working with development of cell phone towers (not the towers per se, but the boxes that broadcast the signal) and sell them to the carriers who has explained it to me. I'll try to explain it as well as I can

First off, it doesn't get cheaper per unit, the more traffic your customers use, often it even gets more expensive. And considering how the usage is increasing faster than the users and that the technology is moving forward meaning you won't see a decrease in price as the years passes by.

Secondly, more and more badly coded apps are being released. With badly coded, the main issue is keeping the lines open. For instance, push e-mail works in a way that the phone doesn't have a constant line open, but opens up one when it receives a signal from the mail server. But apps like Word Feud keeps one open line per player. So if I play against ten people, I will use ten lines in the closest cell phone tower. Even though these lines are not sending or receiving, they are still occupied, and a cell phone tower only has a fixed number of lines to our (the clients') disposal.

Just imagine you have a thousand phones connected to a tower, each and every one playing ten people on Word Feud, and some of them are on the same tower (meaning they will use twice the lines). So a tower gets swamped, despite no one actually using any data, but the carrier is forced to update the hardware in order to ensure a decent quality (imagine living in a city and not getting any reception despite it being full of towers everywhere)... This costs money. Or, in the words of my family member, "I love these bad programmers, they make us rich".

It's no wonder most carriers are "artificial" (using a "real" carrier's network), considering the cost that goes into maintaining and upgrading a network these days...

But that being said, I have no idea how the prices at AT&T are and how they compare to their actual cost. Their previous engagements might actually be costing them a lot of money, or maybe he's just being a greedy little ****** that wants his already huge profit to be larger. I don't know. Just wanted to spread my knowledge of the carriers' present problem with cost of hardware...

What did they do wrong? Only offering a one plan fits all is what they did wrong. Most of the population did not want to pay so much money because their data use did not justify it(iPhone 3G Gophone wagon anybody?). They should of kept the unlimited data plan as a choice and introduced lower priced tiered data for the people who didn't need so much data. That way a majority of AT&T's mobile revenue would of been secured while the people that actually need data would still have the means to do so.

Waaaahhhhhhh!!! Cry me a river!

Yeah, I needed to hear that. My contract is up in June and I'm going over to Sprint. Apple is going to have a serious problem in the next few years. Apple wants iCloud and streaming video for everyone but the phone and internet companies want to cap how much bandwidth we use. 3 movies and your limit is gone.

racer1441 said:

Please just buy one of these jokers, sale the iphone on your own carrier and push the current cell communications model into extinction.

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I doubt Apple would do that because there are far too many things outside of their control with running a cellular network, with coverage at the core - it's simply not possible to build a network that's able to cover 100% of the population and offer enough bandwidth for all uses.

These things that they could do nothing about would look bad, and people aren't going to overlook them given Apple's reputation for reliability.

Someone may enlighten me here:

Let's take two examples here: VDSL (i.e. AT&T U-Verse) and LTE.

On a VDSL connection, the device is connected to the POTS telephone line, which is connected to a box on the street, which is connected somehow to the Internetz (that explanation is sufficient for the corse of this example). This gives you a complete flatrate on 25MBit/s for $60/mo.

On a LTE connection, the device is connected over the air to an antenna, which is connected to (probably) the same box on the street, which is connected to the Internetz. $60/mo gives you a 12MBit/s connection with a 15GB cap here.

Where exactly is AT&T spending more money on the bandwidth side for the LTE thing, so that they have to add a bandwidth cap, except for building more antennae, but no one would probably complain if the bandwidth on the current antennae get completely used while they build new ones?

I don't understand this. Or rather, I do understand this, which is even worse.

Wah, iMessage is ruining your messaging revenue stream, wah.

Maybe if you weren't overcharging for something that costs you almost nothing then people wouldn't be so quick to ditch sms/mms.

I have no clue why people even pay for these things still. There are plenty of free options to use. I use Google Voice for all my non-iPhone users and iMessage for iPhone users.

Maybe they should decrease the amount they spend on marketing the network and actually expand the network. I have an unlimited plan and I use less than 2gb monthly. Almost every text I send goes through iMessage, I still however have an unlimited family texting feature... I'm paying for features I don't take full advantage of soley so that if I do use more I don't have to think about it.

JoeG4 said:

Meh, if he thinks iMessage is a problem I wonder how he feels about google voice. It also doesn't use the phone's messaging bucket, but it has the added benefit of working with any phone.

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Right now not much since it sucks on 3G. But with LTE and HSDPA I think he better start getting real worried. Talkatone is going to make a lot of money on LTE I imagine.

It's ironic that he talks about scaling things fairly. The cost to provide messaging is very low, so the charge should be low. They are charging an arm and a leg to text and it's not right. To hell with your revenue stream model. Think about what's right for your customers. Fairness goes both ways. Apple developed iMessage to get its customers around these bogus charges.

This CEO is such a complete *******. He doesn't talk ONCE about how to make things BETTER for his customers. He only talks about how to RAPE his customers more so that HE can make more profits. Everybody knows that it costs them 1 cent for every MILLION text messages that are sent. This is, sadly, how all of corporate America works outside of Apple Inc.

BOO HOO! I only made $3.6 billion this year! How will I pay for my multiple estates, extravagant vacations, and expensive escorts now!?!

Every time I read an article about AT&T being stingy with bandwidth after selling us "unlimited" contracts, I watch a few shows on Netflix after turning off my Wi-Fi. Might as well raise the average bandwidth usage for my area...

AT&T just doesn't know how to keep customers do they? I am definitely going to switch as soon as the next iPhone comes out.

What a vile company. Five months to go until the last of our family plan contracts expires. Never again.

Swift said:

From their rapacious days in the late '90s when they reconstructed wired AT&T in the wireless mode by buying up regional wireless companies -- most the old Ma Bell -- they left behind a complicated system with most of its resources going to redundant and confusing billing departments. How many separate billing departments does it have? Eight?

So this is why they're slow into LTE and real 4G. They're trying to get away with the bare minimum investment in the customer.

It would be nice is they trimmed a few products off and just concentrated on a few services, like U-Verse TV and wireless data. Anybody know what to do with the old copper wires and switches? Sell it for scrap?

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Those copper wire switches are being upgraded to fiber and drive all the connectivity between the towers.
You don't sell off your data pipe when data is part of your business.
Glad you aren't running AT&T.

Swift said:

From their rapacious days in the late '90s when they reconstructed wired AT&T in the wireless mode by buying up regional wireless companies -- most the old Ma Bell -- they left behind a complicated system with most of its resources going to redundant and confusing billing departments. How many separate billing departments does it have? Eight?

So this is why they're slow into LTE and real 4G. They're trying to get away with the bare minimum investment in the customer.

It would be nice is they trimmed a few products off and just concentrated on a few services, like U-Verse TV and wireless data. Anybody know what to do with the old copper wires and switches? Sell it for scrap?

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I just wanted to add that the word "rapacious" won me a spelling bee back in the day.

That is all.

Swift said:

It would be nice is they trimmed a few products off and just concentrated on a few services, like U-Verse TV and wireless data. Anybody know what to do with the old copper wires and switches? Sell it for scrap?

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That wouldn't work. U-Verse is still only available to about thirty million Americans while DSL is available to over one hundred million. Until U-Verse covers the entire footprint of the 'aging' DSL network don't act all high and mighty.

Giuly said:

Where exactly is AT&T spending more money on the bandwidth side for the LTE thing, so that they have to add a bandwidth cap, except for building more antennae, but no one would probably complain if the bandwidth on the current antennae get completely used while they build new ones?

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The problem with wireless communications is that people don't always use their device(s) where they live.

With a fixed broadband connection, it's only possible to use it in one place. You just need to ensure there's enough capacity for the users you sell to.

With wireless networks, you have the different concept of people moving around. People use more bandwidth in all sorts of places. If 1000 people want to use data from one cell site, then you have a problem. You need to add additional capacity to that specific site (works up to a point), add additional sites (might be possible, although there are legal/planning issues and site availability to consider) or you need to throttle usage in that area to make the service usable.

1000 people using their home broadband spread out over a town is entirely different.