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

[ikramerica]

Originally Posted by tiffb1221

Hi guys! I read MacRumors everyday however this is my first post! I had to comment.

All I can say is SERIOUSLY! AT&T is raking in the BIG bucks! I pay $30 per month for unlimited messaging for 2 people. iMessage is not hurting them at all. Not everyone has an iPhone. Too bad Apple didn't choose a different carrier to start out with. What a creep!

He doesn't lay awake worrying because he already "fixed" it. He knew that iMessage would allow many to drop to the lowest tier of messaging. So he just, you know, got rid of the lower tier. Unlimited texting or 1000 messages, no other options, ensures that iMessage doesn't cost ATT a dime. In fact, ATT is making more because there is no lower text option for new customers anymore. I would be on the 200 message plan if I could get there, but no dice. So I'm at $10 for 1000, costing me $60 a year plus tax. And most of my texts are iMessages...

[jozo]

The more I think about it, the more I don't care about the data costs. What I DO care about are the insane VOICE costs. I'll pay $80/month for unlimited data as long as I don't have to pay for a worthless voice plan on top of it. That's what VOIP is for.

[bassjunky]

Originally Posted by joueboy

I bet when SJ is still alive he'll be mad as hell when he heard this kind of comment.

Geez, talk about a confusing past/present/future tense statement!

[danahn17]

Originally Posted by adversus

As someone who owns AT&T stock (not intentionally, it's part of another fund I invest in), he's doing what he's supposed to do.

Not doing everything in your power to improve the value of the company for shareholders means he would be breaking his fiduciary responsibility to those shareholders.

That said, I hate AT&T's service. But I'm grandfathered into the unlimited plan, so I don't want to leave.

That grandfathering is unlimited in name only. With the throttling that slows your speed to dialup, it's pretty much the same thing as a pay plan.

[jschu22]

He has already developed a solution for declining SMS useage due to iMessage, at least in major metropolitan areas- It's called "Sh_tty Data Coverage".

[GorgonPhone]

that fool can go to hell... with his throttling BS... he needs to regret being so damn greedy

[doctor-don]

Originally Posted by AxeluteZero

After living with the crappy smart phone world I'm in now, yes, I would change things.

Texting is the most ludicrous charge on a smartphone bill. Costs nothing to text from phone to phone.

Hurrah iMessage!

Can I +100 for this?

[richard371]

What a greedy turd. Text messaging will be dead soon. Even without imessage there is whatsapp that works on all platforms I use with people not on iOS 5.

[dukebound85]

Originally Posted by ikramerica

He doesn't lay awake worrying because he already "fixed" it. He knew that iMessage would allow many to drop to the lowest tier of messaging. So he just, you know, got rid of the lower tier. Unlimited texting or 1000 messages, no other options, ensures that iMessage doesn't cost ATT a dime. In fact, ATT is making more because there is no lower text option for new customers anymore. I would be on the 200 message plan if I could get there, but no dice. So I'm at $10 for 1000, costing me $60 a year plus tax. And most of my texts are iMessages...

no, it is just unlimited messaging. That is the only option

[blackhand1001]

Originally Posted by cwt1nospam

It's the problem with the way big businesses have been run for the last 30+ years. Making a profit isn't enough. Even making more profit than before isn't enough. You need to make more profit than the Wall Street expects you to make so that the top brass can get their bonuses. In 2007 introducing the iPhone with unlimited data was fine because

1. Very few people used much data on the lousy phones they had.
2. It meant AT&T would sell a lot of phones and contracts. Nobody was thinking about 2012 and beyond, they were only thinking about 2007 bonuses.

Now they're selling lots of phones, but need to make even more money because the phones are already baked into their stock prices. If they want their bonuses they have to find other ways to get money out of the rest of us.

Thank you for saying this. Its this reason why our economy is in such poor shape. Big business and Wall Street are sucking the rest of this country dry with this mindset.

[JohnDoe98]

Originally Posted by jozo

The more I think about it, the more I don't care about the data costs. What I DO care about are the insane VOICE costs. I'll pay $80/month for unlimited data as long as I don't have to pay for a worthless voice plan on top of it. That's what VOIP is for.

Yep, that's why AT&T better come up with their own solution. But will they? Not likely. At current LTE speeds Google voice is superb in quality over VOIP. Instead of try and develop a competitor to GV what AT&T will do is force you to buy a data plan with a voice plan. Rather than give you a good data plan with VOIP built-in and charge you a little more than a data plan alone, they will hold on to dear life to their antiquated model.

Again they are not thinking long term and they will be squeezed out of voice and text all-together in the not too distant future when their competitors offer DATA only packages.

[Kid A]

Oh, poor AT&T!
I cry for you!

signed,
a fairly satisfied, grandfathered-in, AT&T customer.

[ikramerica]

Originally Posted by danahn17

Well technically, one of the common criticisms of Apple is that they have pretty packages and form-factors but their hardware and specs are well behind their competitors... yet Apple still charges a premium for their products.

And those criticisms always come from those who never bother to check said specs.

For example, Apple uses the same chips and chipsets as competitors for laptops. Well, they use a subset of chips that don't suck power and create ongodly amounts of heat. It's part of their design, not to have super loud fans running simply to check email or watch a video.

Apple's product update cycle is more old school, in that it's once or twice a year rather than throwing in whatever chip whenever, but that doesn't make them below spec, just sometimes 1 month late to the game.

For example, Apple is waiting on INTEL for the lower power chips next month, as Intel insists on issuing the power hog chips first. That's on Intel.

Once the updates happen, the fastest chips in the power class are available. And in the case of the iMac, there is always an option for the fastest chip available in that class, or in my iMac's case, a special "Extreme" chip faster than any other chip at the time it was built.

3 years later, that iMac is still doing what it needs to do for me...

[PhxTriode]

Originally Posted by gotluck

lol, quick to call at&t greedy

BUT, apple is never greedy

typical

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.

[CFreymarc]

Originally Posted by swarmster

"You lie awake at night worrying about what is that which will disrupt your business model"

I'm sorry, but what CEO says that besides one that thinks they're getting away with something in their current business model? And/or has no desire to evolve.

There are entire industries out there that have been putting most of their research money into suppressing innovation to keep their current model profitable. Good examples of this are oil, health care and shipping.

Federal Express only kept going by having their CEO to go Vegas and he won about 100 to 1 on a nearly million dollar bet to make payroll and expand the company when his investment bankers were pulling the plug. Some of these bankers had deep connections with other delivery services that were forced to modernize after FedEx became success in their over the night business.

Hell, Dave Thomas of Wendy's had a dog of a time franchising his Wendy's hamburger chain and the computer integrated burger grill that they patented. Local fast food franchises baronies didn't want them in competing with their franchises.

Then there are the stores of Getty funding the Prohibitionist Movement not for moral reason but to make distillation of grain alcohol illegal so it would not compete with for the newly growing automobile business. Look at the Model-T and you'll see a switch on the dash to alter the spark plug timing to alternate between alcohol and petroleum.

There are even more.

[doctor-don]

... Every additional megabyte you use in this network, I have to invest capital.”

Really? We doubt that.

[koolmagicguy]

Originally Posted by neiltc13

Unlimited data is unsustainable unless you as the customer are prepared to help the company foot the bill to massively improve capacity.

I still don't understand why people need it anyway - at home you have WiFi, at work you likely have WiFi. What do you do between those two places that requires so much data?

It doesn't matter why people want it. All that matters is that people choose to pay for an unlimited plan and then discover that it wasn't unlimited.

[sarge]

yeah, I was a long ways away from requiring an unlimited dataplan over the edge network but I chose it anyhow. I knew they'd rescind the offer as soon as the platform matured and one could actual benefit from an unlimited plan. It was a no brainer

[Scott6666]

Originally Posted by DTphonehome

Moron. Data plans were incredibly confusing back then, especially because no one really knew how much data they needed. So in order to have a nice, easy to understand internet experience, Apple pushed for a simple unlimited plan. For every person using massive amounts of data, there's 10 who barely use any.

It's still confusing. You never have any idea how much data you'll consume doing anything on a smart phone. Click the weather map. How much? Who knows?

It's such a benefit to consumers to not have to worry about crazy overage charges. It's not like it was seriously mis-priced. While a few users use a lot the average overall is certainly below the 2-3GB level.

I have an iPad3 and since I bought on day 1, I've only used 1.5GB. This is over 2+ months now.

I have been an unlimited customer since the beginning and I'm an unabashed capitalist. Yet, his comments did piss me off and get me thinking about going Verizon again. Just pissing on loyalty here.

The minute he cancels my unlimited or tricks me out of it, I'm gone to Verizon. I have as much loyalty to him as he seems to have to me.

[BornAgainMac]

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson: "Was my Mic on just now?"

[JoeG4]

Originally Posted by blackhand1001

Thank you for saying this. Its this reason why our economy is in such poor shape. Big business and Wall Street are sucking the rest of this country dry with this mindset.

I keep hearing people defending Apple saying that in the US, a public company is supposed to do everything it legally can to maximize profits. (maybe this helps.. http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/qu...r-shareholders) ??

If you argued in favor of Apple doing sketchy stuff to lower their taxes (which Google and MS also do), then it's kinda hard to not agree with the CEO of AT&T isn't it?

You can't have it both ways guys; A company that does everything they can to maximize their profits, will not be able to do everything they can to minimize their customers' costs. (That would be a conflict of interest )

While I agree that in an ideal world, wireless companies should be selling unlimited broadband plans and competing on pricing (and perhaps their free features), that would be far less profitable for them. Of course, if people could shop Apples-to-Apples for an unlimited data plan for their phone (all else being the same), they'd want a lower price - and that'd kill every cell company's profit margins.

It was worse back in the day - but today mobile companies still make their plan pricing as confusing as possible for that exact reason.

[Le Big Mac]

Originally Posted by AxeluteZero

After living with the crappy smart phone world I'm in now, yes, I would change things.

Texting is the most ludicrous charge on a smartphone bill. Costs nothing to text from phone to phone.

Hurrah iMessage!

+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).

[ThunderSkunk]

My only regret was ever giving AT&T the benefit of the doubt in thinking that if we all shovel boatloads of money into their furnace, they'll actually spend it improving their network.

5 years later, still no coverage in any of the three areas I spend work in. Yet their famous coverage map has been colored bold orange the entire time.

The bait & switch of the unlimited plans was icing on the cake. Crooks.

[rnizlek]

From the perspective of a cell company CEO, I can understand the anxiety about things like iMessage. From the perspective of a consumer, iMessage was a long overdue freedom from the unbelievable (and disproportionate) charges that cellular carriers require for text messaging.

However, I completely understand the unlimited data issue. The cost to move a GB over wireless infrastructure is always going to be substantially higher than the cost to move a GB over wired infrastructure. Cellular internet ≠ wired internet at home/work and I doubt it ever will (cellular technologies will improve, but so will our bandwidth demands).

Is $10/GB the right pricing? That's highly debatable. I just don't know. Is all you can eat data a sustainable model? I really, really doubt it. And if it's not sustainable, then it doesn't make sense - before, now or at any point in the future.

Too many people on these forums complaint about the loss of unlimited data, but I have never once seen a person include a detailed post of the actual costs incurred in building and maintaining cellular infrastructure for a given data load.

[arlecchino]

Well, he's a corporate d*ck, so I dunno what you would expect. He's interested in providing the least amount of service for the most amount of money, and keeping costs low. So he's not going to improve infrastructure. He's going to throttle users... he surely wasn't going to keep unlimited data after adding millions of smartphone users with how crappy that network is.

And, for me, it didn't really matter that AT&T offered unlimited data. My data plan on both a separate wireless card and my iPhone was sporadic and slow at best. I spent hours per day with no connection or transfer rates measured in bytes (yeah, you read that right, bytes). I also spent hours on the phone on at least a half dozen occasions with AT&T reps, and after having me do the basics (restart, reinstall software, yadda yadda) they were happy to follow the script of sending me to the hardware manufacturer. (So AT&T, was it both my iPhone AND my wireless card that had the problem, or just your crappy network!?!)

I switched to Verizon when I upgraded to the 4S and while the service certainly is not as reliable as cable broadband, it is waaaaaay more reliable and faster than AT&T.

My experience with AT&T was simply horrible for data (it was about the same, maybe slightly worse, for voice compared to Verizon). I was never happier when exclusivity finally ended.