AT&T Announces New Limited Data Rollover Feature for Mobile Share Value Customers

[4jasontv]

As someone else said earlier - if you want to start your own business, go for it!

I'm going to do that! The reason the FCC so heavily regulates spectrum is to ensure that it is available for startups like mine. There is no way the FCC would allow established players to run up the cost of entry. That might force new carriers to enter into one sided deals with the big four, nullifying their capacity to compete.

Seriously? Go start your own business? That's a solution to the noise, and not the problem. They are using a product (spectrum) that is owned by the citizens of the countries they operate in. Carriers are not sold spectrum, they are licensed it. Yes, we all realize that it costs money to build an infrastructure, but they should be doing so at the risk that they could go bankrupt if the people recall their license.

If you want to charge more for wireless service you really need to demonstrate how that money is returning to the people. The catch is, it has to be something the people are asking for. When there is no consequences for abusing public resources we have an obligation to become louder.

 

[MattMJB0188]

Does this apply to the few who were able to take advantage of the 20GB promo plan for $100 in late October?

 

[Dezryth]

I was really excited about the title. But then I read the rest of the article and realized it's nowhere near as good as T-Mobile's deal. It's more of a 'me too! (but not really)' to keep up with T-Mobile. Most customers will probably not read into it enough or be aware enough of the situation to realize that.

 

[psingh01]

Hangin onto unlimited for as long as I can. Maybe the inquiry one day will remove the throttling. I use too much data for the capped options to be cost effective.

i held out hope but recently dumped it for tmobile unlimited. i get faster speeds than att and it is unthrottled and overall cheaper than what i was paying with att and i get wifi hotspot too. if att matched that i'd consider going back, but having "unlimited" throttled to uselessness at just 5gb was just too much. especially when they are more generous with people on other plans so it has little to do with their network capacity.

 

[kilcher]

Does this apply to the few who were able to take advantage of the 20GB promo plan for $100 in late October?

If you're on Mobile Share it applies.

 

[ghettochris]

Are you ******** me? Your bitching about something they gave you? You pay for have a certain amount of data each month. That is what you pay AT&T for. Yeah they get to tell you when you have to use it by.

If I pay $50 for 5 GB, telling me I have to use it in a month or lose it is not cool. they don't do that with phone cards or tanks of gas, and that's how data should be. just like buying a phone card or filling your gas tank. that's how it is in much of europe and USA is way behind.

 

[MattMJB0188]

If you're on Mobile Share it applies.

Yeah I just saw that. I still don't understand why with At&t everything has to have a catch. Two months ago they doubled all their plans except the most popular one (10GB). Now the roll over data, but its limited. If the customer has 20GB and only uses 5GB, why can't 15GB roll over to the next month, and so on and so forth? These customers are paying for this data in the first place so it should always be theirs.

 

[PowerBook-G5]

C'mon Verizon!

 

[mpayne2k]

Yes it is... it's part of your unlimited monthly plan. Mobile share plans are just pure data, so the added "cost" of having the phone on the plan is just shown separately.

Agreed...broken down, my 5gb/mo plan with AT&T is:

Phone: $199+tax for two years
Monthly Service: $46.20/mo
Monthly Phone cost: $18.80/mo
Total monthly: $65.00

This price has to beat NEXT Pricing, right?

 

[giantfan1224]

T-Mobile has been fantastic for consumers. Now we just need one for the cable industry to break up that monopoly. Competition is good.

I agree with this. I've been a long time AT&T customer and I was in favor of the T-Mobile merger/takeover because I thought it would overall improve the network but some of the added benefits that I've enjoyed recently--including more data and monthly bill cut in half--probably would not exist or at least not to the extent they do if not for T-Mobile in the market.

 

[Huracan]

You do realize everyone throttles at some point.
All networks will throttle you once you use so much data. You will also be throttled if a network tower gets overwhelmed with data demands.

I do realize I signed up for an unlimited plan years ago. I don't think any advertising at the time talked about throttling. The tower demands would be more of a congestion than throttling done on purpose. If I am so wrong, the government wouldn't be suing AT&T for this Even if I would accept that some level of throttling is needed I would expect that if I have an unlimited plan, the throttling should happen at the level of the biggest data plan the company is offering, i.e. if the company has a plan with 100GB I would expect this to be the throttling point, not 5GB.

 

[jcmeyer5]

Really hard to justify not switching to T-mobile, only thing stopping is quality of service in my area.

That is a pretty big justification. If the service is cow pie, then it isn't worth the money paid, no matter how much it costs.

 

[spinedoc77]

Man I love ATT, I know they get a bad rap but they've always been good to me and the reception is fabulous. I love it that Tmobile has such crappy service as they keep offering these insane perks to offset their Achilles heel which the other carriers jump on. So everyone benefits from it. ATT just increased my 10gb to 15gb for absolutely free, and now I get to rollover one month.

 

[giantfan1224]

When are the phone companies going to stop stealing from us?

I buy 10Gb of data in a month, at a price that is far higher than in many other countries. If I use only 7Gb, they simply steal the data I paid for.

The next month I use 11Gb, and they hit me with an overage charge. Even if I only used 1Gb a month for a year, and they have stolen 108Gb from me, they will still charge me extra if I go even a Kb over on the 13th month.

It is a disgusting practice, and this move by AT&T is one step ahead of literally the least they could do.

So how about they announce they are not going to steal anymore? A fair price for a decent service, and if I pay for it, I get to keep it until I use it.

Stealing from you? That's a bit melodramatic. They provide a service for which you pay. If you don't like it, move on. Please stop acting like they owe you some inalienable right for which you get to decide the terms.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

T-Mobile has been fantastic for consumers. Now we just need one for the cable industry to break up that monopoly. Competition is good.

The problem is that the cellular industry was never a monopoly. All of the carriers have always been fighting for eachother's customers, so everything has been getting better all the time for customers. T-Mobile has certainly been more agressive and caused things to get better faster than they were before, but still, things have always been getting better.

In contrast, the cable industry is full of regional monopolies Few customers have any choice as to who will provide them with cable, because only a single company has laid down the infrastructure in their area. In some parts of the country, it's Verizon. In others, it's Comcast or Time Warner. I'm sure there are other regional monopolies I'm forgetting about.

I think the thing that's going to explode the cable industry will be when people realize that cellular internet is cheaper and faster than cable internet. I ran the numbers and discovered I could save about $20/month on internet by ditching Comcast's broadband and using AT&T's LTE instead. Same amount of data. Same bandwidth. The only issue is the ping. Ping becomes a problem when you're streaming dynamic data (an online game where player's moves need to be sent back and forth, for example). So I think most households, where the most data intensive thing they ever do is stream video, could easily swap and save money.

Oh! You guys should all do that! When Comcast sees they're bleeding customers they might lower their prices! Then I save money too, despite me staying with Comcast for the faster ping!

 

[mpayne2k]

I do realize I signed up for an unlimited plan years ago. I don't think any advertising at the time talked about throttling. The tower demands would be more of a congestion than throttling done on purpose. If I am so wrong, the government wouldn't be suing AT&T for this Even if I would accept that some level of throttling is needed I would expect that if I have an unlimited plan, the throttling should happen at the level of the biggest data plan the company is offering, i.e. if the company has a plan with 100GB I would expect this to be the throttling point, not 5GB.

"Unlimited" users with AT&T continue to just be the red-headed step children left behind. We/you either need to switch off the plan or just live with the lower monthly bills. I can't see AT&T ever doing of these marketing tricks and applying them to the unlimited customers. They are continually enticing us to switch off the plan. The only hope I'm holding out for is the move from 5gb throttle to 8 or 10gb. It would be nice that if I had a lean month they'd extend my throttle out the same way as this data roll-over.

 

[Huracan]

Make sure you understand coverage and network speed before switching. Coverage and network speed between carriers is completely different depending on where you are.

Where I am, T-Mobile's coverage is very poor, and data rate is extremely slow. AT&T and Verizon are my only 2 options.

Thanks for the advice. I actually got a prepaid card from T-Mobile and I am checking the network speeds and coverage around the bay area before switching. So far, where I get LTE, which is in most places, the speed is better than AT&T. I understand that T-Mobile has somewhat less coverage than AT&T, but this is changing rapidly and it will change even quicker now that they are putting the 700MHz band to use. I know that nothing is perfect, but I keep hearing exciting things from T-Mobile and things that can directly benefit me (International data roaming, international Wi-Fi calling), VoLTE, AT&T is not doing half of that, it is just trying a half hearted catch up game to try not to lose too many customers, but I don't hear the same enthusiasm about improving their network. For example, no VoLTE yet in the Bay Area.

I am not naive, I know that not everything will be perfect with T-Mobile, but I think enough things will be better to justify my jumping ship. Data roll over, unlimited music streaming, Wi-Fi calling with high definition voice, etc.

Anyway, one way competition works well is when customers are willing to try a different competitive product.

I was with T-Mobile many years ago and switched to Cingular mostly because coverage at the time was not very good and I was getting a discount with Cingular, plus they had voice roll over (forget about data at the time). T-Mobile was giving more minutes, but I was using more of them because most other people didn't have T-Mobile. Now, this is not an issue with unlimited voice. As you mention, perhaps the remaining issue is coverage, but for me it is good. I get good coverage at home, at work and at the places I visit often, so I am ok.

 

[Speedy Gonzalez]

T-mobile still beats verizon and att with unlimited data text and voice my bill is $157 for 3 unlimited lines we use 60GB overall per month with a steady connection 7-15 Mbps down and voice over lte + wifi calling

I don't see the reason a lot of people still like to pay more and get less specially the ones with no contracts and I don't blame them I paid $270 per month to verizon for 6 years until I realized t-mobile coverage was enough.

 

[thiagos]

I joined T-Mobile before Christmas. I have a family plan $100 per month (unlimited data with no caps, unlimited voice and unlimited texts) for both lines. PLUS they give me 5GB tethering PER line (total of 10GB to tether). Service in Manhattan NY has been amazing.
I pay $8 per line for insurance so my bill is only $116 plus tax. THAT IS A DEAL! I was paying $150 to Verizon for 1 line with 10GB of data and service was not much better.

 

[oneMadRssn]

So then it will be even more under government thumbs... and we all know how well that always works out.

In Texas, there is water rationing during the summer, we get no discount on the rate, we are just not allowed to use it, by city ordinance. What would happen if a city states that certain towers are over utilized, therefore you are only allowed a certain speed or only allowed to use it at certain times?

The more government stays out of this, the better. It seems healthy competition seems to be working out better then government intervention.

I never said it has to be government run - at least not the wireless part. There are plenty of things I pay for by unit of use that are not government regulated (much).

As to your water comment - it's a difficult balance, and more similar to broadband than wireless. On one hand, we want free market competition to take care of price, supply, and demand. On the other hand, we don't want there to be 10 water companies with 10 incompatible water pipe systems digging 10 trenches on your street, 10 times as much digging up the trenches again to fix something, and 10 different levels of water quality ("if we switch to Swint water, we'll save $30/month compared to Waterizon" "but dad, John down the street has Swint water and he got sick last week and his shower pressure sucks"). For somethings, things that are essential for decent human life or things that require a physical presence in public space, government regulation is simply necessary.

For example, I want more competition in the broadband internet space, but I don't want there to be 15 internet cables on every pole, with 15 jacks in my wall. I am fortunate enough to live in an area where I have *gasp* two cable companies to choose from, and I have 2 sets of wires running to my hours and 3 sets of jacks in the rooms wired for cable (the third is for the roof antenna). Four if you count the telephone companies jacks that provide psudo-broadband DSL. Four wires! That is a bit ridiculous.

The proper balance of free market vs. societal efficiency is local loop unbundling: have a heavily regulated monopoly own the wires, and have as many other unregulated internet providers using those wires as the free market allows. Its how many electric companies are starting to work - buy your electricity from one company, and pay your local company only for the delivery. This way they compete on rates.

And hey, even if the water company is under the government's thumb, at least there is good clean drinking water in all cities and suburbs all the time - something we cannot say about fast broadband or good wireless internet.

 

[ssl0408]

T-mobile still beats verizon and att with unlimited data text and voice my bill is $157 for 3 unlimited lines we use 60GB overall per month with a steady connection 7-15 Mbps down and voice over lte + wifi calling

I don't see the reason a lot of people still like to pay more and get less specially the ones with no contracts and I was don't blame them I paid $270 per month to verizon for 6 years until I realized t-mobile coverage was enough.

Customers stay with Verizon and AT&T because of the coverage; it is that simple. T-Mobile still has a long way to go in that crucial area.

 

[paulsdenton]

This is definitely an improvement for those of us who don't have the T-Mobile alternative.

Hopefully competition will force more improvements over time!

 

[avanpelt]

I expect to see a Verizon announcement by the first of next week, then. Hopefully Verizon will extend the rollover period to six months...or even three. One month rollover is better than nothing but still kind of a joke.

 

[Tubamajuba]

I don't understand how people can seriously defend AT&T. I fully understand sticking with them for the purpose of signal quality, but how on earth are people in here justifying their business practices? As if we're supposed to be grateful for a half-hearted effort to follow T-Mobile just so the marketing gurus have something to put in advertisements.

For years, people complained about the way that cell carriers did business. But now that one of the carriers is legitimately shaking things up... nickel and diming customers is suddenly okay? We as consumers deserve to be deceived and overcharged, in that case.

 

[Avi360]

Bad Analogies

When are the phone companies going to stop stealing from us?

I buy 10Gb of data in a month, at a price that is far higher than in many other countries. If I use only 7Gb, they simply steal the data I paid for.

The next month I use 11Gb, and they hit me with an overage charge. Even if I only used 1Gb a month for a year, and they have stolen 108Gb from me, they will still charge me extra if I go even a Kb over on the 13th month.

It is a disgusting practice, and this move by AT&T is one step ahead of literally the least they could do.

So how about they announce they are not going to steal anymore? A fair price for a decent service, and if I pay for it, I get to keep it until I use it.

I'm not saying that this dude is in the right for claiming theft of data- but I surely understand his frustration.

I think all of these analogies (Milk, Cable Company, etc.) in opposition to the quoted comment above are flawed in their comparison to Data Overages.

Data is not a physical or finite resource like milk that naturally spoils over time - the only reason why data would 'spoil' is because ATT automates it to do so at the end of the month. Come on...this is the digital world we live in. Bad analogy.

Complaining about not watching your unlimited cable television for the days you paid for is also a stretch. If we had unlimited mobile data and were still claiming they were stealing from us what we didn't use, then yes, maybe this analogy would fly. Otherwise you're comparing apples to oranges-Bad analogy.

If you guys wanna defend the mobile phone providers for how they run things that's fine- just don't do it with crappy analogies. The only valid reason why providers should be defended is because the user agrees to their terms by subscribing to them.

Here's the analogy you're all looking for: They own and maintain the roadway we'd like to access.

They make the rules.