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AT&T Announces iPhone Tethering and New Smartphone Data Plans
- Thread starter ChazUK
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Happily, I don't think I've ever used even a gigabyte of data in any given month, so this would save me a little coin.
Still going to use MyWi, though. I'm paying for the data, it shouldn't matter how I'm channeling it.
Still going to use MyWi, though. I'm paying for the data, it shouldn't matter how I'm channeling it.
The Belgians in Europe are getting reamed too. They have to pay 15 Euros for 200 MB of data or 150 Euros for 2 GB of data. They are the ones crying the most.
In the Netherlands, 60% of people live in government SUBSIDIZED HOUSING. This is why homelessness is unheard of there. They pay a lot of taxes compared to people in the U.S. This helps subsidize the cost of their "free" healthcare system and other social programs, as well as subsidize their cell phone data rate. In the Netherlands, everyone pays taxes to help subsidize the expenses of everyone else. Thus, despite cheaper cell phone data rates, someone still has to pay for it. In the Netherlands, everyone is paying for it. This makes it seem cheaper than in the U.S.
In the U.S., it is the top 5% of people who pay 50% of the income tax to subsidize everyone else. Thus, most people hardly pay income tax. Of course, in return, someone has to pay for the cell phone data rate.
I am one of those people who has refused to pay $30 extra per month ($360 per year!), but I will be much more willing to look at $15 extra per month ($180 per year).
I believe AT&T will gain more iPhone customers with this new scheme than they will lose. With this new pricing plan, I may well be a new iPhone owner in the next few weeks.
Yes, there are still people who watch their dollars and cents and don't buy everything they desire.
So are you supporting at&t's greedy model?
What at&t doesn't understand is that they are a "wireless service provider". The key words being service and provider. They are no different than any other service provider.. whether it be wired ISP or a telephone company. These companies don't care how many end devices are in use. You pay for a service and you are free to consume that service how you see fit.
You want 37 cordless phones in your house? No problem.
5 wired PC's, 3 wireless laptops and an iphone using your RoadRunner? I don't hear TimeWarner complaining (they do care about usage but they certainly don't care about devices)
I hear the electric company has a new tiered pricing system. It's going to be $20/month for 1kw plus $5/month for each lamp you plug in...
MyWI is "FREE" only if you continue to pay $30 for old unlimited data plan and jailbreak your iPhone 3Gs and DON'T every upgrade to the new 4G iPhone or any future iPhone.
Sooner or later, you know you want the newest iPhone. Thus, in the long run, that position will become untenable.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)
Bingo. Extra charges for tethering on an unlimited plan are fine, since you're going to have people basically using their cell service to replace home Internet and/or gobble gigabytes and gigabytes per month. Charging for tethering when it's a capped amount of data is a slap in the face and an absolutely shameless money grab.
And the real losers here are ipad 3g owners. It's hard to use *too* much data on an untethered iPhone, but if you've basically replaced a laptop with an ipad, 2gb is nothing.
I've always defended AT&T as getting an unfair rap as far as number of dropped calls, data speeds, etc. But this really rankles me.
3dmike said:
Bingo. Extra charges for tethering on an unlimited plan are fine, since you're going to have people basically using their cell service to replace home Internet and/or gobble gigabytes and gigabytes per month. Charging for tethering when it's a capped amount of data is a slap in the face and an absolutely shameless money grab.
And the real losers here are ipad 3g owners. It's hard to use *too* much data on an untethered iPhone, but if you've basically replaced a laptop with an ipad, 2gb is nothing.
I've always defended AT&T as getting an unfair rap as far as number of dropped calls, data speeds, etc. But this really rankles me.
No FAN discounts on the unlimited data plans either?!? That's another deal breaker. Wow I don't think I can defend ATT any longer, I know other companies may follow suite but I hope they don't just to stick it to ATT. But, for ATT to pull a bold move like this i'm sure they've already talked it over with the othe cell phone big's. Just like the whole "$69.99" unlimited move was staged with both ATT and Verizon.
When was the last time there was a suicide bomber in the U.S. where the bomb went off? That is a daily occurrence in Israel.
Realize that war is a daily happening on the streets in Israel. Here in the U.S., we only get to watch it on TV from a distance.
Other than in the ghettos of large cities, getting shot on the streets is a fairly rare occurrence in the U.S. compared to the Middle East.
And of course, scud missile attacks don't occur in the U.S.
A little extreme but you are entitled to your opinion. The only thing that is NOT true would be the last part..... At&t is the reason you haven't been able to tether.....Oh and All you jerks that have been jail break-tethering and eating 9gb of data up a month. I hate you your the reason the rest of use haven't been able to tether.
Good to hear. To me it sounded like you would have to swap with the new iPhone. I will continue with my unlimited and miwi FTW!
Now that is simply ridiculous. You say you wouldn't go over the 2gb but the limit would make you not "enjoy" the phone? If the simple fact of having a limit that you would never hit upsets you so much, you have much bigger issues than a data plan.
You say you're not streaming Netflix but you're streaming something to burn up that much data.
I had to LoL at this one.
You are upset because you will save $60 in a year? You say you won't come close to the 2GB cap yet you are willing to pay another $60 for the "potential" to use it? How about you pay me $60 and I'll kick you in the nuts, at least then you would get something for your money.
Again this argument is simply ridiculous! You know you'll be grandfathered in so the change means nothing to you. Leaving at&t because they made a change that doesn't do anything to you is dumb.
I really don't understand all the outrage. I was upset at first but then saw I would actually save $10 a month even if I went a gig over my 2gb. NOW I know I don't have to switch and can save $15 a month. If you have an iPhone nothing will change unless you want it to. My wife used 57mb in her highest month, I used 2.8gb, so why should our bills be the same? As for the people complaining about the "data hogs", give it a rest. I know they use more bandwidth than most but what's in it for you if they pay more? Your user experience won't change they would simply pay more so basically at&t makes out and nothing happens to you.
I think it has to do more with the fact people tethering will on average use more data then people without it.
This is where you are wrong....The new phone will be jailbroken just like the newest 3gs phones are....I currently have every upgrade on my current 3gs phone and its jailbroken....Im waiting to see what the new phone has to offer....If not going to use the new features will stay with my 3gs untill the jailbreak has been released which doesnt take long....I use MYWI daily and use well over 2gigs a month I can tell you that....No way going to pay At&T extra...if anything I might think of droping my plan and still use the jailbreak when it comes out saving me more money still getting for free
Wow.
I never thought I'd see the day when people were comparing Canadian mobile rates to the US, and ours were seen as better!
Sadly, these new AT&T plans sound a lot like the Canadian iPad plans -- $15/month for 250 megs, $35/month for 5 gigs. When those were released, Canadians were hopping mad -- "where's our unlimited plan, like the US?" -- but now it seems we may actually have the upper hand!
And that's truly sad.
On the Fence
I was pretty ticked about this at first... but like some others... once I checked my usage data, I was rather surprised that this may actually save me a little money...
The only thing that I'm completely unsure of is the tethering.. am I committed to the $20/month for the duration of my contract, or is it a pay as needed service like the iPad where I only sign-up for it in months that I might need it.
For me, with the iPad I seldom use my laptop any more for anything other than writing code. So my need to tether is greatly reduced. So I would only need to tether when I travel on business (which is pretty seldom these days). So there are probably only about 3 months out of the year that I would actually need/want tethering... If I could pay the $20/month just during the months that I needed tethering, then I would be all for this... I would even pay as high as $30/month for a month to month option.
I was pretty ticked about this at first... but like some others... once I checked my usage data, I was rather surprised that this may actually save me a little money...
The only thing that I'm completely unsure of is the tethering.. am I committed to the $20/month for the duration of my contract, or is it a pay as needed service like the iPad where I only sign-up for it in months that I might need it.
For me, with the iPad I seldom use my laptop any more for anything other than writing code. So my need to tether is greatly reduced. So I would only need to tether when I travel on business (which is pretty seldom these days). So there are probably only about 3 months out of the year that I would actually need/want tethering... If I could pay the $20/month just during the months that I needed tethering, then I would be all for this... I would even pay as high as $30/month for a month to month option.
You think AT&T is stupid?
They know what Apple is planing, video calling/chat, cloud based itunes with streaming media... data usage is going to go up and they are just getting ahead of the curve. Without the unlimited plan you are going to be spending more, way more.
They know what Apple is planing, video calling/chat, cloud based itunes with streaming media... data usage is going to go up and they are just getting ahead of the curve. Without the unlimited plan you are going to be spending more, way more.
For sixty bucks, I'll give him the potential for a kick - same price but no guarantee of the pain and suffering. Heck, I'll give you the potential for fifty bucks. Save ten!
Typical fanboy response. Sprints 4g coverage is far more impressive than ATTs lousy 3G coverage that drops call after call in major cities. Take off the fanboy hat, move out of your mommy's basement and then maybe you'll see real facts.
You know, I was kinda miffed at first as I use the data on my iPhone a lot. Then I checked usage and found that I rarely break 200MB. Ergo, I can save $5 a month, get 2GB, get my wife 200MB, and overall save $20 a month and almost certainly will never see the difference.
Agree completely. This sealed the deal for me. 1yr contract left on my 3GS and not going to upgrade now to the new iphone. In 1yr I will just see what else is out there (hopefully android UI will be better in 1yr) and move on to another carrier which is able to actually let me use my phone as a PHONE!
Good job AT&T. You found a new way to screw people over.
I bit the bullet and got the iPhone 3G S at Walmart because of the $97 price tag. It also allowed me to get in before the new $325 ETF and kept me at 3.1.3 so I can use MY iPhone how I wish.
But these new plans are even worse than the $325 ETF.
$15 for 200MB? Really? 200MB is nothing. That data plan is pure profit for AT&T. Especially when those few poor souls happen to go over 200MB.
Even 2GB at $25 is pure profit. 2GB of data, these days, is nothing. The fact that AT&T is offering 10x the data for only a few dollars more should tell everyone just how little it costs AT&T to actually deliver that bandwidth to you and how that $15 or $25 is essentially pure profit.
Last I checked, AT&T pulled in about $2.5b in profits the first quarter of this year and their operating costs are down.
So, rather than trying to extract more money from customers, why not use some of that extra cash to make your network better? It wouldn't please shareholders. But honestly, shareholders of any company are the scum of the Earth because they only care about profit and not about actual customer satisfaction. Take some of that money and make your network better. Don't slap expensive restrictions on everyone. Upgrade. Compete.
Oh wait, thanks to the previous administration, we have no competition
Holy crap, I actually completely agree with you. This is a big, big mistake for AT&T, and only will serve to hurt Apple too. I was trying to push through the concept of giving people the option of giving up their laptops for an iPad+desktop setup, with the iPad being 3G that they could then also use with Citrix Receiver. However with a 2GB cap, that's a really, really hard pill to swallow. 2GB will be eaten up in no time. My Droid just used 3MB in a few minutes, just to check e-mail and go to a few websites.
And I agree with your shareholder sentiment as well.
DOHOHOHOHOHOHO! Go crawl back into the bowels of 4chan from whence you came, little troll. Sprint's 4G is still being rolled out and isn't anywhere remotely close to being as prolific as AT&T's 3G network. Also, I've spent plenty of time in major cities and haven't seen any dropped calls. Welcome to 2 years ago or so when the 3G first came out at saturated AT&T's network. It's improved a great deal since then.