AT&T Announces iPhone Tethering and New Smartphone Data Plans

[mattster16]

DUDE..Hello? If you drive 100,000 miles a year and I drive only 10,000 can I get a cheaper car rate? or pay less per gallon? Most of the taxes on both of those is (supposed) to go for road use and maintenance...according to your dumba$$ statement...I get to pay less now !! Wheeeeee~!

Yes, likely you could get a discount on insurance for driving so few miles. Depending on if you commute or not.

You are also depreciating your car much less. So at the end of the first year your car will be worth substantially more than the car with 100,000 miles on it. You are both getting the same car and usage of that car, one of you use just using it more quickly. So, yes, you ARE getting a cheaper car 'rate'. That's why a 15k mile per year lease is more than a 10k lease. If you buy your car you won't realize this because depreciation rates aren't taken into account in that sales model, but you'll realize it when you go to sell it...

 

[marco114]

There's a secret in their annoucement

AT&T is predicting something on June 7th. They are predicting more usage on the new iPhone and the new iPhone OS.

This is being done to waive $5 in front of people's noses so they will switch and not realize that iPhone OS 4.0 is coming out and new iPhones that will use substantially more data than before, in essence, costing everyone a lot more later.

If I was anyone, I wouldn't drop down to these plans until a few months of using iPhone OS 4.0 and see what your usage is.

Marc

 

[undrpsi]

You are the reason why they changed this. I and thousands of others were paying each month for that ridiculous use of bandwidth. It is time you actually pay for the services you use and not rely on others to pay it for you.

You are the posterboy for why this change is good, as most of us win, and you lose big time. As it should be. You are using up the resources of 1000 normal customers.

No...you, me, and everyone else (even the POSTERBOYS) paid for an UNLIMITED plan..He didn't buy a "LIMITED" plan then hack it. He isn't piggybacking his signal off a NASA satelite.

HE'S PAYING FOR AN UNLIMITED PLAN! Duh? What freaking part of this are YOU NOT GETTING?

Why should I or ANYONE have to pay because ATT sold "unlimited" plans? You don't think they sold these plans for the last 3 years out of the goodness of the black hearst do you? HA...they sold these to get everyone on the iPhone train. It's called a "Come On"...

Screw ATT...their customer service sucks, their reception is way worse than Verizon, and the pull stupid hsit like this....

I don't come close to 5gig a month on the 6 iphones we have in my family...3 of us will be dropping our money on an android phone and someone elses cell service...

 

[SAPPete]

Hey Steve, where's your open "Thoughts on AT&T" letter ?
I guess stifling innovation (by capping data consumption) and r@ping your customers ($20 for tethering on top of a limited data plan) is ok if it furthers YOUR agenda, right ?
As long as AT$T pays you well, it's alright, eh ? F'in hypocrite.

 

[cmaier]

Oh eat ***** man. Google Voice = FREE TEXT
Yet it's so expensive and complicated according to you, huh?

The dude is right, actually. Using the SMS mechanism is nothing at all like sending IP packets on the data network.

 

[mattster16]

Adequate, but nothing like getting smacked in the face with $20 in overages for one month because a few too many people you know went crazy and there isn't a good way to control what we receive. One bad month on the 200mb data plan and you could be for a world of hurt, just like their sleezy text message plans.

I imagine they saw $$$ flashing from the people who are right around the line, and modeled their data plans after the pre-existing racket they call text messaging.

I agree with you about the text messages (sort of), but the data plan isn't modeled after the text message plan at all. It appears if you go over you will be charged $10 per gigabyte. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't call that a world of hurt. It's not like they're charging 20 cents per kilobyte over or anything.

 

[ProwlingTiger]

If 2% of users use 2GB or more, why the need to set limits? As Yoda would say, puzzling this is. The dark side of the Force I sense in them.

 

[Cougarcat]

= One bad month on the 200mb data plan and you could be for a world of hurt, just like their sleezy text message plans.

You can change your data plan at any time, and it can apply retroactively to your current billing cycle. You get messages when you reach 60, 90, and 100 percent of your data cap. So if one month you realize you are using more than usual, you can temporarily bump that plan up to the 2GB.

Text messaging plans I won't touch with a ten-foot pole, but I don't see what's so bad about this.

 

[mattster16]

No...you, me, and everyone else (even the POSTERBOYS) paid for an UNLIMITED plan..He didn't buy a "LIMITED" plan then hack it. He isn't piggybacking his signal off a NASA satelite.

HE'S PAYING FOR AN UNLIMITED PLAN! Duh? What freaking part of this are YOU NOT GETTING?

Why should I or ANYONE have to pay because ATT sold "unlimited" plans? You don't think they sold these plans for the last 3 years out of the goodness of the black hearst do you? HA...they sold these to get everyone on the iPhone train. It's called a "Come On"...

Screw ATT...their customer service sucks, their reception is way worse than Verizon, and the pull stupid hsit like this....

I don't come close to 5gig a month on the 6 iphones we have in my family...3 of us will be dropping our money on an android phone and someone elses cell service...

NEWSFLASH: Unlimited plan still available for customers that already have it.

They aren't taking anything away from you! This is a subscription model, it's not like you bought a lifetime unlimited plan and they are suddenly taking it away. You still got the unlimited usage you paid for in previous months didn't you? They are changing what products they offer and you can either buy them or not (they're even letting you keep the unlimited plan you have now if you want)!

Oh, and all the other carriers will switch to tiered pricing as well in the very near future.

 

[iMaconApple]

Ok so i have a 3GS paying unlimited data 30$ I'm looking to buy iPhone 4G but can't get discount till November if I buy at full price can I still use my 30$?what about that micro sim card how would that effect when I buy..Will I be affected by the limit data plan?

-sent from my iPhone 3GStupid AT&T

 

[QCassidy352]

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)

If 2% of users use 2GB or more, why the need to set limits? As Yoda would say, puzzling this is. The dark side of the Force I sense in them.

Because a crap load of people are going to go over 2 gb with tethering. Notice how you can't both keep your $30 unlimited (5 gb) AND tether. It's hard to go over 2 gb on just the phone, but 2 gb is nothing on a laptop.

 

[FoxyKaye]

Well, AT&T has been claiming that it will fix it's 3G network, and they did. They just fixed it by putting bandwidth caps on everyone. Don't know what all the complaining is about

Gods I'm glad I left AT&T - It makes me wonder how other carriers are going to respond. With T-Mobile, "unlimited" really does mean unlimited (for now): I've listened to Pandora all day, done uploads/downloads and remote sessions from my Nexus, and had monthly data use anywhere from 1-5GB so far. When Android 2.2 hits my phone, the mobile hotspot is going to allow me to use my laptop over the data network as well. It will be interesting to see if T-Mobile develops similar network problems over time as AT&T did.

But hey, at least on T-Mobile I can actually make calls that connect and stay connected, even if their network isn't as large as AT&Ts.

 

[Cougarcat]

The dude is right, actually. Using the SMS mechanism is nothing at all like sending IP packets on the data network.

You're right, it's even worse.

But text messages are not just tiny; they are also free riders, tucked into what’s called a control channel, space reserved for operation of the wireless network.

That’s why a message is so limited in length: it must not exceed the length of the message used for internal communication between tower and handset to set up a call. The channel uses space whether or not a text message is inserted.

So, they essentially cost the carriers nothing.

 

[pixpixpix]

Microcell plan??

For those of us with AT&T Microcell and the Microcell unlimited calling plan I would hope that data sent over the Microcell (i.e. not on the local AT&T cell system) would be excluded from the measured data cap.

Does anyone know?

 

[cmaier]

You're right, it's even worse.



So, they essentially cost the carriers nothing.

I'm not sure how you get from that fact to your conclusion. The cost for SMS has nothing to do with the bandwidth, and everything to do with switching and inter-carrier agreements.

 

[cmaier]

For those of us with AT&T Microcell and the Microcell unlimited calling plan I would hope that data sent over the Microcell (i.e. not on the local AT&T cell system) would be excluded from the measured data cap.

Does anyone know?

You have a microcell but you don't have a wi-fi router? (i.e.: why are you sending data over the microcell?)

 

[Cougarcat]

I'm not sure how you get from that fact to your conclusion. The cost for SMS has nothing to do with the bandwidth, and everything to do with switching and inter-carrier agreements.

Care to elaborate?

 

[drummingcraig]

I am caught in the middle on this one...

On one hand, I was considering a new iPhone this summer and handing my 3G over to my wife (would be her first one). She's no a huge data user and the extra $30/month for the unlimited data plan was a concern for us. So this is good for us...she good have my iPhone and only have to pay an extra $15/month vs. the $30 they previously required.

On the other hand, I would probably need the 2GB plan *at least* which means if I want a new iPhone I would need to switch to the new $25/month plan and hope my usage doesn't average higher than that. If it doesn't it than we're saving $20/month between the two phones.

 

[cmaier]

Care to elaborate?

In his original post he listed all the reasons SMS is different than IP, and explained that it is treated, for most purposes, like a phone call. Both calls and SMS messages are subjected to all sorts of costs that result from routing and switching over various networks, etc. There's a whole body of law on it.

 

[Cougarcat]

I am caught in the middle on this one...

On one hand, I was considering a new iPhone this summer and handing my 3G over to my wife (would be her first one). She's no a huge data user and the extra $30/month for the unlimited data plan was a concern for us. So this is good for us...she good have my iPhone and only have to pay an extra $15/month vs. the $30 they previously required.

On the other hand, I would probably need the 2GB plan *at least* which means if I want a new iPhone I would need to switch to the new $25/month plan and hope my usage doesn't average higher than that. If it doesn't it than we're saving $20/month between the two phones.

Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure when you buy a new iPhone, you can get the $15 data plan with it and then have AT&T swap it with your current unlimited one.

 

[Scarpad]

Question can I tether to my wifi only Ipad with the new Iphone? I think the 2gb limit wouldbe ok as long as you reserve Netflix or other vid streaming for when you are on Wifi.

 

[Cougarcat]

In his original post he listed all the reasons SMS is different than IP, and explained that it is treated, for most purposes, like a phone call. Both calls and SMS messages are subjected to all sorts of costs that result from routing and switching over various networks, etc. There's a whole body of law on it.

Sounds like the law needs to be fixed, then. And NYT needs to do better research...

 

[jbennardo]

Since I've been on unlimited now for a few years, I haven't held back or curtailed my data use. In my largest month, I still barely hit 800mb - and that was one month. The rest are around 300. I'm looking at this as a chance to save $5 per month per line. I probably won't switch anything until I see how the new OS affects data use with multitasking/backgrounding music or online games, etc.

 

[rroach3753]

This is just BS! They want to cut the cap from 5GB to 2GB and only give a $5 discount and then charge $20/month to tether and use the data from the same 2GB cap! EPIC FAIL! Give me 2GB at $15/month and $15/month to tether. I'll be happy! But I'm not going to pay $45/month to tether and be capped at 2GB. When is the FTC going to say something!? I smell price gouging!

 

[Peace]

This is just BS! They want to cut the cap from 5GB to 2GB and only give a $5 discount and then charge $20/month to tether and use the data from the same 2GB cap! EPIC FAIL! Give me 2GB at $15/month and $15/month to tether. I'll be happy! But I'm not going to pay $45/month to tether and be capped at 2GB. When is the FTC going to say something!? I smell price gouging!

What you really smell is fear on the part of AT&T.