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AT&T Announces iPhone Tethering and New Smartphone Data Plans

Odid said:
Looks like I'm going to have to drop my txt plan altogether and start using Google Voice fulltime. Hopefully the new OS is jailbroken soon because Apple won't let the Google Voice app in their store.. I mean Apple "has not rejected the Google Voice application and continues to study it." :rolleyes: Has it been long enough, Apple?
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Yeah, seriously...I refuse to pay for texting on principle. What's going on with this, Apple? Mosspuppet should have asked Steve about this today.
 
3dmike said:
It really makes no sense to charge $20 for tethering when data usage is bucket limited.
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It may make no sense to you, but makes perfect sense in a business situation.

They don't price it for 100% usage. They don't expect everyone will use 2GB of data a month for that price. Most people on the 2GB plan probably won't use 400MB (or let's say X amount) a month.

Tethering people will average some number higher than X, hence the higher charge.

arn
 
macduke said:
Oh really? That would be really unfortunate as I have a FAN discount which is already slightly cheaper than $25. As I've heard it, we won't get a discount since this feature is less than $30. I figured grandfathered meant grandfathered going into our new contracts. Might as well jump to Verizon or Sprint if they have unlimited data. Sprint's $69 plan is very tempting, especially since it features yearly phone upgrades. Perfect for the iPhone enthusiast.

So I guess we won't actually get to use the new video chat feature very much? Or will this be a separate add-on like text/mms with its own rate? Though it doesn't matter much to me. I don't plan on video chatting very often. Maybe as a mirror? Lol. We'll see. Apple has a way of making technology accessible and popular. AT&T has a way of making it limited and unpopular. Multiple carriers to the rescue?
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Grandfathered means that you're still paying your old rate while new customers pay the new rate.
 
Cougarcat said:
Yeah, seriously...I refuse to pay for texting on principle. What's going on with this, Apple? Mosspuppet should have asked Steve about this today.
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About Google Voice? I think we know where Apple stands on that. And about the plans? I think they made these changes without talking to Apple.
 
pika2000 said:
Based on this new caps, expect those activities to die down as people will not want to pay for overages. Plus, people here apparently wants things to go backward, where people will only use smartphones for text emails.
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tritonj said:
and for those who say use WiFi, sure you can when you're at home, but that is about the only reliable place to get WiFi, the only other place is a college campus, otherwise unless you have a starbucks at every corner you'll find yourself hard pressed to find wifi on demand and at that point you've taken away 50% of the portability/convienence of a smart phone/iphone. the appeal is the on demand access, if you ahve to run around searching for a place to connect you might as well just wait till you got home and could get on a laptop/desktop
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IRT these types of arguments:

I think that you would be surprised at how far 2GB a month would take you. You should be able to open as many attachments, send as many pictures, browse the internet as much as you want, and still be well below that number. I do whatever I want on my iPhone, and in the 8 or so months that I've had it, I've only racked up about 1.6GB of TOTAL data transfer. Yes, I'm on a college campus and have wifi in the places that I'm using the phone the most, but I'm sure that the 2GB plan would be more than enough.

AT&T press release said:
* DataPro. Provides 2 gigabytes (GB) of data - enough to send/receive 10,000 emails (no attachments), send/receive 1,500 emails with attachments, view 4,000 Web pages, post 500 photos to social media sites and watch 200 minutes of streaming video - for $25 per month. Should a customer exceed 2 GB during a billing cycle, they will receive an additional 1 GB of data for $10 for use in the month. Currently, 98 percent of AT&T smartphone customers use less than 2 GB of data a month on average.
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So yeah your basically SOL if you like to stream a lot of video. Everything else you should be fine.

The way I see it, this is an improvement for 95% of iPhone users and a negative for the maybe 5% of users who really abuse their 3G connection, sometimes at the expense of network quality for everyone else.
 
Hmmm... Ramping up rates before video conferencing comes online?

What really tweaks me is capping the data and then charging extra for tethering. WTF? When data was unlimited, I could understand-- connecting to the computer was begging for more data. But now you pay for the data regardless of where you use it, and they're hitting you with a premium for the gold plated laptop bits?

I hate phone companies.
 
This has officially turned "AT&T>Rogers" into "AT&T<Rogers"...

Sure I pay 30 bucks a month for my 6GB on top of my 45 dollar Virtually Unlimited Everything Plan...but at least I get tethering and MMS at no additional charge!

AT&T....your going to lose customers if another carrier gets a hold of the iPhone this summer.
 
Analog Kid said:
Hmmm... Ramping up rates before video conferencing comes online?

What really tweaks me is capping the data and then charging extra for tethering. WTF? When data was unlimited, I could understand-- connecting to the computer was begging for more data. But now you pay for the data regardless of where you use it, and they're hitting you with a premium for the gold plated laptop bits?

I hate phone companies.
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Unlimited does not mean unlimited. We all know this.

jbuck777 said:
This has officially turned "AT&T>Rogers" into "AT&T<Rogers"...

Sure I pay 30 bucks a month for my 6GB on top of my 45 dollar Virtually Unlimited Everything Plan...but at least I get tethering and MMS at no additional charge!

AT&T....your going to lose customers if another carrier gets a hold of the iPhone this summer.
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While it makes it a bit more strained to stay, I'll stick with at&t. Best coverage in Chicago (seriously). Running around with a Verizon MiFi, a Sprint BlackBerry, and used T-Mobile before...at&t wins. I'll stay.
 
Eric-PTEK said:
I am a heavy user of my iPad and I'm sitting at 442mb this month with 15 days left to go.
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Heavy user? Eh, how about re-calibrating the scale? Yesterday I watched HD movie with my MBP tethered to my iPhone and it was around 2 GB. Watch a couple of SD and HD movies, some TV shows and you're easily over 10 GB a month.
 
tuna said:
Yes, I'm on a college campus and have wifi in the places that I'm using the phone the most, but I'm sure that the 2GB plan would be more than enough.
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Nope, you won't be sure as you are using wifi. :rolleyes: Not everybody have free wifi available all the time.
 
I have the Family Plan for myself, my wife and our daughter. Combined, we've rarely used over 100mb a month. So this new pricing structure could save me a ton of money.

But to me it's more of an issue of choice. Why can't AT&T allow for an unlimited plan for people who need it? Three years after Apple seemed to shift the balance of power in the mobile industry, the balance seems to be shifting back.
 
arn said:
How much data do you use in a month on your iPhone?

According to AT&T 65% use less than 200MB and 98% use less than 2GB. Meanwhile, you are just pulling numbers out of thin air and saying they "sound reasonable" to you.

My usage on my iPhone for the past few months ranges from 200-400MB/month.

arn
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Video Chat, folks. My usage averages 200-400mb also. But i'm sure data usage will greatly increase with the addition of video chat on the iPhone. They also need a pricing structure for teathering. Teathering will also greatly increase data usage as people use much more data on their laptop compared to their phones.

I am very skeptical when ATT pulls statistics stating 98% of users use less than 2gb per month saying most users will save money. ATT has proven time after time that they are a bunch of greedy bastards.

IMO structured pricing is fair, but the limits for the two plans are a bit low. Get the 200mb plan and theres a 35% chance you will need to add more data according to ATT's statistics from who knows how long ago... probably before the iPhone was ever capable of teathering.
 
scottness said:
I'm suddenly caring about my usage now... Crap.
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Exactly, now I am going to have to waste time monitoring my usage. AT&T you suck.

200MB is clearly not enough for me. 2GB seems like it would be based on my current data trend, but iPhone OS 4 comes out, and then NPR radio, Pandora usage go up with the background audio features.

WiFi hotspots are crap and they are not nearly enough of them. Starbucks WiFi is typically slower than Edge. BLAH!! CRAP!
 
jbuck777 said:
As far as I know, the "unlimited" data plan on AT&T has a soft cap at 5GB under their fair-use policy. Am i off about this?
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You got it.

slipper said:
Video Chat, folks. My usage averages 200-400mb also. But i'm sure data usage will greatly increase with the addition of video chat on the iPhone. They also need a pricing structure for teathering. Teathering will also greatly increase data usage.

I am very skeptical when ATT pulls statistics stating 98% of users use less than 2gb per month saying most users will save money. ATT has proven time after time that they are a bunch of greedy bastards.
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I think we're all overestimating how much video chat people will actually use.
 
This is all sorts of awesome. I saw that my usage was at 450MB last month on my bill, and that's the highest I have seen it. I started downloading some 10MB podcasts almost nightly before leaving work. That's probably most of my usage since downloading text for news stories doesn't use much of anything.

I can see where a few people might complain, but I must ask what the heck you're doing to use that much data per month on a mobile phone. I might understand a bit more with the iPad and its ability to do video better, but 2GB at $25 still seems like a deal since most of us use nowhere near that much. At least we're getting options, and pretty fair ones at that. If my workplace would get with the club and add wireless, I would have no need for even the $25 plan.

This is also going to make a killing for AT&T. This lowers the entry level cost of ownership for an iPhone by $15/month. Hell, one of my parents may jump on at that price. All I know is I'm switching ASAP to save at least $5/month.
 
Nuvi said:
Heavy user? Eh, how about re-calibrating the scale? Yesterday I watched HD movie with my MBP tethered to my iPhone and it was around 2 GB. Watch a couple of SD and HD movies, some TV shows and you're easily over 10 GB a month.
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You don't have a lined internet connection? I bet I go through 20-30 gb of data on my lined connection, but the infrastructure is priced and planned to support it.

If you want to watch movies and use 10x more data than everyone else then you pay for it, if you find that much value in doing it then you'll find the value in paying for it.

That simple. Either it has value for you or not, if you don't like it, go somewhere else. That is a concept lost on the majority of American's today. Before people complain there is 'no where else to go' then wonder why, maybe because there is no business case for offering people the ability to watch HD movies over a cellular network for $30 a month.
 
Warbrain said:
I think we're all overestimating how much video chat people will actually use.
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Personally I cant see all THAT many people using video chat on the iPhone on a regular basis....and those that do won't be doing it whilst walking the streets of their local city. :rolleyes:

I think most people will use video chat at home, or places like an airport or cafe...where there is WiFi.

Edit:

Thinking about it, the next iPhone will (supposedly) be running on 4g....has any carrier announced the pricing models for their 4g networks.
Its my understanding that 4g is an ALL data network...meaning voice will be over IP.

This 3g pricing model, in theory, will be of no interest to us if were going to be using a different type of networking standard.
 
Nuvi said:
Heavy user? Eh, how about re-calibrating the scale? Yesterday I watched HD movie with my MBP tethered to my iPhone and it was around 2 GB. Watch a couple of SD and HD movies, some TV shows and you're easily over 10 GB a month.
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OK, this sucks for you, but objectively anyone can see that usage like that degrades the network for everyone else. There is only so much electromagnetic spectrum, and of that only so much that is provided to cell companies.
 
Warbrain said:
I think we're all overestimating how much video chat people will actually use.
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Well, now with these new caps, I don't think people would even think of doing video streaming in any way anymore. If the next iPhone has video chat, people would probably use it for the first month thinking it's cool, but once everybody receive their bills, nobody would use video chatting anymore. And there goes innovation.
 
If it was 5GB at the top end, like their USB stick plans, and included free tethering, there would be few complainers here. The problem isn't that there's a cap, it's that laptop data is still being treated differently from phone data (and that the cap amount is arbitrary). :(

Bleh. I expect Verizon to duplicate this stupidity in a few months and T-Mobile/Sprint not long after.
 
AT&T is killing me.. This sucks bad! What happened to supply and demand?? They don't want to meet it.. They just want to create these limits so they don't have to grow with better systems. Growing out your network to allow more customers is one thing but to limit your services and collect premium rates for it is not growth its a cowards way of saying we can't be creative!

Think.. They dropped the ball on almost everything.. Their video chat service SUCKED and that got pushed aside.. ANYONE remember Push to talk ? Kodiak was the biggest thing to them..!! DROPPED! =D LOL /FAIL AT&T


What is the national average unit cost per gig ???

Why are TEXT messages still be charged at rate of 20c per message if you don't have a plan ?
 
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