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Yes they once, twice... Three times they played me. And they'll CHARGE yooooouuu...

Unlimited Data Plan= Flipflopped
Pay as you go iPad= Flipflopped
Facetime= Mid Flip
 
Apple need to go into the network business. They've got the money to buy up some of the smaller guys around the world with good coverage then just charge a monthly (highish) fee that encompasses all calls, texts and data.

In the countries with poor infrastructure you wouldn't clog the system as no-one is going to be downloading films if their speed is 5kbps.

All these big ass-hole networks who want to rape their customers at every opportunity would then be shafted as all the iPhone users start to switch over.
 
I am curious about two things.
1) Are AT&T iPhones getting OTA update which disables facetime if not subscribed?
2) Since Facetime is data, is there any clause in the contract which allows AT&T to change the list of applications which are allowed to use the data which you have payed for? I mean it's probably not much different than using data to send/receive emails, chat using Facebook messenger etc.
 
Don't turn this around. Voice/Texting revenue has been on the decline and unless they adapt as a company to find new ways of profit then the business entity will fail.

I completely disagree. Certainly, AT&T is in business to make money. if they need to find more revenue then they should either increase prices or offer new services that add value.
That is very different than the concept of arbitrarily segmenting the data packets traveling over the network into different price buckets depending on what they are carrying or where they are headed. Especially so when customers are on a metered, pay per byte model.


This gets to the very essence of the fight over net neutrality and traffic discrimination. If they go through with this, what's to stop them from charging more for YouTube videos, twitter messages, Facebook posts, etc?

Imagine an AT&T competitor of iTunes where the movies being streamed don't count against your data plan. How is that not unfairly anti-competitive?
 
@#$%@#$% you att, stop selling me data by the GB, then trying to only offer tethering, mobile hotspot, and facetime with larger plans or by charging extra.

That's as stupid as if they only let you use speakerphone on the 900 min/month or greater plan. A voice minute is a voice minute, through speaker, earpiece, or bluetooth headset. Data is data, sell me a GB then don't worry about how I use it.

All the limits and extras were fine on unlimited plans, but now that that's gone, it should all be included.

Rollover data would be awesome too.

Voice minutes should just be converted to KB out of my GB plan too...
 
There are many reasons I'd love to live and work in the US (I'm in the UK), but this is not one of them.

The UK mobile (wireless to my American friends!) tariffs are far superior, but then we are a smaller country with more network operators.

We have 5 operators and of course choice is a good thing.

We have 2 that offer truly unlimited data (3 & T-Mobile) and they include tethering and don't care how you use the data you pay for each month.

Also, T-Mobile have a policy for the tariffs that do have a monthly limit, where even if you hit it they don't cut you off. They still allow you to browse the web and get email, they just remove the ability to download and stream video, which I think is a reasonable, customer friendly policy.

We don't pay for incoming calls or text messages either-I still can't get my head around paying for someone to ring me! :eek:

One big difference of course, is that we don't have 4G/LTE yet.

All the operators are trialling it, but it looks like it won't get a public roll out for another year. :(
 
If millions and millions of customers drop ATT things will change. Unfortunately, talk is cheap. The people have the power,but they just don't follow through to make the necessary commitment in changing service. ATT is a very corrupt business. I have a land line with them in case of emergency, only because I live in thier zip code. Every month I go through my bill and find added charges that don't belong on my bill. When I call and complain they remove all the extra charges, but then next month there back again. This has been going on for serveral months. I talk to managers and nothing changes. Check your ATT bill carefully every month, because they will cheat you if they can get away with it.
 
Really, when I went out in the country this weekend my crap AT&T service went to Edge. My Verizon was 3G. Verizon has always had better service in the country except for some hilly/mountainous areas of CO and Ca where Verizon's frequencies have a hard time traversing hilly terrain.

Yep, went to a place called Gates of Hell that's like 30 miles from no where and still had 3G service. Here in central Kentucky it is unbeatable!
 
Yes they once, twice... Three times they played me. And they'll CHARGE yooooouuu...

Unlimited Data Plan= Flipflopped
Pay as you go iPad= Flipflopped
Facetime= Mid Flip

ipad data plans have no contract right? or are you talking about something else?
 
Apple need to go into the network business. They've got the money to buy up some of the smaller guys around the world with good coverage then just charge a monthly (highish) fee that encompasses all calls, texts and data.

In the countries with poor infrastructure you wouldn't clog the system as no-one is going to be downloading films if their speed is 5kbps.

All these big ass-hole networks who want to rape their customers at every opportunity would then be shafted as all the iPhone users start to switch over.

And it's not just the mobile networks; the ISPs are just as bad. Apple is relying more and more on fast downloads over storage (especially for stuff like the AppleTV) and if they want to really make the cloud the centre of everything then they have to own the transport. Charge folk a high-ish fee (as you said) tied to two AppleIDs (personal and family) and let folk do whatever they want.
 
Dear AT&T, Verison, Sprint, and all other major carriers,
You are THE reason I do not own an iPhone. Or ANY smartphone.
You have attached these beautifully advanced pieces of technology to draconian billing plans which serve only to oppress the users.

WHAT GOOD IS THE SPEED A NETWORK IF YOU CAN ONLY DOWNLOAD A LIMITED AMOUNT OF DATA AT A GIVEN TIME!?

That's like charging someone a monthly bill to watch television, then charging them extra if they flip through the channels too much.

I will stubbornly stick to my simplistic flip-phone with the pay-as-you-go and iPod Touch combination until you DRASTICALLY reduce the cost of your pathetic service.

That is all.
 
"AT&T is focused on working with Apple to get the technology stabilized...". What!?! Really Randall??! Yeah- I'm sure Apple is just barely figuring this video-over-the-air-thingamajig out, and you guys have scientists filling in the gaps left and right.

Wow. This is one arrogant CEO. Working with Apple to get this technology stabilized- like the peanut vendors at a Lakers game are working with Kobe Bryant to produce his dunk. Please... AT&T has nothing to do with getting FaceTime to work over their cellular network except to figure out how to screw it up or charge extra for it. There's no 'mysterious technology' AT&T has to stabilize for Apple.

And btw- I hope enough people realize that an additional restriction on what they can do with their data should be considered a contract change and fight to be released from their contracts without paying an ETF. And then go to Sprint.
 
Carriers will hold onto their money for as long as they can. However, they won't be able to do that forever. The internet and new technologies will kill them, just like they are killing record companies and the government that control people.
 
Evil companies and marketing lies

So here is my rant:

<rant>
What bothers me most is the arrogance and disconnect most of these evil companies have between their marketing departments and their customer service/business direction.

Customers don't pay as much attention to print, radio, or television advertising, because we all had a bad experience with a company's product/service.

Their marketing told us we were buying product "A", which would fix problem "X", but we found out the hard way that product "A" does not fix problem "X", and was probably never designed to do so in the first place. It is only marketing. It was only a lie!

So after difficulty connecting with untrusting consumers, we move into the new world of social media. One would hope that these evil companies would learn not to violate their customers trust, choosing instead to invest in long term relationships (and, in fact, some better companies are doing so), but the majority of these evil companies are continuing with their same poor strategies, willfully violating consumer trust for short term gain, thus squandering all the benefits and opportunities of this new form of comunication.

Public trust is of little relevance (ie. value) when such evil companies hold near monopolistic power, investing our dollars into corrupt laws and fancy marketing, rather than quality products, helpful customer service, fair and accurate billing, and simple and honest marketing.

Why pay money to gain my trust, when you don't value my trust to begin with?!

It's really like dating an abusive girlfriend who tells you she loves you, but treats you like *****.

I'd rather see an ad tell me the truth than a clever lie!

If a company is evil, they should just say " I'm sorry we were evil, we will be making necessary changes over the next year to fix or problems and regain your trust. We realize we aren't a valuable company without you, our customers." if they are unwilling to own up to their issues, and stop being evil, they should just shut the h*ll up and stop advertising lies. If an evil company really doesn't care about their customers, they should just be honest about it and stop wasting their money trying to convince us otherwise. This is just one more reason why we have all become so cynical. We have learned that the world will say one thing and do another.

If companies like BP, Chase, AT&T, etc. already own a majority of their market anyway, and we have difficulty finding preferable alternatives, they really should have less incentive to lie. We are stuck either way! Why not at least be honest?! I don't get it!

If the girlfriend wants to be a b*tch, why does she even bother pretending to be a saint?!

<\rant>
 
In Australia here carriers only charge for the data, it's your data so it's upto you how you use it. However the max data plan we can buy is around 5GB. Every MB over that is 15 cents :( the reason why our carriers let hotspot and FaceTime free is they know that their will be some customers who go over their limit and then they can charge more. What I'm trying to say is Aussie carriers are smart lol
 
i thought we got raped in the UK.

But DAMN the US gets it bad from the carriers.

Oh well at least you dont have VAT @ 20%... and cheap petrol
 
I'm not even a AT&T customer and this pisses me off. When are people going to stop taking these companies crap and start making a statement with their money?

Though the wireless market in general is a giant nickel and diming industry, AT&T is the industry leader in shafting their customers.

Cancel your accounts and advise others to not sign up to AT&T if you want to make a statement, otherwise this craphole of a company will continue to add more and more fees for everything if people continue to just accept it.

I for one will NEVER sign up for AT&T services and thats not limited to just to their wireless.
 
Vote with your feet

It's pretty simple really. if AT&T are screwing you over then don't renew your contract with them. Just move on to a better supplier. If most of their customers do that they will have to change.
 
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