I hate writing anything political on this site, but here we have an example of corporations gone malignant.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
AT&T CEO Believes 5G Phone Plans Could Be Tiered and Priced on Data Speed
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Not really a new thing. The carrier EE in the UK, which owns most of the LTE spectrum, already tiers some of its plans based on speed.
This is ultimately inevitable (many MVNO are already throttled anyway).
But AT&T would need to beef up capacity and coverage to ensure those paying the highest tier actually get what they were promised, which I just don't see happening with pitiful mmWave's operating range and poor wall penetration.
But AT&T would need to beef up capacity and coverage to ensure those paying the highest tier actually get what they were promised, which I just don't see happening with pitiful mmWave's operating range and poor wall penetration.
Quite right, 4G is faster than most ADSL until a few years ago, and more than fast enough for media streaming. Unless you need mobile access to very large data files, a small user group, 5G does seem an overreach. The main beneficiaries would seem to be the providers, rather than users, who can free up their capacity (can’t think of the right term, something to do with a pipe), so might help very busy areas like a sporting event where everyone’s on their phone.
Can you help me out with a couple? I find myself in the camp that doesn’t see much of a purpose for this, given the difficulty of using it.
The only argument I can find in favor is that it’ll take a decade to roll out, and maybe there’ll be a good use by then...
Pretty sure they don’t think that at all. You only weaken your argument by throwing out exaggerated scenarios that are nowhere close to reality.
ATT is greedy no doubt. But who are you to complain at their strategy and decide what is and what isn’t a utility? Did you take the business risk to build out their towers and network infrastructure? The idea that government, stealing money and resources from people and allocating them to disciplines and industries in which they have no expertise whatsoever is the definition of misguided. Private markets are inherently always superior. Always. Government monopolies cannot be efficient.
Average LTE speeds are around 20Mbps, even though newest devices support up to theoretical 1Gbps. Does that mean we will finally get 40Mpbs with 2Gbps 5G...Really though, carriers need to work on increasing LTE speeds since it has much better range and lower costs than 5G. Once there are millions on 5G it will slow down to pennies again.
... political party, income, purchasing patterns...Can't wait for 6G when they start tiering by location, type of smartphone, etc, etc...
Unlucky I guess Here in Japan I can’t remember the last time I saw 3G... I’ve had 4G whilst up a mountain, on the subway, in remote Hokkaido, and even on Ishigaki island.
It’s crazy how much coverage can vary between rich countries.
Still, the only uses I see for 5G are: home internet where fiber isn’t feasible (in which case are you even going to get signal?) and removing some stress from 4G.
Contrary to most of the posts here, I think this would actually be beneficial to many consumers who don’t want the latest and greatest (speeds.) I much prefer a model that has a pricing tier based on speed vs data usage. If they combine the two, then I dislike this plan.
The more interesting part of his statements are related to the timeline/ 2-3 years away. This means, in my opinion, that they don’t see 5G being mainstream for at least 2-3 years.
Att does a lot of dumb things (digital life) - And has more debt than I think any other company in the world. I hope they get this debt below 100 billion before 5G becomes prevalent so that They can afford to be more aggressive with pricing.
The more interesting part of his statements are related to the timeline/ 2-3 years away. This means, in my opinion, that they don’t see 5G being mainstream for at least 2-3 years.
Att does a lot of dumb things (digital life) - And has more debt than I think any other company in the world. I hope they get this debt below 100 billion before 5G becomes prevalent so that They can afford to be more aggressive with pricing.
They can keep it. 4G LTE is more than enough for cell phone usage.
"Some of this is physics - millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum has great potential in terms of speed and capacity, but it doesn't travel far from the cell site and doesn't penetrate materials at all. It will never materially scale beyond small pockets of 5G hotspots in dense urban environments."
This is AT&T's plan to attack urban area Internet connectivity with minimal infrastructure cost. 5G really doesn't have anything to do with cellphones.
This is AT&T's plan to attack urban area Internet connectivity with minimal infrastructure cost. 5G really doesn't have anything to do with cellphones.
Yep. My crappy 38Mbps Vodafone ‘fiber’ broadband here in the UK looks silly next to my iPhone on EE which routinely gets over 150Mbps over LTE...
Rather than focusing on faster speeds that have a data cap anyway, let's first focus on improving coverage so I can actually get a signal while on the highway.
I remember getting MindSpring DSL in 2000 and thinking it was fast. People now would not be able to live with such speeds.
For sure. They've just gone too far into debt from their Time Warner acquisition to behave any other way.
My internet speed at home is priced based on speed. But wireless somehow shouldn’t be? Why does using the word “utility” somehow obviate real world costs? It’s not like there’s a magical cost-free transfer of data going through the ether, and price is just arbitrarily being tacked on. All of this happens only after expenditure of capital. The questions are: is the extra speed worth paying for, and is the extra price excessive. Just being “more” doesn’t qualify as “excessive.” But if it is excessive, then a competitor will step in, undercut the price, and it will be to your benefit and AT&T’s detriment.
And go to one of the other two options that would likely be doing the same thing. When it comes to prices, there's not really big difference between Verizon / AT&T / T-Mobile.
No doubt. The company presumably knows this and obviously doesn’t want lawsuits. Perhaps this will actually spur them to work harder to make sure that the advertised speed they’re charging you for approximates what you’re getting. There will be plenty of people running speed tests, and good for them. If they offer increased speeds at higher prices, that’ll be fine. I frankly don’t care a lot about 4G vs 5G vs 5GE speeds. If I need to download large files, I do it at home anyway where I have high bandwidth. My 4G is already fast enough to stream movies.