Or you had some type of oxygen / brain issue at some point.
Sure I did.
Or you had some type of oxygen / brain issue at some point.
You never paid for an unlimited amount of food and any restaurant that offers "all you can eat" has in their fine print clauses that allow them to cut you off or refuse service should you return at a later time. You never paid an unlimited amount of money for unlimited data or texts so what gives you the right to use 20 X or more resources than someone who only paid 5 bucks less for a plan without "unlimited" anything?the point youre trying to make is ridiculous. what your saying is that those of us who payed for unlimited data and texts, shouldnt expect unlimited data and texts. thats like saying im going to an all you can eat buffet, but after my first plate im limited on what i can have. thats not what i payed for, and bought into their system for. its not my problem to worry about the carrier or other people on the network. the carrier should have expected that some people would take the unlimited to an extreme, while others would barely use it, its on them if they didnt. again, if their network cant handle it (which it can, its a ploy that the big two cant), its on them to upgrade their network.
You never paid for an unlimited amount of food and any restaurant that offers "all you can eat" has in their fine print clauses that allow them to cut you off or refuse service should you return at a later time.
You never paid an unlimited amount of money for unlimited data or texts so what gives you the right to use 20 X or more resources than someone who only paid 5 bucks less for a plan without "unlimited" anything?
MOD EDIT: SNIP
Where in the contract does it say any of that? It doesn't.Thanks for the backup...haha. I do appreciate it.
To everyone else, as i've stated the entire time, I don't even have a dog in this fight as I have an unlimited data contract with Verizon, not At&t.
However, I still believe that no matter the company, if you have a signed contract with that company for unlimited data, they owe you unlimited, unthrottled, untampered with data for the term of the contract. After the contract has expired, it is well within their right to remove the unlimited aspect or alter the agreement as they see fit. Until then, any other option is a breech of contract and is illegal. As the courts have ruled in recent cases, under contract, the user is owed unlimited, unthrottled data. They signed a contract, and the burden is on them to uphold their end. They have yet to prove with actual data, rather than broad assumptions, how unlimted data affects their networks.
Simple solution. Buy T-Mobile and run it as a subsidiary. Offer discounted plans over all the other carriers...as well as unlocking any iPhones upon request, as long as you buy a contract with T-Mobile.
No, you are not paying for nothing. You are paying for an infrastructure and the services necessary to get that text message and for R&D to build future infrastructure. That's a product, just like Apple delivers a product. You can make your own judgement of the quality of each product but that's personal choice. BOTH companies are out to make maximum profit, not just AT&T, and in fact AT&T make a WHOLE lot less than Apple does. SAy what you want but those are the facts, the rest is opinion.
Tony
One person's facts are another person's opinions, apparently. I disagree. I believe they are double-dipping here. If paying for a data plan it does not follow that text is extra, imo.
Where in the contract does it say any of that? It doesn't.
The contract is to require you to stay a customer for x amount of time, ensuring the subsidy is not lost.
It is the TOS that applies whether you have a contract or not.
More importantly, the "contract" is not a marriage: either party is free to withdraw from it at any time. If the customer does so, they pay the ETF. If the company does so, they eat the ETF.
The only thing that can be argued is that the initial throttling speed made the service, essentially, unusable. That could be viewed as changing the service by AT&T, and grounds to get out of the contract without ETF. But AT&T has since increased the throttling speed to EDGE speeds. EDGE is all that is available on parts of the AT&T network so one can't make the same unusable claim, that was used in the small claims case in California.
As for "the courts have ruled in recent cases, under contract, the user is owed unlimited, unthrottled data," that is absolutely not true. The courts ruled no such thing.
Michael
For the last time, speed was NEVER defined or guaranteed in any contract.Why is it so difficult to provide what you offer?
Why so many consumers try to justify the poor management that these companies have?
If a company offers a service, in this case is a connection to a cellular network for data transfer, at a certain speed and during a time period.
Technically, if I subscribe for the service I am expecting that I can use this service to its fullest capacity.
If the speed of data tranfer, let's say it is: 1 per minute (unit of data per minute).
Then, I should have the ability to transfer 60 per hour, 1440 per day, 43200 in 30 days ( 40320 in 28 days - those years-, or 44640 in 31 days).
How on earth can I possibly be cheating the network to get a faster data transfer speed or get more data during a month? The speed of connection has a limit, and it is determined by the hardware they have. The total amount of data I can possibly get out their network is limited by the time and speed they provide.
They charge you for the service on a monthly basis. Therefore there is a specific amount of data that can be 'consumed' in 30 days.
To determine the price of this service is a different game. They made a model that is not giving them the results they expect, then what they want to do? Stick it up to the end user.
They were used to earn a lot o money on texting and now more and more people are texting less and calling less than what they were used to, and data transfer is where the money is.
read up:
http://m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/n..._host_hdr=news.yahoo.com&.intl=US&.lang=en-US
at&t has since chosen not to appeal the case.
more importantly, they cant claim unlimited data adversely impacts their network WITHOUT backing it up with real information; which they have been doing all along. by refusing to prove the actual, real world affects, they lost their case. and small claims is still court my friend.
i am now 100% done with this subject.
For the last time, speed was NEVER defined or guaranteed in any contract.
Unlimited data means you will never be charged for overage since there is no predetermined or predefined data amount in a given billing cycle in the contract.
Throttling does not violate the agreement unless it is done in a manner that makes the service unusable.
This is how the ONE person won their case. The service was reduced to the point that it was unusable and the judge agreed.
I think AT&T's reasoning regarding network impact is BS for the most part.
I can see excessive use on a crowded tower being an issue, but to blanket throttle when no congestion or impact to other customers has occurred is BS.
Facts trump uninformed opinions every time.
Texts are not the same as internet data. They don't take the same paths as data. They work WITHOUT a data plan.
That's why they're not charged as data connections. They can't be. They're NOT the same as data connections.
If you're going to compare texts to anything, it's to phone calls, since they share much of the same infrastructure. Arguing that your phone plan should cover most of the cost of a text (but not all -- especially if it has to be stored and forwarded later) makes far more technical sense.
For the last time, speed was NEVER defined or guaranteed in any contract.
Unlimited data means you will never be charged for overage since there is no predetermined or predefined data amount in a given billing cycle in the contract.
Throttling does not violate the agreement unless it is done in a manner that makes the service unusable.
This is how the ONE person won their case. The service was reduced to the point that it was unusable and the judge agreed.
I think AT&T's reasoning regarding network impact is BS for the most part.
I can see excessive use on a crowded tower being an issue, but to blanket throttle when no congestion or impact to other customers has occurred is BS.
Facts scmacts, then why does iMessage work? Why does any IM system that uses the internet rather than text plans work?
Because texts can be data.
... the amount of bandwidth that a text uses compared to a phone call is extremely small. Yet, at 10 cents a text compared to phone minutes, tell me how much a 250 minute phone plan should cost you.
They are two totally different things, as different as a telegram is different from email, even though they both convey words.
Those IM systems are not texts. They use the internet and thus require a data plan, which costs money per byte, NOT per message.
Texts don't require a data plan because they're not internet data. They require a text plan, because they're basically phone pages that can be stored and forwarded, thus they cost per message... NOT per byte.
IMs can be data. Texts are not. You're trying to use the same word for two totally different methods that just happen to made to look similar in some apps. I think that's what's confusing you.
Most voice plans start around 10 cents a minute, with a minute minimum. Adding Canada jacks that price up. However, the more minutes you pay for, the cheaper each minute gets. The same goes for texts.
It's not rocket science. IM texts may look like SMS texts, but they're not.
So, if IMs can replace text - and this was originally about smart phones which require data plans, not forcing people to buy data plans in order to text - then lets say IM can replace text and if I am forced to buy a data plan why do I need to pay extra for texts?
Someone was telling me that I needed to pay for R&D, infrastructure, etc...my feeling is that AT&T is double dipping and no, I don't have to pay extra now that a disruptive technology is messing up their business model.
People might be interested in knowing that AT&T draws a distinction between "service" and "plan." I had to argue with corporate for 2 months before they let me out of a contract due to a mistake their representative made in removing me from my grandfathered plan without my consent. They tried to argue that they were still providing me a service and that the terms of any plan are a separate issue from providing me with phone service. I eventually resolved the issue in my favor by going down to corporate headquarters in person and discussing the situation there rather than over the phone.It is the TOS that applies whether you have a contract or not.
More importantly, the "contract" is not a marriage: either party is free to withdraw from it at any time. If the customer does so, they pay the ETF. If the company does so, they eat the ETF.
You are correct that they are not internet data but it should be noted that they do not cost anything for the company to send/receive. The information is sent and delivered in the unused portion of voice data packets. That doesn't mean they aren't entitled to charge customers if that's how they want to do business but it is not correct to claim they incur any additional cost over regular voice communications for texting.Texts don't require a data plan because they're not internet data. They require a text plan, because they're basically phone pages that can be stored and forwarded, thus they cost per message... NOT per byte.
You are correct that they are not internet data but it should be noted that they do not cost anything for the company to send/receive.
The information is sent and delivered in the unused portion of voice data packets.
That doesn't mean they aren't entitled to charge customers if that's how they want to do business but it is not correct to claim they incur any additional cost over regular voice communications for texting.