AT&T Data Plan Change and how it screws us all...

[alakazzam]

RIGHT NOW in 2010: yes 2gigs of usage for a phone (even the iPhone) is a lot and most people will not reach that even with intense usage.

HOWEVER looking forward.

What happens once 4g is developed, once we can make these FaceTime calls over the network, once we can most certainly use Skype with the front facing camera. What happens when data just becomes more available. I really see 2g being reached easily in the not so distant future.

My theory is AT&T has thought about this and has come up with a plan to make us think that by "downgrading" to a 2gig plan for $25/month we will save money. In the long run I fear that this may not be the case. I fear, so much so that I'm writing this post, that we may see a great spike in the amount of people using more than 2gigs of data per month. I fear that AT&T has thought about this and is planning ahead to reap the benefits.

I am attempting to think outside the box and that tends to lead to crazy thoughts that may be completely unfounded, but I have had this discussion with a few people and they seem to agree I'm not crazy this time.

In light of this I am thinking that I will keep that extra infinite amount of data/month and continue to pay the 5 dollar premium, because once I opt out of this it's gone for good.

We, the current iPhone users, have the opportunity to exploit AT&T's plan to limit our future data needs by spending more money now.

How does everyone else feel about my opinion on this subject?

 

[amann76]

hey man there is a whole world outside of your facebook your skype your iphone your whatever why don't you get out and do what people did before they had all this technology and meet face to face then you wont have to worry about how much data your using.

If the only time you talk to your chick is through skype or facebook or other media sources let me break it down for you she is not your girl she is a new age penpal.

 

[GfPQqmcRKUvP]

You're right, but this topic has been discussed to death on this board, with the exact same arguments.

 

[Eddyisgreat]

OP You are just now recognizing this? There's no money in offering folks all they can eat on the go especially with proliferation of video and other bandwidth intesive services. Canada is doing it, Everybody besides the high end internet peers of the world (Japan, South Korea, Sweden et al) is moving to per byte billing even on landlines and the government can't/won't do anything about it because they have no reason to. Bandwidth isn't free, I realize this, but anyone who is stupid enough to believe that "the tubes" are busting at the seams is smoking crack, whilst att is laughing all the way to the bank with their 6500% markup on text services (less but still substantial on data services).

 

[GfPQqmcRKUvP]

OP You are just now recognizing this? There's no money in offering folks all they can eat on the go especially with proliferation of video and other bandwidth intesive services. Canada is doing it, Everybody besides the high end internet peers of the world (Japan, South Korea, Sweden et al) is moving to per byte billing even on landlines and the government can't/won't do anything about it because they have no reason to. Bandwidth isn't free, I realize this, but anyone who is stupid enough to believe that "the tubes" are busting at the seams is smoking crack, whilst att is laughing all the way to the bank with their 6500% markup on text services (less but still substantial on data services).

Text messages are a huge ripoff, but companies charge people according to the value the customers assign to that product or service, not necessarily to its intrinsic cost.

 

[alakazzam]

hey man there is a whole world outside of your facebook your skype your iphone your whatever why don't you get out and do what people did before they had all this technology and meet face to face then you wont have to worry about how much data your using.

If the only time you talk to your chick is through skype or facebook or other media sources let me break it down for you she is not your girl she is a new age penpal.

Hey man, there is a whole world outside of not providing any use to the conversation at hand. I'm sorry you don't have a girlfriend to talk to so you comment on posts without offering any incite into the topic. If there's so much more to this world why are you here?

Back to my point...(I'm sorry I'm apparently slow on the uptake on this one I do lead a busy life all the posts involving this topic have probably long been burried with topics of other interest such as do I upgrade my 3gs or do I wait for iPhone 5?)

Everything in technology seems to have this exponential effect and my guess is that this will hold true for cell phone data usage. Not only will we inevitably surf more on our phones but the data streams will be larger. Look at video games, movies, music, each of these three technologies have all gone from small to large quite quickly.

My point was not that I currently use the phone to an extreme, I don't, 300-500mb/month, but what does average usage become in a few years? And will it be more beneficial to keep my unlimited plan or downgrade to this $25/month plan. I am asking this because AT&T will let me keep my unlimited plan for the next iPhone, how long do you think we'll be aloud this all you can eat special? I would say it'd be beneficial in keeping it as long as we can. I was hoping for intelligent comments not a bunch of bashing and flaming.

 

[Eddyisgreat]

@Badandy : My rant is geared towards raw data services, not necissarily txt services.

My point was not that I currently use the phone to an extreme, I don't, 300-500mb/month, but what does average usage become in a few years? And will it be more beneficial to keep my unlimited plan or downgrade to this $25/month plan. I am asking this because AT&T will let me keep my unlimited plan for the next iPhone, how long do you think we'll be aloud this all you can eat special? I would say it'd be beneficial in keeping it as long as we can. I was hoping for intelligent comments not a bunch of bashing and flaming.

OP I hear you and I agree with you. AT&T is doing this because they can, not to save anyone money. Cisco just delivered a router that can deliver 10Tb every second yet the ISPs in this country will sit back and tell us they are running dry and we are at risk of national security or something because we're breaking the internet lol.

Keep the plan as long as you can ,but just like they did with the Edge -> 3G, and now for new subscribers, they can force us off a plan if they really want to.

But if they do that now, we would be allowed to leave our contracts early w/o recourse

 

[army91c]

Hey man, there is a whole world outside of not providing any use to the conversation at hand. I'm sorry you don't have a girlfriend to talk to so you comment on posts without offering any incite into the topic. If there's so much more to this world why are you here?

Back to my point...(I'm sorry I'm apparently slow on the uptake on this one I do lead a busy life all the posts involving this topic have probably long been burried with topics of other interest such as do I upgrade my 3gs or do I wait for iPhone 5?)

Everything in technology seems to have this exponential effect and my guess is that this will hold true for cell phone data usage. Not only will we inevitably surf more on our phones but the data streams will be larger. Look at video games, movies, music, each of these three technologies have all gone from small to large quite quickly.

My point was not that I currently use the phone to an extreme, I don't, 300-500mb/month, but what does average usage become in a few years? And will it be more beneficial to keep my unlimited plan or downgrade to this $25/month plan. I am asking this because AT&T will let me keep my unlimited plan for the next iPhone, how long do you think we'll be aloud this all you can eat special? I would say it'd be beneficial in keeping it as long as we can. I was hoping for intelligent comments not a bunch of bashing and flaming.

The intelligent thing to do would be to simply post in the many other posts just like this one. I thought amann76 was spot on too, or at least very funny.

To leave you an "intelligent" comment...... the general iPhone user will most likely NOT change their usage based on a new phone or service (4g). The majority of new iPhone 4 adopters will be the casual smart phone user who will fall under the "general" iPhone user, using far less than 2gig of data. The people that already wanted an iPhone which includes those that would push it with the data already have an iPhone so the new plan does nothing to them. Of course tether is another thing but the hardcore user is prob jailbroken and on miwi. Hell, I tether and use my phone a LOT, am hardly ever by a hotspot when I do, and my highest month was 2.8 gig.

Plus, you really have no clue of any upcoming charges at&t may roll out with a new service so basically you're talking out your 4th point of contact.

 

[alakazzam]

The intelligent thing to do would be to simply post in the many other posts just like this one. I thought amann76 was spot on too, or at least very funny.

To leave you an "intelligent" comment...... the general iPhone user will most likely NOT change their usage based on a new phone or service (4g). The majority of new iPhone 4 adopters will be the casual smart phone user who will fall under the "general" iPhone user, using far less than 2gig of data. The people that already wanted an iPhone which includes those that would push it with the data already have an iPhone so the new plan does nothing to them. Of course tether is another thing but the hardcore user is prob jailbroken and on miwi. Hell, I tether and use my phone a LOT, am hardly ever by a hotspot when I do, and my highest month was 2.8 gig.

Plus, you really have no clue of any upcoming charges at&t may roll out with a new service so basically you're talking out your 4th point of contact.

You are correct there are other places I could have posted this topic and my concerns I'm so sorry I wasted your time reading this, but then again you didn't have to read it or post did you?

No one knows what AT&T has planned for future service charges. My main point was that they are using PR talk to disguise the fact they they will be limiting us in the future. Regardless of what you say all you can eat is definitely better than whatever data rate charge plans they have in store for us in the future.