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AT&T Eliminating $10 Text Messaging Plan for New Customers
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Again, you make the assumption Verizon won't do this a few months after AT&T (like they have for every other plan change).
Are your cell companies tightly regulated by your government?
SMS has been able to do read receipts for a long long time. It depends on the carrier and handset supporting it.
Why couldn't iMessage work with non iOS/Mac devices? Seems like Apple could really open up in the budget market if their devices could negate the need for a texting plan.
Well I suppose the tethering is because you could hook up a router and or via hotspot you could have have quite a few people using the ONE unlimited data plan instead of buying their own. It doesn't really work that way, but in theory that's the implication. You bought unlimited data for YOU. Not the friends and family that can share it instead of buying their own once it breaks free of the device.
By analogy, you aren't allowed to share your unlimited cabletv viewing with your neighbor or your unlimited internet with your whole block either.
Rip off
What an evil move by AT&T. SMSs costs them virtually nothing, just pure gouging. I know the markets are different, but here in India I pay $0.46 per month for 100 texts per day. It used to be 200 per day.
What an evil move by AT&T. SMSs costs them virtually nothing, just pure gouging. I know the markets are different, but here in India I pay $0.46 per month for 100 texts per day. It used to be 200 per day.
Interestingly, ATT didn't mention why the charge for effing text messaging at all.
It has no overhead. If you break out the bandwidth used, assuming infrastructure charges are similar, you're looking at 1000's of times more expensive per bit than regular IP traffic.
It's time that charging for text messaging became illegal, beyond perhaps a simple $1 or $2 surcharge. It's price gouging, and it hurts the middle class and poor the most. People who have smart phones can circumvent text messages entirely.
I'm glad Apple is releasing iMessage. Stick it to the man, man. ;-)
It has no overhead. If you break out the bandwidth used, assuming infrastructure charges are similar, you're looking at 1000's of times more expensive per bit than regular IP traffic.
It's time that charging for text messaging became illegal, beyond perhaps a simple $1 or $2 surcharge. It's price gouging, and it hurts the middle class and poor the most. People who have smart phones can circumvent text messages entirely.
I'm glad Apple is releasing iMessage. Stick it to the man, man. ;-)
Once T-Mobile and Sprint are taken over by ATT and Verizon, expect your monthly bill to go up by about $20.
It's called having contracts with the providers they use. I'm guessing having a plan that takes revenue from AT&T or V would be grounds for the providers to block those services.
There are numerous free texting apps out there. Just have to use a different number that is provided for free. Pretty easy these days for your friends to have a texting number and a phone number. I use text free.
I dropped out of AT&T texting completely for our family plan long ago.
Charging ANYTHING for as trivial a functionality as texting on top of the high 3G charges is simply theft.
There are plenty of free texting svcs, Facebook texting app being just the latest.
Charging ANYTHING for as trivial a functionality as texting on top of the high 3G charges is simply theft.
There are plenty of free texting svcs, Facebook texting app being just the latest.
There would be regulations in place, though the iPhone is available on three networks over here, which means that the companies need to be more competitive.
I have never heard of SMS read receipts before, they probably aren't advertised.
given that the carriers have "competed" by matching their competitors' increase in SMS pricing, i expect verizon to do something similar in the near future.
Just wondering here,
What differentiates "unlimited" texting from "unlimited" data?
/s
texting is text messaging, SMS (text only) and MMS (includes photos and videos).
Data is "the internet". Google maps, email, internet. NOT texting.
Yes, it's called e-mail. It's been around since the Seventies. It was designed that way.
Like I said, I pay $0.46 per month for 100 SMSs per day. If you want to play the economies of scale game, fine: India has 4x the population, so let's make it $2 per month for 100 per day. Still want to defend AT&T?
no becasue it still allows you to send internatioally without paying the extra charge a normal SMS would
But, take my example. I'm on unlimited plan but had intentions of switching to $10/1000 when iOS5 came out, knowing that iMessage would take away many of my texts. However, when this goes into effect, I'll be stuck with unlimited. I don't really want to downgrade now because I know I will go over 1000 in the next couple months leading up to iOS 5
True, but there are lots of providers too. The competition is tough, so the rates are competitive.
But in US, we are heading towards 2 major providers.
Quite simply, this is extortion.
Forcing customers who want to use sms to pay $20 a month for the privilege (unheard of), or charged per text at rates no human being should ever pay.
Are there still people saying AT&T should be allowed to take over t mobile?
Look at what this company has devolved into. Absolutely unreal.
Forcing customers who want to use sms to pay $20 a month for the privilege (unheard of), or charged per text at rates no human being should ever pay.
Are there still people saying AT&T should be allowed to take over t mobile?
Look at what this company has devolved into. Absolutely unreal.
That's why AT&T is doing this ....Out of Spite !
And the really messed up thing is that the amount of Data in a text is so small and insignificant that it costs them NOTHING !
Apple will probably release a cheaper iPhone that supports iMessage, and try and win back some of the budget market from Android.
I agree that's a great feature of the plan, but I wonder if they won't ditch that too?
However, there are lots of people who don't txt or txt lightly. (THe baby boomer generation is a great example.) The per message fees add up very fast. If they lowered those, I wouldn't be annoyed. Or if the government would finally make it illegal for a carrier to charge you for incoming txts.