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 Simplifying Texting Plans, Enlisting Best Buy in Battle Against Verizon iPhone
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
What the heck? I don't get all this anger or amazement. AT&T and Verizon are businesses. They provide products for customers.
If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Problem solved, nothing to see here, move along please...
If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Problem solved, nothing to see here, move along please...
As others said, the texting is still a rip off. It's a great option for me though because I use more than 200 texts a month but less than 1500. I'll be moving to this plan asap.
Well right now the iPhone on AT&T's network is 3G. And 2/3 iPhone owners were on AT&T because that WAS their only choice. Can't believe AT&T wants Best Buy to make their employees even more moronic, not helpful, and spreading BS. Way to go AT&T
Last edited by a moderator:
SMS uses the cellular signaling channel, which if overfilled could block dialing, ringing, emergency calling, etc. SMS does not use the data channels because of backwards compatibility requirements.
Nope, just Americans. ...and they clamped down on that a few years ago.
But yeah, our Doctors are great. When money is no object, people will come here and to Europe & Japan to see truly exceptional specialists.
Unfortunately, for most of the seven billion people in this world, money is indeed an object. Luckily, they usually have some other less glamorous system to fall back on. Here, we fall back on Tijuana doctors.
Was raised in the UK, lived in Spain, have dual citizenship. It's a talking point from the right that socialized democracy healthcare is "evil" and that people have to wait for simple procedures, etc. In France (and I believe most EU and the UK), women have full coverage and care when giving birth and are even allowed paid leave after to care for their newborn. Of course people are sometimes cared for by priority, someone with cancer obviously has a high priority over someone with lock thumb/trigger finger/etc. However waiting for care isn't an issue. Heck, in the UK they even pay for your transport home.
I laugh when people state government healthcare is bad. If it is, why do our politicians/congress have government care? The truth is, it's a multi-billion dollar industry for the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies and just as the oil industry, advancements for the people are secondary to capitalism and stock holders, etc. The U.S. will never have the type of system as all the other first world nations as our politicians are too in bed with corporations to allow it.
/end
OT: I'm waiting till the dust settles with VW and AT&T.
- AT&T has rollover minutes, I've got ~9,000 to use (and let's face it, it's mostly cause you can't TALK on AT&T lol)
- Data and Voice - very handy
- GSM device allows for global usage (at high rates)
- Verizon has a more reliable network
If those switching from AT&T to VW reduce network congestion combined with improvements from AT&T, I'll stick with AT&T. If not, VW.
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm not a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, but something about google stashing all my text, phone calls and emails forever to use in collecting a massive data file on me for ad revenue sales doesn't sit all that well with me.
I feel all that should be treated in the same manner as post mail.
^ An intelligent post about 3G vs 4G, even though it has nothing to do with texting.
I wish, in theoretical land of course, companies would stop rolling out new networks. I would MUCH rather have a beefed up 3G network, with amazing reception, than providers moving on to a new network. It would be awesome if they spent their time offering true nationwide service, for times when I'm not in major cities. I'd much rather have a rock solid nationwide 3G network, then a faster half assed 3G/4G network (which will be followed by a half assed 5G network).
HSPA+ is more than capable of handling any internet task you throw at it. 7Mbit is plenty fast for a mobile device. We just need that speed available throughout the country. There is NO NEED for true 4G 100mbit connections on an iPhone currently. In the future, as smartphones get smarter, yes, there will be the need. As Verizon is proving, reliability is the biggest selling point for a network, not speed.
Just as an aside, how stupid does it sound when companies modify sayings to be politicaly correct or whatever....
K.I.S.S. = Keep it simple silly? really?
Kind of like the VW commercial that tried to use the slug bug thing in their commercials just using "red one" or "blue one"....
Just sounds blatantly stupid to me....
K.I.S.S. = Keep it simple silly? really?
Kind of like the VW commercial that tried to use the slug bug thing in their commercials just using "red one" or "blue one"....
Just sounds blatantly stupid to me....
I will note that this is a GOOD thing. SMS is more reliable than data, I've found, to the point that on my recent trip to New York in a few places I couldn't even get Google.com to load (at&t fail!) but was still able to communicate with my friend via SMS.
Let's keep SMS the way it is; subjecting it to the lower reliability requirements of cellular data would be a downgrade, not an upgrade.
... I knew you had cr@p tariffs over there but I didn't know you had to pay for incoming texts... that's absurd!
Meanwhile, on Verizon I have $10/unlimited (well, mobile-to-mobile unlimited anyway, but that's the only text messages I send or receive except for the occasional spam text message).
I do with I could get $30/unlimited on the family plan, though. We have five phones on our family plan, three with unlimited texting. Getting them all unlimited for the same price would be nice.
I think AT&T is feeling jilted, and lashing out against the iPhone soothes that pain.
Average speed nationwide doesn't matter. Local speed does. I get a real kick out of the AT&T commercial showing the guy in the car getting some stupid video in less than a tenth the speed (~1 second download versus 20) of his (presumably Verizon) co-travellers ... my experience in motor vehicles of any sort is that AT&T coverage is the absolute lowest along commuter routes; the more likely scenario from what I've seen is that the AT&T guy wouldn't have gotten the video at all, because he would have no 3G coverage period.
In any case, I suspect the claims that 1/3 of customers use data alongside voice is a side effect of background apps polling while the person is on the phone, not the person talking, shifting over to Google Maps to look something up, and continuing talking. That happens, but nowhere near as often as they claim.
So, you're arguing that a minute of talking and a 140 character text message have the same impact on the cellular network?
I call BS. No, it's not the same as regular data, but it should be a hundredth the cost of a minute of talk to send a single text message not $0.25 for the sender and $0.25 for the receiver.
Text messages are expensive in the US because they are used by teenagers. And because people pay for them. It's not cost-of-service-based pricing.
"Simplifying'? Is that a new word for 'gouging'?
The only thing that is 'simplified' here is AT&T managements ability to purchase new toys for them. "New jet? Sure. We just gouged out customers, again... Let's go shopping! Is that available in teak?"
The only thing that is 'simplified' here is AT&T managements ability to purchase new toys for them. "New jet? Sure. We just gouged out customers, again... Let's go shopping! Is that available in teak?"
You say that now. But wait, just wait, you'll fall in line with the rest of them.
Yeah, been there, done that.
We now pay $30/month (three lines with texting at $10/month) for what we could get perfectly free by just talking. Or emailing, for two of those lines which have unlimited data.
Sigh. The teenagers always win in the end. Might as well get used to it
Yeah, been there, done that.
We now pay $30/month (three lines with texting at $10/month) for what we could get perfectly free by just talking. Or emailing, for two of those lines which have unlimited data.
Sigh. The teenagers always win in the end. Might as well get used to it
Are you on the 'Family Plan'? It supposed to help somewhat...
You took graduate level econ yet you simplify the situation to that?
There are plenty of industries in which the efficient number of competitors is 3 or fewer. And by "efficient" I mean better for consumer welfare than if the industry had more competitors, each of which would likely be less efficient.
Well, they're not expensive if you get a bucket of them. 1000 for $10 is 1c each. That's cheaper than minutes except at the high end. Where they get you is if you don't have a plan.
Problem is that you're not factoring in infrastructure costs. Lets say tomorrow everyone decided talking was old school and didn't do it anymore. Instead everyone texted. Those towers are still needed for coverage and they still need to be maintained and upgraded. Texting isn't free or even that cheap when you look at what's required. One tower may be able to cover a more dense area than with voice, but coverage is coverage and still requires towers at regular intervals and everything associated with them.
When the cell phone companies just charged for voice and texting was free, my voice bill was much higher than it is now. Then the cell companies got in a bit of a price war lowering voice prices and they found a whole generation of people who bought the lowest voice plan then texted all they could instead. Their model of giving free texts because the voice plans covered their costs (current and expanding) became busted. They could either raise voice rates back up or charge for texting separate. Most of this occurred before data became a big thing. Now that data is big I expect at some point they will roll texting into the data charges as competition starts to heat up for the iPhone carrier of choice.
Thank the lawd for being grandfathered in. I have the "$5 for 200" plan just in case people don't know my Google Voice number. I probably end up using 5075 of those a month. Would not want to pay twice the current amount for texts I won't use.
(And also grandfathered in to the unlimited data plan. Hooray not-being-a-new-customer!)
(And also grandfathered in to the unlimited data plan. Hooray not-being-a-new-customer!)
Why sell a 4G device this year when you can offer it the following year to make people buy their phone all over again. That's typical Apple marketing strategy. Purposely leave out currently available (technology-wise) features in a given product so you can sell people another one way before they would otherwise consider one. Then add insult to injury by dumping software support for the older device the following year so you can't use much of anything new on it. People keep buying what they're selling, though so I can see why Apple keeps doing it.
I could care less about being able to be grandfathered in. It just sounds like another ploy by AT&T to make more money off something that is so ridiculously cheap. I mean why do people have to pay for incoming texts? My mom gets a few of them because she has those friends who never bother to ask whether she wants that or not. At least when you're charged for incoming calls, you can see who's calling and not pick up the phone.
I checked Verizon's coverage map and I'm clearly in the 3G area, but also damn close to the 4G coverage from Athens. Yes, already. I live across the street from frickin' cows! When an LTE iPhone is offered, I'm going to have a decision to make. Maybe one of these companies will realize a lot of us are sick of the extra cost of SMS and could really care less about it WHEN WE HAVE FREE E-MAIL.
I checked Verizon's coverage map and I'm clearly in the 3G area, but also damn close to the 4G coverage from Athens. Yes, already. I live across the street from frickin' cows! When an LTE iPhone is offered, I'm going to have a decision to make. Maybe one of these companies will realize a lot of us are sick of the extra cost of SMS and could really care less about it WHEN WE HAVE FREE E-MAIL.
From the third paragraph: The document indicates that users currently on either of the two messaging plans being discontinued with be grandfathered in and be able to stay with their current plans, even through device upgrades.
So, even if you renew your contract, you'll be able to keep your old plan.
T
The Toddfather
Guest
Who cares...
They could make texting free and cut their service plan in half and I would still dump them the second I can. Their service is horrible in my area and I've been waiting years for this day, good riddance!
They could make texting free and cut their service plan in half and I would still dump them the second I can. Their service is horrible in my area and I've been waiting years for this day, good riddance!
I don't think there is a whole lot truth to what you are saying here.
What would battery life have been in the original iphone if they had put in 3g?
LTE may be a similar issue, I mean, there is no way in hell they were going to change the thickness and kill the battery life in exchange for access to spotty LTE coverage. It makes allot more sense to wait another year, as its largely just a check in a box for most phones right now. And with some networks it costs another $10/month (read:$240 over the contract) just for those speed bumps.
How many software updates would you expect apple to provide for free to these devices? So what does that say about the Android phones that come out of the wrapper with older versions of the OS without options to upgrade?
I don't find apples updating and support out of line in the slightest.
On that particular front, Apple is miles better than Android.
I mean, apple isn't perfect at all, but you brought a **** argument to the table here.