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AT&T to Face Net Neutrality Complaint Regarding FaceTime Over Cellular Limitation
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I have had FaceTime over 3G since its inception. It's called JailBreaking. AT&T hasn't noticed, or can't tell.
I really don't have a problem with them placing restrictions on those with unlimited data caps. I do have issue with them placing limits on people who pay for a fixed amount of data.
It is like a fast food place that sells a cup with free refills, I think they have the right to restrict what you do with those refills. You should not be able to share that cup with 10 people at your table and keep getting refills or just stand there filling it up and dumping it out. But if they sell a 32oz drink with no refills then you should be able to do whatever I want with that 32oz drink.
I don't use Facetime, so I don't feel like I am being screwed in any way. I do use data and voice at the same time however. Funny how things are relative and don't necessarily reflect on someone else.
Samsung had a lot more then 2 different ports for their phones. And you're not crying about them?
Wouldn't hitting a datacap give AT&T the chance to sell more data? Why don't they find ways to make money off that? You know, upgrade infrastructure and monetize the additional bandwidth.
Am I way off base here? Or are they dragging their feet to maintain top dog status rather than hurry to improve not knowing what the future will bring?
Am I way off base here? Or are they dragging their feet to maintain top dog status rather than hurry to improve not knowing what the future will bring?
In one well thought out statement you bolstered the free market argument. The free market is there to make choices good or bad... Your part in the matter is to buy it or not. And the Legal sector is there to make sure your freedoms aren't taken away / discriminated against.... The only issue with the system is the corruption of people. Which is inherent even in your presumed alternative of nationalization / socialism / communism et al. I'd rather live in a society (knowing corruption exists in places) where I can become as middle class or as rich as I want to be than one where all are middle / lower class except the government.
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AT&T really dragged their feet implementing MMS on the iPhone. Going so far as saying their network couldn't handle it. Meanwhile plenty of other carriers offered it immediately.
Sometimes I feel AT&T is trying to get by with the bare minimum network upgrades....
LTE/LTE-A, HSPA+/HSPA+-A don't cost much to deploy and they handle spectrum and data MUCH more efficiently then 3G or EDGE. Therefore it's technically cheaper these days, especially since AT&T is going to shut down their EDGE network in 2017 and use that spectrum for future LTE/LTE-A and HSPA+-A roll-out.
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Maybe someone will jailbreak the iPhone 5 and make a tweak that changes Facetime so it looks like Skype (from a network perspective) when you use it, though AT&T will probably look at the traffic and see it's going to Apple's IP and not Skype's. Maybe they are not looking that closely, so we could run a Facetime proxy server at home that would relay the connection to Apple and AT&T couldn't see you were communicating with Apple.. and therefore have a sleuthly Facetime connection.
Actually... just setup a VPN at home, and dial into that. I think that will allow Facetime over cellular and AT&T can't do anything about it. It's really easy to setup VPN in Windows 7.
If you are currently on a limited plan, more than likely you can lower your montly cost and add more data with the shared plan. My bill lowered $25 with the new shared plan. I went from 700 minutes to unlimited and now my iPad can be on the same plan.
There is no unlimited data anymore - everything has a data cap.
Besides, for the "unlimited" cap, you couldn't use facetime after being throttled anyways so it's a moot point.
Also it's impossible to share the unlimited data with any phone but your own - so I'm a little confused by your analogy.
Wow, Samson, first - calm down, second - AT&T presents unlimited data as a risk, with great benefits. They offered it to people in an effort to entice consumers to choose AT&T. Then, after enticing us to select them as a service provider, they changed the rules. That's what's upsetting. No, we don't expect AT&T to lose money, but think about what you've said. We apparently "expect businesses to operate at a loss to give [us] the service [we] think we deserve." How are they losing anything? It costs them no more to offer us this data (yes, it may slow down the provided service, but they won't be operating at a loss if they were to provide it). We fulfilled our part of the bargain - we left another company, came to AT&T and paid for unlimited data. They won't be fulfilling their part of the bargain - providing unlimited data.
I don't object to AT&T throttling me (it's never happened to me). I don't object to them not allowing Face time over cellular (It would be nice, but not having it won't kill me). What I would object to is losing unlimited data. I really enjoy the fact that I don't have to stop and think before I look something up, or download a file, or listen to a song.
The AT&T we all know today is not the same company from 30 years ago.
It's AT&T in name only for the most part.
Deregulation worked in the short term, but what it created was the mess we're in now.
Two heavy hitters (VZW and AT&T) and the rest.
Rural customers are still screwed because the regional carriers cannot spread the costs out like the bigger companies can. Basically with AT&T and Verizon, the urban customers subsidize some of the costs for rural customers.
Smaller carriers do not have the diversity in customer base to compete with the big two.
Sprint and T-Mobile are the only two with any chance and they've not made much headway in the last 5 years.
Sprint's trying, but T-Mobile actually looks like they enjoy the role they're in at the moment.
Making the best of their situation.
So I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "this needs to happen again" as the circumstances are completely different.
Vote with your wallets. I am determined to switch to a pre-paid carrier and riding out my 2nd year on ATT. I know pre-paid carriers just re-sell the major carriers, but they are not limited and are a LOT cheaper
Please don't try to turn this into a free market argument. The telco industry has been far from a free market for most of its history. One could just as easily argue that if the government had stayed out of telco altogether the natural competition would have prevented customer unfriendly behaviors because someone else would have capitalized (pun intended) on the opportunity. But for a myriad of reasons the government has had to regulate telcos and will continue to be involved. So, please don't use this as an argument for more government. The government is plenty involved in the telco space (at least my government is).
Exactly. All this will do is force the carriers to drop the unlimited plans....and for what?....so a few teenagers can play with facetime?
Watch your AT&T account
Last week, I fortunately received a txt msg from AT&T that my features/plan had changed. I contacted Support via chat and found out that my plan was set to change from Unlimited Data to Mobile Share on my next billing date. I hadn't scheduled this. I just "happened". The Support person was able to stop the scheduled change. I wonder for how long...
If I hadn't received that txt msg, I probably never would have known that this change had taken place until I received my next bill. And, by then, it would have been too late.
So, keep a close watch on your account. AT&T is sneaky.
Last week, I fortunately received a txt msg from AT&T that my features/plan had changed. I contacted Support via chat and found out that my plan was set to change from Unlimited Data to Mobile Share on my next billing date. I hadn't scheduled this. I just "happened". The Support person was able to stop the scheduled change. I wonder for how long...
If I hadn't received that txt msg, I probably never would have known that this change had taken place until I received my next bill. And, by then, it would have been too late.
So, keep a close watch on your account. AT&T is sneaky.
Um...ok...isn't that what all companies want to do? Make money so that they can pay the bills, pay their employees, who in turn, buy other products and services from other companies?
People are grandfathered in with unlimited data. They could share their unlimited data by tethering.
Tethering was not permitted on any of AT&T's unlimited plans.
Read the contract... it's explicitly prohibited.
Grandfathered or not, you risk losing your unlimited plan if they determine you're tethering.
I know of a friend that has a limo service and there are very expensive airport taxes added to your business if you want to drop someone off to the airport. There is actually a tag they have to put on the car to make it legally possible. The taxi service person probably just didn't know to say that.
Those costs are passed down to the customer.
AT&T is just trying to prevent their network from getting killed by iPhone users. But I wish for non unlimited customers, they would allow FaceTime. They can control it like they do tethering.