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ATT has done a good job saying the rates are higher on verizon, because they're not. If you actually compare apples to apples the cost per minute and cost per mb are lmost identical!

Actually the ETF is higher on vzw :rolleyes: and the value is worse on VZW. You can't keep your unused mins and there is no early 7pm calling
 
Please explain my attitude other than I don't want someone hogging a shared resource. Oh yeah, bricking his phone. We'll I guess I do have an attitude! :)

ATT has traffic engineers running simulations of bandwidth daily, and they know full well that the network isn't ready for tethering yet. If it were, you bet they would be happy to take your $$ to offer us that service.

Here's a close analogy. You pay for basic cable, but hacked your cable box to get HBO. Screw the cable company cause they charge more than I want to pay for that level of service.

Some of us call that theft. The reason the analogy isn't perfect is because a cable pirate isn't hurting other subscribers service experience, like with someone tethering on ATT.

My contract didn't promise tethering. I doubt your did either. The effort to provide it was in the press, but it wasn't a guarantee. You have no right to circumvent ATT and hack your own service level. "Unlimited" is very strictly defined. Check your contract. It is unlimited on the phone, not as a tethering device.


I never said they had a contractual obligation to tether.

So you don't mind that you pay for a service that you can't use? ATT told me in 933 attempted placed calls I made the last 90 days, 301 successfully connected. Should I be satisfied with that?
 
Upon first glance, the outrage is easy to understand. But, as someone else pointed out, there's a logical reason for this. AT&T is knocking several hundred dollars off the price of the iPhone when you sign a 2-year contract. That's the deal you agreed to. Charging $325 for breaking that deal is essentially AT&T making you pay for the unsubsidized phone, which in very fair, in my opinion.

Though I will say, Sprint's $200 ETF looks like a steal compared to AT&T and Verizon. I'll be taking advantage of that next month after WWDC.
 
Well for all the whiners i bet in 6 months every us provider will be charging 325-350 for a term fee.

And it will start with sprint. You really think that EVO4G is nice wait till you see the term fee.
 
To be honest I'd like to see one on T-Mobile. A legitimate one on T-Mobile. They seem to be the best at re-investing back into their network and trying to ensure a quality experience, both on the service and support sides.
 
No wonder he stated that he doesn't expect many to jump ship. Especially when he knew they were raising the early termination free so much. Now, if Verizon lowers theirs, why on earth would anyone get AT&T. AT&T still drops calls every time you're on their iPhones in the Houston area. It happens on my wife's way home from work every day. I still believe they have a big problem when handing off calls between towers but I may be wrong.
 
Sounds to me like there are some biased people on this board. Verizon's Termination fee is 325 also but that's okay? But when AT&T raises it it's not? Wrong.

Admit you guys you hate AT&T which is fine but dont make it seem like the ETF is the issue because it's not. Also the people who claim they won't pay the ETF with AT&T. Thats great and when your credit becomes all Jacked up from stiffing a wireless provider.

1) You will have no one to blame but yourself
2) You will most likely pay a deposit

VZ is $350 and T-Mobile too.
The increase is not because AT&T is worried current subs will leave. It's already set in contract at $175

It is due to iPhone release. Pay $200 for new phone with contract, then turn around and break it for $175, toss in $100 for pro-rated service and activation junk fees... $475. Oooops looks like somebody just got a $600 iPhone for at $125 discount which AT&T eats. This increase protects them.

All this ranting about AT&T being so horrible, unless I am blessed by the gods, all this talk about network being so poor, I don't haven't seen it. I travel A LOT, no problems... Except in NYC, middle of a buildings and in SFO, but I have never had good coverage there in the last 10 years. People on other networks trouble too. People act like this all new. Those areas are topographical nightmares, and the 3G/EDGE switching on iPhone makes it worse. Also, NYC is maxed on spectrum, at least for AT&T until the 700 rolls.

If AT&T's network is so terrible- how does one explain it having the highest PP net adds and lowest churn, or customer defections? It's not showing in the numbers.

If reality mirrored what is said online fantasyland, then AT&T would be losing customers left and right. Who would stay with a carrier if there service is really bad? Because locked into a contract? That's doesn't make sense either. $100 x 24, 2400 for service one barely has vs. $175 (max).
 
That's weird. I just cancelled mine & it cost me $125.

One of our employees did too. He lost his iphone in the ocean & isn't eligible for a new one til Feb. He's going to wait a month & get the 4th Gen iPhone, & since he's going to have to buy one unsubsidized, he's going to go with T-Mobile's cheaper service.

Also, if they tell you they can roll your account over into an iPad 3G account, they can't, since the phone's a contract & the pad's prepaid.
 
What did people think would eventually happen when the carriers were forced to pro-rate their ETFs.

Of course they were going to go up over time.
 
Actually the ETF is higher on vzw :rolleyes: and the value is worse on VZW. You can't keep your unused mins and there is no early 7pm calling

People in the US are such a sucker for marketing. If you have extra minutes, it's because you're paying for more minutes than you use.

Say you're on a $60 plan and get 600 minutes. If each month you use 400 minutes, you keep 200 minutes, but you throw away $20. So in a year you add it up you have $120, which at $0.25 a minute you can buy about 480 extra minutes, which would be a 10% overage every month, or easily cover you those months you do spike. Most people don't even look at their minute usage to see what a wrong plan they're on, and ATT realy does well well marketing the rollover, but if you calculate the cost vs benefit, the average person pays more on a rollover plan because of the psychological impact of trying to "save and collect" minutes.
 
Am I the only one that is sort of happy to see the ETF increase? I don't plan on leaving before my contract is up and I won't be reupping with AT&T unless Verizon doesn't have the iPhone this time next year, so the ETF won't affect me. For someone like me the plus side seems to be the increased ETF will lead to higher resale value for iPhones. ;)
 
That's weird. I just cancelled mine & it cost me $125.

One of our employees did too. He lost his iphone in the ocean & isn't eligible for a new one til Feb. He's going to wait a month & get the 4th Gen iPhone, & since he's going to have to buy one unsubsidized, he's going to go with T-Mobile's cheaper service.

Also, if they tell you they can roll your account over into an iPad 3G account, they can't, since the phone's a contract & the pad's prepaid.

It starts at $175, decreases by $5 each month. NEW-- $325 and Drops $10 each month.
 
If you sign a contract for 2 years, why do you expect to be able to get out of that contract before 2 years without a fee? The complaint should be that the contract is even required in the first place, not that there's an ETF or that it is going up.
 
It's bad enough when there's good news for all that these articles will still get negative ratings, but how in hell could this one get any positive ratings. So far I'm counting 23. That's ridiculous that ANYONE would vote this positive but the CEO of AT&T and his overpaid lemmings. :rolleyes:
 
I guess they need to keep people in ATT now that the iphone will be in Verizon!


GMKiko

Did anyone notice that it said this would only apply to NEW CUSTOMERS? So for everyone complaining (I rated it negative too), this won't have anything to do with current AT&T iphone customers. However, when we sign up for a new two year agreement with the new iphone, THEN it will apply to us.

Perhaps this may point to a Verizon iphone in June of 2011. That would make more sense.
 
I never said they had a contractual obligation to tether.

So you don't mind that you pay for a service that you can't use? ATT told me in 933 attempted placed calls I made the last 90 days, 301 successfully connected. Should I be satisfied with that?

Don't take me the wrong way. I agree fully with you here. I think this is grounds for a class action lawsuit. Just don't complain if you can't get 5 bars from the middle of a bank vault.

My beef is that I don't like hidden fees, promotional prices etc. I like the iPad plan, but wish I could get a phone like that and have a choice of providers instead of just 1. Let me buy minutes or a month at a time.
 
For those that are threatening to leave AT&T over this...

go ahead and cancel or don't renew! Maybe my connection will improve.

Before you say screw AT&T, understand WHY they are increasing the EFT and WHO it affects.

WHY? They don't want the hoards of people that bought 5 iphones for $199 each, cancel their service and pay the $175 EFT, then take it out to the market and sell them for $700-$1000 a pop and make a profit. The purpose of the phone being $199 is so that the customers go to AT&T. That's now AT&T makes $. Nothing wrong with a business wanting to make $.

WHO? This only affects the people that buy the phones, only to cancel the service right away. AT&T wants to tell those people to f off themselves if they are going to do that. THE EFT won't affect you if you stay with AT&T! Good business move, IMO.
 
Don't you realize though that if people leave for VZW they are going to be paying more. And since the 2 Biggest carriers in the industry have done this. Then i bet t-mobile and Sprint will do the same thing.

So then unless you go with a local provider like metro pcs or cricket you will be forced eventually to pay the higher fee

Just by leaving will send a message to AT&T. The a strong message would be for everyone to get a prepay phone. But we all know that will not happen. :)
 
If AT&T's network is so terrible- how does one explain it having the highest PP net adds and lowest churn, or customer defections? It's not showing in the numbers.

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I think you are living in fantasyland ... look at the stats, 2/3 of their revenue is from iPhone revenue... which makes up 1/3 of their subscribers. Jeez.
 
People in the US are such a sucker for marketing. If you have extra minutes, it's because you're paying for more minutes than you use.

Say you're on a $60 plan and get 600 minutes. If each month you use 400 minutes, you keep 200 minutes, but you throw away $20. So in a year you add it up you have $120, which at $0.25 a minute you can buy about 480 extra minutes, which would be a 10% overage every month, or easily cover you those months you do spike. Most people don't even look at their minute usage to see what a wrong plan they're on, and ATT realy does well well marketing the rollover, but if you calculate the cost vs benefit, the average person pays more on a rollover plan because of the psychological impact of trying to "save and collect" minutes.

Well for starters your taxes also increase based on the fluctation of your bill amount. So in additional to paying for that 10% Overage your taxes would be higher. And depending on where you live at that could be very high. I have 450 minutes and i tend to use 300- 400 minutes sometimes each month.

So having rollover is a godsend for me. VZW is greedy and will never offer this. They also can't give match my employers 19 Percent discount.
 
Did anyone notice that it said this would only apply to NEW CUSTOMERS? So for everyone complaining (I rated it negative too), this won't have anything to do with current AT&T iphone customers. However, when we sign up for a new two year agreement with the new iphone, THEN it will apply to us.

Perhaps this may point to a Verizon iphone in June of 2011. That would make more sense.

And with a $10/month decrease to ETF... if you get a new phone in June 2010, you only pay $325 - $10x12 = $205. So is $175 -> $205 really worth all this complaining?
 
Don't take me the wrong way. I agree fully with you here. I think this is grounds for a class action lawsuit. Just don't complain if you can't get 5 bars from the middle of a bank vault.

My beef is that I don't like hidden fees, promotional prices etc. I like the iPad plan, but wish I could get a phone like that and have a choice of providers instead of just 1. Let me buy minutes or a month at a time.

I agree. I get 5 bars everywhere I go. Bars = tower connection. ATT's got great tower penetration, the issue is their backhaul... too many subs per tower, so they can't handle the call. This is how they can see that out of 900 attempts to connect I got rejected 600 times.
 
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I think you are living in fantasyland ... look at the stats, 2/3 of their revenue is from iPhone revenue... which makes up 1/3 of their subscribers. Jeez.

Not quite 1/3, more in the neighborhood of 22-24% of Postpaid subscribers. iPhone revenue probably around 40% of PP revenue
 
Well for starters your taxes also increase based on the fluctation of your bill amount. So in additional to paying for that 10% Overage your taxes would be higher. And depending on where you live at that could be very high. I have 450 minutes and i tend to use 300- 400 minutes sometimes each month.

So having rollover is a godsend for me. VZW is greedy and will never offer this. They also can't give match my employers 19 Percent discount.

Then you and ATT is a match made in heaven. I'd love to be able to MAKE enough calls to rack up 400 minutes a month here in SF. And my corp discount on verizon is 25%, att only gives me 23%.... but I'm a customer based on device, not price or features of provider... yeah, messed up but I love my iPhone...
 
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