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AT&T Urges FCC to Drop $100 Million Fine, Says Data Throttling Doesn't Harm Customers
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This argument, and so many others you read here on this thread, are based on naive nonsense. Companies already profit maximize. They already charge the highest prices they believe they can within their competitive context.
If their costs go up and their competitors don't, the company with the higher costs eats the penalty.
To put this another way, in no marketing session or boardroom in America has an executive said: "you know, the profit maximizing price is $50, but we haven't been fined yet so we should charge $45 and then once we're fined we'll charge the higher amount."
I agree with you. at&t haven't offered an unlimited plan in over 5 years, yet people keep holding onto them like grim death and then bitch and moan about being throttled after they hit their data caps. You can't have it both ways. I used to have at&t service but have since joined my wife's regional carrier's plan (USC) so I have no horse in this race but I can see it from both sides. It's a running joke in the hosting industry that the worst providers are the ones with unlimited plans because they tend to oversell their services. When at&t offered unlimited plans beginning with the iPhone, I had to wonder how long that was going to realistically last.
One big problem I don't think people realize is cell carriers just can't add capacity like flipping a switch. And when they can't, it's like "those greedy bastards, how dare they favor profit over us." It's not like cloud computing where you an scale up immediately when you website gets slow. That's just not how cell towers work. And then you have local government bureaucracy about actually building the things, it could take months or years to even get village council to see your proposal. It's funny, nobody physically wants to live near a tower but they want all the speed.
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Rolling blackouts are for done to prevent a massive failure to the grid which would result in loss of power for more people and a longer period of time. That is simply catering to the capacity of the grid. I wouldn't mind the throttling if it was strickly due to network congestion, but throttling me when the network isn't congested is BS because the bandwidth is there.
I would be curious to see if the internet could come together enough to make this happen. I am sure if it could get widespread coverage, AT&T just might listen. Having 1 million subscribers holding their payment or putting it in escrow would surely cause a dent for them.
For the love of Christ don't give AT&T or Verizon any bright ideas. Last thing we need is throttling for all users because of "network congestion" when in reality there is none and they just want to see everyone in pain while they rake in the $$$$.
I have given AT&T over the course of 7 years, $10,800 dollars.
You get what's going on. The bigger question is why do so many people here defend AT&T? I'm guessing they're either shills or are purposely ignorant.
They, like ALL corporations care ONLY about their SHAREHOLDERS, not their customers. And yet they get the rights of real people in this country even though the shareholders could all be Communists from China (and Communist wannabes from Russia). No, let them bribe Congress and run political ads all day long. We wouldn't want to abridge their rights to corrupt and swindle.
As a "Unlimited Plan" holder, I definitely hate the "Throttling", and it has hurt me. With most of my multimedia I own now uploaded to the cloud and using streaming on my phone and tablet, it is easy to go past 5 gb.
Perhaps the FCC sould impose a $1m /day for every day ATT fails to pay the penalty.
That would get their attention.
Gadget Girl
Perhaps the FCC sould impose a $1m /day for every day ATT fails to pay the penalty.
That would get their attention.
Gadget Girl
This may be a dumb question but what does AT&T throttle your data speed to? The fastest LTE connection I have on my phone is 36 Mbps. The slowest is 0.47, maybe 2.66, both of those were under "LTE," and this does not include times when I wasn't able to complete a speed test. For streaming music, the 2.66 is sufficient. Maybe I'm not using my iPhone to its potential, but why would I even need a 36 Mbps connection?
So for these quotes. I tour for a living. I spent the last 3 years on and off a tour bus. Yes, most of these busses have wifi enabled through a mobile hot spot. However, when 8-15 people use them daily, it often runs out of data or gets throttled within the first week. Try fighting over 50kbps with 15 people; it's ruthless. The only time I had access to wifi was inside a venue. And even then, the service was poor due to those same 8-15 people connecting to their wifi along with the dozen or so workers inside the venue. And when you're working an outdoor festival, you're SOL finding wifi. Short of the production office, there is none. So, when driving from A to B, sometimes upwards of 10-15 hours a day, my ATT service is my only service. In conclusion, I could have lost my job due to my lack of ability to respond or report, wifi was not a viable option, there's no way to unthrottle, even when you offer to pay, and I was not on the verge of losing my job beforehand. I was forced to switch to a family share plan while on the road because that was my only option.
No disrespect, but if you were going to lose your job over not being able to connect to the internet on your AT&T phone then you were already on the verge of losing your job in the first place.
They forgot about the customer after the government allowed them to accrete the parts they were forced to divest. They realized that the people don't mean crap, it's the politicians, and they needed to help make sure that 'friendly' politicians get elected.
USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!
Yeah and due to the nature of your job and the circumstances due to having limited Wifi no employer would fire an employee over that. Come up with something better than that. Sounds like you just needed a reason to throw a stone towards AT&T.
Haven't read the thread, but the throttling basically cripples my phone. Can't use GPS, stream music, or load the Internet. Absolutely sucks. Renders my phone useless.
I still don't understand how they think its fair to throttle "unlimited users" when there is network congestion but not users that have paid for 5+gb. They are favoring one user over another. If there is network congestion, everyone at that tower should be throttle equally. Instead they are saying we'll just throttle the people that are paying less.
In light of these facts, the next time I'm throttled, I may file a class action suit. I was with AT&T before that was their actual name (I can't recall the original). I've paid them between $200 and $300 a month for a couple of decades (for one primary iPhone, one additional Iphone and one "dumb" phone added to the plan).
When I purchased the plan, I was told that I would get Unlimited data. There was no "but" and there was no expectation that I would be discriminated against by refusing to allow me to have the same usage to new features, such as cellular FaceTime, hotspots and an upgraded and faster network.
It's insane that I've had to install an app that keeps up with my monthly usage, to warn me if I approach 5Gb.
Furthermore, to those who say it's not that big a deal; tell that to my wife. The first time I learned about throttling, I happened to be lost (at night) in Miami, in a bad area when for no reason at all, Google maps stopped working and giving me map updates and directions!
Next time, I'm pretty sure I can find a good lawyer to initiate the class. AT&T will have a hard time finding a sympathetic jury.
When I purchased the plan, I was told that I would get Unlimited data. There was no "but" and there was no expectation that I would be discriminated against by refusing to allow me to have the same usage to new features, such as cellular FaceTime, hotspots and an upgraded and faster network.
It's insane that I've had to install an app that keeps up with my monthly usage, to warn me if I approach 5Gb.
Furthermore, to those who say it's not that big a deal; tell that to my wife. The first time I learned about throttling, I happened to be lost (at night) in Miami, in a bad area when for no reason at all, Google maps stopped working and giving me map updates and directions!
Next time, I'm pretty sure I can find a good lawyer to initiate the class. AT&T will have a hard time finding a sympathetic jury.
That doesn't mean that they're paying for all of it, or even some of it. There are many factors that go into AT&T's pricing.
No, its not. It's more like the water company kinking the hose and telling you they're not and at the same time charging you for for water you didn't use.
strength of coverage. T-mobile is good for certain area. Another thing...ATT is one those "brand" or "trend" if you will. Look back during 80s
something like this actually wowed people...and popularized it...
