More Details on AT&T's Data Plan Changes for iPhone and iPad

[ThunderSkunk]

Here's an idea:

Unlimited data unless you live in New York or the Bay Area, then it's 2 GB.

I like that idea. And here's another idea. How about they spend a frickin dime on upgrading their deficient service to cover high-traffic areas, instead of spending it on their middle managers figuring out how to provide less to their customers while charging the same $.

Screw these aholes.

 

[jglavin]

Here is the quote direct from AT&T.



See the link I posted above for the full TOS.

If you read the context of that section of the TOS it seems to apply to laptop cards only.

Also, the whole assertion is about to become moot as:
1. AFAIK, no one has ever provided evidence of being charged a data overage fee on an ATT iphone plan, and
2. They are about to restructure their plans.

 

[CFreymarc]

Here's an idea: Unlimited data unless you live in New York or the Bay Area, then it's 2 GB.

I have been told that service rates based in geographic location while using the same network within a the USA is an illegal billing practice per FCC. The story goes that in the early cell phone days, some plans were based in the average income of the neighborhood that the phone was operating in. Areas like Wall Street and other financial districts had as much as 10x the normal cost in peak hours.

Thus, high income areas were getting gorged so the society types and their lawyers took the new wireless carriers to court. Somehow the ruling was based on a common carrier ruling decades ago where if you can't change wired phone service fees based on neighborhood incomes and you are using a phone number with no change in format, the same rules apply.

 

[Deslock]

- iPhone users can bump up from the $15 200 MB data plan to the $25 2 GB plan without penalty as long as they initiate the change before the end of the desired billing cycle. This will allow users on the lower tier to simply bump up to the $25 plan as needed rather than having to pay $15 per additional 200 MB over the initial 200 MB limit. Users can then bump themselves back down for their next billing cycle. It is unclear at this time whether users on the higher tier will be able to drop down to the lower tier mid-cycle if they see that their data usage will be low for that period.

Can you clarify what a user with the $15 200MB plan will have to pay when bumping up to 2GB?:

[1] The full $25 (for a total of $40 for that month) or
[2] Only $10 (for a total of $25 for that month)

I assume it's [1].

Any ideas of how this will pan out for people with family plans?
My monthly is 500 MB, my wife is 100 MB.

If they let us have a single $25/2Gig between us, I'd be thrilled. And that would be fair.
If we can choose separate plans for each line, then that comes to $15 plus $25... 40 instead of the current 60. Less thrilling, but still saves us $20/mo.

But if they require 2 $25/2G plans, then I'll just stay with my current contract.

I'm in the same boat as you. I doubt we'll be able to share data across multiple family plan phones. On the plus side, I can't imagine that they'd require every phone on a family plan to be the same. Though even if they did, you'd still save $10/month switching to two 2GB plans.

Depending on the answer to my question above, I'll either get two 200 MB plans or the 2GB plan for me and the 200MB plan for my wife. It'll be nice to pay $20-30 less per month.

 

[ibcj]

If they are being honest about average users data consumption, then I see no relief for their already stressed network. The small percentage of data power users are going to feel it.

Skype rollong out new features is also going to increase data use.

If only att had been investing heavily in their network, since the iphone released some 3 1/2 years ago, then they would have even more customer (and happy ones).

 

[ThunderSkunk]

If you read the context of that section of the TOS it seems to apply to laptop cards only.

Also, the whole assertion is about to become moot as:
1. AFAIK, no one has ever provided evidence of being charged a data overage fee on an ATT iphone plan, and
2. They are about to restructure their plans.

Did you ask everyone? Because I've heard several times over the last few years of iphone users surprised to get nailed, some of which were not even at the 5GB limit. Which makes it not moot at all, and not applicable to laptops only. If you called AT&T and asked them, they'd say Unlimited, and if you asked them what the 5GB limit meant, they'd tell you that it was unlimited up to 5GB. Agree with it or not, they were pretty clear. I don't know why some of you guys don't seem to get it, but whatever...

 

[pubwvj]

2MB or 2GB? Rather different things. Both are used in the article.

 

[jdhough1]

My Prediction

I believe that apple will announce that iTunes is moving to the cloud. AT&T does not want to handle the burden so they are changing their data plan to prevent people from using the service over 3g. What do you think?

 

[vilasgn]

what a bunch of whiners...if you don't like certain policies you have enough choices with Tmob, VZ or Sprint! If you think ATT screws you that is because you allow it to do so!

 

[ThunderSkunk]

if you don't like certain policies you have enough choices with Tmob, VZ or Sprint!

tmobile & sprint support the ipad 3g?

 

[cmaier]

How is it illegal? In California (and I'm sure in other states too) that is how our property taxes work. If I bought my home in 1995 and paid 150k and you bought an identical one in 2005 and paid 500k, my property taxes are based on the price I paid, not the value of property ten years later.

It is not a contract because there was no agreement between the two parties for any specified amount of time. Whether you agree or not, the grandfathering is goodwill on the part of AT&T that allows you to keep your existing plan.

Not sure what prop 13 has to do with this.

There is a contract. In consideration for paying a specified upfront amount to Apple, Apple provided an iPad 3G with the promise of a $30 unlimited plan that could be deactivated and re-activated at will (on monthly boundaries).

Most people who purchased the iPad 3G to date are not able to take advantage of this promise even once, since the promise has been breached 2 months into the contract.

The breach is the inability of existing iPad 3G owners to deactivate and return to their unlimited plan in the future.

 

[scarboni21]

What happens when we start using more data when new iPhones come out. Was planning on upgrading my POS Htc Fuze (doesn't have a data plan) to the new iphone in August. 2gb might be enough for 98% of the country now but what happens in 2 years?

Remember when you thought that a 1GB hard drive was HUGE and you would never fill it up. Think ATT will up their limits in the future? I think not.

 

[vilasgn]

tmobile & sprint support the ipad 3g?

Does it matter? It's all about data availability! Why do you want to use ATT 3G. Go get that mifi thing and enjoy your iFAD!

 

[mvill]

one question re: tethering and unlimited plans

Ok, let me get this straight. They're going to finally add the tethering option to the iPhones/iPads.

Wonderful.

But you'll have to switch plans and pay what, $45 extra on top of the regular plan? And there's still a upload/download limit.

Haven't we all been told by all the service providers and online content providers that the online interactive media's the way of the future? Haven't we all been told that soon we'll be able to do most of our transactions and entertainment online, especially with the next-gen PDAs? That we'll be able to stream movies, games, music, etc. from the 'net and the high-end phones?

But then ATT turns around and implicitly acknowledges that the above paragraph assumes a good wireless network, which they've never really had, and the future isn't exactly bright, either.

We've been deceived!

What they ought to say is this:

"Ok. Our 3G network is questionable at best. The LTE thing's still many months, perhaps longer, down the road. Our new BFF Apple made our network congestion issues far, far, far more difficult by introducing a product that by definition is a bandwidth hog. BFF Apple's getting ready to roll out another phone, allegedly faster, and with an HD option. Good God, we're so screwed.

"So what we're going to do is roll out plans that on paper are supposedly cheaper, but come with substantial restrictions. We're going to allow tethering, but with so much upload/download restrictions that it's useless to use the ability. In other words, we've "prepared" for the new iPhone/iPad by essentially reducing how much you can use said product..."

Sprint, anybody?

 

[mlblacy]

just got off the phone with ATT & then Apple...

Originally when I bought my plan I opted for the unlimited option. Two days ago the plan auto-renewed as unlimited, however my data usage was surprisingly not too bad, so I thought I would try dropping down for my third month. Mistake? I have no idea, but the idea I might lose the option to be grandfathered in to the unlimited plan bugs me a lot (especially since there was NO mention of the new data plans on the account info page on the iPad).

So... I called AT&T (ever try to find their customer service phone number on their website? I couldn't, lol). I explained the situation and said I didn't want to lose my option for the unlimited plan, and was then told the new data plans are not for the iPads, and were just for the smart phones. He assured me, which was of little comfort to my cynical self. He told me I could contact Apple support to double-check (odd, since Apple has nothing to do with the data plans). The Apple tech said he just heard about it but wasn't sure what was going to happen. My plan on the iPad shows I am on the unlimited plan until 6/29, and the only option I have is to drop it to 250mb... or to cancel.

For all the talk of it being a business, making a HUGE change to what the plans were sold as being, and costing is a bunch of crap. I do not fault Apple, but AT&T really has a funny way of treating its customers. Geeze, I thought Verizon sucked. No complaints on coverage or service so far... but this is a big case of bait and switch. Since the iPads are not limited to one carrier theoretically, I hope Apple opens up data plans to other carriers ASAP. I am guessing this means AT&T just lost their exclusivity on the iPhone...

Apple made a note on my account, and I am guessing AT&T did as well. At least I have a case number from Apple from my call.

If the guy on the phone was right, the new plans do not apply to the iPad.
cheers.

 

[Bonsai1214]

hmm, so i'm interested in buying the new iphone, do they no longer offer an unlimited plan any more? i currently don't have an iphone or a data plan, so i'm basically like a new customer. i'm currently grandfathered from a cingular plan that's like 7 years old.

If this doesn't go the way i want it to, i'll be so disappointed. like i'm still rocking a razr and had such high hopes for this summer..

 

[F123D]

I would just like to say F*CK AT&T! That is all.

(the * is a U)

Really? It's a U? Sorry, easily amused..

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Does it matter? It's all about data availability! Why do want to use ATT 3G. Go get that mifi thing and enjoy your iFAD!

It kinda does matter. Our designers & engineers all use iPads because no one else makes a decent device up to the task. We've tried them all. I don't want to use AT&T, I personally hate the company. Didn't always, but their service on Apple products has ranged from bad to awful. However, I need to have my employees connected and available 8-9 hrs a day, able to draw and collaborate over great distances, mostly outdoors walking around buildings & engineering projects.

If you're telling me that we can get "that mifi thing" (?) and use it with our Ipad 3Gs, then that's something I'm interested in. If you're just being a smartass and don't really know what you're talking about, then grow up.

 

[skyehill]

What I'd like to see as an optional feature from AT&T would upon hitting the cap have AT&T temporarily disconnect your data instead of still providing service at a extremely higher rate.

Or bare minimum, send a FREE SMS (phone uses) alert/warning the moment you've used all your data.
To let you know you're either no longer data-active or are over-charging for the remainder of your cycle (and provide a restart date in text).

I believe they text you(or email you) at 40 percent usage, 60 percent usage, and 80. I know there's three times prior to you hitting 100 percent. Not positive about the three exactly though.

 

[synth3tik]

I'm so glad I got my DROID today. Seriously was getting fed up with AT&T.

Also when checking out all my options at the various carriers AT&T was by far the rudest people. I can get over not feeling appreciated, but AT&T treated me like an annoyance.

 

[Vazzyb]

this makes me laugh

in the uk:

iphone 3gs unlimited data per month = £10 (or £15 with unlimited sms)
+ tether the ipad using mywi

sorted.

dont want to jailbreak? sure, pay lots more money and have a good time

 

[igxqrrl]

As someone commented on another blog, our company too requires unlimited data plans of all its employees (who are being reimbursed) because it is saving us millions per year on people no longer going over a limit. Millions! Now that AT&T won't have an unlimited plan we will no longer be able to give AT&T any new customers. That means no iPhone for our employees, and AT&T will lose tens of thousands of possible customers. For personal use this is not a big deal to me, but for corporate use this is a hugely stupid move. I do not think we are the only company with this policy in place. We're not going to change the policy for their sake and end up going back to the wasted $ on overage charges.

All you individuals who think mostly of your own usage probably don't care, but AT&T will when they see corporations dropping like flies. This will matter and they will change this once they understand the consequences.

Paying more to get unlimited could be understood... I'm fine with a company making a profit and upgrading networks etc. Removing a plan all together is the opposite - its bad business. They didn't do their homework on this one. It has nothing to do with entitlement, don't fool yourself just because it works for you.

Corporate plans are generally substantially different than what you see advertised for individuals. I have no doubt that if your company has an unlimited data plan as a requirement, and has tens of thousands of users, they'll be able to call their AT&T rep on the phone and request a special plan.

 

[vilasgn]

It kinda does matter. Our designers & engineers all use iPads because no one else makes a decent device up to the task. We've tried them all. I don't want to use AT&T, I personally hate the company. Didn't always, but their service on Apple products has ranged from bad to awful. However, I need to have my employees connected and available 8-9 hrs a day, able to draw and collaborate over great distances, mostly outdoors walking around buildings & engineering projects.

If you're telling me that we can get "that mifi thing" (?) and use it with our Ipad 3Gs, then that's something I'm interested in. If you're just being a smartass and don't really know what you're talking about, then grow up.

You should do some Google search and get more information on Mifi.

 

[essinger]

If you're telling me that we can get "that mifi thing" (?) and use it with our Ipad 3Gs, then that's something I'm interested in. If you're just being a smartass and don't really know what you're talking about, then grow up.

You can definitely use an iPad with a hotspot device, but that doesn't help you recover the $130 premium you paid for the 3G version.

 

[GREEN4U]

Ok help me out here. I dont have an iphone but this is essentially what I'm doing with my iPod touch. How much data would I use if I did these things:

20 minutes of youtube per day, internet surfing for 4 hours, checking my facebook and email every 15 minutes, downloading the occasional app, and checking stocks throughout the day.

Thanks.