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General discussion

AT&T dumps unlimited data and adds tethering iPhones

Jun 1, 2010 11:38PM PDT
http://news.yahoo.com/s/macworld/20100602/tc_macworld/atttweaksmobiledataplansprovidesustetheringdetails

From the "In before they talk about it on BOL" department, lol.

Good news on the tethering front, of course. And honestly, from what I read about the new tiered pricing plans, it appears that "heavy" users will be the ones to pay more, and that's only if they go OVER 2 gigabytes/month. Otherwise, you might end up even paying less if you don't use that much.

I checked my Android usage in my first month --which included streaming several podcasts, surfing, email, etc., and it came up just shy of 1 gig. Of course, I wasn't watching tons of videos. But, I did watch some partial episodes of TV shows until the beta app crashed.

Discussion is locked

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It's 10 dollars a Gig if you go over 2GB
Jun 2, 2010 3:34AM PDT

So 4GB a month would cost you 65 dollars. Which I guess is reasonably competitive with the 60 dollar a month MiFi plans with a 5GB cap (or compared with outrageous 10-15 dollar per day hotel wi-fi charges).

Of course large screen device data use is a very different beast than small screen use (lots more downloads, uploads and video streaming) so I could see people blowing past that 2GB in a heartbeat with their laptops tethered to their phones. But the 10 dollars a Gig overage charge plus the automatic you-are-reaching-your-data-limit notifications are a nice touch after years of carriers really sticking it customers on overages (my guess is they know if they don't start treating their customers fairly they will eventually be forced to do so by the FCC).

I am however concerned that this might lower the bar on people's expectations of media quality and potentially downgrade all of our online experiences as companies scramble to compress their products to fit these new limits. And if we are all worried about going over our quota that will have somewhat of a chilling effect on our willingness to willingness to explore new rich media. Lets just hope that as tablet and smartphone markets grow, and the carriers build our their infrastructure that the data limits will increase as well. Given the carrier's feet-dragging before I'm not sure I would hold my breath for them to do this though.

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Don't kid yourselves...
Jun 2, 2010 5:06AM PDT

This isn't about making "heavy" users pay, it's about extracting a "tax" out of video delivered over 3G services now that carriers are increasingly allowing VOD from premium services (like Netflix on iPad).

Semi regular use of online music and video services is likely to put a lot of people into the "heavy user" category.

I think your other observations are interesting (ie chilling effect, etc.). The compression issue is an interesting one. Services like Pandora & slacker are already pretty compressed, even on their high bitrate modes. Squeeze them much more and they'll be as crappy as youtube. Also, it chisels away at their subscription proposition a little bit (subscribers get higher bitrate audio).

At the end of the day, shrinking throughput limits does *not* represent progress.

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I hate to be in the position
Jun 2, 2010 7:05AM PDT

of defending these telecoms. But really, wireless bandwidth isn't unlimited. Just because some new product comes down the pike like VOD/Netflix, etc., doesn't mean that it has to be shoehorned into a fairly small pipe for the same costs everyone who isn't using said services are paying.

In other words, if you want to stream video and/or audio or other data-intensive apps all day long, you really need to be prepared to pay for the usage.

I know it's not exactly apples to apples, but it's not like you can leave your lights on and TVs/Computers and other appliances on at home 24/7 and not have to pay for your electricity. Why shouldn't you pay more for data-heavy streaming compared to someone who just uses email and texts and some surfing, by and large?

I think it's a concept we need to get used to. Now, that said, the matter of just how MUCH people need to pay for such tiered or metered usage is another story, and that is certainly a matter worthy of debate.

People get hurt on the low side just as easily as on the high side of data usage with these non-metered plans. I have to pay for tons of voice minutes I never use on my cell phone. Why shouldn't I just pay for what I actually use? And anyone who buys a smartphone today has to buy into some kind of data plan. Now, someone like me will find a way to get some value out of it, but I'd tend to think there are quite a few people who have these phones but don't utilize much data whatsoever, yet are still paying for an "unlimited" data plan. So, it works both ways, unfortunately.

Let's see how the collective marketplace/consumers respond. That's what's really going to make the difference.

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Seems to me there will be pressure from content providers
Jun 2, 2010 9:31AM PDT

to increase these caps because they want you to buy impulsively... movie rentals streaming netflix, album downloads, magazines books, etc. You won;t put these "consumption devices" to good use if you are always worried about caps. The more speed bumps you put in front of people the less likely they are to open their wallets. This slows down progress.

And for what? If only 2% of users ever go over 2GB then why is there is need for a cap in the first place? Something doesn't add up right here. This looks like a land grab to constrain the market in the future, not to deal with existing use patterns.

If someone is simply supplying the pipes then I guess its fair as long as its priced reasonably. But if, like Comcast or Time Warner Cable, they are also competing with other content providers (movies, TV, music, etc) and their own content gets a free ride then I take issue.

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AT&T dumps unlimited data and adds tethering iPhones
Jun 2, 2010 7:24AM PDT

Not surprising I guess they decided that they were losing money

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Ahh but...
Jun 2, 2010 8:36AM PDT

Still no tethering from iPhone to iPad, forcing you to get 3G iPad.

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Isn't it obvious why this is happening?
Jun 2, 2010 8:35AM PDT

AT&T's network is overloaded with iPhone users.
They need a way to disincentivise heavy usage to stop the network collapsing. Pricing by consumption, is something they should have done right from the launch of the iPhone. I infact question their competence, that it's taken this long for them to do it.
But the fact is, with mobile networks, it's shared and very limited bandwidth. Only so much spectrum in the air to share between all devices in a cell. And there are issue of backbone, a cell tower that lacks a fibre or gigabit ethernet link to the backbone, and is relying on a microwave or T1 link, could be overloaded with data rather easily.
According to AT&T, only 2% of users go over 2GB and 65% are under 200MB.
Which if all you're doing is web browsing, you likely are under 200MB. Streaming etc will be necessary get you to 2GB. The $10 fee per extra 2GB is quite reasonable. I think these plans are relatively cheap considering the strain the network is under.

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If only 2% of their customers used over 2GB
Jun 2, 2010 9:35AM PDT

and they are proposing to actually LOWER rates for 98% of their customers, then how could their network ever be considered "overloaded"? I think the correct term in that case would be "insufficient".

Those 2% are not causing the service to be so crappy for the other 98%. There is some serious spin going on here from AT&T marketing.

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But...
Jun 2, 2010 9:45AM PDT

You're acting as if this decision is being based solely on today's usage. What about proactive network management, where they foresee many more such mobile data-dependent devices/customers and the associated data-heavy content to go with it?

If that's the case (and really, what do we know?), I can't fault them on that score. To me, it becomes a matter of how much they charge, not just charging in a pay-as-you-use model.

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Like I said a few posts above... this is a land grab.
Jun 2, 2010 10:37AM PDT

And I don't necessarily think its going to be in the public's best interest.

As as the case with cable ISP's, cellular carriers are operating with the knowledge that all the airwaves are pretty much tied up. They don;t have to worry about some upstart offering better deals. The fact this this isn;t a pure free market situation makes me less enthusiastic about the "market handling it". When you are given a exclusive stranglehold on a public resource (such as the airwaves) I think the public has a say in how you conduct your business.

In the short term these prices seem fair enough (no doubt to keep the FCC off their backs after years of shafting consumers with outrageous overages). I just don;t have a lot of faith in the carriers to adjust these data caps and subscription rates in a timely manner. In the long term I think these relatively low caps could really put a damper on the growth of mobile computing. The carriers don;t care about the health of this industry as long as their profit margins stay high. But the public good just may suffer as a result of these "network management" decisions.

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Yeah..
Jun 2, 2010 11:15AM PDT

These caps are very generous.
But still, they should help reduce the growth of loa, by getting people to pay more attention to how much data they're using.
And it should also mean the App store has no reason to block 3G streaming apps, because now with people being charged by data, you don't have to limit people from using data heavy applications, you can instead let the carrier worry about it in their data plan pricing structure.

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It will have the opposite effect.
Jun 2, 2010 11:05PM PDT

If anything it will make Apple tighten up the restrictions for what you can and can not download over 3G. Because the caps are low, they will be much more hesitant to let large apps, movies, magazines and music be downloaded via 3G. The last thing they need is a bunch of pissed off customers who exceeded their bandwidth allowances simply by renting a movie or by buying two albums from iTunes. Downloading a 4 dollar iTunes rental or an issue of Wired could easily cost you an extra 10 bucks. This may be good for AT&T's bottom line but it will have a stifling effect on the mobile industry as a whole.

When you look at the cost of the content v. the cost of the bandwidth used to get that content, these prices do not look reasonable. The only reason they seem reasonable is because we have nothing to compare them too other than more expensive US data plans.