AT&T Moves Closer To Usage-Based Fees For Data 441
CWmike writes "AT&T has moved closer to charging special usage fees to heavy data users, including those with iPhones and other smartphones. Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, came close on Wednesday to warning about some kind of use-based pricing while speaking at a UBS conference. 'The first thing we need to do is educate customers about what represents a megabyte of data and...we're improving systems to give them real-time information about their data usage,' he said. 'Longer term, there's got to be some sort of pricing scheme that addresses the [heavy] users.' AT&T has found that only 3% of its smartphone users — primarily iPhone owners — are responsible for 40% of total data usage, largely for video and audio, de la Vega said. Educating that group about how much they are using could change that, as AT&T has found by informing wired Internet customers of such patterns. De la Vega's comments on data use were previewed in a keynote he gave in October at the CTIA, but he went beyond those comments on Wednesday: 'We are going to make sure incentives are in place to reduce or modify [data]uses so they don't crowd out others in the same cell sites.' Focus groups have been formed at AT&T to figure out how to proceed."
The classic double speak (Score:5, Informative)
Telco solution: We must charge everyone based on usage!
If they can identify 3% of people are using 40%, then by all means put a 'cap' on the fixed price service that *doesn't* affect the 97% of normal users. Charge for extra service for the offending 3%. They just use this as an excuse to slap everyone with higher rates.
Dear AT&T (Score:5, Informative)
Dear AT&T,
The only way to fix your problems is to upgrade your network. Stop trying to punish users. Stop neglecting your network. Stop paying Luke Wilson to beat up strawmen on TV.
If you don't get your shit together, I will be switching over to Verizon's Droid when my iPhone's contract is up.
DRM doesn't enter into it (Score:3, Informative)
2. Tie in I-tunes, drm, and a lot of other nasty crap so that once the user starts using it, he loses everything he's purchased (music, apps, etc) if he stops.
Except for some time now, music you buy from iTunes has been DRM free. It's in AAC, true, but that's an open format - you can play it on a Zune or a 360!!
As for the apps, that's a platform thing and not a DRM thing. The apps themselves do not have DRM (they are signed but that's kind of the opposite thing).
It's true video sold through iTunes does have DRM, but honestly how many people buy video there they plan to keep? I use iTunes for some video but I always think of it as extended rental rather than purchase, and there's very little video I really want to watch again (and that I buy).
Re:Wrong story label (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Time Machine (Score:4, Informative)
However, I have on a couple occasions needed to use it to look up directions on google maps while in my parked car. A few minutes usage, and no more than about 1/2 a MB later I find a $5 charge added. Thats $10 per MB... RIP-OFF! If they did something like $10 per GB I'd be perfectly fine with that, since I wouldn't use the thing for video and music anyway, but to be able to occasionally check email or reviews on products before I purchase them that would be a reasonable amount.
Re:DRM doesn't enter into it (Score:4, Informative)
music you buy from iTunes has been DRM free.
And yet, they want me to pay $100 to "upgrade" my iTunes store-bought music (the worst mistake in my online purchasing history...) to the DRM free version. Sounds like it was just another way for Apple to make more money. ;)
Re:Time Machine (Score:3, Informative)
One factor that most are missing is that most ISPs over subscriber their consumer class bandwidth.
If every customer used all of the full bandwidth of their connection, the ISP's network would slow to a craw or worse. ISPs advertise all of these huge download speeds and how great they are. But they punish you behind the scenes if anyone dares to actually use it.
Mobile Broadband Providers have a trickier problem in that individual cell sites/towers are the bandwidth choke points. The amount of bandwith they can process is fixed by the limits of the technology (and also the size of the landline pipes from the cell tower back to the MTSO). Mobile provider can't bump up the amount of bandwith with a huge infrastructure investment. And the bandwidth usage is dynamic because people are moving in and out of cell tower coverage areas.
Re:False Advertising (Score:3, Informative)
Relax. They haven't done anything yet, they're just talking.
Re:Time Machine (Score:3, Informative)
I think it's not a matter of political correctness, but truth. The US isn't the best at a whole lot of things, a lot of things the US has or does is now ranked 15th to 40th, depending on what it is.
This illustrates that point:
http://miscellanea.wellingtongrey.net/2008/10/26/were-not-number-one/ [wellingtongrey.net]
It isn't to say that the US does everything terribly, I just don't like it when people say things on just blind faith. Often times those people hadn't even visited another developed country.
Re:Time Machine (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong. While our cellphones and internet access suck compared to Finland and Japan, our highway system is probably the best in the world, even better than Germany's. (Unfortunately, our drivers are horrible and can't obey simple rules like "keep right except to pass", so Germany has a much better driving experience than ours, and gets much better usage out of their highways than we do.)
Now, this doesn't mean that it doesn't have some problems in places, such as intra-city highways (and bridges) in some older cities that have budget problems, but overall, the U.S. Interstate Highway system really is the best. No other country has such well-built limited-access highways going across an entire continent.
As for power, most countries get their power from coal, oil, and natural gas (in fact, the USA is a really big coal exporter). Modern nuclear plants? I can only think of one country that has done really well with nuclear power, and that's France. No, we certainly don't measure up to their success, but then again no one else does either. There are a few stand-out countries with much greener power, such as Iceland which gets their power from geothermal sources, but then again, their entire country has a population 1/16 as large as the city I live in (Phoenix), so they don't need a lot of power to begin with.
No, the USA isn't the best in a lot of things, but don't get carried away, as we're certainly not the worst either. Check out China, which gets its power mostly from coal (or hydro, where they build giant dams that displace millions of people), and has horrible pollution. Or Japan, which has a terrible highway system because of the mountainous terrain and people frequently take helicopters from city to city.
Re:Sigh (Score:2, Informative)
The 3G (third generation) network is currently being replaced by the 4g (fourth generation) network. The infrastructure is already going up, the FCC has already cleared its usage, and it's going to provide data transfer rates of 3-6Mbit. Your argument that "no, they can't build more bandwidth" is invalid. You might be a very intelligent and capable person but you haven't bothered to do your homework and that suggests that you're intelligent but /lazy/. You really need to look at what other countries have accomplished in terms of network infrastructure. Start with Japan and Sweden. There are some countries in the far east that have imposed monthly _terabyte_ usage caps. Say it with me, "terabyte". Meanwhile, non-corporate users here in the states couldn't download that much data in a month if they maxed out their connection every second of every day. The notion that the largest phone company in the world can't accomplish what everyone else has already set out to do makes me laugh a cynical laugh.
I'll stand for AT&T metering my bandwidth when they enter into a binding contract with me to lay a 100Mbit line to my house in the next 5 years. They've got plenty of revenue coming in, they're just being greedy.
Here's what I'm saying. Right now, AT&T is crying poverty because, "waaaaaagh, too many people are using the bandwidth we promised to them". Wireless cell speeds are rapidly catching up to DSL speeds. Give the 4g network a couple of years to mature after it's been installed. Once they have some more competition, they'll magically discover fat reserves of cash and *poof* their network is going to get a grade-a facelift over night.
Also, they'll discover that those "heavy users" really aren't such a burden that they need to switch to metered usage when all their competitors are charging flat-rate. That's when I want you to never flap your jaw ever again about economics driving what's going on here. This is usury and greed, pure and simple
Re:What's this line on my iPhone bill? (Score:3, Informative)
>>A guy who's looking forward to his contract ending so he can get an Android on a network that hopefully sucks less.
I've been enjoying the droid on Verizon. The 3G is decently fast, and has pretty good coverage (I've yet to be in an urban area that wasn't covered, and I've been all over the country in the last couple weeks). And you can always enable wifi if you want better bandwidth, less latency, or are worried about being tagged a data hog.
I think the iPhone is still the better experience, but I've been wanting to buy a (somewhat) open source phone for a while now, and this was my first opportunity to do so on Verizon. I haven't regretted it yet.
Re:Time Machine (Score:4, Informative)
Sure they can. Build more towers.
The tower isn't the major limitation. The amount of frequency space that they have licensed is going to be the major limitation in many areas.
Re:Time Machine (Score:5, Informative)
Say a pizza company comes up with a plan where you pay $300 per month for as many pizzas as you'd want with unlimited toppings. The company goes and advertises young people calling everyday to order a new variant of pizza, all smiling, happy, little pizza consumers. The advertising is effective, and the plan takes off; people everywhere are signing up for the $300 pizza deal. But instead of ordering Pizza the way the company wants/expected of 1 pizza a week (usually single pepperoni topping), college students actually order a fully loaded pizza every day. So now, the company is trying to tell people this small number of people are making it hard to do business because of a fringe group. In reality, the company is probably still doing well because the $300 covers the actual costs, plus they have all the people who aren't ordering pizza every day, but the profit margin just isn't enough. So now, some spokesperson is saying that in light of this fringe group, they might have to add a per pizza fee for each order on top of the $300/month.
I hope this helps and functions as a reasonable analogy of the problem.
Looking at it wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wrong story label (Score:3, Informative)
This story should have been declared "AT&T Declares war on customers". For reasons unknown, AT&T just doesn't grasp the idea of upgrading their network.
There is so little competition out there in the wireless world, the reasons are pretty clear.
Re:Time Machine (Score:3, Informative)
Community opposition and zoning requirements are often major stumbling blocks to building more cell sites.
Actually, the BIGGEST problem is getting the backbone to the tower. You have some opposition to towers, yes, but you can build whatever you like? If you can't run a pipe to it, all you've got is a ugly looking tree [roadsideamerica.com] and nothing else.
That's the problem the telcos are running into right now? They're all trying to cut back on wireline services and boost their carrier network, but all of them run into a brick wall at the CO and remote terminals. You can only squeeze in so many DS3s before you have no choice but to upgrade the whole shootin match from the ground up, simply because the copper can't give anymore.