T-Mobile Joins the Capped Data Bandwagon 112
NicknamesAreStupid writes "It looks like T-Mobile is following the lead of Verizon and AT&T in shifting from unlimited data plans to tiered pricing. It starts with their family plans which may be cheaper than unlimited depending on your family's usage. Was this done for its customers' families or for its future parent, AT&T?"
Re:Teabaggers... (Score:3, Insightful)
You misspelled collusion...
There is no competition in this business...
The real issue... (Score:5, Insightful)
is not collusion, but a desire to force the issue with content providers over who pays for high bandwidth services. As services, such as video streaming, become more common networks will become more heavily loaded and the cell phone companies will need to invest things that can keep data flowing. They, off course, don't want to make that investment just to keep money flowing to content providers. So, they need to find a way to shift the costs to the content providers and eventually the users.
By capping data, they can lessen the uptake of these services since people won't what to pay overages. By lessoning the uptake, they slow the growth of the content companies which means they are worth less, giving them a vested interest in figuring out a way to share revenue to pay for the pipe. They'll charge the consumer more, pay an access fee and the cell phone companies are happy. You might think the content providers would be mad - but that also creates a barrier to entry since new companies would need to pony up cash before they have subscribers, making it hard to offer free or low cost services since they customer would find them to use bandwidth were the big players are "free from usage charges."
In the end, it comes down to money. The cell phone companies don't what to be freeway on which content providers gore rich - they want a slice of the pie and by controlling the last mile, they have some leverage.
I *wish* other carriers would do this! (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather than just passively saying "Oops, you went over your data limit, we'll automatically give you more and charge you for it", they just switch you to 2G data speeds if you hit your limit. Cell companies have been looking for "we'll give you enough rope to hang yourself" opportunities at every turn ("oh, gee, you didn't know your kid was sending hundreds of messages and downloading porn at $1.00 per kilobyte until the gigantic bill showed up at the end of the month?") and it's nice to see one of them giving you a NICE way out instead of using data overages as another way to screw you.
Now, if carriers would just quit charging me once for the bits, and again for sending them to another device (tethering), I'd be REALLY happy.
Re:What the summary fails to mention... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Does not seem legal... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm more concerned that the advertising (for all carriers) shows how awesome it will be to stream movies, music, and media, and yet severely penalize the users who actually take them up on their advertising.