wingedrider I did send a PM just now. thank you.
Why do the cell phone companies offer such small data plans when data is so easily used up?
It takes about 3.5GB of data to watch a 2.5 hour long, streamed, netflix HD movie on my phone. So, I'm going to use up my entire data plan for the month and be charged overages in 200mb blocks just because I wanted to watch a movie on my phone?
I was on vacation during the past winter and watched a few movies on my phone via netflix. My data usage went from a few megabytes each month (for the last 5+ years) to almost 7 GBs for just those 3 months that I was driving cross country in my RV on cavation... ocassionally watching movies on my phone.
In the realm of things, using 7GB of data for 3 short months is NOTHING. Especially, if that customer has a long history os using just a few megabytes of data every month for years while on an unlimited plan... like I did,
At&t immediately accuses me of tethering and forced me off my unlimited data plan, onto a tethering plan and a tiny 2gb data plan. 
I am really annoyed at this.
Hi again, someone did call me the next day & said that they would look into the problem and get back to me. So far, no one has gotten back to me about reinstating my unlimited plan. All that was done was to change my data plan to the 3gb for $30 a month. Sadly, a few months ago I had an unlimited plan for the same monthly $30 cost. 
Anton, att did put me on a tethering plan even after I called them numerous times and told them not to change my account. A couple months later I noticed a new $45 charge on my bill for a tethering plan. I called again and the CSR agreed to remove the tethering plan (obviously I don't tether or why would he remove the plan?) and for some reason he then stuck me on the smallest data plan possible.
It's like att does everything possible to make their customers more likely to go over their limits and incur fees. As a business, I can understand this practice but as a customer, it's not very welcoming or appealing.
It's just like the 700 min and 1400 min family plans. One plan is too small so a family ends up going over and paying fees... the onther plan is too big so a family pays for minutes they will never use. Att could very easily offer a 1000 min plan but they know they make more money by only offering these 2 plans for small families.
The longer I stay with att, the more I detest them.
- last edited on by
ShaunMN
I just wasted the last 10 minutes of my life listening to a chris {personal content removed for safety} tell me that he can't get any proof to show that I actually was tethering because it's "proprietary data" but some mystery department says I was tethering, so I must have been. 
Therefore, my unlimited data plan was ripped from me and I cannot do a darned thing about it.
I guess I am guilty until proven innocent. Nice job ATT. NOT!
I asked to speak with his supervisor and not surprisingly, he transferred me to a non working number.
ATT you just lost a $130/month, four phone, long term customer because of your greed.
We'll be gone within a month and over the next couple of years you'll waste your money sending me silly cards and letters about how much you value and want my business back. If you really valued my business you wouldn't be so stupid & greedy right now.
You should research how much money it takes to get a new customer versus keeping a loyal one.
Well, don't waste your money or my time sending me the sappy "we want you back" junk mail like my insurance company (geico) still does, We're not coming back.
Goodbye ATT.
herman7196 wrote:
Anton, att did put me on a tethering plan even after I called them numerous times and told them not to change my account. A couple months later I noticed a new $45 charge on my bill for a tethering plan. I called again and the CSR agreed to remove the tethering plan (obviously I don't tether or why would he remove the plan?) and for some reason he then stuck me on the smallest data plan possible.
It's like att does everything possible to make their customers more likely to go over their limits and incur fees. As a business, I can understand this practice but as a customer, it's not very welcoming or appealing.
It's just like the 700 min and 1400 min family plans. One plan is too small so a family ends up going over and paying fees... the onther plan is too big so a family pays for minutes they will never use. Att could very easily offer a 1000 min plan but they know they make more money by only offering these 2 plans for small families.
The longer I stay with att, the more I detest them.
Ah, now the mystery is cleared up--I wouldn't think that AT&T would replace your unlimited plan with the smallest plan right off the bat, just because they (claimed to have) detected tethering on your phone. What is shifty is that they first put you on the most expensive plan ($45 tethering), then when you argue that you weren't tethering and that you don't plan to tether, they then put you on the least expensive plan--what those two moves did is increase the odds in AT&T's favor that they can generate more money off of you than they would have made off of you had they not taken away your unlimited plan, IMHO.
Re: 700 and 1400 minute family plans--LOL you can bet some AT&T pundit here in this forum will claim that there was a study that showed that the majority of users either used <700 or >1400 minutes/per month (as a group), i.e., there weren't that many family plan users who used anywhere between 700-1400 minutes--hence why there is no 1000 minute family plan. Sorta like the "study" that was done with data plans that "revealed" that the majority of users used < 2GB of data per month, hence the original 2 GB plan. Yeah right, the majority of users consume less than 2 GB, that's why AT&T subsequently replaced the 2 GB plan with the 3 GB plan in relatively short time. Now I totally get that AT&T is in business to make money, but if anyone claims that AT&T came up with those tiered plan cutoff figures based primarily upon analyzing customer usage (whether it be data or minutes)--you keep on believing that. 
2 GB should have been more than plenty, based on the pundits here who were arguing that most folks hardly even go over 2 GB...so why is it now that the smallest GB plan size is currently 3 GB instead of 2 GB? Don't sugarcoat it by saying that AT&T came up with these unique plan levels such that they give customers "bang for the buck"--it has very little to do with that and everything to do with maximizing profit per customer. The AT&T bean counters can't be too thrilled to see that folks like wingrider are re-evaluating their voice plans and dropping down accordingly (he mentioned this in a different thread, in case you were wondering where I got that from)...or that folks have found alternatives to texting plans that don't require them to pay $20 or $30/month (individual/family unlimited text plans)...
