cxca21 wrote:You're right, if at&t not designate a phone as being smartphone you can have unlimited data for $15/mo, but Original iPhone (iPhone 2g) is an smartphone, and you can add unlimited data for $15/mo. It have safari, youtube, pandora, etc. So at&t not designated it as an smartphone, why? Because it does not capable of use 3G network?. They plan to have faster 3G HSPA 7.2 which iPhone 3Gs and 4 are capable, and then start using 4G in 2011, for what?
About 4G in 2011:
http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/why/technology/4
g-lte.jsp
The data plan requirement for the original iPhone was certainly another example of an at&t's decision that seemed arbitrary to other smartphone customers. 
Can you still add the unlimited data plan to an original iPhone for $15/month? I know that was the arrangement for the iPhone 2G and it existed for a long time thereafter on a grandfathered basis (as is the norm for at&t), but if you've never had an iPhone 2G and you obtain one now, can you add a $15 unlimited data plan? (The original 2G data plan was actually $20/month - but it included 200 texts in addition to unlimited data.)
Also, it was a well published fact that the revenue sharing agreement between at&t and Apple was different for the original iPhone; they went back to a more traditional subsidy arrangement for the rollout of the iPhone 3G and in conjunction the data plan for the iPhone 3G was priced consistently with that of at&t's other smartphones. But you are correct, at least the media played to the 2G vs. 3G difference in the phones when discussing the higher data plan pricing for the 3G iPhone over that of the 2G iPhone. Keep in mind however, that all of this happened at a time where only a fairly small portion of at&t's network footprint had access to the 3G network - and those customers without 3G network availability still paid the higher "smartphone" data plan pricing when the iPhone 3G was released.
As the footnote to the article you referenced points out ("Limited LTE availability planned in select markets beginning 2011."), there may be a few areas with an initial 4G rollout later in 2011, but I would expect it will take several years for widespread 4G coverage to occur. (But certainly if you are in one of the "select" areas you could see it next year. 
)
They removed unlimited because of {word filter evasion} abusing it like everything else in this world that is pillaged by those who are all ME ME ME for FREE FREE FREE. I've advocated forever for better tiered data plans with reasonable rates (heck even pay per use that is reasonable and truth is MOST people save with ATT's new plans vs the old ones) as unlimited is UNSUSTAINABLE and therefore should not exist as it causes people to whine & complain their phone doesn't work in areas where {word filter evasion} are tethering & running up 100's of torrents and other stupid stuff. (Spare me the "I paid for this"," they make enough to upgrade their equipment" etc because any all-you-can-eat/consume/use commodity will be abused by some at the expense of everyone else and as I said before it is never sustainable without some other constraints such as limiting speed to artificially control total bw usage.)
Btw don't get me wrong, I find it absurd how much cell co's can charge for some of their stuff but especially the ludicrous pay-per-use & overage rates.. For example, if I am on 200MB plan & I go over using 201MB why should I have to pay $30 when 2GB plan was only $25? Or worse, if I do 2GB at pay-per-use it'd cost a whopping $2000 vs $25!! Talk about gouging! Cell companies should be ashamed of such things & not be able to charge you more than if you had the next higher plan/option. If they argue 'bandwidth planning' it should be no more than a *reasonable* fee.
Anyhow, unlimited will never come back & if you read the fine print even 'unlimited' had soft caps for a long time so wasn't truly unlimited anyway.
Bill
**Mod Note** Per Forum Guidelines, please do not evade the word filter.
Bill48105 wrote:
They removed unlimited because of {word filter evasion} abusing it like everything else in this world that is pillaged by those who are all ME ME ME for FREE FREE FREE. I've advocated forever for better tiered data plans with reasonable rates (heck even pay per use that is reasonable and truth is MOST people save with ATT's new plans vs the old ones) as unlimited is UNSUSTAINABLE and therefore should not exist as it causes people to whine & complain their phone doesn't work in areas where {word filter evasion} are tethering & running up 100's of torrents and other stupid stuff. (Spare me the "I paid for this"," they make enough to upgrade their equipment" etc because any all-you-can-eat/consume/use commodity will be abused by some at the expense of everyone else and as I said before it is never sustainable without some other constraints such as limiting speed to artificially control total bw usage.)
Btw don't get me wrong, I find it absurd how much cell co's can charge for some of their stuff but especially the ludicrous pay-per-use & overage rates.. For example, if I am on 200MB plan & I go over using 201MB why should I have to pay $30 when 2GB plan was only $25? Or worse, if I do 2GB at pay-per-use it'd cost a whopping $2000 vs $25!! Talk about gouging! Cell companies should be ashamed of such things & not be able to charge you more than if you had the next higher plan/option. If they argue 'bandwidth planning' it should be no more than a *reasonable* fee.
Anyhow, unlimited will never come back & if you read the fine print even 'unlimited' had soft caps for a long time so wasn't truly unlimited anyway.
Bill
I don't see anything wrong with carriers (or anyone else) providing an incentive to their customers to reasonably plan for their usage, purchase an appropriate allotment, monitor their account and make changes as needed.
If you see you are going to go over the 200 MB limit that month, call at&t and switch to the 2GB data plan. You'll incur prorated charges for the portions of the month utilized under both plans, but it will still be less than paying $30 for 400 MB. Better yet, see if at&t will just backdate the 2GB plan to the beginning of the billing cycle - they used to be willing to do so; and I'm not aware that the ability to make mid-billing cycle feature plan changes has been eliminated with the implementation of the new smartphone plans.
hme83 wrote:
I don't see anything wrong with carriers (or anyone else) providing an incentive to their customers to reasonably plan for their usage, purchase an appropriate allotment, monitor their account and make changes as needed.
If you see you are going to go over the 200 MB limit that month, call at&t and switch to the 2GB data plan. You'll incur prorated charges for the portions of the month utilized under both plans, but it will still be less than paying $30 for 400 MB. Better yet, see if at&t will just backdate the 2GB plan to the beginning of the billing cycle - they used to be willing to do so; and I'm not aware that the ability to make mid-billing cycle feature plan changes has been eliminated with the implementation of the new smartphone plans.
I agree to a certain extent but $2000 for something that could have been had for $25 is robbery no matter how you look at it.. The good news is the new data options offer free txt alerts to help and I am VERY glad (and grateful) ATT allows easy switching & pro-ration the way they do but honestly we shouldn't have to deal with that really. It is definitely closer to reasonable than something like texting that (last I knew) had no alerts in place to let you know you are racking up $1000 texting charges vs just paying for a WAY cheaper plan that would have covered it.. So yeah can't blame the carrier's completely for poor planning (or foresight) on our part BUT it is illegal to charge $1000 for a bottle of water to a person in need (called gouging) so although the cell stuff may not be life-or-death (well unless you are scared of the overages to call for help. LOL) it is similar & definitely gouging and not sure anyone can spin it differently.
Bill
Bill48105 wrote:
hme83 wrote:
I don't see anything wrong with carriers (or anyone else) providing an incentive to their customers to reasonably plan for their usage, purchase an appropriate allotment, monitor their account and make changes as needed.
If you see you are going to go over the 200 MB limit that month, call at&t and switch to the 2GB data plan. You'll incur prorated charges for the portions of the month utilized under both plans, but it will still be less than paying $30 for 400 MB. Better yet, see if at&t will just backdate the 2GB plan to the beginning of the billing cycle - they used to be willing to do so; and I'm not aware that the ability to make mid-billing cycle feature plan changes has been eliminated with the implementation of the new smartphone plans.
I agree to a certain extent but $2000 for something that could have been had for $25 is robbery no matter how you look at it.. The good news is the new data options offer free txt alerts to help and I am VERY glad (and grateful) ATT allows easy switching & pro-ration the way they do but honestly we shouldn't have to deal with that really. It is definitely closer to reasonable than something like texting that (last I knew) had no alerts in place to let you know you are racking up $1000 texting charges vs just paying for a WAY cheaper plan that would have covered it.. So yeah can't blame the carrier's completely for poor planning (or foresight) on our part BUT it is illegal to charge $1000 for a bottle of water to a person in need (called gouging) so although the cell stuff may not be life-or-death (well unless you are scared of the overages to call for help. LOL) it is similar & definitely gouging and not sure anyone can spin it differently.
Bill
I've never really seen a situation where at&t wasn't willing to meet the customer part way in the case of exhorbitant usage charges (possibly less so where international roaming is involved and presumably at&t did incur significant usage charges from a foreign carrier). It does require effort on the customer's end to contact customer service, explain the circumstances and come to a workable resolution. But do I think a customer should be penalized for freely using a service while taking no responsibility to manage/monitor their usage? Sorry - but absolutely, I do. Requiring the carrier to bear the entire cost of managing consumers' usage only drives up overall service fees for everyone.
hme83 wrote:
I've never really seen a situation where at&t wasn't willing to meet the customer part way in the case of exorbitant usage charges (possibly less so where international roaming is involved and presumably at&t did incur significant usage charges from a foreign carrier). It does require effort on the customer's end to contact customer service, explain the circumstances and come to a workable resolution. But do I think a customer should be penalized for freely using a service while taking no responsibility to manage/monitor their usage? Sorry - but absolutely, I do. Requiring the carrier to bear the entire cost of managing consumers' usage only drives up overall service fees for everyone.
I think we're in agreement in general except my issue was I believe AMOUNT of penalty for it should be Reasonable, but you are right, one of the reasons I've stuck with ATT since 2002 is their CS definitely works with you. I just wish they didn't make you jump thru hoops & just dealt straight from get-go. It is all too common companies rely on exorbitant overages due to poor planning or unforeseen circumstances (such as a bank charging $35 fee when you forgot to transfer $ from your savings & bought a $2 coffee..) to pad their profits. Cell co's should take note of the bank regulations that try to stop crap like my example above as they could be next.
Cheers
Bill
Why are ANY carriers starting to limit unlimited data? Comcast now caps their plans (in some markets) at 250 GB. You're probably not old enough to remember this, but data usage started out limited. With the old Compuserve and AOL plans, you got so many hours of dial-up access for a monthly fee. When AOL announced unlimited dial-up access (on the heels of one of the other carriers doing the same), people flocked to them...and then their servers crashed for weeks.
From an economic perspective, offering unlimited anything for a period longer than a single session of usage for a fixed price is a bad idea. The risk is borne by the provider, and not by the consumer. And while it is true that there is probably negligible additional incremental direct cost for the provider, it's still a bad model that encourages wasteful consumption.
PoketKrAk wrote:Also, I wonder why AT&T would put a limit on their data plans? From what my younger brother told me, maybe they're getting greedy with money? No offense, but I'm starting to agree with him when at first, I kind of contradicted his opinion.
I just switched my wife to a blackberry that was unlocked and ATT forcibly removed the unlmited data plan and forced us onto the $25. /month plan. What the { word filter evasion } the difference, the former phone handled data, the smartphone handles data, why is this shoved down our throats.
I'm now looking at Sprint to see what options there are, I am so mad. I could see if I'd missed the data plan implementation but I got data at 30/month unlimited so what why and how ATT can force this plan on me when normally I'd expect to be grandfathered in I have no idea.
Both phones receive data, what's the point
myobfool wrote:I just switched my wife to a blackberry that was unlocked and ATT forcibly removed the unlmited data plan and forced us onto the $25. /month plan. What the { word filter evasion } the difference, the former phone handled data, the smartphone handles data, why is this shoved down our throats.
I'm now looking at Sprint to see what options there are, I am so mad. I could see if I'd missed the data plan implementation but I got data at 30/month unlimited so what why and how ATT can force this plan on me when normally I'd expect to be grandfathered in I have no idea.
Both phones receive data, what's the point
unless you previous phone had a unlimited smartphone plan attached to it you where not forced to switch, they are two different data plans.
granbjd22 wrote:and why can't the older plans be used?? what the mechanical difference?? AT&T has everyone at a 'catch 22'.. Wish I could change My own rules...like when I'll pay my bills etc.Gees, when I'm at retiring age is there another 'catch' for me? Before there was a 'pink--purple--orange' plan there was only your Blue plan. Where Back in my original 'blue' plan did it say it would be forfeited if I 'upgraded'? actually, I think I still have the written original contract...I'll go look.
While I sympathize with anyone where terms are changed to their detriment, if you are on an old "Blue" (ATTWS) plan, you are outside of your contractual commitment - just as at&t is outside of their contractual commitment to you. Contracts don't last indefinitely - they serve a purpose to provide a benefit to and the obligations of both parties. Once outside of that agreement, either party can change the terms - including your terminating your service without penalty.
There may or may not be a legitimate reason why older plans can or cannot be "mechanically" used. And at&t does typically grandfather users into older plans so long as they make no changes to their service; but an upgrade provides you with a new benefit - in the form of a subsidized device, so at&t has a right to require that you are on a current voice plan where they make their desired level of profit in providing you with ongoing service.