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AT&T Learns Exactly the Wrong Lesson About Data Usage

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Re: AT&T Learns Exactly the Wrong Lesson About Data Usage

#31

Post by jonbishop »

What kills me is that when the ATT spokesman mentions the subscriber percentages in the NYT article (quote and link below), he says "smartphone" and not "iphone".

They have a lot of smartphones (http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/cell-phones/p...) to average the usage numbers over and push the percentages up. I wonder what the iphone percentages are.

"He said 65 percent of the company’s smartphone customers tend to use less than 200 megabytes a month, and 98 percent averaged less than 2 gigabytes." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/technology/03phone.html?sc...

Re: AT&T Learns Exactly the Wrong Lesson About Data Usage

#33

Post by liedra »

Timothee wrote: post #11

Some specific points of the new pricing are really outrageous honestly. The fact that they do tiered-pricing is, while annoying, kind of their prerogative. It actually sounds like it could save me a few bucks. However, paying $20 (!) to have access to tethering without extra bandwidth, is complete non-sense. I just can't find a reasonable explanation for this. As well as the price for extra data for DataPlus plan: $1…

A friend of mine who works for Apple told me (a year or so ago) that the reason for this is because ATT (and similar companies in other countries) wants to discourage tethering due to the fact that they don't have the infrastructure to accommodate lots of high bandwidth connections that you use when you tether. They were gambling on the fact that you need to do a lot more "work" at the moment still to browse/etc. on your phone. But this was before multitasking -- I can only bet they were throwing their hands up in dismay when multitasking came in :)

Re: AT&T Learns Exactly the Wrong Lesson About Data Usage

#34

Post by martey »

chc wrote: post #23
martey wrote: post #14

In the short term, I am not sure that this is that big of a deal. My data use would be 3 to 4 times higher than it is now (and thus approaching the author's) were it not for the fact that most of the time I am using my phone on a day-to-day basis, it is in areas with wifi (since I live in Cambridge MA, it is conceivably possible that I have wifi coverage 90-100% of the time; to save battery, my radio is off unless I…

Your suggestion that people need to curb their 3G usage to help AT&T's poor towers is precisely the logic they're employing. It isn't valid, though. The capacity of AT&T's network is not a finite resource. They can make more. In fact, the government gave them money to improve their network, but they just pocketed it and opted to create artificial scarcity instead. In other words, AT&T's towers are overwhelmed because…

The article claimed that the new data plans would cause people to use their phones less. I do not believe this is true, but I do think it will either cause people to use wifi more and cellular data less (if they are heavy data users like the authors) or not make any changes (if they are "normal" users). Nothing in my original writing was meant to suggest that AT&T subscribers with data plans (like myself) should use wifi more.

Re: AT&T Learns Exactly the Wrong Lesson About Data Usage

#36

Post by aaronbrethorst »

bradgessler wrote: post #28
navyrain wrote: post #25

The author really hasn't considered it from AT&T's perspective. On one end, they're hearing complaints about their terrible network, and on the other end, they're facing large costs to improve their infrastructure to support people with unlimited accounts. Aside from the comparatively small increase in subscriptions they'll get for their improvements, they'll see no income for their investment. However, if AT&T were…

I'd really appreciate it if AT&T would just come out and say this, but they're not. Unfortunately I fear they'll put this pricing into effect and still offer the same shitty service.

I'd email ATT's CEO to suggest this, but I'd be afraid of getting a cease and desist warning in response. ;)

Re: AT&T Learns Exactly the Wrong Lesson About Data Usage

#37

Post by Legion »

awa wrote: post #10
potatolicious wrote: post #9

I too dislike how AT&T foisted these prices on us - but I disagree with the author here. He seems to be advocating that there's something wrong with not consuming 1.5-2GB a month. He's a heavy user - cool, but I see no reason for the majority of the world to be just like him. > "Why are so many people using so little bandwidth? Or, put another way, you should be ashamed of yourself if you sell a device like the iPhon…

I think he wants to say AT&T should get the users hooked to using lot of data, so they as a subscription company can keep making money from users for a longer time.

Exactly.

If you're AT&T, when households are looking at their bills for stuff to cut, you don't want them looking at their data plan and saying, "well, I guess I don't use it very much..."

You want the gym membership to get the axe.

Re: AT&T Learns Exactly the Wrong Lesson About Data Usage

#38

Post by loewenskind »

neilc wrote: post #21
heresy wrote: post #4

Pray that this mindset does not infect your ISPs and tempt them to introduce traffic caps. Having your users be paranoid that they're going to go over their cap and get absolutely reamed for overage charges is not exactly how you build an advanced, high-bandwidth content delivery system. Even less are going to be "data pigs" that use a trivial 1.5GB after such a change, high prices guarantee that. Silly buggers.

Pray that this mindset does not infect your ISPs and tempt them to introduce traffic caps. I don't think this would be such a bad thing -- just as you pay on a per-unit basis for the water and energy you use, paying per unit of bandwidth consumed seems entirely reasonable. In an unlimited plan, typical users effectively subsidize a small minority of heavy users. Of course, the real problem is the outrageous charges f…

Bad analogy. If you waste 50,000 gallons of water by leaving your water hose on while you're on vacation, that's 50k gallons that the community no longer has [1]. The only way someone downloading e.g. 5gig of data in a month can cause anyone else to not be able to download is if the line is running at 100% capacity 24/7. The only possible impact the person could have is making communications take a little longer during the times he's bursting. But this is easily fixed by bandwidth caps and burst limits.

Do you have any evidence that lines are getting anywhere close to 100% utilization perpetually?

[1] I'm simplifying of course, but this is the basic idea.

Re: AT&T Learns Exactly the Wrong Lesson About Data Usage

#39

Post by blueben »

batiudrami wrote: post #20

Here's the thing: tiered data usage makes sense. Otherwise people who hardly use much data are supporting the people who use a lot, and are paying more than they should. This is like charging a flat price for petrol, say $50 a week, and expecting people who only drive occasionally to the shops to pay the same amount in fuel as people who make regular interstate trips. For the 98% of people, their iPhone service just…

It makes sense now, riding on the back of years of growth fueled by demand. Bandwidth is cheap! Sure, I'll pay for a few extra gigabytes. But without the years of "unlimited" plans, we would still be living in an age of glacial bandwidth speeds at extravagant prices. The demand for bandwidth drives the cost of providing that bandwidth down.

Tiered usage charges slow growth. That's great for AT&T, but bad for consumers as it also slows the decrease in the cost of bandwidth. You save a few pennies, and we all suffer from the lack of investment to support growth which in turn drives innovation.

Re: AT&T Learns Exactly the Wrong Lesson About Data Usage

#40

Post by loewenskind »

Legion wrote: post #37
awa wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he wants to say AT&T should get the users hooked to using lot of data, so they as a subscription company can keep making money from users for a longer time.

Exactly. If you're AT&T, when households are looking at their bills for stuff to cut, you don't want them looking at their data plan and saying, "well, I guess I don't use it very much..." You want the gym membership to get the axe.

Actually I'd rather they eat less fast food. If they stop going to the gym they will get less healthy and die sooner. I'd like them to be using my product for as long as possible.
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