AT&T Learns Exactly the Wrong Lesson About Data Usage • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by pyre » Wed, Jun 09, 2010, 8:35 AM UTC

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…

My only thought is that the other 'big telcos' got billions of dollars from the US government to upgrade their infrastructure. Whatever became of that?

This is why I have little sympathy for them when they bitch and moan about how people are using 'too much bandwidth.' Also note that they never come right out and say things like, "We oversell our bandwidth," or, "Our infrastructure can't handle what our customers are using." It's always framed in terms of the 'big bad' users that are hurting the poor ISP's stalwart network.

Granted, I'm not sure that AT&T falls into this net. They probably didn't get government money to build out their 3G network.

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

#52

Post by loewenskind » Wed, Jun 09, 2010, 8:35 AM UTC

jsz0 wrote: post #48

loewenskind wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 duri…

On big access networks you have to stay far away from 100% capacity. 60-75% is the minimum where you will start seeing the negative effects of channel contention. On a cellular network sharing data & voice you also have a good amount of bandwidth reserved for real time services (phone calls) to factor in along with all the PHY/MAC overhead. There's probably some QoS overhead to calculate in also. I'd say there's a ve…

If they ever drop calls from capacity problems then something has gone horribly wrong (either tech wise or provisioning).

But my point was that bandwidth is (or should be) renewable. If you do a download when everyone else is doing one your traffic should be getting shaped down to the provisioned minimum until there is room for it. This will make the traffic slower during those times, but there are going to be times where nearly no traffic is on the line.

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

#53

Post by loewenskind » Wed, Jun 09, 2010, 8:37 AM UTC

batiudrami wrote: post #50

loewenskind wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be right about the result but the gas analogy doesn't work. To make it work you would have to image customers all getting gas from the same tank. While they're filling their vehicles the tank is getting lower but the instant they stop the tank is full again. Not slowly filling up with gas, instantly full capacity again.

I'm not sure what difference this makes. I understand that bandwidth is limited by transfer rate and not data transferred, but there is still a limit which the company does not wish to reach. Even if such a fuel tank existed, would it be unreasonable for BP to charge by the litre of fuel removed? I think it'd be the most sensible way to avoid demand overriding supply, rather than charging everyone increasing amounts…

>Even if such a fuel tank existed, would it be unreasonable for BP to charge by the litre of fuel removed?

But effectively no fuel was removed. Look in the tank, it's full right? What you would charge for is accessing the tank at all because unless it is sitting at 0 constantly (complete continuous usage) there is effectively no difference between someone who took 1 gallon and someone who took 1,000 gallons.

EDIT: Your point "but there is still a limit which the company does not wish to reach" is certainly valid, but properly dealing with this is complex. Simply capping to e.g. 5 gig is just going to leave you with empty lines for the last part of every month. Since your problem is utilization, not capacity this doesn't even address it. You had room for twice as much access but instead you look slow and expensive.

If you had a company large enough to run its own networks how would you deal with growing capacity? By putting some kind of bizarre transfer cap? No, that would just get you fired. Instead, you would shape traffic to even out the utilization and add infra as soon as you passed some utilization threshold.

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

#54

Post by batiudrami » Wed, Jun 09, 2010, 8:48 AM UTC

loewenskind wrote: post #53

batiudrami wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what difference this makes. I understand that bandwidth is limited by transfer rate and not data transferred, but there is still a limit which the company does not wish to reach. Even if such a fuel tank existed, would it be unreasonable for BP to charge by the litre of fuel removed? I think it'd be the most sensible way to avoid demand overriding supply, rather than charging everyone increasing amounts…

>Even if such a fuel tank existed, would it be unreasonable for BP to charge by the litre of fuel removed? But effectively no fuel was removed. Look in the tank, it's full right? What you would charge for is accessing the tank at all because unless it is sitting at 0 constantly (complete continuous usage) there is effectively no difference between someone who took 1 gallon and someone who took 1,000 gallons. EDIT: Yo…

The way this is combated by Australian ISPs is to offer 'off peak quota' - a kind of bonus for when bandwidth utilisation is low, as well as having people's quotas reset at different times of month. This isn't a great solution, and would not work for phones as the off peak quota is used for things such as torrenting, when people aren't at their computers.

The problem with shaping traffic is that it means companies simply shape during busy periods, rather than increasing capacity. By offering download limits at set speeds, ISPs guarantee a speed you will receive (limited only by the quality of copper in your phone line).

My point is largely that charging people who use download the most more money (and therefore, on average, are increasing the load at peak usage most often) is the most sensible method of controlling load. If your experience with mobile internet is anything like mine, consumers certainly do not want bandwidth shaping making it any slower.

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

#55

Post by pyre » Wed, Jun 09, 2010, 9:00 AM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #22

I am a data pig. I average between 1.5 and 2 gigabytes a month over the last 6 months. AT&T hates me, apparently, though they are happy to take my money. I'm not sure how that helps the point the author is trying to make, as he/she will actually be paying less now than they were before, even as a self-proclaimed "data hog". A few more random points that I thought were misguided: 1. Not everyone should be attached to…

> 2. It will apparently be possible to retroactively upgrade from the 250 MB plan to the 2 GB plan if you're going to be over, so the fears of forgetting that you left Pandora running and paying hundreds seem to be a bit unfounded.

Well... In one of the initial discussions someone did the calculation that if you leave Pandora playing for 40 hours/week, it amounts to 5+GB of data, and that's on the low quality stream.

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

#56

Post by sireat » Wed, Jun 09, 2010, 9:02 AM UTC

In Easter Europe you get the following from the official(read most expensive) iPhone carrier: $5 for 200mb, $9 for 2gigs and $18 for 10GB, $40 for unlimited.

These plans may be slightly cheaper than US plans, but that is nothing special. What is nice, that if you DO go over your limit, you can continue using the net downloading/uploading albeit at a ridiculously slow rate 16kb/8kb. If you want to go back to your usual speed you send a SMS and upgrade for $1 per GB or go to the next plan.

What is better in this approach is that the customer is never charged over what they agreed to pay in advance.

Sure beats paying $200 for a local phone bill in early 90s in USA for connecting to local ISP...

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

#57

Post by pyre » Wed, Jun 09, 2010, 9:02 AM UTC

acqq wrote: post #43

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #22

I am a data pig. I average between 1.5 and 2 gigabytes a month over the last 6 months. AT&T hates me, apparently, though they are happy to take my money. I'm not sure how that helps the point the author is trying to make, as he/she will actually be paying less now than they were before, even as a self-proclaimed "data hog". A few more random points that I thought were misguided: 1. Not everyone should be attached to…

I agree with you. The truth is, there's simply not enough bandwidth, especially not to stimulate "unlimited" data use and motivating people to become "data hogs." And it's not easy at all to increase the resources. There are real physical and technical limitations for providing more bandwidth which are hard to overcome in many areas. The unlimited data plan was designed for much less devices in the wild.

> The unlimited data plan was designed for much less devices in the wild.

The unlimited plan is and always was a marketing ploy to make the plan look like a deal. It's just too bad that AT&T (or at least one of the other major telcos) haven't been brought to task for their deceptive marketing practices.

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

#58

Post by harisenbon » Wed, Jun 09, 2010, 9:09 AM UTC

delackner wrote: post #12

The japanese market pricing provides a sensible alternative: Scaled pricing with a reasonable limit. You pay a minimum monthly price up to a certain cap, and any usage over that cap scales your total bill linearly up to a maximum total bill, beyond which your usage is effectively unlimited. The minimum is about $15 and the maximum is about $50. Not exactly going to break the bank, and totally reasonable. Metered usag…

E-mobile's pocket-wifi plan starts at 350yen a month and goes up to about 4980yen. They even come with a free wifi connector and the first 3 months a 1000yen off.

While they're not a cellphone carrier, they are highly competitive when it comes to ubiquitous wifi.

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

#59

Post by pavs » Wed, Jun 09, 2010, 9:35 AM UTC

tensafefrogs wrote: post #26

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #22

I am a data pig. I average between 1.5 and 2 gigabytes a month over the last 6 months. AT&T hates me, apparently, though they are happy to take my money. I'm not sure how that helps the point the author is trying to make, as he/she will actually be paying less now than they were before, even as a self-proclaimed "data hog". A few more random points that I thought were misguided: 1. Not everyone should be attached to…

I think you are missing the key point: Apple wants people to use their fancy devices more , not less. You spend this money on this awesome device that does awesome things, Apple makes money when you use it (via iAds, via google searches, via many things) and AT&T is saying to their customers "don't use your device too much!" I'm betting Steve is totally pissed off at AT&T right now.

> I'm betting Steve is totally pissed off at AT&T right now.

You think Steve just found out about it now? You think AT&T didn't consult with him?

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

#60

Post by ericd » Wed, Jun 09, 2010, 9:40 AM UTC

martey wrote: post #34

chc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A few insane overage charge stories in the media will definitely cause people to avoid using their phone as much. It's not something people should be thinking about when they use the phone, it's counterproductive.