AT&T ends Unlimited Data on iPhone and iPad, will allow iPhone tetheringfor $20 a month.

On 02/06/10 2:23 PM, Dennis Ferguson wrote:
> On 2010-06-02, SMS<[email protected]> wrote:
>> Now what would have been fairer is to only charge the $20 tethering fee
>> for those with unlimited data, while those with metered data pay nothing
>> or at least a lot less than $20.
>
> I don't get that. A 5 GB limit tethering plan has always cost $30
> per month more than a $30 unlimited smartphone data plan (for any
> capable phone except the iPhone), so adding $20 to a $25 plan is
> already a significant discount for the<2 GB per month tethering
> user, which I'll bet is most of them.

But now you get 2GB between the iPhone and the laptop, not unlimited for
the iPhone and 2GB for the laptop. So it's not a "<2GB tethering user"
it's a "<2GB combined iPhone + tethering" user.

5GB of tethering for $30, in addition to unlimited data on a smart phone
is pretty good (at least compared to the Laptop Connect plan of 5GB for
$60).

Now if AT&T had offered 5GB of tethering for $30, or 2GB for $20, in
addition to the 2GB limit for the iPhone itself, that would be a
different story.

---

› See More: AT&T ends Unlimited Data on iPhone and iPad, will allow iPhone tetheringfor $20 a month.

On 2010-06-02, nospam <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, Dennis
> Ferguson <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Geez, they've been telegraphing this change for half a year now, e.g.
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/te.../10iphone.html
>>
>> It can't be a big surprise.
>
> six months ago, apple announced the ipad plan would be $30/unlimited,
> and since the end of april, they have been selling them with that
> option.
>
> slightly more than one month after they went on sale, the rules changed.
>
> do you think they came up with this plan last week? it had to have been
> in the planning stages for a long time.

I'm not sure they necessarily plan everything (it took them about
3 days to match Verizon's unlimited calling plans, and I'm pretty
sure Verizon didn't tell them beforehand since that would be illegal),
but I'll grant that they probably did decide this sometime within the
last 6 months. If that's right, however, then it seems like this
was timed to avoid making anyone a liar. They get the price change
in before the next big iPhone rush, but as long after the iPad
introduction as possible, which avoids them having to contradict Apple.
It also gets the immediate effect of the price decrease into a quarter
where AT&T has done pretty well over the past few years, so if (when)
Verizon matches it it'll look even uglier on Verizon's balance sheet
than AT&T's. Pretty good planning.

AT&T tells lies whenever it suits them (see, e.g., the "the 2 year
contract for SIM-only service we advertised on our web site was a
mistake, we wouldn't do that" lie, when that's exactly what they
sold before they advertised it on the web site and that's exactly
what they try to sell to most people even now), and I won't even
get into Verizon's lies. Compared to their typical whoppers this
thing strikes me as about as honest and straight forward as it
gets, maybe because of Apple's involvement.

> how convenient it is to announce the pricing changes one week in
> advance, when the online availability of an ipad is 7-10 days.

It is still better than they usually do, which is announce price
changes after they've changed all the price lists. And if this
was planned months ago, like you say, they couldn't have known
there'd be a backlog in iPad orders. By their usual standards
they've handled this with kid gloves.

>> Umm, if you are expecting Verizon and AT&T to compete on price
>> you are hoping for something which has never happened before. I
>> would love it if Verizon at least tried a bit, by maybe selling
>> 300 MB for $15 and 3 GB for $25, but that would be so out of
>> character than I wouldn't bet on it even in Verizon's current
>> (and uncharacteristically) disadvantaged state.
>
> of course they compete on price, however, there is some collusion going
> on. my main issue is not so much the price, it's the fact they lie.

They compete on price by one of them changing prices and then
the other one copying them, so they always end up selling about
the same service for about the same price (usually Verizon
has gone first since their better margins always made them
better able to afford the negative impact, but AT&T's current
riches have made them the leader, I guess). That's price
competition? I live for the day when one of them changes
prices and the other reacts by changing to even better prices,
which seems more like competition to me, but I'm not holding my
breath.

>> It might be more interesting if T-Mobile offered the devices,
>> though that would have its own set of issues.
>
> if apple is going to add a cdma/lte card to the ipad, they could add an
> aws card too. it's not a big deal. it would also be nice to have it on
> sprint 4g.

I'll be unhappy if the next iPhone doesn't add AWS (and 900
MHz) 3G whether they sell it through T-Mobile or not, actually.
5 band 3G is possible with current technology, all new EU 3G
phones have 900 Mhz, and a roamer with a high priced phone should
be able to use any available network they find advantageous whether
the operator sells iPhones or not. And that still leaves them
selling exactly one piece of iPhone hardware worldwide, an advantage
I'm not sure they'd ready to give up yet.

CDMA I'll believe when I see it. I know the iPad's radio section
is modular, and there's more space in there, but I don't think
Qualcomm sells a chipset which makes a comfortable modular replacement
for the radio that's in the iPad now and I'm not sure how far
Qualcomm would bend over to do one. If the new iPhone uses a
Qualcomm radio then I might change my mind in a hurry, but at
this point I'd bet you don't see anything for Verizon until next
year at best unless it is LTE-only.

I'm really curious about the iPhone radio. The fact that they've
managed to keep the FCC test data secret even at this late date
suggests they've done something new that they haven't announced,
I'd like to know what.

Dennis Ferguson

In article <[email protected]>, Dennis
Ferguson <[email protected]> wrote:

> I'll be unhappy if the next iPhone doesn't add AWS (and 900
> MHz) 3G whether they sell it through T-Mobile or not, actually.
> 5 band 3G is possible with current technology, all new EU 3G
> phones have 900 Mhz, and a roamer with a high priced phone should
> be able to use any available network they find advantageous whether
> the operator sells iPhones or not. And that still leaves them
> selling exactly one piece of iPhone hardware worldwide, an advantage
> I'm not sure they'd ready to give up yet.

there are advantages and disadvantages in making a single phone that
does every air interface, versus multiple models. most people don't
switch carriers very much, so having interfaces they'll never use is a
waste.

> CDMA I'll believe when I see it. I know the iPad's radio section
> is modular, and there's more space in there, but I don't think
> Qualcomm sells a chipset which makes a comfortable modular replacement
> for the radio that's in the iPad now and I'm not sure how far
> Qualcomm would bend over to do one. If the new iPhone uses a
> Qualcomm radio then I might change my mind in a hurry, but at
> this point I'd bet you don't see anything for Verizon until next
> year at best unless it is LTE-only.

i don't think it would be wise to announce an alternative carrier for
the ipad a month after it went on sale, especially since they can't
keep up with demand.

i suspect it will be in the fall, when verizon actually starts
deploying lte, and supply catches up.

> I'm really curious about the iPhone radio. The fact that they've
> managed to keep the FCC test data secret even at this late date
> suggests they've done something new that they haven't announced,
> I'd like to know what.

<https://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/...port.cfm?mode=
Exhibits&RequestTimeout=500&calledFromFrame=N&application_id=258686&fcc_
id=%27BCG-E2381A%27>

On 2010-06-03, SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 02/06/10 2:23 PM, Dennis Ferguson wrote:
>> On 2010-06-02, SMS<[email protected]> wrote:
>>> Now what would have been fairer is to only charge the $20 tethering fee
>>> for those with unlimited data, while those with metered data pay nothing
>>> or at least a lot less than $20.
>>
>> I don't get that. A 5 GB limit tethering plan has always cost $30
>> per month more than a $30 unlimited smartphone data plan (for any
>> capable phone except the iPhone), so adding $20 to a $25 plan is
>> already a significant discount for the<2 GB per month tethering
>> user, which I'll bet is most of them.
>
> But now you get 2GB between the iPhone and the laptop, not unlimited for
> the iPhone and 2GB for the laptop. So it's not a "<2GB tethering user"
> it's a "<2GB combined iPhone + tethering" user.
>
> 5GB of tethering for $30, in addition to unlimited data on a smart phone
> is pretty good (at least compared to the Laptop Connect plan of 5GB for
> $60).

It would be if it worked like that, but I think it doesn't. The tethering
plan on my phone, like all of them, is $60 for 5 GB for the computer+phone.
The $60 tethering plan replaces the $30 phone-only plan, it doesn't
add to it. AT&T has no way technical way to separate phone data from
tethering data in any case (and that goes double for the iPhone, actually,
since I believe it only supports PAN and not DUN; the phone data is
indistinguishable from computer data with PAN, while with DUN it
might be possible to guess whose PPP session it was).

> Now if AT&T had offered 5GB of tethering for $30, or 2GB for $20, in
> addition to the 2GB limit for the iPhone itself, that would be a
> different story.

But AT&T actually charges $60 for 5 GB of phone+tethering, which
puts $45 for 2 GB of phone+tethering in the ball park.

Dennis Ferguson

On 2010-06-03, nospam <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, Dennis
> Ferguson <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> I'll be unhappy if the next iPhone doesn't add AWS (and 900
>> MHz) 3G whether they sell it through T-Mobile or not, actually.
>> 5 band 3G is possible with current technology, all new EU 3G
>> phones have 900 Mhz, and a roamer with a high priced phone should
>> be able to use any available network they find advantageous whether
>> the operator sells iPhones or not. And that still leaves them
>> selling exactly one piece of iPhone hardware worldwide, an advantage
>> I'm not sure they'd ready to give up yet.
>
> there are advantages and disadvantages in making a single phone that
> does every air interface, versus multiple models. most people don't
> switch carriers very much, so having interfaces they'll never use is a
> waste.

The technology has improved, it is no more expensive to include
all five 3G bands in a single phone now then it was to include
three 3G bands in a single phone two years ago. They could have
made separate North America and Europe/Asia phones and saved the
same waste two years ago but didn't, and I think the tradeoff is
identical now (well, they could save a single chip compared to the
previous phone by only adding one band, but that would be disappointing).

>> I'm really curious about the iPhone radio. The fact that they've
>> managed to keep the FCC test data secret even at this late date
>> suggests they've done something new that they haven't announced,
>> I'd like to know what.
>
><https://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/...port.cfm?mode=
> Exhibits&RequestTimeout=500&calledFromFrame=N&application_id=258686&fcc_
> id=%27BCG-E2381A%27>

That's the iPad, right? Notice it appeared in the FCC database
about 2 months before it shipped, just like all previous iPhones
and just about every other phone anyone sells. If they're shipping
a new iPhone in June then the lack of FCC data for that is a mystery.

Dennis Ferguson

In article <[email protected]>, Dennis
Ferguson <[email protected]> wrote:

> That's the iPad, right? Notice it appeared in the FCC database
> about 2 months before it shipped, just like all previous iPhones
> and just about every other phone anyone sells. If they're shipping
> a new iPhone in June then the lack of FCC data for that is a mystery.

the last two iphones shipped a couple of weeks after being announced.

apple did say 'summer' for 4.0, which means after june 21, two weeks
after the expected announcement.

On 02/06/10 10:42 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:

<snip>

> This new plan is a bit of a departure- selling you a fixed bucket but
> charging extra to tether is like a restaurant charging you a certain
> price for an entree but then charging extra if you share it with someone.

How many times does the carrier expect you to pay for the same 2GB of data?

But of course they're worried about low-usage Lap Top Connect users
switching to an iPhone. Sharing 2GB between a laptop and an iPhone would
be dicey in terms of having enough, though OTOH, extra GBs are $10 each
so you could still make it work about as well as Lap Top Connect, but
it's inconvenient to always need the phone around. I expect that most
Lap Top connect users aren't all that price sensitive anyway.

Current data hogs are probably on the unlimited plan and using a
jail-broken phone, and/or an earlier iPhone OS revision, where you could
tether. I was surprised when someone in a class I was taking told me
that they could tether with their non-jail-broken iPhone, but that
ability would be lost if he did an OS update. I think it was this:
"http://mytriniphone.com/blog/2009/06/tethering-on-non-jailbroken-iphone-with-a-mac/"
that he did.

On 2010-06-03, Todd Allcock <[email protected]> wrote:
> I think Steven is referring to AT&T's older smartphone plans- they used
> to offer, in addition to the $30 unlimited plan, two less expensive
> capped plans (50MB and 200MB, IIRC,) that allowed tethering.

I would want to see a reference which supports that since I
don't remember it that way. What I believe is that all AT&T
plans which have supported tethering since WAP phones appeared,
and there was some kind of data usage that wasn't tethered,
have also enabled access to the APN which gives out real (i.e.
non-RFC-1918) IP addresses. AT&T has always charged extra
for that beyond the price of a normal handset plan, unlimited
or not (and unlimited tethering or data card plans were available
from all carriers until a few years ago, limits aren't what
made the difference). Plans which don't enable that APN aren't
for tethering. I do stand ready to be corrected, but I'm pretty
comfortable that's correct.

If we ignore the bit I don't believe, however, the rest of your
analogy works perfectly. Right now AT&T sells an unlimited
smartphone plan which enables that APN (and nothing else, compared
to the $30 plans) but prohibits tethering for $45 per month. After
the change you'll be able to buy a 2 GB smartphone plan which enables
that APN and allows tethering for $45 per month. By giving up
the buffet you get your doggie bag to take home.

We should deal in the real world, though. The GSM/3G protocols
provide no standard way for AT&T to prevent, or even reliably
detect, tethered use on any of AT&T's data plans (doing this
requires some proprietary arrangement between the handset vendor
and the carrier, and since your choice of GSM handsets is not
limited by the carrier it is always possible to find a handset
vendor more interested in pleasing you than the carrier), so
technically (rather than lawyerly) speaking any data plan is a
tethering plan. AT&T knows this at least as well as you or me.
If AT&T sells you a tethering plan, then, the real world difference
it makes to AT&T is that what you just bought is the privilege
of calling AT&T when tethering doesn't work, and what AT&T
sold is the obligation to sit there and talk to you until
either something gets fixed or, more likely, you give up and
go away. Tethering has more issues (and unconstrained
variables) which can cause problems than handset applications
do, so there's a cost to AT&T associated with it if they have
to support it. And, of course, they're a money-making operation,
so why would they give you something for free that has some
potential to cause them extra work, and which you might pay
more for?

So my suspicion is that AT&T doesn't really care about
tethering on their capped plans, and cares about tethering
on the unlimited plans no more than they care about
smartphone-only users who manage to consume multi-gigabytes
a month (if they did they would have restricted phone choices
long ago), but they do care not to have to support people
who want to do this but can't make it work for some reason
unless they are making money from that. The question then
becomes, what do you put in your plan terms which allows
people to do something but doesn't allow them to complain if
they can't (and what was in the terms for the 50 MB and
200 MB plans which allowed this)? I don't believe there
is an easy way to tell people to get lost when they call
unless you can tell them they agreed not to do that, so
that's what they do. If you really need it to work you'll
pay them for it.

Dennis Ferguson

On Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:15:18 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote:

>(at least compared to the Laptop Connect plan of 5GB for
>$60).


My Laptop Connect service *is* unlimited at present. I have had it
since 2005 (I was one of the first ones in this area to sign up).

Best,

Bob

Robert A. Fink, M. D., FACS, P. C.
Neurological Surgery
2500 Milvia Street Suite 222
Berkeley, CA 94704-2636 USA
510-849-2555

"Ex Tristitia Virtus"

SMS <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> Current data hogs are probably on the unlimited plan and using a
> jail-broken phone, and/or an earlier iPhone OS revision, where you
> could tether. I was surprised when someone in a class I was taking
> told me that they could tether with their non-jail-broken iPhone, but
> that ability would be lost if he did an OS update. I think it was
> this:
> "http://mytriniphone.com/blog/2009/06/tethering-on-non-jailbroken-iphon
> e-with-a-mac/" that he did.
>

Nah. Current data hogs, like me, are using a laptop or netbook hooked to
some REAL broadband from a restaurant or hotel for free.

Screw these greedy bastards....
DUMP 'EM!


--
Religion is to reality what homeopathy is to medical science.

Larry

On 03/06/10 5:44 PM, Robert A. Fink, M. D. wrote:
> On Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:15:18 -0700, SMS<[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> (at least compared to the Laptop Connect plan of 5GB for
>> $60).
>
>
> My Laptop Connect service *is* unlimited at present. I have had it
> since 2005 (I was one of the first ones in this area to sign up).

I did not think that they grandfathered unlimited service for Laptop
Connect. Guess I was wrong.

On 2010-06-04, Todd Allcock <[email protected]> wrote:
> At 03 Jun 2010 18:33:49 -0500 Dennis Ferguson wrote:
>> On 2010-06-03, Todd Allcock <[email protected]> wrote:
>> > I think Steven is referring to AT&T's older smartphone plans- they
> used
>> > to offer, in addition to the $30 unlimited plan, two less expensive
>> > capped plans (50MB and 200MB, IIRC,) that allowed tethering.
>>
>> I would want to see a reference which supports that since I
>> don't remember it that way.
>
> I couldn't find any of my old Cingular brochures, but my hazy memory
> seems to recall they were business plans called "Data Connect" and were
> available for either PDAs and laptops. ("Smartphones" didn't become a
> data category until the release of the Cingular 8125 in 2005, IIRC.)
> Regular WAP phone users who wished to tether (or, at least announced
> their intentions to!) were offered the data connect plans as well. They
> used the isp.cingular APN rather than (or, actually, in addition to) the
> wap.cingular APN.

Ah, I know those plans, they're still current and I have one!
They still offer the same DataConnect plans, at 10 MB, 200 MB and
5 GB (5 GB used to be Unlimited, that's the one Dr. Fink's laptop
card is on) under basically the same conditions. My phone is currently
on a DataConnect 5GB plus Voice plan, the "plus Voice" part makes it
a phone add-on data plan rather than a standalone data card plan. The
"plus Voice" plans are indeed tethering plans, and they let you use
either APN.

I don't get the other part, though, since I wouldn't call these
plans "less expensive" than a $30 unlimited plan. I think this
one has the current prices:

<http://www.wireless.att.com/businesscenter/popup/dataconnect-comp-table.jsp>

At $20 for 10 MB and $40 (used to be $35) for 200 MB they are quite dear.
Also, I think you are not correct about these plans being available
for PDA phones then. The only phones they'll let you put one on now
are handsets that would otherwise qualify for a $15/month unlimited
handset plan, and I think they were only available for WAP phones then.
If you have a smartphone they'll insist you take a Smartphone Personal
[was Unlimited PDA] plus Tethering plan instead, the lower caps aren't an
option. I don't think these have ever been available to replace
a $30 per month plan.

This is about what I'd expect. When you go from a handset plan
to a tethering plan they give you access to the isp.cingular APN
(a $15 uplift even without tethering, see the prices of "Enterprise"
plans in your old list) and charge you more money. I don't think the
data caps originally had much to do with anything other than giving
them a few price points to sell that weren't as steep an uplift to
a WAP plan. They used to offer an unlimited tethering plan to
replace the unlimited handset plan, it just cost more. That's the
same as they are doing now.

>> What I believe is that all AT&T
>> plans which have supported tethering since WAP phones appeared,
>> and there was some kind of data usage that wasn't tethered,
>> have also enabled access to the APN which gives out real (i.e.
>> non-RFC-1918) IP addresses. AT&T has always charged extra
>> for that beyond the price of a normal handset plan, unlimited
>> or not (and unlimited tethering or data card plans were available
>> from all carriers until a few years ago, limits aren't what
>> made the difference). Plans which don't enable that APN aren't
>> for tethering. I do stand ready to be corrected, but I'm pretty
>> comfortable that's correct.
>
> Given the age of the plans I'm describing (I haven't been a Cingular
> dealer for a long time!) these weren't $30 and under plans- the cheapest
> (5MB, maybe 10?) was probably $30. Unlimited PDA plus tethering was
> probably $80 at the time (as was unlimited laptop connect, IIRC.)

I believe you are right about Unlimited PDA plus Tethering being $80
a long time ago, I think they dropped the price to $60 in 2004 or 2005
and then put the 5 GB cap on when Verizon got in trouble, in maybe
2007. The Dataconnect Unlimited (which became 5 GB) plan was the
same price at the same times.

What I don't think is correct is calling these plans "cheaper" than
an unlimited handset plan, even with Unlimited PDA without
tethering selling for $30 (I think it was $25 before that). 10 MB
of tethering for $20 doesn't look good compared to that, and 200 MB
at $35 is certainly a price increase, and I'm not even sure this
comparison is valid anyway since I think they insisted that PDA
users take the unlimited tethering plan; this was only an option
for WAP phones.

> My only point was that then, regardless of the higher price points of the
> day, Cingular allowed tethering on capped plans, but charged extra for it
> on unlimited plans, since, as SMS suggests, it's silly to make you pay
> twice for the same bucket of data.

I don't see it. Cingular sold both capped and unlimited tethering plans,
so it wasn't "capped" that made it a tethering plan; it was the fact that
Cingular called it a tethering plan. The only capped plans on the price
list then were plans Cingular called tethering plans. Your argument
seems to be that since the only capped plans on the price list a long
time ago were plans that allowed tethering then there can never be a
capped plan on the price list which doesn't allow tethering. I just don't
see how that follows, that's what they just did! It also ignores the
fact that even then Cingular sold plans, the "Enterprise" plans, with
access to isp.cingular (a pre-requisite for tethering in their view)
but no tethering for a $15 uplift, so they've never just charged for
expected byte usage. Why would premium that go away just because the
handset-only plans got capped?

Dennis Ferguson

In message <[email protected]> Dennis Ferguson
<[email protected]> was claimed to have wrote:

>I'm not sure about that. We've also got these (admittedly old and
>not very reliable) numbers which say the typical iPhone customer uses
>not much more than 400 MB per month, with other smart phones averaging
>maybe half that, and AT&T itself says that only 2% of its smartphone
>customers use more than 2 GB per month, which suggests that for most
>people what AT&T has offered is a $5 or $15 per month discount on their
>data plan in return for no change in their behaviour at all.

A lot of people look at an "unlimited" plan very differently than a
metered plan with the included amount of data being well beyond what
they could ever use.

My mom is a perfect example, she's usually using 50MB-100MB/month on her
iPhone, but every few weeks I get a "does 'x' use much data" type
question when she's doing something new (Using Google Maps, viewing
pictures received by email, forwarding pictures, etc), despite being on
a 6GB/month plan.

She's the same with minutes, I don't think I've even hit 25% of my
family plan's minutes (my own plan, not connected to hers), plus I have
unlimited incoming. If she's calling me or I'm calling her in the
evening she'll chat but if I'm calling her in daytime minutes she rushes
off the phone to save my minutes despite the fact that there's no
difference in the end.

Whether this will scale to AT&T or not I don't know, but she's certainly
not the only one I know who acts like this, it's just human nature to
conserve resources when we can see the limit (and to use excessively
when we think of something as unlimited)

SMS <[email protected]> wrote:
> As predicted, AT&T is ending the unlimited data plan for new iPhone
> customers.
>
> New customers can choose from $15/month (200MB) or Data Pro, a $25/month
> (2GB). Existing iPhone customers can keep their unlimited plans even if
> they upgrade to a new model.
>
> The iPad also loses the unlimited plan which is replaced with $25 for
> 2GB/30 days.
>
> The iPhone will be able to tether if you pay and extra $20 per month.
>
> "http://blogs.computerworld.com/16236/wwdc_at_t_changes_iphone_deals_adds_tethering"

When? I just checked over the weekend and the option was still there for $30.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse

Religion is a crutch, but that's okay... humanity is a cripple.

Todd Allcock <[email protected]> wrote:
> It's supposed to be today, June 7th.
>

No matter, I wouldn't switch to AT&T for any reason; I have not met a SINGLE
person, live, in the flesh, who likes AT&T and has an iPhone and of those that
have some other phone [smart phone or not], all but a couple hate AT&T. There
must be a reason for it, but they are the only major carrier in my area that I
have not tried so I cannot say from firsthand experience.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse

Religion is a crutch, but that's okay... humanity is a cripple.