Bloomberg Businessweek Article on "Data Hogs"

In article <[email protected]>, News
says...


> > Nice try, idiot troll. Once I'm done with the room, I'm not paying for
> > it anymore, am I?
>
> You had better have left if you pull that stunt, @sshole.

Umm... Duh? If I've checked out, that means I left, correct?

If by "leave" you didn't mean "check out", WTF did you mean?

If I'm *temporarily* leaving (i.e. not checking out), I turn lights out.
I only leave water running in the sink/shower/etc. when I'm actually
using it.

Regardless, your analogy fails because I've not seen a hotel contract
that specifies anything about the use of utilities in the room. Check it
out next time -- usually, the terms of your stay are posted on a
document attached to the inside of the door of your room.

We're talking about a situation where the service provider specifically
states that you are allowed to do X. You and certain other people are
claiming that doing X makes us evil people who are screwing up the
network for other customers. I love the use of AT&T as an example...
AT&T, as mentioned upthread, has serious problems managing network
capcity on its wireless network. My friend in the West Los Angeles area
can't even hold a call on the AT&T network, at her apartment. The minute
she gets home, she expects that the call will drop; she even warns me
when she's about to pull into her garage, and sure enough, EVERY time
that happens, the call drops and she ends up having to call me back
later.

That's not the customer's fault, although I would not be surprised if
AT&T blames its customers.



--
Steve Sobol - Programming/WebDev/IT Support
[email protected]

---

› See More: Bloomberg Businessweek Article on "Data Hogs"

In article <[email protected]>, Justin says...


> Web hosting isn't quite the same as ISP service. The more bandwidth you consume
> on a web host odds are the more resources you are using on the host and in
> the data center. Log files, cpu usage, memory usage, etc.

That's true of ISP service also, but it is irrelevant. What *is*
relevant, to this particular discussion, is what the service providers
contract and/or Terms of Service say you can do. Following the rules
doesn't make you a hog. It doesn't mean you're doing something you
shouldn't; for $DEITY'S sake, you are *following the rules.*




--
Steve Sobol - Programming/WebDev/IT Support
[email protected]

On 4/13/2011 2:13 PM, Steve Sobol wrote:
> In article<[email protected]>, News
> says...
>
>
>>> Nice try, idiot troll. Once I'm done with the room, I'm not paying for
>>> it anymore, am I?
>>
>> You had better have left if you pull that stunt, @sshole.
>
> Umm... Duh? If I've checked out, that means I left, correct?
>
> If by "leave" you didn't mean "check out", WTF did you mean?

Keep struggling. Even you might get it.

In article <[email protected]>, Steve Sobol
<[email protected]> wrote:

> > > Nice try, idiot troll. Once I'm done with the room, I'm not paying for
> > > it anymore, am I?
> >
> > You had better have left if you pull that stunt, @sshole.
>
> Umm... Duh? If I've checked out, that means I left, correct?
>
> If by "leave" you didn't mean "check out", WTF did you mean?
>
> If I'm *temporarily* leaving (i.e. not checking out), I turn lights out.
> I only leave water running in the sink/shower/etc. when I'm actually
> using it.

why? you're entitled to unlimited water and electricity.

> Regardless, your analogy fails because I've not seen a hotel contract
> that specifies anything about the use of utilities in the room. Check it
> out next time -- usually, the terms of your stay are posted on a
> document attached to the inside of the door of your room.

most hotels in which i've stayed have a card on the door (or somewhere
obvious in the room) that says please turn off the lights when not in
the room to conserve.

often, after housekeeping has been in the room, i've noticed the heat
or air conditioning has been turned off (or down), also to save power.

In article <130420111605291970%[email protected]>, nospam says...


> > Regardless, your analogy fails because I've not seen a hotel contract
> > that specifies anything about the use of utilities in the room. Check it
> > out next time -- usually, the terms of your stay are posted on a
> > document attached to the inside of the door of your room.
>
> most hotels in which i've stayed have a card on the door (or somewhere
> obvious in the room) that says please turn off the lights when not in
> the room to conserve.


Which is not the same thing as saying "this is a rule that you must
follow" - the terms and conditions that apply to your hotel stay are
terms and conditions that you *must* follow or risk getting kicked out
of the room.


--
Steve Sobol - Programming/WebDev/IT Support
[email protected]

In article <[email protected]>, News
says...


> Keep struggling. Even you might get it.

How unsurprising. You completely ignored the rest of my post, which
explains why your analogy doesn't work. Idiot troll.



--
Steve Sobol - Programming/WebDev/IT Support
[email protected]

On 4/13/2011 11:18 PM, Steve Sobol wrote:
> In article<130420111605291970%[email protected]>, nospam says...
>
>
>>> Regardless, your analogy fails because I've not seen a hotel contract
>>> that specifies anything about the use of utilities in the room. Check it
>>> out next time -- usually, the terms of your stay are posted on a
>>> document attached to the inside of the door of your room.
>>
>> most hotels in which i've stayed have a card on the door (or somewhere
>> obvious in the room) that says please turn off the lights when not in
>> the room to conserve.
>
>
> Which is not the same thing as saying "this is a rule that you must
> follow" - the terms and conditions that apply to your hotel stay are
> terms and conditions that you *must* follow or risk getting kicked out
> of the room.


Behave like that and see if you're welcome back, wasteful moron.

On 4/13/2011 9:19 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:

> That's the real problem with mobile data. At three o'clock in the
> morning when I'm barreling down some deserted stretch of highway, my
> carrier couldn't care less if I stream Pandora or Netflix the whole way.
> It's during business hours when the same behavior might interfere with
> the corporate users paying top dollar that I might be a liability. With
> packet data, we all still get to connect, but excessive use slows
> everyone's throughput.

Yet they've never been interested in following the peak/off-peak pricing
model that they use for voice.

AT&T's approach of providing more and more hotspots, while offering
tiers of data service, is likely to be copied by all the other carriers
(at least the tiered data service). When you access to wi-fi at
Airports, Bakeries, Barber Shops, Bars, Campgrounds, Car Repair Shops,
Car Dealers, Car Washes, Coffee Houses, Colleges, Copy Centers, Donut
Shops, Freeway Rest Areas, Government Buildings, Hospitals, Medical
Centers, Hotels, Laundromats, Libraries, Parks, Restaurants, Shopping
Malls, Friend’s Homes, etc., and use mobile data only when there's no
other source available, your mobile data needs are greatly reduced.

SMS wrote on [Thu, 14 Apr 2011 07:37:39 -0700]:
> On 4/13/2011 9:19 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:
>
>> That's the real problem with mobile data. At three o'clock in the
>> morning when I'm barreling down some deserted stretch of highway, my
>> carrier couldn't care less if I stream Pandora or Netflix the whole way.
>> It's during business hours when the same behavior might interfere with
>> the corporate users paying top dollar that I might be a liability. With
>> packet data, we all still get to connect, but excessive use slows
>> everyone's throughput.
>
> Yet they've never been interested in following the peak/off-peak pricing
> model that they use for voice.
>
> AT&T's approach of providing more and more hotspots, while offering
> tiers of data service, is likely to be copied by all the other carriers
> (at least the tiered data service). When you access to wi-fi at
> Airports, Bakeries, Barber Shops, Bars, Campgrounds, Car Repair Shops,
> Car Dealers, Car Washes, Coffee Houses, Colleges, Copy Centers, Donut
> Shops, Freeway Rest Areas, Government Buildings, Hospitals, Medical
> Centers, Hotels, Laundromats, Libraries, Parks, Restaurants, Shopping
> Malls, Friend’s Homes, etc., and use mobile data only when there's no
> other source available, your mobile data needs are greatly reduced.

Yet streaming pandora while driving down the road is not covered
by any of your fictional ubiquitous wifi

BTW, I would not allow friends on my wifi, I come close to the cap
every month as it is.

On 4/14/2011 8:52 AM, Todd Allcock wrote:

<snip>

> And connecting to those hotspots is enough of a PITA that the tiers
> should be "lucrative" enough to the customer to make it worth the
> effort.

That might be true the first time you connect. After that the phone
remembers the pass code, if any, and it's less of a hassle.

AT&T's tier model is insulting. $10 (40%) less for 90% less data
> with the hanging sword of punitive overage charges is not a solution to
> get customers to use less data.

Sure it is, at least for AT&T. If you believe AT&T, 65% of smart phone
owners use less that 200MB of data per month and 98% use less than 2GB
per month (of course they don't say how many of those 65% are on the
$25/2GB plan or the old $30/unlimited plan). No one on the unlimited
plan is going to switch to the 2GB plan to save $5 even if they're using
between 200MB and 2GB a month.

I don't know how much AT&T's aggressive wi-fi hot spot program has
contributed to this data usage model.

Give 50 or 100MB for free with a
> qualifying voice plan and maybe you'll see people logging into WiFi at
> Laundromats!

I liked Sprint's old "Fair and Flexible" approach. If you went over your
allotted minutes, you automatically purchased a block of extra minutes
for a non-extortionate price.

The carriers and consumers are, of course, approaching the whole data
issue with totally different goals in mind. The carriers want to get
people on large or unlimited data plans, then have them use as little
data as possible. The consumers either want unlimited data to be truly
unlimited and high speed, or limited and priced fairly.

It's akin to the oil companies' law of supply and demand--"we have all
the supply, so we can demand whatever the $%%^ we want." If T-Mobile is
acquired, the number of suppliers falls again. Verizon may try to buy
U.S. Cellular which is doing poorly. No one seems to want Sprint.

On 4/14/2011 8:41 AM, Todd Allcock wrote:

> Until carriers reward customers with incentives to conserve data,
> customers will use what they're allotted, and rightfully so. Obviously
> AT&T doesn't think 2GB is that much usage, since they only charge $10
> more for it ($25) than they charge for 200MB ($15). If conservation is
> so critical, why the tiny price difference? Charge $5 for 200MB and
> you'll start seeing conservation!

They're more likely to charge $50 for 2GB than $5 for 200MB.

On 4/14/2011 8:10 AM, Justin wrote:

> Yet streaming pandora while driving down the road is not covered
> by any of your fictional ubiquitous wifi

You're correct, at least about the Pandora part. Pandora has admitted
that their whole business model is dependent on unlimited or very low
cost data, and data tiers appear to already having an effect on their
revenue. Hulu is going to have the same problem.

I think that by now you're well aware that wi-fi is extremely
ubiquitous, but you just can't let it go and admit your mistake.

> BTW, I would not allow friends on my wifi, I come close to the cap
> every month as it is.

Yes, the caps that AT&T is placing on DSL are problematic for those that
are streaming a lot of high-resolution video. Which is of course the
whole idea. AT&T wants you on U-Verse, Comcast wants you on cable.
Neither want you streaming video from Hulu or Netflix in lieu of paying
them $40-$120 per month for TV service or purchasing pay-per-view movies.

On 4/14/2011 8:52 AM, Todd Allcock wrote:

> Give 50 or 100MB for free with a qualifying voice plan and maybe you'll see people logging into WiFi at Laundromats!

That's a great idea for a consumer that is willing to use Wi-Fi, when
available in order to save money (and have a faster connection in most
cases), but not a good idea for the carrier's revenue model. If only
some carrier could offer 1000 or so voice minutes, a couple of thousand
text/MMS messages, and 100MB of data for something like $30 a month. If
you needed a little more data some months then they could sell it to
you. But probably this will never happen, except that it already did.

When Pageplus first started doing this they were swamped with new
customers and Verizon banned (or made Pageplus ban) smart phones on
Pageplus.

Right around the time Verizon started offering their $15/150MB data plan
Pageplus lifted the ban on smart phones (the iPhone is banned), and
thankfully did not re-institute it once Verizon realized that the 150MB
plan was a very bad idea in terms of revenue. It's not like that a
Verizon user would switch to AT&T in order to get a $15 data
plan--they'll pay whatever Verizon charges.

At a store that sells Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T, a salesperson did say
that the $15 AT&T plan was generating new smart phone sales from those
that did not need a lot of data, that would not pay $25-30 per month for
more data, but that were okay with $15 per month. That's probably why
Verizon tried something similar.

SMS wrote on [Thu, 14 Apr 2011 09:20:22 -0700]:
> On 4/14/2011 8:52 AM, Todd Allcock wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> And connecting to those hotspots is enough of a PITA that the tiers
>> should be "lucrative" enough to the customer to make it worth the
>> effort.
>
> That might be true the first time you connect. After that the phone
> remembers the pass code, if any, and it's less of a hassle.

Sure... except then you have the case of ATTWIFI, you can connect
at starbucks and use it right away no problems, for free. Other places
you need to sign in and then login through a web browser to your AT&T
account.

At our local Meineke you need to join the network, then load their
webpage and enter a passkey on that.

My device can remember both of these networks just fine, and if I
go to starbucks I can be using the network in seconds, or if I go to
one of the places that require web page login like somewhere near campus
then I need to load a web page, enter my details and then it will work
for a while...

SMS wrote on [Thu, 14 Apr 2011 09:29:43 -0700]:
> On 4/14/2011 8:10 AM, Justin wrote:
>
>> Yet streaming pandora while driving down the road is not covered
>> by any of your fictional ubiquitous wifi
>
> You're correct, at least about the Pandora part. Pandora has admitted
> that their whole business model is dependent on unlimited or very low
> cost data, and data tiers appear to already having an effect on their
> revenue. Hulu is going to have the same problem.
>
> I think that by now you're well aware that wi-fi is extremely
> ubiquitous, but you just can't let it go and admit your mistake.

No, it's not. I've repeatedly debunked your myth with facts
And I am in the office right now and can't pick up a single wifi
signal. So how ubiquitous is it?


Most places I spend time aside from starbucks for 5 minutes every so often
and my house have zero free wifi