Why isn't there more fuss over wireless data pricing? (1 Viewer)

[bearze34]

ATT is offering a service. Since so many people are willing to pay it, there is a market for that service, and since ATT is not a monoploly, the FCC has not right to interfere in services or service pricing.

I'm an ATT customer as well, and if you or I don't like their bundled pricing, we are free to seek competing services from Verison or Sprint.

send a message with your wallet my friend.

That is really the bottom line. You always hear about peoples' money problems yet there is no problem finding millions of people willing to pay $150 and up for smart phones and another $50 and up for broadband. Also, let's not forget the $100+ for cable/ satellite.

 

[BHM]

When you have people camping out on the sidewalk so they can get their hands on the new i-whatever and pay any price to get it, they will continue charging as much as they can.

My phone is through my company and we have always had unlimited through AT&T. It take a lot of expensive infrastructure to proved the bandwidth to meet demands. We had a problem in Lafayette for a while in the oil center area. Dropped calls and congestion. A new tower was put in. Can't be cheap to do that.

 

[nhuloan]

if you dont care about minutes - tmobile offers a prepaid plan for $30/month

100 minutes talk time / unlimited text / unlimited data (throttles to 2g after 5GB)

Monthly 4G Prepaid Plans | Compare Prepaid Data Plans | T-Mobile

 

[redlandssaintsson]

I pay for the 2GB AT&T service for my iPhone and I'm on it pretty regularly and have never gone over and only gotten within 30% of 2GB. So I don't really see, for those more casual users like me, how it's really any different. The real bother comes for those that use their phones and iPads and what not as hotspots. There should be a hotspot usage unlimited fee. So those that are bogging the system down are paying for it. But I agree it's all way too high.

 

[LSSpam]

I pay for the 2GB AT&T service for my iPhone and I'm on it pretty regularly and have never gone over and only gotten within 30% of 2GB. So I don't really see, for those more casual users like me, how it's really any different. The real bother comes for those that use their phones and iPads and what not as hotspots. There should be a hotspot usage unlimited fee. So those that are bogging the system down are paying for it. But I agree it's all way too high.

This. I was grandfathered in on the unlimited, but when I put my fiancé on a family plan she got the 3gb (I think it's 3) data plan. She's not even sniffing it and I know she uses it more than me.

Starting to believe I haven't been getting one over on ATT but the other way around. Think ill be dropping down to the limited data plan soon

 

[Big_L]

I have the ATT unlimited as well. I have never really checked how much I use.

 

[jumpingoff]

Even worse, why are those same carriers refusing to upgrade their infrastructure to give fiber access to all? We pay more here for worse speeds than almost every developed nation and some lesser developed nations.

Regardless of what anyone is paying, this is the biggest issue right now. It's why Obama launched his "Broadband Initiative" or whatever he called it. We should be waaaay beyond where we are now bandwidth-wise in terms of speed, availability, price, etc. It has really ground to a halt. The real game changer (if it continues) is what Google is doing.

Go read this thread http://saintsreport.com/forums/f6/google-fiber-speedtest-kansas-city-test-market-287027/

 

[mrbeebe228]

The future is prepaid. MVNOs such as Straight Talk and Net-10 resell at&t's GSM service via the "bring your own smartphone plan". Unl talk, text and 4G (HSPA+) for 45 bucks a month. With net-10, you can have two lines on this for 85 bucks a month. The second my contract runs up with at&t, I'm porting my phone number to ST. It goes to show you how cheap the service REALLY is if they can sell to these third parties, and they can resell so much cheaper and still make money.

The phones they sell, suck. They are cheap CDMA handsets, they have to be cheap for the average user to buy unsubsidized by contract, but the sim card program works great, just buy any at&t phone and pop their sim in, no unlock required. no LTE coverage, but I get 700-800k all day on my HSPA+ here in MS (no LTE coverage here yet).

Can't wait.. I'm going to pay the $495 for the one year service, and not pay a bill for a whole year! Right now I'm paying that every 3 months!

 

[where yat brah]

That is really the bottom line. You always hear about peoples' money problems yet there is no problem finding millions of people willing to pay $150 and up for smart phones and another $50 and up for broadband. Also, let's not forget the $100+ for cable/ satellite.

These are usually the same people complaining @ having to spend $150/ month for health insurance and a $40 co-pay.

 

[Bayouboy]

True dat. I was thinking about that the other day while paying bills.....I give more to AT&T than Entergy. You can't live without power in today's world.....and apparently cell, TV, and internet are right up there with turning on the lights!

 

[buzd]

The phones they sell, suck. They are cheap CDMA handsets, they have to be cheap for the average user to buy unsubsidized by contract, but the sim card program works great, just buy any at&t phone and pop their sim in, no unlock required. no LTE coverage, but I get 700-800k all day on my HSPA+ here in MS (no LTE coverage here yet).

ATT is GSM, so something is wrong there.

 

[Craigj]

The future is prepaid. MVNOs such as Straight Talk and Net-10 resell at&t's GSM service via the "bring your own smartphone plan". Unl talk, text and 4G (HSPA+) for 45 bucks a month. With net-10, you can have two lines on this for 85 bucks a month. The second my contract runs up with at&t, I'm porting my phone number to ST. It goes to show you how cheap the service REALLY is if they can sell to these third parties, and they can resell so much cheaper and still make money.

The phones they sell, suck. They are cheap CDMA handsets, they have to be cheap for the average user to buy unsubsidized by contract, but the sim card program works great, just buy any at&t phone and pop their sim in, no unlock required. no LTE coverage, but I get 700-800k all day on my HSPA+ here in MS (no LTE coverage here yet).

Can't wait.. I'm going to pay the $495 for the one year service, and not pay a bill for a whole year! Right now I'm paying that every 3 months!

I love straight talk. I bought a cheap used Android smartphone on Ebay and now I have unlimited everything with the same coverage as AT&T for only $45 a month with no contract. The only downside is if you must have the latest and greatest phone you will have to pay full price. But even if you bought a $600 Iphone it would pay for its self in a couple of months.

 

[porculator]

I quit my data plan and bought stock in Verizon. Your tears are my dividends!

 

[St.Fury]

Internet service is closing in on utility territory. Just like electricity and water.

The sooner it's treated that way, the happier I'll be.

Cell companies are cheating themselves. We finally have the speed/bandwidth on cellular where a hotspot can replace your home internet and the dummies throttle it.

That's what I've been doing for the past year. I can't stand Comcast, and AT&Ts cellular service is terrible in Houma. I switched to Verizon 2 years ago. When I moved into my appt, instead of going with Comcast (New complex, soU-verse wasn't even available) I decided to just up my Verizon plan. I share 10GB between my droid phone, iPad, and hotspot. If I need to print something, all I have to do is turn on my hotspot.

 

[Brock Meaux]

This. I was grandfathered in on the unlimited, but when I put my fiancé on a family plan she got the 3gb (I think it's 3) data plan. She's not even sniffing it and I know she uses it more than me.

Starting to believe I haven't been getting one over on ATT but the other way around. Think ill be dropping down to the limited data plan soon

I did this as well. I was grandfathered in on unlimited, but I dropped down to to the 3gb tiered plan so that I could use Facetime over the data network if I needed. I've never come close to getting to 3gb in a month, and that's downloading the occasional album and streaming a video here and there, along with regular internet browsing. The cost is the same, and they don't throttle my speed at all.