

Gruber on AT&T's Change in Data Plans - ihodes
http://daringfireball.net/2010/06/good_and_bad_regarding_att_data_plans

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dcurtis
If 95% of people use less than 2GB per month, why did they need to change the
plans? Surely the people using gigantic amounts of data are breaking the terms
of service and can be dealt with.

"Unlimited data" isn't about data, or price, or value. It's about not having
to worry -- or to even think about -- how much you use your phone. If I'm on a
2GB plan, even though I use less than 2GB per month on average, I'll start
thinking about rationing my usage _every single time I use my phone_. That
fundamentally changes the experience of having the internet in my pocket.

I am amazed that Apple allowed AT&T to make these changes. They go against the
stuff Apple stands for -- the culture Steve was talking about at D8 yesterday.

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tzs
That's why in every MMORPG I've played, I've ended up with an inventory full
of potions I never use. Every time I might want to consume one, I worry that
it might not be the best time to use it.

My phone does have limited minutes and that doesn't bother me, but that's
because the limit is three orders of magnitude over my average use, and two
orders of magnitude over the most I have ever used. I'm only at risk of
hitting the limit if I undergo some major life changing event, which I'd
probably notice.

~~~
philwelch
That's exactly the intuition that led Cingular (now AT&T) to give rollover
minutes. I doubt they will offer me any "rollover gigabytes" for my data plan,
however.

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mnemonicsloth
_If you use more than 2 GB per month, you deserve to pay more than the rest of
us who do not. Why is this hard to understand?_

Question for Mr. Gruber: do you think pay-per-byte cable/DSL internet would be
a good idea also? If not, why not? If yes, how do you explain the market's
overwhelming preference for flat-fee over pay-go?

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spicyj
Why wouldn't it be? All of the other utilities are sold at metered rates or
tiered pricing.

~~~
jmm
Unless you count trash pick up as a utility. Would that it were tiered/pay per
lb... would encourage less waste.

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chaosmachine
There's a per-bag fee (you have to buy tags to put on them) in many places.

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bbb
_The bandwidth overage fee for DataPro is a reasonable $10 for each extra
gigabyte. Verizon and Sprint charge around $50 per extra gigabyte in overage
fees. If you use more than 2 GB per month, you deserve to pay more than the
rest of us who do not. Why is this hard to understand?_

It's perfectly reasonable for heavy users to pay more than light users. But
the same holds true for water, sewage, electricity, etc.

So why do we have such a complicated mess of data plan options? Why is 3G
bandwidth not just a simple metered service where everybody pays the same
rate?

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spicyj
People like to know how much they're paying every month and not have to worry
about every kilobyte transferred, one of the reasons that many people prefer
postpaid plans that include a certain number of minutes per month rather than
prepaid ones where you have to keep track of how much you're using. It's
stressful!

~~~
pyre
How are pre-paid plans any different than making sure that your car has enough
fuel in the tank? People don't by gasoline on post-paid plans. The real issue
here is that there is no standard/easy way of knowing how many minutes you
have left (i.e. fuel gauge). People have a good handle on how long a minute
is, and they could easily read a countdown ticker on their phone. People go
for unlimited because, "if $10 for 250 minutes is a good deal, then $30 for
infinity minutes is a better deal!" You also have to add in the laziness
factor (i.e. If I have unlimited minutes, then I don't have to worry about
buying more minutes if I ever need to use more minutes in a given month).

Data is different because many people have no idea what a kilobyte or a
megabyte is, let alone how much bandwidth each site they visit uses, and
that's not counting all of the background communication from Apps or Ajax
requests from web pages.

People _know_ how to cut back on water usage. People _know_ how to cut back on
electricity usage. People _know_ how to cut back on phone usage. A lot of
people haven't the faintest clue on how to cut back on data usage other than
maybe, "use the web less," but they don't know which things use bandwidth and
which don't, or which things use more bandwidth than others.

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ryanjmo
_If you use more than 2 GB per month, you deserve to pay more than the rest of
us who do not. Why is this hard to understand?_

So my real concern about these type of data plans is not that they are not
fair, but that they will stifle inovation and the way people use their phones.
If we are not pushing the phone networks to expand the amount of data that
they can push out to phones and we are not encouraging every phone user to use
as much data as possible inovation in how people use their phones will slow.

It is concerning to me that AT&T is now offering people a financial incentive
to not look for new and interesting ways to use their phone...

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pyre
While limiting bandwidth could restrict innovation, encouraging people to use
'as much data as possible' is _not_ a driver of innovation. Using more
bandwidth is a subset of people finding, 'new and interesting ways to use
their phone.'

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jsz0
These changes save me $120 over 2 years so I can't complain too much about
losing bandwidth I wasn't using anyway. AT&T could have probably made these
changes without cutting prices by simply adjusting the definition of
unlimited. For tethering if you figure $25 (base) + $20 (tethering) + $60
(overages, to match Verizon's 5GB cap) you're paying $105/month without the
option to wifi tether. Looks like AT&T doesn't mind high usage customers going
to another carrier.

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ajg1977
Now it's only $15 for data, plus the existing $10 for an extra line, I can
imagine there's going to be a lot of kids on family plans who will now be
allowed to get iPhones.

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kylec
> $15/month for the 200 MB/month “DataPlus” plan is a great starting price,
> and AT&T claims that 65 percent of their smartphone users use less than
> that. I thoroughly doubt that 65 percent of their iPhone users use less than
> that.

Actually, I don't doubt it, I'm one of them. Though it has more to do with the
fact that coverage in my area is EDGE-only and that, except when I'm driving,
I'm pretty much in a WiFi hotspot all the time.

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megablast
I don't have wifi, rarely use it when out. I thought I was a heavy user of the
3g, but rarely go over 150mb a month. I am 3 weeks through this months
allotment, and I have only used 50mb so far.

Of course, this does not take away form the fact that they changed the deal 1
month after the iPads release in the US.

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booticon
While they're at it they need to break down voice plans a little further, too.
I believe it was Dan Hesse that said he noticed people were using the phone
part of their smartphone less. I don't see why I need to pay $40 for 400
minutes, most of which I don't use. I'd easily deal with half that. I just
checked my account and I currently have ~4,000 rollover minutes.

