
AT&T Eliminating $10 Text Messaging Plan for New Customers - hamedh
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/18/att-eliminating-10-text-messaging-plan-for-new-customers/
======
pacemkr
The ridiculous state of wireless data (tethering, sms) has finally driven me
to get rid of my smartphone. Well done AT&T/Verizon.

I am:

* Porting my number to Google Voice.

* Getting a voip "landline."

* Getting a new number with the cheapest possible wireless plan + dumbphone. Sprint still not evil?

* Routing my calls using Google Voice to the landline/dumbphone, depending on where I am.

Frankly, I'm sick of paying $120/mo and getting fucked around every corner. I
dont NEED this you know; the non-phone part of this phone is a convenience,
not a necessity.

I'll let the market/regulators figure this out. In the meantime, I'll be fine
not checking my email every five minutes and staring at yet another screen
when I'm not in the house/office.

If anybody has recommendations re: my plan of action, I'm all ears.

~~~
bokonist
$120 a month???

I pay $25 a month from Virgin Mobile for unlimited text, unlimited data, and
300 minutes of call time, with a pretty good android smartphone. (It would be
$32 a month if you amortize the price of the smart phone, which I had to buy
up front). I use easytether to hook up my laptop, no problem.

~~~
pacemkr
300 minutes wouldn't be enough for me, but:

    
    
      $60 for 900 min
      $30 for unl. data (lucky me)
      $10 for 500 texts
      $17 in taxes (NYC)
    

Verizon. Pretty much the same plan was slightly more expensive on AT&T.

Tether might still work, for now:
[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/08/verizon-
blocking...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/08/verizon-blocking-
tethering-customers-may-violate-fcc-rules.ars)

~~~
georgemcbay
300 minutes is the voice call limit. The data portion is "unlimited", so if
you have Google Voice or are willing to move over to it, you can skip over a
lot of would-be voice minutes by using GrooveIP (or some other SIP gateway
solution) and serve most of your talky needs via voip without burning talk
minutes.

Granted for most people it is probably easier just to bump up to one of the
higher level Virgin plans which are also pretty cheap relative to industry
averages.

------
martingordon
Like I mentioned on Twitter, if you don't like the new plans, you can always
switch to T-Mobile. Oh, wait...

~~~
runjake
I am literally doing so during lunch today. I've been debating this for the
past month and made my final decision last night.

Luckily, I'm out of contract on AT&T, so I don't have an ETF to pay. My only
issue is deciding which phone to go for.

I'm trying to decide between the Defy, $299 off-contract and durable,
Sensation, and G2x.

I'll probably through Cyanogenmod on whatever I buy ASAP, can anyone comment
on the above phones? I'm particularly wondering if a Cyanogenmodded Defy will
meet my responsiveness/battery life needs. I don't play games, I just hate
laggy UIs, which unfortunately seem to plague Android.

------
huntero
I wonder if the impending release of iMessage has something to do with this.
With so much iPhone to iPhone messaging no longer counting towards text
messaging, a lot of users would probably drop from the unlimited plan to the
$10 plan - if it was still available.

~~~
nirvana
... which would seem to provide a $240/year incentive to just use iMessage, or
twitter, or any IM system.

It seems that the right strategy for AT&T to pursue would be to follow the
natural decline in the cost of these services by offering a better plan-- say
$5 for 2,000 messages a month. As they lower the cost of an individual SMS,
the usage should go up dramatically, and since SMS has network effects, this
might slow the shift away from SMS as the messaging service of choice.

~~~
ben1040
_... which would seem to provide a $240/year incentive to just use iMessage,
or twitter, or any IM system._

Assuming your conversation partners can keep tabs on what system to use. Your
Android pals can't iMessage you, and using Google Talk or another IM service
on an iPhone has always felt a little kludgy.

Sounds to me it's designed to drive you to one of two choices: either pay
$20/month for a service you don't need, or cut it out altogether and pay 20c
every time you get an SMS from someone who can't use iMessage/Twitter/Facebook
messaging.

At 20c/message it doesn't take long before you end up paying as much or more
than you would've been paying under an SMS plan.

~~~
erikcw
When iOS 5 is released, I plan on keeping my current SMS plan for a month to
measure how many text I send to non-iPhone users. I'll then downgrade my plan
accordingly. My guess is that I'll end up cutting my plan entirely and just
paying per text. The vase majority of the people I text with frequently are
iPhone users.

It would be a great move by Apple to open the iMessage protocol so Android and
other smart phone OS' could participate in the exchange. Unfortunately, my
guess is that this won't happen as "free texts" represent a great benefit for
switching to an iPhone and opening that network to other vendors would
undercut their advantage.

Predication: ATT/Verizon drastically increases the cost of bandwidth on iPhone
plans to make up for the cut. We'll see...

------
kragen
Here in Argentina, I pay about US$10 for about 180 text messages per month. I
say "about" because I'm on a prepaid plan; additional messages are about
US$0.04 each.

Until recently, I could pay about US$4 plus the US$0.04, but they switched the
SMS credit to expire after a month instead of after six months, so I have to
buy a new SMS card every month.

(This also includes a limited amount of voice calling.)

It seems to me that a competitive market in a country like the US, where very
few people have text-only plans, ought to make this service considerably
cheaper than in Argentina. The marginal cost of delivering a text message is
something like a thousand times lower.

~~~
joelhaus
> _in a competitive market in a country like the US_

With At&t and Verizon controlling 80% of the U.S. mobile market, I'm not so
sure it's competitive. Is there only a single provider in Argentina or is it
structured differently?

Buenos Aires is definitely one of the most affordable cities I've been to (c.
2003), but I do recall being astonished at the prices for electronics.

~~~
kragen
Buenos Aires has four major providers: Claro, Personal, Movistar, and Nextel.

I think the economics here might be a little different (aside from possible
collusion between the operators) because such a large fraction of the
population uses only SMS. If the providers have to put up new cell towers to
provide SMS to an area, the economics are a little different.

Argentina in 2003 had just collapsed. Things cost three times as much here
now, or more. On the plus side, that means the taxi drivers can afford
electronics and other imports.

~~~
hollerith
>a large fraction of the population uses only SMS

Interesting. These people who use only SMS, do they never use their phones to
make voice calls -- or do you mean only SMS and voice?

~~~
kragen
They never (or almost never) use their phones to make voice calls. I hardly
make voice calls myself.

------
MattLaroche
This seems shortsighted to me. I'm already seeing non-tech friends using
messaging apps that don't go over SMS - with the mass adoption of smart
phones, this hopefully is the nail in the coffin for SMS.

~~~
madh
Devil's advocate: Perhaps promoting unlimited SMS can mitigate the move to
iMessage and equivalents?

SMS at current prices is going to go. It can't compete with internet-based
solutions like iMessage and BBM, especially in regions with many small
countries like Europe or Asia where international fees can be quite
restrictive. (This is why Skype became so popular in Europe.)

~~~
runjake
_Perhaps promoting unlimited SMS can mitigate the move to iMessage and
equivalents?_

iMessage still uses SMS whenever you send a message to somebody with a non-iOS
5 device. I don't know about you, but I communicate with tons of people who
don't have iPhones or even data plans.

This move is ridiculous gouging whatever way you look at it.

~~~
jonknee
If Google and Apple weren't in a cold war perhaps they could work together and
make an interoperable standard. Get RIM in on the mix and you have the big
three bypassing SMS.

~~~
runjake
They could call it "XMPP"!

------
pkamb
From the title I thought it would be a goodwill gesture. "Text messages are so
ubiquitous now, they should be a standard part of every phone plan."

Nope. Now the only option is $20 for unlimited texting.

------
dwiel
I have a virign mobile plan here in the US: $25/month

    
    
      no contract
      300 minutes
      unlimited texts
      5GB/month of data(it gets slower but not stopped or overcharge after that)
    

I use my phone mostly to coordinate hanging out, any long conversations happen
at home where I have wifi and calls can be routed through gchat or skype on a
laptop.

I'm not sure why its not more popular. Oh and I can tether.

NOTE: just checked and it looks like the plan is advertised as $35/mo now

~~~
pacemkr
Coverage seems to be the biggest problem/non-problem with Virgin. I had to
dump AT&T after two iPhones, because the service turned to shit. I am on
Verizon right now and coverage has been great. Prices, not so much (still less
than AT&T!) Do you know which underlying network Virgin use? Surely they don't
put up their own towers.

~~~
bokonist
They use Sprint's network, the coverage has been pretty good for me, I haven't
been anywhere where I expected service and haven't got it.

------
bugsy
Texting pricing is such a gigantic and well known scam that it's hard to have
sympathy for its victims at this point in time. It's like a guy who keeps
buying lemons from the same dishonest car salesmen and then asking why the guy
is still in business. Um, he stays in business and gets away with this stuff
because these people keep giving them money, that's how.

------
RexRollman
It really pisses me off that I can't opt out of receiving text messages. AT&T
charges me for text messages I didn't want from people I don't even know. The
system should be changed so that only the people sending text messages pay.

~~~
saurik
It is my belief that this is even already how it works in Europe: people
sending messages are charged, but receiving is free.

------
gigawatt
Does iMessage automatically determine if the receiver is on an iOS device and
then send your SMS without using your phone plan? Or do you have to know
beforehand and then use a different app/route for your message?

~~~
jonknee
Automatically. It also lets you know what method is used so you can monitor
your SMS usage somewhat.

------
whichdan
That's disappointing since $10/1000 messages is a good price point IMO. The
"cheapest" iPhone plan right now is $40/mo base, $10 for messages, and $15 for
a pathetic 200mb of data. Going from $65/mo to $75/mo for essentially no
benefit is really underwhelming.. maybe if they atleast bumped it up to 500mb
of data, it wouldn't be so bad.

~~~
goatforce5
Or, it seems, 20c per message if you chose to pay for what you use.

20c per message would be a better deal than $20/month for me.

~~~
TheAmazingIdiot
E, no it doesnt. It may "only" be 20c per message, but that is coming AND
going. If you expect a reply for each message sent, it takes 50 back and
forths to be equal with the unlimited plan.

At&t doesnt ask for you to just bend over, but also says "prepare for it
deep". And the government wont do a damned thing because they grease palms on
both sides of the aisle.

------
hdlnd
Easy enough to avoid, just use Google Voice and voila text messages are free,
and unlimited (assuming you have a smartphone).

------
smackfu
How much are messages when you don't have a plan? How many do you get for the
$20 the unlimited plan would cost you?

~~~
erikcw
$0.20 per SMS with my ATT/iPhone contract.

------
dsr_
How much will they charge you if you never want to receive or send a text
message at all?

On Verizon, this was a $10 one-time charge.

