
AT&T Learns Exactly the Wrong Lesson About Data Usage - cschanck
http://designbygravity.wordpress.com/2010/06/08/att-learns-the-wrong-thing-about-data-usage/
======
delackner
The japanese market pricing provides a sensible alternative: Scaled pricing
with a reasonable limit.

You pay a minimum monthly price up to a certain cap, and any usage over that
cap scales your total bill linearly up to a maximum total bill, beyond which
your usage is effectively unlimited. The minimum is about $15 and the maximum
is about $50. Not exactly going to break the bank, and totally reasonable.

Metered usage is not evil, people just need reasonable assurances that their
bill has a safe ceiling.

~~~
bluedanieru
With Docomo the amount of data you need to consume to hit that max is quite
low, however. Less than 100MB. I assume it's the same for Softbank. The
pricing is geared toward customers that use the network for email and browsing
shitty iMode sites like Mixi on a tiny screen.

Docomo and Google have done very little to promote Android here, by the way.
In one year I've seen one device other than my own, and it was the same model
(the HTC Magic, one of the few models you can get).

Great network here for voice and especially data, but it mostly goes to waste.

~~~
delackner
Yikes, I looked up the specific values involved for softbank (as they are the
exclusive iPhone carrier) and the $10 usage is roughly 1.5 mb. The max-ed out
usage is.... 8.5mb.

The current values in the scale are clearly a bit antiquated, but the concept
seems like a good one.

------
URSpider94
Hey entrepreneurs: pretend for a moment that AT&T is YOUR company. You have a
hit on your hands (the iPhone), but one that has crippled your network in
major metro areas like San Francisco and New York. Investing in new cell
towers means not just millions in capital expenses, but also years spent
arguing with NIMBY neighborhood associations who don't want to see any more of
your ugly towers. And, you have a way to reduce the monthly fee for 98% of
your users, prompting MORE people to sign up for revenue-generating data
plans, while dis-incentivizing the 2% who use the most data. What would you
do?

As to those who are wondering why they have to pay extra for tethering, are
you really surprised that a company would charge more for a service that you
value, which will result in heavier usage of their resources? How many Hacker
News readers run web companies with "freemium" business models? How do you
sleep at night charging your customers for only twice the number of
accounts/downloads/records that you give away for free to others?

~~~
orangecat
_As to those who are wondering why they have to pay extra for tethering, are
you really surprised that a company would charge more for a service that you
value, which will result in heavier usage of their resources?_

If it results in heavier use, they should just charge for the use directly,
not micromanage how I use the service. In the freemium scenario, it would be
like charging extra to be able to access the website from more than one
computer. Both are stupid because both require nothing to "support"; they
inherently work as part of the existing infrastructure. On the other hand it
does take resources to try to block that functionality, because you have to
actively look for "cheaters".

~~~
URSpider94
"If it results in heavier use, they should just charge for the use directly,
not micromanage how I use the service."

When you sign up for a 2GB per month plan with AT&T, they are counting on the
fact that you won't actually use that 2GB, because for most users, it's just
too hard to suck down that much data through your smartphone (especially if,
like me, you're roaming onto a WiFi network at home and the office). When you
use tethering, you're pretty much guaranteed to use more of that 2GB.

When you go to an "all-you-can-eat" restaurant, you do know that they don't
actually expect you to eat until you get sick, right? If every customer did
that, they'd probably have to raise their prices.

~~~
jonny_noog
_When you sign up for a 2GB per month plan with AT &T, they are counting on
the fact that you won't actually use that 2GB_

Maybe people just don't like being lied to?

------
ryanwaggoner
_I am a data pig. I average between 1.5 and 2 gigabytes a month over the last
6 months. AT &T hates me, apparently, though they are happy to take my money._

I'm not sure how that helps the point the author is trying to make, as he/she
will actually be paying _less_ now than they were before, even as a self-
proclaimed "data hog".

A few more random points that I thought were misguided:

1\. Not everyone should be attached to their phone like many of us are.
Perhaps Apple and AT&T have done some market research and concluded that some
people just aren't going to pay more than $15 / month for data, because they
just wouldn't use it much. Better to offer those people a path to becoming
customers than mindlessly trying to turn them into consumers of a service they
don't want or need (expensive unlimited bandwidth).

2\. It will apparently be possible to _retroactively_ upgrade from the 250 MB
plan to the 2 GB plan if you're going to be over, so the fears of forgetting
that you left Pandora running and paying hundreds seem to be a bit unfounded.

3\. The part where the author rants about how the entire wireless
infrastructure should be overhauled so he/she can avoid paying for metered
bandwidth really goes off the deep end. Like this gem:

 _And yes I know the wireless protocols are not super-amenable to this sort of
thing, the way a wired router or switch might be, but that is again just your
poor engineering. Fix it already._

What?

~~~
tensafefrogs
I think you are missing the key point: Apple wants people to use their fancy
devices _more_ , not less.

You spend this money on this awesome device that does awesome things, Apple
makes money when you use it (via iAds, via google searches, via many things)
and AT&T is saying to their customers "don't use your device too much!"

I'm betting Steve is totally pissed off at AT&T right now.

~~~
sounddust
So we should force iPhone users to pay for unlimited bandwidth so that we can
try to force them to "do more awesome things" with their phone?

What this argument is not taking into consideration is that some people _don't
use their device as much as others, and they do so by choice_. Plenty of
people will take a $10 discount to cut their phone usage a bit, and be happy
that someone offered them the choice. Personally, I'm a data-crazed maniac who
uses my iPhone constantly (and uses around 900MB/month) but that doesn't mean
everyone is (or wants to be).

I'd also argue that there are only a few applications that consume large
amounts of bandwidth, such as streaming/downloading audio and video. You can
still take full advantage of your phone (with the exception of those two
things) and not use much bandwidth.

~~~
elblanco
Offered tiered pricing. $5/mo for 100MB, $10/mo for 250MB, $20/mo for 1GB,
$30/mo for unlimited.

~~~
sounddust
That's what they're doing, although not with the exact tiers you mentioned.

As for the $30/mo unlimited, I believe part of the reason why AT&T removed the
unlimited option in the first place is because a disproportional amount of
bandwidth is spent by people who jailbroke their iPhone and use 100+GB/month
using it as a 3G modem.

~~~
pacemkr
As if anyone can actually get a good enough signal to pull 100GB off the AT&T
network. You have to be masochistic to use a AT&T 3G exclusively.

Also, you don't need to jailbreak to tether. I forget the details, but
basically you go to a web address and install a new carrier profile and thats
it.

If AT&T want to be the big boys on the block they have to invest in their
network, end of story. The reason they got rid of the unlimited option is
because they want to make all the money and not do a thing to improve their
network.

------
makecheck
There is usage-based billing for _utilities_ , so it is theoretically possible
to do this fairly with other things. However, it requires the corresponding
regulations: for gas and electricity, you have meters; you also have labeling
requirements on the products you buy, so that you can tell what they're going
to be using.

Apps don't have meters, and they don't have any mandate to tell you that
they're hogs. Therefore, tiered bandwidth billing is unfair: it is simply not
possible for a customer to _know_ when they're buying something that will cost
them dearly in terms of bandwidth usage, nor is it feasible to isolate which
of 100 apps on their phone is responsible for their overage billing in a given
month.

~~~
lutorm
You do have a point, but really: when was the last time you went and looked at
your meter to make sure you weren't using too much? Or looked at how much
energy something used when deciding whether to buy it?

The problem is that power use is limited by physics. If your gas stove valve
was stuck open and was venting your gas line you'd know, because the house
would turn into an oven. Bandwidth use is not limited by any laws except the
capacity of the device, so the difference in usage can vary over a much larger
range than power use can.

------
potatolicious
I too dislike how AT&T foisted these prices on us - but I disagree with the
author here.

He seems to be advocating that there's something _wrong_ with not consuming
1.5-2GB a month. He's a heavy user - cool, but I see no reason for the
majority of the world to be just like him.

> _"Why are so many people using so little bandwidth? Or, put another way, you
> should be ashamed of yourself if you sell a device like the iPhone and then
> encourage people use it so lightly that they only consume a couple hundred
> megs of data a month."_

Honestly, I don't think anyone has been _encouraging_ people to use less
bandwidth. For most users a few hundred megs a month is plenty, and _there's
nothing wrong with that_. Unlike us geeks they're not constantly chained to
their gizmotrons, and do not live like cybernetic organisms. That's perfect
okay, and in fact I'm jealous of that lifestyle sometimes.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's very short-sighted to cap bandwidth - we may
very well be killing the next world-changing app in the crib. The world will
find use for all of this bandwidth if we let them, but at this point in time I
don't think one can look at the bandwidth usage numbers and proclaim that
people _aren't using their phones enough_.

At what point does the phone stop working for us, and instead we for them?

~~~
awa
I think he wants to say AT&T should get the users hooked to using lot of data,
so they as a subscription company can keep making money from users for a
longer time.

~~~
Legion
Exactly.

If you're AT&T, when households are looking at their bills for stuff to cut,
you don't want them looking at their data plan and saying, "well, I guess I
don't use it very much..."

You want the gym membership to get the axe.

~~~
sethg
But most AT&T customers are locked into long-term contracts, so they can’t
just up and decide “I’ll cut the data plan”.

My startup was recently bought by Nokia, and unsurprisingly, one of the fringe
benefits of working for Nokia is getting a free smartphone (GSM 3G) with an
unlimited data plan (T-Mobile, thank God). My wife and I looked into
cancelling our Verizon family plan and moving to just one line for her, but
the early-termination fee is so high that it’s cheaper for me to just keep the
Verizon phone. And since our Verizon plan has free in-network calls, it’s also
cheaper for me to _carry_ the Verizon phone, so that she can call me on it.

The flip side of this is that people who abandon their carrier because of
network issues will be more like a slow leak than a stampede, so AT&T
executives with an eye on quarterly profit results would rather do anything
_but_ invest heavily in building out their infrastructure.

~~~
Legion
That doesn't significantly change the issue.

Whether one can cut the bill immediately or in X months time, the point is
that the last thing AT&T should want is people saying, "why am I paying $X
when I hardly use it?"

They should want to have mobile data usage so ingrained in their customers'
lives that people wouldn't dream of cutting it when their contracts run up.

AT&T has sold a lot of data plans by making them required for iPhone
purchases, and plenty of people wanted the fancy new toy. What happens when
smartphones aren't the fancy new toy? How many AT&T iPhone customers, if they
had to drop their iPhone and get another phone, would still buy a data plan if
it was simply an option rather than a requirement?

------
thethimble
I disagree with the author's points. AT&T doesn't care how integrated a mobile
device is into their customers lives. All they care about is the money the
customers pay them. And the more customers they have, the more money they
make. However, instead of building a robust mobile infrastructure that can
support all users, they try to cram as many low-usage customers they can on
their outdated network.

Alienate one network "hog" and you'll find 49 others who will pay the same
amount of money for a fraction of the usage. And for all the users they lose,
they'll recoup millions in overcharging.

I love how customer satisfaction is one of AT&T's most important goals...

------
sireat
In Easter Europe you get the following from the official(read most expensive)
iPhone carrier: $5 for 200mb, $9 for 2gigs and $18 for 10GB, $40 for
unlimited.

These plans may be slightly cheaper than US plans, but that is nothing
special. What is nice, that if you DO go over your limit, you can continue
using the net downloading/uploading albeit at a ridiculously slow rate
16kb/8kb. If you want to go back to your usual speed you send a SMS and
upgrade for $1 per GB or go to the next plan.

What is better in this approach is that the customer is never charged over
what they agreed to pay in advance.

Sure beats paying $200 for a local phone bill in early 90s in USA for
connecting to local ISP...

------
navyrain
The author really hasn't considered it from AT&T's perspective. On one end,
they're hearing complaints about their terrible network, and on the other end,
they're facing large costs to improve their infrastructure to support people
with unlimited accounts. Aside from the comparatively small increase in
subscriptions they'll get for their improvements, they'll see no income for
their investment.

However, if AT&T were to force out the unlimited data pricing model and
replace it with per GB pricing, they'll be able to fund the scaling their
infrastructure up as the usage increases. Similar preferences for per-GB
models have been voiced by other telcos as well, claiming "unlimited data is
dead" (I don't know where I read this). Frankly, I'd be surprised if there
wasn't some collusion amongst the big telcos regarding this.

I'm not saying I'm happy about this, but I think the scenario I describe is
much closer to reality.

~~~
bradgessler
I'd really appreciate it if AT&T would just come out and say this, but they're
not. Unfortunately I fear they'll put this pricing into effect and still offer
the same shitty service.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I'd email ATT's CEO to suggest this, but I'd be afraid of getting a cease and
desist warning in response. ;)

------
samaparicio
This is precisely what the "inversion of the telco model" talks about. And ATT
ignored. Users want to pay for features, not access.

[http://www.telco2.net/blog/2008/09/the_inversion_of_the_tele...](http://www.telco2.net/blog/2008/09/the_inversion_of_the_telephony.html)

------
heresy
Pray that this mindset does not infect your ISPs and tempt them to introduce
traffic caps.

Having your users be paranoid that they're going to go over their cap and get
absolutely reamed for overage charges is not exactly how you build an
advanced, high-bandwidth content delivery system.

Even less are going to be "data pigs" that use a trivial 1.5GB after such a
change, high prices guarantee that.

Silly buggers.

~~~
neilc
_Pray that this mindset does not infect your ISPs and tempt them to introduce
traffic caps._

I don't think this would be such a bad thing -- just as you pay on a per-unit
basis for the water and energy you use, paying per unit of bandwidth consumed
seems entirely reasonable. In an unlimited plan, typical users effectively
subsidize a small minority of heavy users.

Of course, the real problem is the outrageous charges for when the bandwidth
cap is exceeded, as well as the lack of proper notification for when you run
over your limit.

~~~
loewenskind
Bad analogy. If you waste 50,000 gallons of water by leaving your water hose
on while you're on vacation, that's 50k gallons _that the community no longer
has_ [1]. The only way someone downloading e.g. 5gig of data in a month can
cause anyone else to _not_ be able to download is if the line is running at
100% capacity 24/7. The only possible impact the person could have is making
communications take a little longer during the times he's bursting. But this
is easily fixed by bandwidth caps and burst limits.

Do you have any evidence that lines are getting anywhere close to 100%
utilization perpetually?

[1] I'm simplifying of course, but this is the basic idea.

~~~
jsz0
On big access networks you have to stay far away from 100% capacity. 60-75% is
the minimum where you will start seeing the negative effects of channel
contention. On a cellular network sharing data & voice you also have a good
amount of bandwidth reserved for real time services (phone calls) to factor in
along with all the PHY/MAC overhead. There's probably some QoS overhead to
calculate in also. I'd say there's a very good chance AT&T is running into
channel capacity problems (further evidence being dropped calls/failed calls
when devices have good signal. That means they're requesting a real time
service and there are simply not bits left over to grant it. Try again in 5
seconds and it works because bandwidth has been allocated/reserved for voice
calls)

~~~
loewenskind
If they _ever_ drop calls from capacity problems then something has gone
horribly wrong (either tech wise or provisioning).

But my point was that bandwidth is (or should be) renewable. If you do a
download when everyone else is doing one your traffic should be getting shaped
down to the provisioned minimum until there is room for it. This will make the
traffic slower during those times, but there are going to be times where
nearly no traffic is on the line.

------
gte910h
I wonder if apple could use this to get out of the exclusive deal without
penalties?

~~~
snprbob86
I'd be almost certain that this was discussed when renewing their exclusivity
deal.

However, your phrasing implies that you think Apple is "stuck" and getting
shafted by AT&T. Really, it is quite the opposite. Apple surely looooves the
exclusivity deal because they can leverage it over AT&T to collect globs while
AT&T eats the cost over the life of the subscription. The exclusivity deal is
one of the key reasons that Apple is able to offer such fantastic hardware at
their current price point.

~~~
surlyadopter
Yeah, apple is making out like a bandit while AT&T ponies up the cash and
takes a reputation hit every 2 months.

------
Timothee
Some specific points of the new pricing are really outrageous honestly. The
fact that they do tiered-pricing is, while annoying, kind of their
prerogative. It actually sounds like it could save me a few bucks.

However, paying $20 (!) to have access to tethering without extra bandwidth,
is _complete_ non-sense. I just can't find a reasonable explanation for this.
As well as the price for extra data for DataPlus plan: $15 gives you 200MB,
whereas $10 gives you 1GB if you are on the DataPro from the start. I also
assume they won't have roll-over data: if you use less, you lose, if you use
more, you lose.

Finally, having data caps impedes on the benefit from getting multi-tasking.
Besides a faster switch between apps, the point is to have apps stay connected
while you're doing something else. (think Pandora) If you start thinking about
your data usage, you'll have to think about what's actually running. Exactly
what Apple didn't want you to do.

~~~
liedra
A friend of mine who works for Apple told me (a year or so ago) that the
reason for this is because ATT (and similar companies in other countries)
wants to discourage tethering due to the fact that they don't have the
infrastructure to accommodate lots of high bandwidth connections that you use
when you tether. They were gambling on the fact that you need to do a lot more
"work" at the moment still to browse/etc. on your phone. But this was before
multitasking -- I can only bet they were throwing their hands up in dismay
when multitasking came in :)

~~~
Timothee
I can understand this idea when it's an unlimited plan: if you tether, you're
likely to use a lot more bandwidth than with just your phone. So, if you
tether, you'll impact the infrastructure.

But since they're limiting your bandwidth already, I'm not so sure why it
matters if you use it from a laptop or from your phone.

In the end, I know why they're doing it: because they can, and because they
want to limit the number of people who do it. It just bothers me because it
doesn't make sense technically.

------
jonbishop
What kills me is that when the ATT spokesman mentions the subscriber
percentages in the NYT article (quote and link below), he says "smartphone"
and not "iphone".

They have a lot of smartphones ([http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-
service/cell-phones/p...](http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/cell-
phones/pda-phones-smartphones.jsp)) to average the usage numbers over and push
the percentages up. I wonder what the iphone percentages are.

"He said 65 percent of the company’s smartphone customers tend to use less
than 200 megabytes a month, and 98 percent averaged less than 2 gigabytes."
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/technology/03phone.html?sc...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/technology/03phone.html?scp=3&sq=AT&T&st=cse)

------
ryanwanger
I'm sure AT&T knows more than me about pricing but...

I doubt the fact that they'll be getting tons of new customers because people
can now save $10 a month. Apple has intentionally scaled back on the number of
different models they offer (on all products). Why? Because otherwise there is
too much choice.

Most people have no idea how much data they use in a single month, and as
mentioned 98% aren't using a massive amount. So, to squeeze a few extra
dollars out of the 2%, they just made the decision way more complicated for
everyone.

People buy iPhones because they are sexy, easy to use, their friends have
them, etc. There is no need to complicate the purchasing decision by forcing
people to start guesstimating their data usage.

What happens now when my mom decides to get an iPhone? Before she could buy
knowing that "it just works". Now, she's going to call me and start asking
questions about which plan she should get, then get confused by the answers
(since tech-wise we don't really even speak the same language). All of the
sudden, it's starting to seem like a headache.

For each customer they don't sign up because of the complicated pricing (or
those they lose because people who don't use that much bandwidth are now
afraid that they're going to be constantly being charged for overages), they
would have to sign up an extra 6-10 customers who signed up because they can
get a plan for $10 a month less than they could have before.

Seems unlikely, no?

------
martey
In the short term, I am not sure that this is that big of a deal. My data use
would be 3 to 4 times higher than it is now (and thus approaching the
author's) were it not for the fact that most of the time I am using my phone
on a day-to-day basis, it is in areas with wifi (since I live in Cambridge MA,
it is conceivably possible that I have wifi coverage 90-100% of the time; to
save battery, my radio is off unless I think I explicitly need it). I do not
think that AT&T and Apple are trying to cause people to use their phones less,
but rather to improve the cellular networks by causing people to use wifi - be
it at home, work, or Starbucks - as opposed to AT&T's overwhelmed towers. I
think there is plenty of evidence to support this, from the fact that the $15
200 MB plan explicitly allows you to temporarily switch to the $25 2 GB plan
during months when you would experience overages, to the technical limitation
of Apple's video calling only working over wifi.

Since I cannot tell the future, I have no idea if this will have a chilling
effect on data-intensive apps or workflows yet to be developed or envisioned.
If AT&T increases the amount of data included in its plans at some point in
the near future (which would be reasonable, although possibly less
profitable), this would be a moot point.

~~~
chc
Your suggestion that people need to curb their 3G usage to help AT&T's poor
towers is precisely the logic they're employing. It isn't valid, though. The
capacity of AT&T's network is not a finite resource. They can make more. In
fact, the government gave them money to improve their network, but they just
pocketed it and opted to create artificial scarcity instead.

In other words, AT&T's towers are overwhelmed because AT&T didn't build enough
capacity. That's not my fault and I shouldn't be paying for it.

~~~
martey
The article claimed that the new data plans would cause people to use their
phones less. I do not believe this is true, but I do think it will either
cause people to use wifi more and cellular data less (if they are heavy data
users like the authors) or not make any changes (if they are "normal" users).
Nothing in my original writing was meant to suggest that AT&T subscribers with
data plans (like myself) _should_ use wifi more.

~~~
ericd
A few insane overage charge stories in the media will definitely cause people
to avoid using their phone as much. It's not something people should be
thinking about when they use the phone, it's counterproductive.

------
batiudrami
Here's the thing: tiered data usage makes sense. Otherwise people who hardly
use much data are supporting the people who use a lot, and are paying more
than they should.

This is like charging a flat price for petrol, say $50 a week, and expecting
people who only drive occasionally to the shops to pay the same amount in fuel
as people who make regular interstate trips.

For the 98% of people, their iPhone service just got cheaper, and for 65%, a
reduction by half in their data bill.

~~~
blueben
It makes sense now, riding on the back of years of growth fueled by demand.
Bandwidth is cheap! Sure, I'll pay for a few extra gigabytes. But without the
years of "unlimited" plans, we would still be living in an age of glacial
bandwidth speeds at extravagant prices. The demand for bandwidth drives the
cost of providing that bandwidth down.

Tiered usage charges slow growth. That's great for AT&T, but bad for consumers
as it also slows the decrease in the cost of bandwidth. You save a few
pennies, and we all suffer from the lack of investment to support growth which
in turn drives innovation.

~~~
batiudrami
I'm not so sure that it does. I live in Australia, where we've always had
limited downloads and speeds. When I first got ADSL (about 6 years ago), my
AU$60 bought me 2GB quota at 256kbps. Now it gets me 120GB and I sync at
19Mbit (the fastest my phone line will allow).

The lack of competition in the US broadband and phone market is the cause for
slow growth, not download limits. You can say that Australian broadband is
still expensive and slow (in comparison to some countries) but that is at
least partially due to the low population density and the massive distances
between cities. Australia has 219 ISPs offering ADSL
(source:broadbandchoice.com.au), and as a result the value for money offered
has increased significantly in past years, and will continue to.

------
jqueryin
I found the following portion to hit home the hardest in regards to the new
data usage cap:

 _Doesn’t that just grind cloud-mobile, gaming-mobile, video-mobile, and some-
really-cool-but-currently-unknown-mobile development to a halt?_

This seems all too true as we know just how fast the mobile industry grows
each year. OnLive cloud computed gaming is supposed to be live within two
weeks. I can only imagine that within a given period of time they'll be
porting it over to iPhones and iPads. AT&T seems to be stifling innovation
with these caps.

As the speed at which we access data increases, so do the bandwidth
requirements for retrieving more data at a faster rate. We're talking higher
video resolutions, higher sound quality, and more content immersion. Rather
than paving the way and pioneering a new wave of applications, AT&T has
bastardized their network with low data caps that will leave us developers
pining for more within the next two years.

------
uptown
While the entire media industry has been trying to figure out the secret sauce
to getting users to pay for content, AT&T went ahead and did it ... other
people's content.

------
spoiledtechie
Does anyone realize with the new Camera on the front of the Iphone coming out,
this Data usage issue will change drastically?

The Camera phone will use Data. They are charging for more data. They are set
to make a bit of money off this...

~~~
azim
While the potential for extra data usage with 3rd party apps may be there,
Apple's FaceTime video-conferencing software is wifi only and won't run over
the 3g network.

------
bliss
The only way that this would be fair would be for usage to stop the second a
cap was reached and then user agreement to pay extra. I hate the kind of
charges where you're constantly wondering how much you're spending.

------
lg
I wish that instead of 2gb/month I could do 12 gb/6 months. My data usage
spikes a little on weekends and a lot when I travel, but during the workweek
it's pretty flat, so I'd want to save it up for those long trips.

------
kingkawn
They're not capping bandwidth at all, just setting a precedent for charging
you more for it.

------
rroy1590
i asked that exact question, if most users use only a few hundred megs... why
is tethering another option. Why can't that be built in... surely the network
can handle all iphone users using a few hundred megs to a gig of bandwidth a
month...

------
eli
Without tiered pricing why on earth would they want to encourage people to use
more data?

------
surlyadopter
Great essay. Verbalized exactly what I was thinking.

------
dustingetz
i speculate AT&T can't support everyone at 2GB without massive infrastructure
upgrades. which certainly impacts their pricing strategy.

~~~
lallysingh
Indeed, that's exactly the point the author doesn't get. AT&T is doing this
_specifically_ to reduce usage, without pissing off their customers. In
exchange for giving people a cut in their data plan costs, AT&T's system load
goes down. That means a more responsive and reliable network for everyone.

And it's a lot easier than spending money on upgrading their infrastructure.

------
aneth
Personally, I'm pretty happy with AT&T's changes. When I'm not using the
service, out of the country, etc., I pay less. The overage charges are
reasonable. Get real.

Only the self proclaimed "data hogs" are complaining.

Now, if they would only let me unlock my damn phone as a paying customer of 5+
years....

