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Spangler
While the mainstream media and some of AT&T’s apologists tell consumers AT&T’s 2 GB monthly usage limit will impact only a handful of “abusers,” the cable trade press is telling its readers the industry insider’s secret — consumers will blow right through those caps.
Todd Spangler, who is an Internet Overcharging advocate and columnist for Multichannel News, a cable industry trade magazine, writes the implications of AT&T’s usage cap couldn’t be clearer to him.
The new iPhone 4, introduced yesterday to the predictable media crush, provides 10 hours of battery life for playing video, among other features.
But now that AT&T has eliminated its all-you-can-eat plan for smartphones, you will blow through the maximum 3G usage for the entry-level 200 MB plan if you watched just 4 minutes of streaming video per day. That would include commercials.
Even AT&T’s more generous DataPro 2-GB plan would allow just 35 minutes per day of streaming video (assuming you used your iPhone for nothing else), according to the carrier’s online data calculator.
Like a stopped watch, at least he’s right twice a day.
Spangler celebrates the opportunity AT&T’s overcharging scheme provides the cable industry to “grease the skids” for data caps and overpriced consumption billing on cable modem service.
In Spangler’s “Cable companies pay my salary”-world-view, it wasn’t that Time Warner Cable did the wrong thing when it tried to triple broadband pricing — to $150 a month — for the exact same level of service customers previously enjoyed. It was all about its execution.
Spangler characterizes Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt as a victim, burned over the company’s failed overcharging experiment in 2009. When one plays with matches, is it any surprise there are consequences?
Consumers will respond to more overcharging schemes the same way they did a year before — with overwhelming condemnation and opposition. It’s hard to convince consumers to pay a higher price for limits on usage while telling shareholders you’ve invested less to expand your network, charged more to access it, all while the costs to provide the service have dropped dramatically. Consumers call that out for what it is: greed.
Make no mistake, consumers hate usage caps and overpriced consumption billing and Time Warner Cable has no justification to introduce either.
[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNBC ATT Cuts Unlimited Data 6-2-10.flv[/flv]
Normally business-friendly CNBC covers the introduction of the 2 GB usage cap on AT&T smartphone data usage. Then the CNBC anchor got skeptical about AT&T’s claims this was good news for consumers, admitting she hates overcharging schemes that deliver a surprise on the bill at the end of the month. Lance Ulanoff, editor of PC Magazine expressed some doubts himself. (8 minutes)
Imagine getting a new car and only being able to drive it 1 mile a day for multiple years
“Imagine getting a new car and only being able to drive it 1 mile a day for multiple years”
That’s a very bad analogy actually because you can drive as many miles as you like as long as you pay for the gas and servicing for the said vehicle. The more you drive the more your monthly cost would be. Much like most things in life.
I guess some feel that internet activity should be different.
the correct analogy would be that you get to drive in your neighborhood for free, but anytime you leave your neighborhood, you would have to pay a toll every 5 miles to drive for the next 5 miles, and then in order to get back home, you have to do the same thing. All this even though you pay taxes that are supposed to go to the upkeep of the roads.
“the correct analogy would be that you get to drive in your neighborhood for free, but anytime you leave your neighborhood, you would have to pay a toll every 5 miles to drive for the next 5 miles, and then in order to get back home, you have to do the same thing. All this even though you pay taxes that are supposed to go to the upkeep of the roads.” You mean a little like the tolls that I pay every day to go to work, Those Tolls? And of course the further I drive the more I pay…..just… Read more »
No. The equivalent of paying a toll starting at the end of your street. Then getting a bill at the end of the month based upon how many miles you drove – NOT paying as you go. Also, not per mile, but groups of miles. You got off just after the arbitrary boundary? Tough, you still pay for the whole 5 miles.
BTW – paying tolls is (for the most part) your choice. There are (mostly) other ways to get there.
Like the tolls on the NY State Thruway that were designed to pay off the construction costs of that highway, but somehow persisted long, long, long after that was done, even as the money is diverted to pay for other things, like a canal system and wherever else the NY State Legislature flushes it. NY State is the Comcast and Time Warner of government. 🙂 The road analogy was part of the propaganda focus groups AT&T held down in Beaumont, if folks recall. Only it fell apart in so many ways: 1) Roadways are a natural monopoly, regulated for the… Read more »
“NY State is the Comcast and Time Warner of government.” I am confused now, you are comparing Time Warner and Comcast with New York State? You continually complain on here about Time Warners “excess” profits and now you equate them to a state that is 203 Billion dollars in debt.. I think maybe the state should take a leaf out of the way TWC and Comcast run their businesses and then maybe they they could reduce their debt load and move forward and improve NYS residents lives. If a company was 203 billion in debt it would be out of… Read more »
I don’t live in a world where people drive up and down on toll roads just to get their money’s worth or feel entitled to weave in and out of traffic just because they paid a fee to use the road. People use their broadband service to get things done, entertain themselves or socialize. Nobody sits at home telling themselves because they have unlimited use they should saturate their connection 24/7 to get their money’s worth. The people I know don’t want is a coin slot on the side of their computer demanding more money after they already paid good… Read more »
So far the word I have been hearing from a lot of people, is that the cap is good because they don’t use that much now. However, a few us chimed in and said that, “Yea, that is all well and good now but what about in the future like a few years down the road?”
The future is sooner than many of us think as soon as people start streaming video on their iPhones. Video is a bandwidth piggy and if the iPhone 4 wasn’t designed to showcase that particular feature, you might be right. The only way to avoid the overlimit fee with AT&T is to simply make sure you avoid streaming video over anything other than Wi-Fi. AT&T made the decision I hadn’t been able to make myself — I am going to skip the iPhone altogether and, when finances permit, consider an Android phone. I’ll have to consider switching to Sprint as… Read more »
Phil, this might also be of interest to you as well if you haven’t seen this.
http://gizmodo.com/5557518/watch-steve-jobs-make-a-video-call
The new iPhone will support 720p out of the box with it’s camera, something else to point out.
Not for video conferencing – only for video taken with the 5mp camera on the opposite side of the phone. EVO does the same thing with and 8mp camera and does video conferencing over 3G/4G/WiFi with no data limits. I’m not sure the iPhone is all that spectacular especially considering AT&T.
Ron to respectfully add to your comment. Who decides where your
neighborhood starts and stops? My second issue with them is they
want to charge everybody much more. If it is $100 for 50 gig then it is fair
to charge somebody $2 for 1 gig. I do not think this is their plan
Somebody BESIDES you that you cannot argue with and there is no recourse except not driving – until they start to charge for walking 🙂