Thinking about a new iPhone/iPad? ACT FAST!!
 

Thinking about a new iPhone or iPad 3G?

You might want to rush out and get it soon, and I mean real soon.

AT&T is changing their data plans to cap your data use on all plans sold after June 6th.

So does that affect plans already in place? WTF????

No.

Except if you want to add tethering.

I would say something about AT&T's stranglehold on the iPhone but I wouldn't be surprised if the other big players did the same thing pretty soon. We're all boned, in the long run.

I very rarely stream anything on my phone. Maybe once a week do I download anything larger than a webpage with images. Most of my large data stuff I do via wifi at home, which would be no extra charge. So if Sprint wants to lower my bill and charge me a few cents on the rare occasion I want to watch a youtube video, be my guest.

I agree, I would be very happy if I had the option of a /byte plan. So, I expect would most people.

I've never really understood the objection to it with an insistance on unlimited plans. Seems to kind of like having to pay $50 a month for the ability to use the postal service but then you get to mail as much as you want. Sure some people that find that a great deal but most wouldn't. I'm happy paying $0.42 every time I mail a letter.

For AT&T I am wondering if this is a revenue measure or an attempt to deal with the fact that they don't have sufficient network bandwidth in many cities.

I'm not freaking out about AT&T doing this for mobile; I'm freaking out about isp providers doing this for the internet in general. I guess that day is coming, and I guess that's the day the internet dies.

Of course, net neutrality might go down first, in which case the day the net dies will be one day sooner.

Commercially, the internet started out on a pay/byte (actually pay/minute) system for most users so I don't know if such would be its death knell. There are reasons it shifted away to the way it is done now.

But even if it does go to pay/byte I'm reasonably confident that the prices would be set such that it woudln't make much difference to that vast majority of users and once it does (though increasing bandwidth requirements for the "basic" online lifestyle) prices will change to reflect that.

People freak about the caps Comcast talks about but I watch streamed movies constantly and still never come close to them. It generally takes significant constant power usage to reach the limits that get discussed.

Looking over the last 7 months of our usage (that's combined between me and CP), only twice did we go over the 2GB limit that AT&T is switching to, and once, by <5MB. So, under the current plan our data cost over those 7 months = $420. Under the new plan, $186.14.

For any one month to cost us as much as the $60 it would currently cost, we'd have to use 70% more data than our highest month's usage. That month is already 50% higher than the next highest month, and is double our average usage. So even if a there were a month in which we used TRIPLE our average data, it would still cost less than the $60 flat rate. And that's for 2 of us sharing the bandwidth.

Yeah, PLEASE Sprint, PLEASE do this. I could use an extra $30 or so a month.

The USPS would be happier if you paid $0.44 every time, since that has been the First Class Letter rate since May 2009.

True, but giving a blowjob to the guy at the counter gets you a two cent discount.

Alex, I think you've misunderstood the term "philatelist".

Oops. Well at least over the years I've saved myself $0.72.

There's Kevy, always with his two cents.

36? Including me? [/Dante]

:eek:

This is the funniest smartest joke of the month.

Some additional info I found on this:

Candid answers from AT&T on the new iPhone data plans (article on tuaw.com). Or you can read Mac Rumor's highlights from the article here.

And from Mac Rumors, a detail that sucks:

This has got me looking at my bill. Out of my 1000 anytime and unlimited nights/weekends I use less than 400. I also use about 23MB of data a month. That's it?! :eek:

I like that they finally allowed tethering, but for an additional $20 a month, forget it.

Oops, I just checked and my calculations were based on an incorrect read of the current data plans. I saw the $60 for the old data+tethering, instead of $30.

So the numbers aren't as dramatic, ending up with saving of ~$5 per month, and only being able to use a little less than double over average use instead of triple. Still an entirely reasonable deal though.

I hope that works out for you. Personally I plan to keep hold of my all you can eat plan until they pry it out of my cold dead fingers.

My phone is in constant contact with my home servers to sync emails, monitor my webcam, stream music, movies or any TV station I want live. When I'm driving I'm pulling down GPS/MAP data, etc....

Yeah, I'm a data glutton.

This has me wondering exactly what your usage is, and how all of our numbers compare.

Ditto.

With less than a week left on my current billing cycle: 1829.3613k

But it's been a slow month for leisure time...

So assuming a less slow month....maybe 3GB? Looks like it might cost you $5 more per month.

Old Unlimited Plan: $30/Month.
New 2GB Plan: $25/Month + 1.25 cents/mb over the 2gb cap.

Base Price difference: $5.00

$5.00 at 1.25 cents/mb gets you 400MB (400*0.0125 = 5) or 0.4GB

So after 2.4GB/Month you're losing money on the new plan.

3.0GB = $20 + (1000 * 0.0125) = $32.50
4.0GB = $45

My data use over time keeps climbing so I'm sticking with an unlimited plan.

According to the interview Kevy posted, data overage won't be charged per mb, instead you would be charged $10 and be allowed another 1GB before being charged another $10. That's kinda sh*tty.

Only 1.79 megabytes? I would have though a lot more.

Huh

Maybe he's using european notation which substitutes '.' for ','.

They're doing wonderful things with compression these days...

Verizon switching to AT&T-style limited data plans later this month?

Um, well, that is the entire article. But I wanted to provide the link in case anyone want to check my work.