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

[Moonliner]

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.

Originally Posted by Giz

Unlimited, all-you-can-eat wireless data was a beautiful thing for Apple devices on AT&T, delivering streams of Pandora, YouTube videos, a million tweets, and hundreds of webpages without worry. And now it's dead.

AT&T's new, completely restructured mobile data plans for both iPhones and iPads have officially launched the era of pay-per-byte data, which we've known was coming. We just hoped it would take a little longer. It's the anti-Christmas.

[innerSpaceman]

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

[Moonliner]

No.

Except if you want to add tethering.

Originally Posted by end

folks on the current $30 smartphone data plan will be able to keep that plan when upgrading hardware. Translation: yes, you'll be able to get a new iPhone without switching to the $25 / 2GB DataPro plan if you so choose. What you won't be able to do, though, is keep the $30 plan and add on the $20 tethering option -- tethering specifically requires DataPro, so your hopes and dreams of a soft 5GB cap are quashed (unless you want to pay $30 for 3GB of overage, of course).

[Cadaverous Pallor]

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.

[Ghoulish Delight]

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.

[Alex]

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.

[innerSpaceman]

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.

[Alex]

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.

[Ghoulish Delight]

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.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Alex

I'm happy paying $0.42 every time I mail a letter.

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