iPad 3G data plan changes

wbarnhill

wbarnhill

Final Approach
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http://gizmodo.com/5553139/say-goodbye-to-unlimited-data-on-the-ipad-3g

That didn't last long.

For new iPad customers, the $25 per month 2 GB plan will replace the existing $29.99 unlimited plan. iPad customers will continue to pre-pay for their wireless data plan and no contract is required. Existing iPad customers who have the $29.99 per month unlimited plan can keep that plan or switch to the new $25 per month plan with 2 GB of data.
Click to expand...
 
And I'll bet it goes up from there. I wouldn't be surprised to see it become like international data charges which charge by the megabyte (add it up, and it comes to hundreds of dollars per GB). And $20 for tethering, with the bytes coming out of the same allotment.

Until VZ and Sprint follow suit, it sure makes AT&T's services even less attractive. Sprint is currently offering a $59 data plan (aircard) for laptops that includes 5 GB of data on 3G, and unlimited on the wimax/4G systems.
 
wsuffa said:
And I'll bet it goes up from there. I wouldn't be surprised to see it become like international data charges which charge by the megabyte (add it up, and it comes to hundreds of dollars per GB). And $20 for tethering, with the bytes coming out of the same allotment.

Until VZ and Sprint follow suit, it sure makes AT&T's services even less attractive. Sprint is currently offering a $59 data plan (aircard) for laptops that includes 5 GB of data on 3G, and unlimited on the wimax/4G systems.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's becoming more and more apparent that I won't be sticking with them this fall.
 
wsuffa said:
And I'll bet it goes up from there. I wouldn't be surprised to see it become like international data charges which charge by the megabyte (add it up, and it comes to hundreds of dollars per GB). And $20 for tethering, with the bytes coming out of the same allotment.

Until VZ and Sprint follow suit, it sure makes AT&T's services even less attractive. Sprint is currently offering a $59 data plan (aircard) for laptops that includes 5 GB of data on 3G, and unlimited on the wimax/4G systems.
Click to expand...


So what's the deal with the iPad, is it unlockable? This tying hardware to a single provider really is a load of crap, I wonder how much AT&T pays them for that? It's really annoying not being able to upgrade my iPhones firmware/software, but in reality, I've had it almost a year and it hasn't caused any issues yet. It wouldn't be such an issue id data roaming wasn't such a huge ripoff, but it is. Last summer when I went to Europe on vacation I kept my T-Mobile sim in my iPhone at my bosses request "don't worry, I'll pay your bill". I used it as I normally would, in a month it came to over $1200!:yikes: I won't do that again, he can just put my local # in his phone when I get it. Even if he is paying it, it's just the principle of it all.
 
Henning said:
So what's the deal with the iPad, is it unlockable? This tying hardware to a single provider really is a load of crap, I wonder how much AT&T pays them for that? It's really annoying not being able to upgrade my iPhones firmware/software, but in reality, I've had it almost a year and it hasn't caused any issues yet. It wouldn't be such an issue id data roaming wasn't such a huge ripoff, but it is. Last summer when I went to Europe on vacation I kept my T-Mobile sim in my iPhone at my bosses request "don't worry, I'll pay your bill". I used it as I normally would, in a month it came to over $1200!:yikes: I won't do that again, he can just put my local # in his phone when I get it. Even if he is paying it, it's just the principle of it all.
Click to expand...

Yeah, when I used my iPhone in England and Norway, even with the discounted rates for int'l roaming I got hit with $200 and I tried not to use it that much, plus I didn't even risk data use.

The iPad will take another micro-SIM, provided you can find or make one. But since T-mobile's 3G frequencies are different, you'll only get 2G service.
 
In some countries you can get a prepaid unlimited data SIM. Yeah, it's a big hassle to get the SIM, but it is a !LOT! cheaper than paying the international data rate from the US companies.

There are a couple of companies (like Telestial) that sell voice SIMs that are much cheaper than roaming a US phone internationally.

I keep my T-Mobile service for international phone & blackberry use. Their Blackberry international plan is reasonable, though lately they've been differentiating between BB Mail and other internet use (charging the exhorbinant rates for data).

Unfortunatly, data is starting to feel like the bad old days here in the US where roaming on a different cellular network came in at $1 or $2 per minute..... that went away with the competition from PCS networks that are now the backbone of VZ, ATT, Sprint and TMo.
 
wbarnhill said:
Yeah, when I used my iPhone in England and Norway, even with the discounted rates for int'l roaming I got hit with $200 and I tried not to use it that much, plus I didn't even risk data use.

The iPad will take another micro-SIM, provided you can find or make one. But since T-mobile's 3G frequencies are different, you'll only get 2G service.
Click to expand...


Well, they make the iPad for more markets than just the US, there must be companies globally that support whatever sim the iPad takes. What I normally do is pick up a Pay as you Go sim from whatever market I'm in. Here in Oz, I use Optus, normally in Europe I use O2. Even though I was using T-Mo's network most of the time in Europe, they still charged me the ridiculous data roaming charges. My voice bill wasn't too bad
 
wsuffa said:
Unfortunatly, data is starting to feel like the bad old days here in the US where roaming on a different cellular network came in at $1 or $2 per minute..... that went away with the competition from PCS networks that are now the backbone of VZ, ATT, Sprint and TMo.
Click to expand...

I think the problem is that these companies are content with their user base so they don't bother to try to 'grab' customers from other carriers. With long term contracts and large ETFs to go with them, they don't have to worry about people jumping ship. So when ATT says "We're cutting data down to 2GB and charging 10$ for each additional GB, which will result in savings for the vast majority of customers" you'll see other carriers look to do the same thing (happened when the 5GB 'soft cap' passed around).

On top of that, looking at things from a business perspective, this makes no sense. They claim that only 2% of all smartphone users exceed 2GB. But unless 2% * 10$ is greater than 98% * 5$, this doesn't make business sense, and there is something else they're not talking about. I suspect that the biggest thing is that the iPad isn't a phone. I use my phone's data, but it's never for an extended period of time. In the end, it's still a phone. The iPad is another story. It was specifically built as a mobile computing platform, and with the iPhone OS, it is very data intensive. I'd be quite interested to know what the data use on the iPad is.
 
That's silly.

I just bought a prepaid SIM card and a little USB stick from Vodaphone in GB. It works on OS X, it's fast (reliably 4000 kbit/s), and it only cost me $35 or so. You can get unlimited data for $20, and pay per use for cheap. The amazing thing is that it's very fast in downtown London, where there's certainly no shortage of data phones. Yet ATT can't get me a reliable data connection in downtown SF ever.

The U.S. is really falling behind in this area.

-Felix
 
wbarnhill said:
I think the problem is that these companies are content with their user base so they don't bother to try to 'grab' customers from other carriers. With long term contracts and large ETFs to go with them, they don't have to worry about people jumping ship. So when ATT says "We're cutting data down to 2GB and charging 10$ for each additional GB, which will result in savings for the vast majority of customers" you'll see other carriers look to do the same thing (happened when the 5GB 'soft cap' passed around).

On top of that, looking at things from a business perspective, this makes no sense. They claim that only 2% of all smartphone users exceed 2GB. But unless 2% * 10$ is greater than 98% * 5$, this doesn't make business sense, and there is something else they're not talking about. I suspect that the biggest thing is that the iPad isn't a phone. I use my phone's data, but it's never for an extended period of time. In the end, it's still a phone. The iPad is another story. It was specifically built as a mobile computing platform, and with the iPhone OS, it is very data intensive. I'd be quite interested to know what the data use on the iPad is.
Click to expand...

There's an interesting thing I've noticed over the years with that. All the deals require a 2 year contract, but rarely does the equipment last for 2 years. 18 months in..."My Blackberry doesn't berry anymore, it's just solid black." No problems sir, we'll send you out a new one, just put the label inside on the outside and ship the old one back to us." Guess what, the new unit comes with a fresh new 2 year contract. Now, for my phone, that's just fine because I'm not switching from T-Mo since they're the only ones that support UMA service, and I like UMA, someone calls my # and I'm in the middle of the ocean, my phone rings since we have a satellite broadband wifi network on the boat. I can also make calls back to the states from it without it being on my "minutes". I just think it's kind of a sleazy thing to do, and I'm not sure that it's not on their end. My BB started having some issues a couple of weeks ago where it wouldn't hold onto a wifi signal. I called them up, they said "So Sorry, we'll get a new one out to you right away..." "Excellent, here's my address to ship it to in Australia" "We can only ship to the US" "I'm not in the US, I'm in Australia, and I'll be heading to Indonesia from here" "I need to speak with my manager about what we can do for you (I've been a T-Mo customer for 8 of the last 10 years or so). I get a call back and was asked to activate the network function of my phone temporarily and would not be charged as they had to "check some settings" from their end (I had already downloaded all the updates and did all the stuff through the website troubleshooter, and the phone had been functioning just fine wifi/UMA for a year). Amazingly, I watch the Wifi signal come on and a moment later it read UMA again and I was told I could turn off my cell network and see if the UMA would stay up. It's been up for a solid week.

As far as data usage on an iPad, it's not going to be more than my laptop and I can get a USB stick and "Pay as You Go" sim for it cheap. I have one through "3" here that I pay $30US a month for unlimited data when I need it, and I've run the whole boats network off of it when the satellite was down.
 
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wbarnhill said:
... But unless 2% * 10$ is greater than 98% * 5$, this doesn't make business sense, and there is something else they're not talking about...
Click to expand...
That math seems to assume that their expenses don't vary with the usage habits of their customers, i.e. that it doesn't cost them any more for their customers to use more.

But it can be cheaper for them to motivate customers to shift away from whatever they're doing that's using more than 2GB/month than to build out a network that can supply that, or to suffer the customer losses associated with users who complain that their network sucks because it's overburdened.

The "all-you-can-eat" model always gives too much to the pigs, and costs too much for the birds. The new pricing seems like an attempt to provide a lower cost alternative for the birds who might otherwise be tempted to go with other phones on other carriers, while also providing an economic incentive for the pigs to chill out a bit with their usage, and for them to seek out wifi.
-harry
 
Read the announcement. No existing customer has to change a thing.

I might like the cheaper plan because I pay ~$30+ a month for an unlimited data plan I use very rarely (because it works very very rarely. I have a 1st gen non-3G iPhone.)
 
mikea said:
Read the announcement. No existing customer has to change a thing.

I might like the cheaper plan because I pay ~$30+ a month for an unlimited data plan I use very rarely (because it works very very rarely. I have a 1st gen non-3G iPhone.)
Click to expand...

As long as you remain on that plan. If you use it for a month then cancel it for a month, when you come back, you have to get the new plan. For them to do this switch on the iPad 3G after only a month and a half... that's just slimy.
 
wbarnhill said:
As long as you remain on that plan. If you use it for a month then cancel it for a month, when you come back, you have to get the new plan. For them to do this switch on the iPad 3G after only a month and a half... that's just slimy.
Click to expand...

You also can do tethering now for an extra $20 a month.

I expect that they "predicted"/"load tested" the data network demand by selling the 3G iPads and seeing what they did to the network. This is the "fix."
 
Henning said:
There's an interesting thing I've noticed over the years with that. All the deals require a 2 year contract, but rarely does the equipment last for 2 years.
Click to expand...

You can get no-contract or one-year contract deals. VZ will sell a no-contract deal (or a one year deal w/the same $350 ETF). AT&T will also sell a no-contract deal, but you have to go to one of their stores to get it (and they WILL NOT sell a one-year deal on iAnything). TMo will, I think, sell a no contract deal, they will certainly do a one year deal. When I got my air card, Sprint wanted $20/month (in perpetuity) more for a one year deal - with a $150 ETF on a 1 year deal (break-even at 7 months).

There is no question that they want to keep customers from leaving. Wall Street rates companies on churn. I can see there being Federal pressure over contract length options, just as there was pressure over ETFs (note that VZ is no longer pro-rating ETFs on smartphones).

mikea said:
Read the announcement. No existing customer has to change a thing.

I might like the cheaper plan because I pay ~$30+ a month for an unlimited data plan I use very rarely (because it works very very rarely. I have a 1st gen non-3G iPhone.)
Click to expand...

Let's see. $25 for 2 GB + $10/GB above that (new plan) vs $30 for unlimited (old plan). Guess who's getting the better end of the deal?

And if you do upgrade the iPhone, you'll be shoved onto the new plan because you have to sign a new 2 year deal.
 
mikea said:
Read the announcement. No existing customer has to change a thing.
Click to expand...
Well - I wonder if that's true in case you want to change phones. For example, I'd love to change to the new 4G when it comes out, but I find it unlikely that they'd let you stay on your unlimited plan.

Maybe it's time to go back to T-Mobile...
 
wsuffa said:
Let's see. $25 for 2 GB + $10/GB above that (new plan) vs $30 for unlimited (old plan). Guess who's getting the better end of the deal?
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Depends on your usage habits.

As for me, I've never gone above 300MB in a month, so for me downgrading from unlimited to the 2GB/month deal would just lower my bill by $5/month without requiring me to change my habits in any way. That would seem to be me getting the better end of the deal. YMMV.
-harry
 
mikea said:
You also can do tethering now for an extra $20 a month.

I expect that they "predicted"/"load tested" the data network demand by selling the 3G iPads and seeing what they did to the network. This is the "fix."
Click to expand...

Tethering requires the new 2GB plan. So now you're splitting 2GB between your phone and your laptop. Better to jailbreak and tether that way and stay on the unlimited.
 
mantakos said:
Depends on your usage habits.

As for me, I've never gone above 300MB in a month, so for me downgrading from unlimited to the 2GB/month deal would just lower my bill by $5/month without requiring me to change my habits in any way. That would seem to be me getting the better end of the deal. YMMV.
-harry
Click to expand...
I just checked my usage meter. I'm at 1.75 GB and use it on a fairly regular basis. Dunno if it's worth changing to save $5/month or not.

Yes, the 2GB plan will "penalize" heavy users, but then again, aren't they the ones causing network congestion? How else should bandwidth be allocated, if not by price?

I like the idea that you get another "chunk" of data for a fixed price if you go over the initial amount. Used to be if you went over, you'd pay some ungodly amount and end up with a $500 bill for just a slight overage.
 
I've done everything through WiFi at home so far. Not sure when I'll have a need to use the 3g. I did notice that when I first fired up the 3g was enabled as the default and I had to run it off and enable the WiFi.
 
rpadula said:
...I like the idea that you get another "chunk" of data for a fixed price if you go over the initial amount. Used to be if you went over, you'd pay some ungodly amount and end up with a $500 bill for just a slight overage.
Click to expand...

And when you get close you get an SMS(?) to warn you. No surprise charges as tended to happen (on purpose) with Verizon.
 
Of course what all this focus on data plan fees overlooks is that data is heavily subsidized by the talk and texting fees.

In a typical month, I pay $30 for about 200MB of 3G data, and $45 for about 10MB of voice, SMS, and MMS.
-harry
 
mantakos said:
Of course what all this focus on data plan fees overlooks is that data is heavily subsidized by the talk and texting fees.
-harry
Click to expand...
Subsidized by teenagers and Gen-Y'ers, thankyouverymuch. :D
 
rpadula said:
Move up to a 3GS. I did. Or wait a week or so for the 4G.

P.S. Glad to see you back here, Mike.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah. I'm getting the 4 as soon as I can (and it will be after you can get it.)

I hope 1st gens are still getting good prices on eBay.
 
My usage says 47.3 mb sent and 670 mb received. I guess that means since I have had this iPhone because I have never reset the usage meter. It's almost 2 years old. I think I could get by with the 200 mb/month plan...
 
sba55 said:
Well - I wonder if that's true in case you want to change phones. For example, I'd love to change to the new 4G when it comes out, but I find it unlikely that they'd let you stay on your unlimited plan.

Maybe it's time to go back to T-Mobile...
Click to expand...
Will the iPhjone 4G have anything to do with actually working on a 4G network? I ask because the only 4G that is commercial right now is WiMAX and that is not what AT&T uses. They have a GSM + 3G network and their plan for 4G is to go LTE in a couple of years. There may be some preliminary LTE being tested around the country on AT&T networks. But true LTE 4G is actually a technology called LTE-A and the standard for that was just released last month.

If Apple calls their phone a 4G model I seriously doubt that it actually runs on a 4G network.
 
ScottM said:
If Apple calls their phone a 4G model I seriously doubt that it actually runs on a 4G network.
Click to expand...
I think it's just unfortunate coincidence that this will be the 4th generation iPhone model, and people are shortening that to "4G." I haven't seen any indications that it'll support LTE, or that Apple is actually going to call it 4G.

Unless they're going to be sneaky and design in an LTE capable chipset and the Death Star rolls it out faster. :rofl: (dang, that reminds me, doesn't the 3GS chipset have 7.2 Mbps HSDPA capability but the network can't handle it?)
 
Everskyward said:
My usage says 47.3 mb sent and 670 mb received. I guess that means since I have had this iPhone because I have never reset the usage meter. It's almost 2 years old. I think I could get by with the 200 mb/month plan...
Click to expand...
The usage is for the current billing period so you must have looked at sumthin.'
 
If you've got one, definitely follow Mike's 2nd link and check out your usage history. Post 'em if ya got 'em.

I just checked mine, and the 1.75GB I reported earlier must've been since I bought the iPhone in November '09. My monthly chart shows the 200 MB package may be worth it...

Maybe Randall Stephenson was right. But still, this Fake Steve post was awesome!
 

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mikea said:
The usage is for the current billing period so you must have looked at sumthin.'
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I don't think it's for the current billing period based on the graph below.

rpadula said:
If you've got one, definitely follow Mike's 2nd link and check out your usage history. Post 'em if ya got 'em.

I just checked mine, and the 1.75GB I reported earlier must've been since I bought the iPhone in November '09. My monthly chart shows the 200 MB package may be worth it...
Click to expand...
I think I could go for the 200 MB package too.
 

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If you go to "settings->general->usage", you'll see "Cellular Network Data". This appears to just accumulate through the life of the phone, and be wholly independent of any billing cycles, only resetting back to zero if you explicitly reset it.

On the other hand, if you login to the AT&T web page, either through a web browser or through their iphone app, they will show you your usage of voice, text, and data so far in this billing cycle.

So whether the number you're looking at is "all time" or "so far this month" depends on where you got it.
-harry
 
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