Comments on: Who’s eating up AT&T’s data capacity? It’s not new customers

By: Abbas

Abbas — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:25:16 +0000

Thank you for saying what I’ve been thinking for the longest time. I’ve been on AT&T’s 2GB plan using about 400mb/month on average. In recent months though with increased sharing of videos/photos and HBO GO I have finally started hitting the 1GB mark… For so long I wished they had a 500mb plan so I wouldnt keep paying 4 times what I consumed. Now I will teach them a lesson by running up to 2GB each month!

By: tom

tom — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:13:44 +0000

why pay for something we do not use?

By: Sassy Lou

Sassy Lou — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:02:37 +0000

AT&T Oh puhleeze…mobile portable media and cloud data download is the future. Either open the floodgates and provide cheap ISP services or go home and die for all I care!

By: Kevin Fitchard

Kevin Fitchard — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:29:41 +0000

Hi 186K, are you thinking of this one? http://gigaom.com/mobile/atts-data-traffic-is-actually-doubling-annually/

The numbers there aren’t Wi-Fi vs. cellular, but increased traffic from existing versus new customers. Overall data is growing 100% each year, but 40% of that growth is existing customers using more, not new customers (paying more money).

Cisco recently had some numbers that included Wi-Fi in mobile data growth numbers, but that was global. Is that what you’re thinking of, perhaps?

By: Kevin Fitchard

Kevin Fitchard — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:25:46 +0000

Very good point, Michael. I personally think metered billing is the way to go since unlimited is not long for this world anymore. I guess it’s just a question of how refined we go: by the MB? By the GB? By the 100 MB? Thoughts?

By: Jna

Jna — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 18:22:21 +0000

Verizon also has 41.2 million smartphone subscribers.

By: 186k

186k — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:35:36 +0000

I think the doubling of traffic that AT&T mentioned was actually wireless traffic including both cellular and wifi. Stripping out the wifi would give a lower 2011 growth figure for cellular. I am sure I read another article on gigaom that noted that distinction

By: Otto Whosoever

Otto Whosoever — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:14:49 +0000

I don’t know how much of a impact this has but AT&T is also selling bandwidth to the alarm industry for cell back ups. The biggest being Honeywell that launched a service called Total Connect thar streams video as well as alarm system info.

Otto

By: Michael W. Perry

Michael W. Perry — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 23:20:38 +0000

As you hint, the game cellular companies having been playing is catching up with them. Some customers are now using most of what they’ve been paying for, something these companies probably hoped would never happen.

It’d make more sense to bill data much like long distance used to be billed, with per byte replacing per minute. That’d also let them charge less for off peak hours, spreading demand out.

By: Ron Larson

Ron Larson — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:47:29 +0000

AT&T & Verizon plan strive to have a wireless duopoly. Then they plan to create an artificial shortage of capacity. This allows them to justify raising prices.

If these two lock up most of the spectrum in the US, then they have no incentive to make that spectrum more efficient. They don’t care that you can’t get the bandwidth you paid for because they know you can’t go anywhere else. Both are equally bad. Once this plan is in place, then they can start jacking up prices and raking in profits. Our bills will skyrocket, but we won’t get any more service for the extra money. It will all be pure profit for them.

It is going to get really, really bad in the future. Sad.