Comments on: AT&T stops subsidizing tablets. Now let’s make tablet data cheaper

By: gonzo

gonzo — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 04:26:58 +0000

i already have a phone…a very cheap phone, all i need is something to use the web on the go, then if i need to make a call i can use my cheap tracfone…lol….that kind of price for data is very good….this is the way to go….and w/ either a android or Ipad, there are VoIP apps that can turn ur slate into a phone…..so why pple are still signing contracts, is a mystery to me……def. a thing of the past

By: Joan Bailey

Joan Bailey — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 05:27:34 +0000

But you repeat yourself. And, I hear ya! I’m a designer in Atlanta and the plans are ridiculous. If AT&T is going to put 4G LTE in other markets, you would think the competition would keep driving down costs. Guess we can only hope.

By: jbundylive

jbundylive — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 15:46:01 +0000

Those MVNOs are becoming less of a good deal when you take their restrictive terms and conditions into consideration. When you are limited on a daily basis of how much of an already limited monthly data allowance you can use without risking being throttled or having your service terminated, that really ruins the prepaid experience. In addition, CDMA prepaid MVNOs do not allow a lot of devices on their service. For example, Page Plus, which uses Verizon Wireless towers, will not allow iPhone or LTE devices that are CDMA-baseband chipset equipped. It feels like while there is a true spectrum crunch, the costs and compromises of participating in the mobile lifestyle are developing into an even greater “lifestyle” crunch where you have to decide if you’re ok that our publicly owned spectrum is being sold to us for dollars on the penny where the carriers only have to spend pennies on the dollar to maintain and expand quality while providing us with some of the worst terms and conditions I’ve ever seen in commerce.

By: Kevin Fitchard

Kevin Fitchard — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 14:12:12 +0000

Hey Dave,

Well most of the traffic from Wi-Fi since a good deal of the background updates are done when your near a hotspot, but — for me at least — the greatest utility from those apps come from when I’m mobile. If I’m at home on Wi-Fi I’m checking twitter on my PC or tablet not on my phone. My phone’s still downloading all of those tweets though.

By: Dave Wright

Dave Wright — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 14:03:43 +0000

Hey Kevin,

I think you’re creating a service distinction that doesn’t really exist. I use Mobidia’s My Data Mgr app on my iPhone (since I do research in this area). Twitter is my 2nd most bandwidth intensive app (after streaming media) and it almost all goes over Wi-Fi. Mail does the same. I think you have a point about mapping, since people tend to use that while truly mobile, but most of these other services are going to use Wi-Fi when it’s available, and of course some currently only work over Wi-Fi (Facetime).

Perhaps instead of real-time, we ought to be considering what apps are used when truly mobile. Mapping and deal apps (eg push promotions) are two that come to my mind.

Best

By: Kevin Fitchard

Kevin Fitchard — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 19:26:50 +0000

Hi Paul, I think you are officially ready to try out one of the new MVNOs emerging in the market :) No contracts, bring your own device (or buy it up front), and cheap plans

By: paul

paul — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 19:24:36 +0000

Taking more while giving you less! It’s what all the Tel-cos are doing. If I keep my subsidized phone more than two years, do you think my plan will go down because I already paid for the phone? – Nope, they still charge the same every month, so I am paying for the phone twice, even though I “supposedly” would pay the entire phone off in two years.

Now with the “new” plans I cannot even upgrade and get the subsidy on the phone. I have to pay full price if I want to keep the same plan, so they are giving me even less while charging more even if I don’t fall for the “share” plans. Yeah give me texts and voice for free, when i don’t want those in the first place, but charge me more for what I actually want. Ridiculous.

They are happy to rip as many people off as they can and they will continue to do it until there is real competition.

By: Virtuous

Virtuous — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 05:30:11 +0000

AT&T and Verizon won’t reduce the price of tablet data as long as the 2 of them dominate the wireless market. The 2 of them are essentially monopolies. Data has become their main profit center. They will continue to increase what they charge for data.

By: Kevin Fitchard

Kevin Fitchard — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 03:50:56 +0000

Him OmInc,

You’re definitely right most smartphone traffic traverses Wi-Fi. I think there’s a subtle but distinct difference between use and traffic though. What I mean is that email, chat, social networking, mapping and of the rest of the real-time services we use all lean heavily on cellular data for their persistent connections. A lot of people use Wi-Fi for data heavy apps: video, image transfer, updates, etc.

By: OMNInc

OMNInc — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 01:50:56 +0000

Kevin, I think you’re smoking something strong if you really think AT&T is going to give people a break on their data plans for this, but props for calling them out. They’re essentially taking the carrier benefit of prepaid (full price, unsubsidized device), but forgot to give the user the typical lower-priced, no-contract plan that come with it.

I would challenge this one statement, “While mobile data connectivity is the smartphone’s primary reason for existing, cellular broadband is a secondary consideration for customers investing in a coffee-table computer. ” Usage statistics are showing that Wi-Fi is the primary data service for both smartphones and tablets (Informa/Mobidia, China Mobile’s 1H’12 interim release, etc…). Looks like ~65-70% of smartphone data traffic is going over Wi-Fi.