Through Price Hikes And Annoyance, AT&T Still Waging War On Unlimited Data Users
from the competition-means-higher-prices! dept
Back in 2011 AT&T and Verizon killed off their unlimited wireless data plans, instead replacing them with usage caps and steep (up to $15 per gigabyte) over fees. And while these companies grandfathered the existing unlimited data users at the time, they've spent the lion's share of the last six years waging a not-so-subtle war on these users in an attempt to get them to switch to metered plans. This ranged from AT&T's decision to block Facetime completely for users on unlimited plans, to covertly throttling these users only after a few gigabytes of usage, then lying about it. Repeatedly.Of course AT&T has also used vanilla rate hikes on these unlimited data plans to drive users to metered options.
In late 2015, AT&T announced a price hike for its grandfathered unlimited data users by $5 per month. Last week, AT&T confirmed it had tacked on yet another $5 increase. AT&T informed these users that they are still free to keep their unlimited data plan, but AT&T really hopes that you don't:
"If you have a legacy unlimited data plan, you can keep it; however, beginning in March 2017, it will increase by $5 per month," AT&T said. The unlimited data price had been $30 a month for seven years, until AT&T raised it to $35 in February 2016. The price increase this year will bring it up to $40. That amount is just for data: Including voice and texting, the smartphone plans cost around $90 a month."Reports have indicated this attempt by Verizon and AT&T to annoy, cajole, and hammer grandfathered unlimited data users so they leave these plans has been hugely effective. Both companies have desperately tried to convince the public that they don't really want unlimited data anyway, with Verizon going so far last year as to hire an expert to pen a blog post claiming that the consumer desire for unlimited data was just a "gut feeling," and that it was simply technically impossible to offer simpler, easier unlimited data plans.
Even with limited spectrum, the rise of small cells, WiFi offloading, and more robust networks and intelligent network management tools means unlimited data certainly is technically possible. T-Mobile (even though its plans may technically violate net neutrality by throttling all video by default) has thrived thanks to its unlimited data plans. In fact, they've made consumer annoyance at AT&T and Verizon pricing the cornerstone of many of their media campaigns:
How people feel when they open their @Verizon & @ATT bill. Get rid of your #feeface people!!!! pic.twitter.com/viS8TXOkAG
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) January 17, 2017
Update: Like clockwork, AT&T has followed Verizon and will also be bumping its activation and device upgrade fee as well. Competition!
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Filed Under: broadband, grandfathered, price hikes, unlimited
Companies: at&t
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"That thing you want? Yeah, you actually don't. Stop it already!"
"People don't need unlimited plans. People don't want unlimited plans. Do you hear us customers?! Drop the unlimited plans you have and move to capped ones already! If you don't we're just going to keep raising the price and making the service even worse, so switch already!"
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Free-Market to the rescue!!!!
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Re: Free-Market to the rescue!!!!
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Re: Re: Free-Market to the rescue!!!!
Regulation!
I am not 100% against regulation just that regulation should always be seen as bad and destructive. The point is which parts of the economy do we want to destroy? If we are destroying the Monopolistic Parts of the economy and the businesses that try to form Trust, then I am 100% pro-regulation. But that is NEVER asked for, instead everyone just calls for regulation without any controls. Which just gives us regulatory capture like we have right here, where every changing of the Guard just gives the current administration too much bludgeoning power over the citizens. And this is technically not legal under the constitution, but hell, no one gives a flying fuck about that anyways.
So carry on!
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Re: Re: Re: Free-Market to the rescue!!!!
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Got my email
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Re: Got my email
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With real estate prices
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Competition is alive and well
What works better: month-over-month rate hikes, or rarer but much steeper hikes? Below the line fees or a base change in service price? Maintaining the same level of bad service at a rapidly increasing price or a slower price increase coupled with declining quality of service? All these are important considerations when you want to drive your users off the plan as quickly as possible.
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"gut feeling"
In non-monopolistic businesses, aren't "gut feelings" what businesses generally target? I don't think I've ever seen a soft-drink commercial saying much else, and car companies like to tout engine power without giving any argument why one would need such power. Supermarkets have made an entire science of analyzing gut feelings and arranging products accordingly--and getting companies to pay to be in the "best" spots.
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Of course, 3g watchdog developer (and other bw control apps) thanks all the carriers for the bs caps.
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Re:
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'A'T&T my A$$
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Can you hear me now?
As an old guy who previously worked on projects relatated to their divestiture (etc. in the 80's) ,along with significant personal experience, it is TIME TO HANG UP ON AT$T.
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Unlimited Data Must Go!
Zero Rated content is a euphemism for a back room deal where a data provider (like Netflix) pays AT&T to be Zero Rated. (eg, for Netflix data not to count against your data cap -- a cap you wouldn't have with unlimited data)
Think of all that extra revenue from Zero Rated business model.
AT&T gets paid by both ends of the connection. Not just the end that they service. But the other end as well.
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Forget AT&T and Verizon.
Wait. What do you mean, "that's illegal"? No wonder we're screwed.
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the rint . turn out to be the smart one
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