The largest carrier in the US is poised to turn its entire data pricing and marketing strategy on its end according to a series of slides we've found entitled "Data & Messaging Plan Realignment - January 2008." First up, MEdia Net plans are being revised, and for the most part things seem to be getting a little cheaper. MEdia Max Unlimited, for example -- a plan that includes unlimited on-device data and messaging -- goes from $39.99 to an even $35. Next, tethering and data card plans are dropping the term "Unlimited" and imposing a "soft limit" of 5GB; users who consistently exceed that limit won't be charged overage but could be relieved of their plans if AT&T chooses to do so. As much as this sucks, it brings AT&T's official policy in line with
the way the industry seems to be trending, as it proudly points out in the slides. Also notable is that slide 8 claims that the carrier will no longer be selling any "windows media devices" (we're pretty sure they meant Windows Mobile devices) without QWERTY keyboards. We're hoping that's not right since it arbitrarily locks AT&T out of picking up nifty WinMo kit like the
Touch, but we wouldn't put it past 'em. This all goes down on the 20th, so keep your eyes peeled. Click below for the full slide deck.
[Thanks, anonymous tipster]
Update: We've been told that AT&T's newfound ban on non-QWERTY WinMo devices only applies to Smartphones, not Professional handsets, so it seems the Touch is theoretically spared here. Not to say AT&T has any intention of offering it anyway, we're just sayin'.
posted Jan 10th 2008 5:22PM
hmm iv been using a unlimited medianet and 200 texts with unlimited m2m texts on my blackjack since i bought it and i have never been told that i have to remove my medianet bundle and get a pda one, i agree with some of the posts on here, thats horse shit, that just because my phone has akey board that i hve to pay more to use it, just like the argument i got into with an att rep who swears up and down that the nokia n75is not a smartphone but it runs the symbian 9 over series 60 UI and so does the e62 but if i had an e62 id have to pay extra to, FTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also notable is that slide 8 claims that the carrier will no longer be selling any "windows media devices" (we're pretty sure they meant Windows Mobile devices) without QWERTY keyboards.
An Apple plot to cut the competition/copycats?
lmao j/k
gotta love the mgrs playbook
that soft limit sucks... realign this one, AT&T...
I was thinking going HSDPA as it is reaching my town but I think not... tethering is what I'm after.
where does this put us iPhone users?
Still cocooned by the oh-so loving hands of Apple.
Apple wouldn't want your prices raised. Not like they're all about money.
...wait...
To clarify, the 5GB cap seems to only apply to tethering and laptop data cards.
Chris
I hope this doesn't affect iPhone users in a bad way. Hopefully, Apple can make some type of deal with at&t and make sure we keep our unlimited data. And also, when the 3G iPhone comes out we should still be able to keep our unlimited data, and tether this time around.
Who's with me?
So, this would mean that people can get out of their contracts for free. They are changing the terms of the contract on us. Which would mean no early termination fee. Or am I wrong in this?
unfortunately you are wrong.
the features are being grandfathered, which means if you order them before 1/22 you get to keep them.
furthermore, these are all considered "features" or "add-ons" anyway. they are not price plans (with the exception of laptop connect)
as much as this sucks balls at least unlimited medianet is getting cheaper...
yea...actually what abt iphone users with unlimited edge? are the iphone plans considered different from this?
We're special. I hope?
How could you ever reach 5Gb with EDGE speeds anyway?
My math may be a bit fuzzy but under ideal conditions, you could hit 5 GB with a tethered EDGE condition in under two days. (~232 kb/s * 48 hours > 5*10^9)
I wonder if "relieved of their plans" means removing the data add-on or cancellation without ETF. Former would be horrible for users. The later opens up an easy way to get a subsidized phone.
@OC
You forgot to multiply by 8 for the conversion from
bits to bytes
Man I hope they re-consider this. I was going to buy the Nokia N95 8GB with U.S. 3G to tether to my laptop but now I'm not sure if its gonna be worth the $750 hole in my pocket for a measly 5GB cap on data. :(
Since N95 has no qwerty, it doesn't count as a smartphone. Thus you can waste away as much MediaNet you want.
On one of the last slides it says that ATT wifi is not free with laptop cards, does that include U-verse?
This will apply mainly to their high-end $60 "DataConnect" unlimited plan (formerly "LaptopConnect") which is required for tethering. Note that tethering on lower-grade AT&T plans is a flat-out violation of their TOS. DataConnect Unlimited users would have to mainly watch out for how much video they download in a month. For example downloading a 45 minute TV show from iTunes is around 500 MB, so if you downloaded 10 shows in a month you'd hit 5 GB right there. The carriers do NOT consider these plans to be equivalent to your home Cable/DSL broadband connection.
Notmicro, good to know that AT&T has nice little employees like you who will defend their every move. No, it may not be a carrier's intention to replace a home wireline connection with wireless internet, but they sure advertise it that way.
This is horse shit, so because i have a smartphone i have to pay an extra $10 bucks a month? This is complete and utter horseshit
Where does it state where at&t wifi is not included? Last time I read this at work it said it was included for no additional charge.
who said anything about wifi? if you had the old medianet max w/ unlimited texts before it was 39.99, not if you have a pda/smartphone its 30+19.99
from what i read here it looks like prices are actually going up. right now I have a blackjack with the pda personal max + tethering, so i get 'unlimited' data, 1500 msgs, and can use my phone as a modem for $70.
with this new pricing
pda personal $30
1500 msgs $15
tethering $30
total $75
Are there some slides missing with bundles? or a bundle discount? come on.
Ok so if there is no mention of change in a certain plan, I guess it's not changing...I see a drop in the PDA/Blackberry Personal Plan but no word about the Personal Max...
Ah, sprint w/ SERO... unlimited data + texts + 500 mins for $30... nights start at 6, too
$30 for pda phones, that is probably going to mean that Verizon will lower their pda prices to the same or around the same price, great news!
Does this mean I can get out of my contract without paying the ETF as the contract is materially changing?
nope, because this is a change on plans...they're not making you go to these new plans. if you currently have service you can keep your current plans as long as you see fit...this isn't like if they changed the pay per use on data or text
Everyone panics and has poor recollection of what they just read. Dont panic, AT&T is weeding out those guys who use a laptop card or tethered phone as a DL whore. Regular customers now get more choices and a 1Cent increase in plan for changing to these new codes. Unlimited messaging is still there, your PDA max and BBmax(including 1500txt/pics) is still there just in a different form. All they are doing is offerring more choices and even an all new 1500txt stand alone that hasnt been available for almost a year (used to be 1000txt). ENGADGET list good and hard, I LOVE YOU but you have to screen your articles a little more closely. And, if you cannot I would be more than happy to join your editing staff as an AT&T/Verizon/Sprint expert! You may reply to my email address for a resume.
Yes because 5g a month makes you a download whore...
this sucks. at&t sales reps that aren't in 3G markets already get killed by the other carriers selling 3G but one of my selling points is that we have unlimited usage while verizon caps at 5gb, now i have to eat my words. will at&t ever think for themselves or will they continue to let verizon's ceo make all their desisions for them???
Jeremy, yeah I know it sucks, but did you ever read the fine print on the services you sell? There has always been a data cap on the "unlimited" plans. Now, it's just being advertised correctly.
I'm still waiting to hear about the prorated ETF that was announced months ago. Was it all smoke and mirrors or will it finally be rolled out on 1/20 as well?
ifiamalreadypayingforattinternetinmyhomethenwhythehellisitextratohaveitonmyphone
get it, I'm making fun of their commercial.
But seriously, get my point? I won't use Internet on my phone while I'm at home and I won't use my home Internet while I'm away.
But WTF is up with this 5GB per month limit. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I like how that AT&T employee above makes the cap look large with his "10 itunes movies" crap. Yes, his numbers are correct, be he acts as if all the other activities you'll be doing online don't also count towards the cap or aren't
significant enough to matter. I am going to ignore email and attachments, youtube and other video streaming, mp3 streaming, downloading mp3s from iTunes/Amazon, Torrents, program files, games, etc and just focus on web browsing for my little test.
I did a quick experiment using: http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/index.html. I only ran the test on subpages of the websites, usually an article page or forum page, most with zero or very little flash. Just look at how truly large the average page size is for these popular
websites:
engadget.com (random post) 420KB
yahoo.com (news article) 585KB
nytimes.com (news article) 345KB
seedmagazine.com (article page) 223KB
discovermagazine.com (article page) 731KB
livescience.com (article page) 438KB
tgdaily.com (subpage) 253KB
technologyreview.com (subpage) 247KB
macrumors.com (forum page) 207KB
tmz.com (blog post) 433KB
Average: 389KB/page.
So, someone using a laptop data card: 5GBs per month / 30 = 166 megabytes/day. With the average web page view nearly 1/2 megabyte already and streaming video at 3-6MB/min, that's not a whole lot of allotted data. Actually it's paltry. I challenge anyone to download a freeware bandwidth counter and measure your usage for a week and see what your average per day is. I GUARANTEE it is going to be alot higher than 166MB/day. If that's "abuse", then AT&T and the other telecoms can go fuck themselves.
That's why I use Opera Mini that shrinks pages like engadgetmobile to something like 10K for a random post (turn off stupid images). You can even use Google's webalizer for same effect.
Shame on websites for gaining so much weight just to display info vs 10 years ago. Veronica, Gopher, Archie, etc, make even more sense now for mobile data than ever before.
Shame on at&t for charging so much for data access.
That's why I use Opera Mini that shrinks pages like engadgetmobile to something like 10K for a random post (turn off stupid images). You can even use Google's webalizer for same effect.
Shame on websites for gaining so much weight just to display info vs 10 years ago. Veronica, Gopher, Archie, etc, make even more sense now for mobile data than ever before.
Shame on at&t for charging so much for data access.
Does anyone here take the iPhone SIM card out and use it in another phone for tethering?
>MEdia Max Unlimited, for example -- a plan that includes unlimited on-device data and messaging -- goes from $39.99 to an even $35.
Yeah, but it looks like it no longer includes 1500 messages. Add $15 for that and you're looking at a $10 price increase. Not cool.
Going from 1500 messages to unlimited for $5 break sounds like a good deal to me.
I doublechecked, and there IS a price increase for PDA users who text a lot. According to the slides, the $35 data and messages package is for TRADITIONAL (non-PDA) phones. The new data pricing for the Smartphone device types (PDA and Blackberry) is $30 WITHOUT including texting. Add $15 for 1500 messages (currently part of the $40 PDA plan) and you're looking at a $5 price increase. See pages 2, 9 and 10 of the slideshow.
You're right. I can finally see those slides now. I notice even the $25 unlimited at&t messages + 200 messages othernetworks + unlimited data bundle is gone too.
Boy, these new "concise" data plans really suck without all the bundle specials.
Only hope is to somehow get provisioned for that $35 Media Max plan by not telling them you have a PDA/smartphone-like device.
Of course, it still boils down to WHY are dumb-phones billed different from smart/pda phones. It should be billed by amount of content sucked down, not what device you have. Open network my ass! Hell, I've seen better data plans with Softbank than this.
I wonder if this will apply to PDA and BlackBerry Plans
I wonder if this will apply to PDA and BlackBerry Plans
They have already started changing plans on accounts. We just received our bill for our Corporate account and my Brother and my Wife both had the unlimited MediaMax plan and AT&T switched them to a 5MB MediaMax plan without telling me. I was mad as hell and called them and threatened them as much as I could and finally got them to remove the extra $850 off our bill. I am still going to have to do it again for this upcoming bill but everyone should be watching their bills closely and might even want to call and check. They tried to tell me I called in and changed my plan. The rep said something like "I have it right here in my records, lets see, hmmmmm, well I don't actually have any names of who called but I am sure you did." I then asked when the supposed calls were made and two of the supposed times were 5 min apart and I was at the dentist when those supposed calls came in. I finally got a hold of my local business rep and she is going to straighten everything out but was I one pissed off customer when I saw that bill. We are not a huge client but we usually spend over a grand a month with them and to pull this sort of S#$*@T on someone is unexcuseable. Also, the date that the changes and calls were made just so happened to be the exact same day that our billing cycle started. Funny Huh
This is usually the result of some untrustworthy agents churning features on any account they think thay can get away with in order to get the commissions. Find out what employee/agent put forth the change.
wow....i work for at&t too and first off let me just say how shocked i am that somebody from our company would post this. If AT&T fount out who post this, they would be fired in a heartbeat, with that being said, the new plans arent really a bad idea, the reason we are choosing to do this is 1) we have WAY to many data plans, which makes it confusing for reps, and customers on which the correct data plan for them is, and 2) To stop those out there who have unlimited data plans that are not designed for tethering. If you anybody would like to dicuss this more or has any questions they would like to ask me, because sometimes i can not always get on to this site, then please email me at ts5684.att@gmail.com or come to my myspace page which ive created to help with situations similar to these
www.myspace.com/att_mobility_solutions
Changing the plans on accounts of customers without them knowing is a no-no. Changing the wording from unlimited data to 5gb data plan is a good move in my opinion and one that verizon wireless should as well. The 5g limit seems a bit arbitrary and low to me, however I can understand as these services become more powerful and the ability to sponge bandwidth becomes easier and easier (faster data rates), you run into an issue where the data leeches can adversly effect the experience of other customers. If everyone in a 3 mile radius used unlimited data all hours of the day the service levels will drop as these services get more popular. Think of the phone systems going down on 9-11. Now think that it is much easier to stay online 24-7 doing file transfers and you can see that this is a viable concern for wireless providers. They either have to put the limit in place or be able to provide enough bandwidth for everyone to sponge freely. In more densly populated areas providing unlimited bandwidth is not feasable. If you want unlimited leeching get a landline.