AT&T Smothers Mobile Web Before It Grows Up
Help! I just want to grow up!
Yesterday, AT&T announced that it was changing its iPhone & iPad data plans. That’s right, the $30/month unlimited data plan on the iPhone & iPad and $15/month 250MB plan on the iPad will no longer be options for people getting new plans or changing their plans effective June 7. In their place, AT&T will offer a 200MB/month plan for $15 and a 2GB/month plan for $25. AT&T defends these changes saying the average customer will save money, since 98% of their users never hit 2GB in a month. Plus they say, for $20/month you can even tether your iPhone and use your data on another computer.
Where to begin? First off, I’m sure that 98% of AT&T’s users never hit 2GB. I rarely do, but I’m not mobile as much as others. But are 98% of AT&T’s smartphone users staying under that 2GB cap? I’m skeptical, but even if they are, I am not subscribing to AT&T as the noble company out to save us money. They’re looking to the future. They know that in the coming years people will surf the mobile web more and stream more and more audio and video content over their mobile connected devices. So, a much higher percentage of people will exceed 2GB of data a month in the future. Especially, since they’ve now offered tethering. Not to mention that we’ll be getting a new iPhone soon that might even have a front facing camera. I’m not sure how often people would use it for video calls, but that would impact data transfers as well.
Without even looking to the future, I can see how 2GB could easily get blown through on an iPad right now. Now I don’t have an iPad, but apps like the Netflix and ABC apps that let you stream video would tear through this bandwidth in no time. This is even worse as the 3G iPad was touted as a great mobile content consumption device with an amazing data package for an amazing price that you could just pay for as you needed it. Then a month later they completely neuter that package unless you keep paying for it on a monthly basis even when you don’t need it. Just sleazy AT&T, just sleazy.
The iPhone and iPad are no doubt stressing AT&T’s network and will continue to do so. Unfortunately, they’ve decided to handle it the wrong way. They should be growing and strengthening their networks more rapidly to handle the loads. We need a strong mobile web in this country going into the future. If AT&T really cared about their users,while they were working feverishly to build out that network they would have at least offered a 5GB cap, which would be hard to exceed for most people most of the time. Plus they would have offered some additional bandwidth with the tethering option. Making you pay twice for the bandwidth you get is ridiculous.
So, to sum it up, I’m not switching my iPhone plan away from my $30/month for unlimited and unless you aren’t really interested in where the mobile web is going or aren’t into streaming content, I suggest you do the same. You’re not smothering my baby AT&T!
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When is Apple going to stop forcing us to use their devices on AT&T’s network? Open it up, make some competition, already.
Still, I am gonna take a look at my iPhone data usage on my next bill. Because I might be able to get away with that 250 MB plan, which would save me some money. I’m already on a ridiculously low airtime plan (one that’s even lower than the national 450-minute plan they advertise). I don’t live through my iPhone.
If I had a 3G iPad though, I’d want lots of data for that. Especially with the streaming media services that already exist.