One customers request

Btw, what is WITH these non-ATT employees replying in this thread....it's like bending over backwards to run kicking and screaming when they hear a very bold, very incredible-for-the-consumer idea? Are they wanna-be ATT employees? : P  lol....They remind me of Sir Alec Guinness , in the infamous scene at the end of 'A Bridge on the River Kwai' , with his quote 'what have I done', as he fell on the dynamite. ; )

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@ridgekarma wrote:

Poor analogy. A better and more precise one....akin to what ATT does via calling a plan unlimited, but making you select gigabit plan which includes throttling to an unusable transfer rate if you go over the 'unlimited' plan you paid for ,

Ah, thanks for reminding us. Both @lizdance40 and I asked you to show us an AT&T page that calls a fixed amount plan 6GB or 15GB unlimited and I never noticed an answer.

But now that you're bringing it up again, PLEASE provide a link to the plan to which you are referring to???

Next, ATT is calling their plan 'unlimited', but no matter what tier you are at , the 6 gig or 15 gig or whatever, it's nothing at all like a true unlimited data plan....

As you stated in your original post above.

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@ridgekarma wrote:
"So you want AT&T to sell you device for about $400 less than the current market price, and then offer a plan you can use for all your high-speed internet needs....for a lower price than the current unlimited plan?"

Ding , ding, he gets it! ….I'm surmising by your surprised response that you don't remember a time when ATT did exactly that...for years, I was able to shop on ATT's website , and peruse a great number of phone makers, for the low low price of $99 for some of them. Top tier stuff too...They had been refurbished and looked and worked as if new. It was a great, great thing. At one time or another,  I had an iteration of the iPhone, then a very cool HTC model (the very first with stereo front facing speakers I think), then a Samsung , before they dropped the program.

 

As for the plan, it comes back to a point I made earlier and the analogy that in this day and age of HD streaming content and high usage, that the 'baby steps' years of charging for digital consumption byte for byte or bit for bit so to speak dinging via throttling or charges should be pretty much over , imo. Plenty of people like me I'm sure, have recognized the possibility of a single bill that allowed them cellphone AND home and cellphone internet service via hotspotting. It's there, it's doable...what right minded consumer would NOT want this? : )

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😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣.    Sure.  We will call it a Going out of business sale.   

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@Gary L wrote:

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@ridgekarma wrote:

Poor analogy. A better and more precise one....akin to what ATT does via calling a plan unlimited, but making you select gigabit plan which includes throttling to an unusable transfer rate if you go over the 'unlimited' plan you paid for ,

Ah, thanks for reminding us. Both @lizdance40 and I asked you to show us an AT&T page that calls a fixed amount plan 6GB or 15GB unlimited and I never noticed an answer.

 

But now that you're bringing it up again, PLEASE provide a link to the plan to which you are referring to???

 

Next, ATT is calling their plan 'unlimited', but no matter what tier you are at , the 6 gig or 15 gig or whatever, it's nothing at all like a true unlimited data plan....

As you stated in your original post above.

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This guy is hysterical.  No logic.  Put him in charge.  😂

I don't want this, at least not with existing technology, the latency and jitter would drive me up the wall.

I guess it depends on your use-case, but I really notice when my DNS lookups (non-cached) go from a few milliseconds, to dozens, it's maddening.  I might be a little nuts, compared to the "average person", in this area ;-]

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@ridgekarma wrote:

David606 wrote: I don't understand why with cellular that the definition of the word "unlimited" must match some kind of literal meaning. It's a marketing term. No one goes to Golden Corral the day after and says "but you labeled it All You Can Eat and I paid $11.99 yesterday"

 

 

Poor analogy. A better and more precise one....akin to what ATT does via calling a plan unlimited, but making you select gigabit plan which includes throttling to an unusable transfer rate if you go over the 'unlimited' plan you paid for , would be if you went to that same Golden Corral, filled your plate, sat down, took 3 bites of steak, 3 bites of mash potatoes, 3 bites of green beans, 3 sips of coke and then the server suddenly comes by ,takes your plate and sets down a credit card swiping machine, asking you to please pay to continue eating your meal! LOL

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That's the plan they advertise/sell though, right?
It's not like it's a "big secret", that you get de-prioritized (maybe, if things are really busy, otherwise, things just keep moving as before 22GG threshold), after the 22GB?

Or that you get "bumped down" to 128k (this one I have a bit more trouble with, we're basically back to dial-up speeds, here, but okay, it's what's sold, still), if you exceed your "standard" monthly hotspot allowance.

Really, the 22GB de-prioritizing isn't much of a "thing", unless you're consistently in really congested areas, otherwise I could see you happily using twice that, without seeing much change in "actual" service.

It'd be one thing if AT&T made this hard to find, or similar, but they don't, it's VERY easy, there's a little asterisk by every data-volume term that applies, which shows you the thresholds.

It's still "Unlimited", really, even if it's de-prioritized, I don't any other way of looking at it.  
It's not "Unlimited, at max-speed, for ALL your data", but it's not sold as such, not in any way (except possibly in-store, where the salesperson fails to mention the "asterisk" values, in conversation, and the buyer fails to read the agreement).

I don't disagree that this would be a cool plan, but like @lizdance40 said, it'd be the "going out of business sale" plan, more or less.

Someday soon, particularly with 5G standards incoming (even though it's not fully ratified, everyone is moving towards a mostly-agreed-upon-standard(s)), there are going to have to be some obvious changes, given that you could use an entire plan, in a few minutes.

Personally, I think it'll eventually move to more of a "pure ISP" model, at least for your data (which is really almost everything these days, in most cases), say maybe you get xxxGB, and if you exceed it for x months, you get a penalty, or some similar qualification.  

What this is moving towards, in reality, I'm sure is being discussed, but being held VERY close, for now...

🥤🍿 😎

Is there a limit to the amount of data that can pass through a cell tower? 

If so, then there will be competition to use that data up on apps and also a price charged to the person who uses that data. Maybe what we should ask is why am I paying apps to use my data as well as paying att for the data that the apps use?

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@MarkLeavenworth wrote:

Is there a limit to the amount of data that can pass through a cell tower? 

YES. It would vary by tower and probably is NOT an issue for most. Or at least not a significant issue for most.

If so, then there will be competition to use that data up on apps and also a price charged to the person who uses that data. Maybe what we should ask is why am I paying apps to use my data as well as paying att for the data that the apps use?

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They're your apps, (no "we" about it) if you don't want them using data delete them or set them so they don't use cellular data. 

I personally limit app data use because of power, I don't need some apps draining my powwweerrrrr....

@Gary L Maybe if Iran falls in line then Samsung batteries will finally be as good as Apple's. 🤓