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Tutor

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1 Message

Tuesday, December 10th, 2013 5:11 PM

Enabling personal hotspot with unlimited data plan

I have an unlimited data plan and I would like to enable my personal hotspot so I can use my iPad.  I am being told, in order to use the personal hotspot, I have to lose my unlimited plan and pay $50 per month for 5GB.  Does this make any sense to anyone?  If I have an unlimited data plan, what difference does it make which device I use (iPhone or iPad), it all takes from my existing data plan.  This is AT&T's attempt to get people with grandfatherred in unlimited data plan to pay extra to use this feature.  Extremely disappointed in AT&T. 

Contributor

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1 Message

10 years ago

I got similar problem and just got off the phone with AT&T, feel so bad...shame AT&T

Teacher

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12 Messages

10 years ago


@sandblaster wrote:

@Tnotter75 wrote:
This is terrible. How dare ATT put restrictions on a feature of a feature that iphone includes to stay on top of such a competitive market. Blatantly greedy to pry people away from unlimited data plans. I left Verizon for similar greed. Now I'm faced with moving along again. Sucks...

Sorry but greed has nothing to do with it. Tethering was never a feature of the unlimited data plan and Apple's personal hotspot didn't even exist when the unlimited data plan was discontinued 4 years ago. No carrier goes back and adds features to discontinued plans.

Apple's FaceTime over cellular did not exist and therefore was not a feature of the unlimited data plan when it was discontinued, but AT&T did go back and add it to the discontinued unlimited plans (or am I mistaken?).

 

ACE - Expert

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64.7K Messages

10 years ago


@9th Ward wrote:

@sandblaster wrote:

@Tnotter75 wrote:
This is terrible. How dare ATT put restrictions on a feature of a feature that iphone includes to stay on top of such a competitive market. Blatantly greedy to pry people away from unlimited data plans. I left Verizon for similar greed. Now I'm faced with moving along again. Sucks...

Sorry but greed has nothing to do with it. Tethering was never a feature of the unlimited data plan and Apple's personal hotspot didn't even exist when the unlimited data plan was discontinued 4 years ago. No carrier goes back and adds features to discontinued plans.

Apple's FaceTime over cellular did not exist and therefore was not a feature of the unlimited data plan when it was discontinued, but AT&T did go back and add it to the discontinued unlimited plans (or am I mistaken?).

 


You make a fair point but I would not consider FaceTime to be a feature of the data plan. If you remember, there was much controversy over blocking FaceTime when Skype or any other video app was not blocked. Personally, I don't they ever should have blocked it. 

Contributor

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2 Messages

9 years ago

This makes no sense.

Contributor

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2 Messages

9 years ago

I was told I had to purchase the unlimited plan many years ago. So, because I've been a customer for so long, I'm being punished .

Master

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4.1K Messages

9 years ago

You get what you pay for.  You pay to use your unlimited data plan on one device, your smartphone.  You don't pay to use it on multiple devices (tethering), you pay to use it on one device.  I don't see where AT&T is ripping any one off, or cheating them, or being greedy, just by giving customers what they pay for.  If you are willing to pay for a tethering account, then you can tether other devices to your smartphone, and share the internet connection with them.

 

Considering that the unlimited data plan was discontinued over 4 years ago before your iPhone ever offered tethering (without hacking it) I'm not quite sure why this is such a big deal now.  It has been like this for 4 years, so you would have thought you would have already gone to another carrier if you were going to do that over not being able to tether on your unlimited data plan.

Mentor

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61 Messages

9 years ago

AT&T is just being greedy. Yes the tethering option didn't exist when this plan was offered, but what about throttling? That didn't exist either, but that didn't stop AT&T from throttling users after 5GB of data (I don't remember signing up for that)

 

AT&T doesn't want to offer tethering as a free option because they know it will take money away from their alternative options for iPads, etc.

 

They'll do whatever it takes to kick unlimited data users from their plans and put them on their overpriced data plans ($50 for 5GB) you get the same 5GB on unlimited for $30 before you get throttled.. I wouldn't be surprised if they put all unlimited data users on edge/3g and say "unlimited data is unlimited data, we never said it had to be LTE"

 

ATT = GREEDY

Tutor

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4 Messages

9 years ago

I agree throttling is ridiculous if att sold unlimited data then provide it. Do you think that throttling is not limiting the data that we can use? There for making your company a hypocrite. Stop being greedy provide what we paid for and be happy we pay for it with you.

Tutor

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3 Messages

9 years ago

I can only gasp at this reply, it is reminiscent of Comcast, we had UNLIMITED plans that are limited and you wonder why we are upset, . I hope the recent letter from the FCC changes the senior managements mind on what UNLIMITED means it means UNLIMITED not LIMITED. When new technology arrives that the plan can benefit from you say NO to the users who thought they were getting UNLIMITED plans. 

 

"We're not going to force you to lose what you originally had, but you can't have you cake and eat it too. You can't ask for new things (tethering), and not expect your old plans to keep up (unlimited)."  

 

This is so condescending i would be surprised if you are working for AT&T anymore. 

 

"It's not some special conspiracy to rob of that. We're just trying to offer what we can reasonably do in large numbers. You don't seem to appreciate how much work goes into providing a moderate of coverage for huge numbers of customers."

 

This is ridiculous " why did you promise UNLIMITED and not give UNLIMITED? its about meeting your commitments we do it everyday. 

 

What worked out pretty well is to give what you sold to so many as a plan that you did not meet yout promise and commitmtnts to so many customers who went with AT&T under the pretext of getting an UNLIMITED plan that ended up being limited, and you are doing everything in your power to get the legacy customers off thoose plans. 

 

Contributor

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1 Message

9 years ago

AT&T could offer those with an unlimited plan the ability to use personal hotspot where the tethered device is subject to limited data (limited GB/mo or $/GB) but with the customer retaining his unlimited plan on the phone. If AT&T were sincere in there explanation then this should satisfy them, and I would be thrilled to have that option. But they aren't sincere; they just want to kick people off unlimited.
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