AT&T Announce New Data Plans (Effective January 22nd)

[HeyCori]

I'm a AT&T customer and all this has left me wondering how much data I really use. I have the 2GB data plan but I rarely get close to 200MB because I'm always on wifi (both work and home). Well yesterday I checked my usage and saw that I was at 201MB. I'm blaming part of this on the Titan's spotty wifi performance. Still, I was surprised that I finally went over 200MBs. Now I want to know how much data I actually use in a day. I'm going to go the whole day (maybe two days) using just my "4G" connection. I wanna see how much data I use and if AT&T's speed is as unbearable as some make it out to be.

 

[Winterfang]

I wish my country had enough Wifi spots for me to go around. Well I should probably use the one at my house but I forgot the password.

 

[HeyCori]

I wish my country had enough Wifi spots for me to go around. Well I should probably use the one at my house but I forgot the password.

There's probably a way to hard reset the router.

 

[Winterfang]

I know, but I'm on unlimited and I have full 3G bars here at my home so I don't really need it. The bad thing is that I don't have data neither at my job or most of my college. Making my Windows Phone unusable. most of the time.

 

[Reflexx]

I think part of the reason for the price increase is BECAUSE the T-Mo deal was rejected.

AT&T had to pay a few billion to T-Mo and also had to buy new spectrum. The new spectrum that would have been dedicated towards LTE is now having to be used as a mix of LTE and strengthening the existing network. The T-Mo acquisition would have solved a lot of that.

Sucks that prices have to go up. But the upcoming costs for AT&T's network growth are going to be pretty huge.

And as for AT&T needing a GSM competitor... I think that becomes less and less relevant every day. T-Mo isn't really much of a competitor anyway. They're a small player.

The real competitor is Verizon. Verizon is the big dog. But just because they're CDMA people think they're not a competitor for some reason. They're WINNING. How are they not a competitor?

And everyone is moving to LTE. So the whole GSM vs CDMA thing will be a thing of the past in a few years.

So right now we have Verizon with a decent amount of spectrum and a solid nation-wide network leading the pack. And we have AT&T with a spectrum shortage (though they just recently bought some spectrum that Qualcomm put up for sale) trying to compete with Verizon.

Far far far far behind we have Sprint and T-Mo.

T-Mo doesn't really have a very big network. They're treading water.

Sprint has a decent sized spotty network. Ironically, Sprint has the most spectrum. I remember way back in the day when all the spectrum first went to auction. That's when PCS was the new thing. Sprint bought up almost half the spectrum available. They just have really really really really really sucky management.

 

[Winterfang]

Sprint is just awful.

 

[Premium1]

The real competitor is Verizon. Verizon is the big dog. But just because they're CDMA people think they're not a competitor for some reason. They're WINNING. How are they not a competitor?

And everyone is moving to LTE. So the whole GSM vs CDMA thing will be a thing of the past in a few years.

So right now we have Verizon with a decent amount of spectrum and a solid nation-wide network leading the pack. And we have AT&T with a spectrum shortage (though they just recently bought some spectrum that Qualcomm put up for sale) trying to compete with Verizon.

I think even though they are all going to lte, it is different bands of lte for each carrier so hopefully once it is full lte the manufacturers can make 1 phone with all the bands so you can buy it without having to rely on a carrier but most likely verizon will try and make this not happen or not allow it to happen.

 

[Reflexx]

I think even though they are all going to lte, it is different bands of lte for each carrier so hopefully once it is full lte the manufacturers can make 1 phone with all the bands so you can buy it without having to rely on a carrier but most likely verizon will try and make this not happen or not allow it to happen.

I think you're right. It seems that US carriers are very intent on having their handsets not work with other carriers. Not like back in the good old days when you didn't have to worry about that.

I actually wished that the owners of the spectrum weren't the same ones who sold the service to customers. Ideally, there would be 3rd parties who owned the spectrum and just charged carriers based on how much traffic they used.

 

[cdook]

I think you're right. It seems that US carriers are very intent on having their handsets not work with other carriers. Not like back in the good old days when you didn't have to worry about that.

I actually wished that the owners of the spectrum weren't the same ones who sold the service to customers. Ideally, there would be 3rd parties who owned the spectrum and just charged carriers based on how much traffic they used.

We need some change in the cell market. I totally agree. I wish I could buy a phone out of pocket and use it on whatever network has the best coveragw and service. Instead we're locked into two year contracts and choose carriers on phones, while generally ignoring service.

 

[GekkoAce]

You are free to buy any unlocked GSM phone off contract and pick the best deal. Nobody is stopping any US customer from doing that. Unfortunately US consumers are too accustomed to getting things right NOW and paying it back over time (credit cards, cellphone contracts, cars..)
But.. Like I said, you are free to go out and get any phone you want. In fact, wpcentral posted a deal alert for a $215 unlocked Focus today and MSFT will be selling the Nokia 800 unlocked in the US soon too.

We need some change in the cell market. I totally agree. I wish I could buy a phone out of pocket and use it on whatever network has the best coveragw and service. Instead we're locked into two year contracts and choose carriers on phones, while generally ignoring service.

Sent from my TITAN using Board Express

 

[GekkoAce]

RT @wpcentral: Deal Alert: Unlocked Samsung Focus I917 for $215 at https://t.co/8qEk0mu4 https://t.co/w3JFKHoI #wp7 #windowsphone

Sent from my TITAN using Board Express

 

[rezzet#CB]

Just Sharing.

AT&T Launches New Data Plans | AT&T

Considering I don't seem to be getting over 1 Mbps on AT&T 4G, I highly doubt I'd ever use up 2GBs, let alone 3 or 5.

 

[TheWeeBear]

You have to keep trying though opwave, my 2 peak data records are 14GB and 44GB.

Good job it's unlimited.

Welcome along to WPCentral opwave.

 

[rezzet#CB]

Click to view quoted image


You have to keep trying though opwave, my 2 peak data records are 14GB and 44GB.

Good job it's unlimited.

Welcome along to WPCentral opwave.

Thank you, Sir!

44Gb!? I had to re-read it 3 times thinking it might be a typo. That's quite incredible as I don't use that much data on my home computer.

 

[TheWeeBear]

I know it's a rediculous amount, I was streaming indoors and outdoors (Zune, Last FM etc)

Thought I would try downloading via Tethering as well, my poor phone must have been nearly melting.

Just wanted to go mad and see how much data I could rack up and that's what it ammounted to.

I have calmed down now though opwave and never reach anything like these totals now.

It was a fun experiment.

 

[HeyCori]

I'm a AT&T customer and all this has left me wondering how much data I really use. I have the 2GB data plan but I rarely get close to 200MB because I'm always on wifi (both work and home). Well yesterday I checked my usage and saw that I was at 201MB. I'm blaming part of this on the Titan's spotty wifi performance. Still, I was surprised that I finally went over 200MBs. Now I want to know how much data I actually use in a day. I'm going to go the whole day (maybe two days) using just my "4G" connection. I wanna see how much data I use and if AT&T's speed is as unbearable as some make it out to be.

Went the whole day using just my AT&T signal and honestly I didn't think it was that bad. My speed test results from yesterday are 1.1 at work (3G) and 2.9 at home (edge of 3G/4G). Despite being able to achieve much faster speeds on wifi I actually didn't notice much of a difference in terms of usage. Mobile web pages still loaded within seconds. Cracked.com did take a bit long but it is a pretty image intense page and for some reason m.quickmeme didn't load at all.

I also measured my data usage and I used around 35MBs of data yesterday. That includes light web browsing, a 3 minute long youtube video, two 4MB speed tests, and using the People hub to check Facebook/Twitter. I was hesitate to include the speed tests because that's not part of my regular phone usage. Something else I noticed is the People hub didn't hang while trying to download updates. Sometimes downloading updates take forever with both wifi/4g on but it seemed to work much better with wifi off. I think I'm going to go wifi-less for a month and see how much data I burn through.

And I'm quite sure AT&T will see this and decide to raise prices again.

 

[condemned]

Who in the right mind would pay $20/month for 300mb? ATT should be ashamed to even offer that. $30 for 3gb seems decent but I get 5gb for the same price on Tmobile.

What I hope to see from all major carriers in the future is $15 for 2gb, $30 for 5gb and $50+ for unlimited.

 

[condemned]

I think part of the reason for the price increase is BECAUSE the T-Mo deal was rejected.

AT&T had to pay a few billion to T-Mo and also had to buy new spectrum. The new spectrum that would have been dedicated towards LTE is now having to be used as a mix of LTE and strengthening the existing network. The T-Mo acquisition would have solved a lot of that.

Sucks that prices have to go up. But the upcoming costs for AT&T's network growth are going to be pretty huge.

And as for AT&T needing a GSM competitor... I think that becomes less and less relevant every day. T-Mo isn't really much of a competitor anyway. They're a small player.

The real competitor is Verizon. Verizon is the big dog. But just because they're CDMA people think they're not a competitor for some reason. They're WINNING. How are they not a competitor?

And everyone is moving to LTE. So the whole GSM vs CDMA thing will be a thing of the past in a few years.

So right now we have Verizon with a decent amount of spectrum and a solid nation-wide network leading the pack. And we have AT&T with a spectrum shortage (though they just recently bought some spectrum that Qualcomm put up for sale) trying to compete with Verizon.

Far far far far behind we have Sprint and T-Mo.

T-Mo doesn't really have a very big network. They're treading water.

Sprint has a decent sized spotty network. Ironically, Sprint has the most spectrum. I remember way back in the day when all the spectrum first went to auction. That's when PCS was the new thing. Sprint bought up almost half the spectrum available. They just have really really really really really sucky management.

Well I'm glad I have great coverage and fast data speeds with Tmobile where I live. And they've been expanding too. The prices compared to other carriers just make them better.

 

[Winterfang]

Click to view quoted image


You have to keep trying though opwave, my 2 peak data records are 14GB and 44GB.

The cap level on my home internet is 40GB!

I don't even have 40GB of stuff in my computer, Dear lord.