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AT&T Planning to Crackdown On Bandwidth Hogs

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Okay...AT&T Makes Bad Press For Itself...

JeffdaBeat

Dec 10, 2009, 8:56 AM
Here's the deal, I understand what AT&T is going through with the traffic of the iPhone. I honestly get it. But they aren't going to win over consumers this way. In fact, I feel like a lot of the steps they take to pull back on network problems make people hate them even more than dropped calls and uneven 3G coverage.

Already, we can't download more than a 10MB file unless we are on Wifi, we can have any video streaming apps unless on Wifi, and we can't tether. All these things make AT&T call attention to it's own faults...something they should have never started to do unless they had full intention of alleviating some of those problems. AT&T proclaims their network is strong, but in turn, does these things to protect it.

Taking actio...
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zrock02

Dec 10, 2009, 9:27 AM
Just go to verizon and get the droid or storm 2 and you pay $30 for unlimited internet and up to 10 email accounts..no limit on 10mb pictures you can watch youtube flawlessly without any wifi needed
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bluecoyote

Dec 10, 2009, 11:28 AM
Neither of those phones produces such heavy data usage for a reason....
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zrock02

Dec 10, 2009, 11:34 AM
what can they not do that the iphone does via data usage?
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acculabs

Dec 10, 2009, 11:41 AM
Impress the preteens.
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bluecoyote

Dec 10, 2009, 11:43 AM
The Blackberry's email client is rudimentary- the iPhone's is full HTML. The same goes for the web browser- most Blackberry users rely on Opera Mini.

In terms of media consumption, on an iPhone you've got iTunes, Podcasts, and a good number of games, and on average about 7 applications a month + updates. Also remember that an iPhone runs desktop-class applications, the Droid and Blackberry don't.



You have access to similar services on a Droid or Blackberry, but it's safe to say a significant number of users don't really use them.
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zrock02

Dec 10, 2009, 12:06 PM
I guess...but if your network can't handle all the strain why get it with them? Maybe Big Red will get in soon???
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bluecoyote

Dec 10, 2009, 12:11 PM
AT&T wasn't prepared for the widespread adoption, and for such a large percentage of iPhone users using 3G data. They screwed up there, but they had assumed the iPhone would consume an amount of data comparable to the average smartphone, not about 12 times more (and that's compared to not only WinMo but Blackberry and Android.)

In other words, they didn't assume the average person would actually -use- their iPhone.
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Menno

Dec 10, 2009, 3:49 PM
You can't compare it to Android as android is only a year old and only a few months old on a nationwide network with significant advertising. There is no "average android usage" yet.
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bluecoyote

Dec 10, 2009, 4:08 PM
Android's been out for over a year and had a major push on a nationwide provider (T-Mobile.)
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Menno

Dec 10, 2009, 5:16 PM
tmobile has half the subscribers of Att or Verizon. on top of that, you didn't see ANYTHING for the G1 like you see for the Iphone or Droid. Yeah, it's been out for a year, but on a small network (and only sold to people on Tmobile near their 3g coverage).

Even the MyTouch doesn't have a big push around it. Tmobile instead pushes their plans as their main form of advertising. Verizon and ATT both push phones.
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bluecoyote

Dec 10, 2009, 6:39 PM
Are you kidding me? The Cat Stevens song is practically drilled into my head from the MyTouch ads.
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Menno

Dec 10, 2009, 7:05 PM
right, that is one commercial that points out the phone. and yes, it's stuck in my head too.

But compare that to their new unlimited plan commercials. I see 6 unlimited plan commercials before I see a mytouch one (unless I am watching Hulu)

What I mean is you don't see a marketing push for any other Android phone like you see for the Droid, and even that pales compared to what happened/still happens with Iphone advertising. Part of the reason the iphone (and everything it can do) is so popular is because they are advertising features as well as the device itself.

To me, the mytouch commercials were similar to the first "iDONT" ads for the droid, interesting and memorable (for different reasons) but really lacking on information.
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Overmann

Dec 10, 2009, 12:09 PM
Blackberry's "rudimentary" email is a push email service, designed for fast send/receive of email. Having it HTML formatted would increase exponentially the amount of data that the blackberry mail servers already have to handle. This would lead to more lag and slower push email. Not good for the business people that use Blackberries, who always need their mails yesterday. Mind you, Blackberries are the most popular smartphones, and run on all networks, so there are zillions of Blackberry users out there.
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Menno

Dec 10, 2009, 3:48 PM
This is also true. Blackberries are business first, fun second. That is how they are designed. This is not a negative, so when they do something to optimize speed (non-html email) it's not a detractor.
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Menno

Dec 10, 2009, 3:46 PM
The Droid is new. You can bet that most people will use the services once they get used to the phone (just like they did the iphone)

My data usage has tripled since I picked up the Droid from my blackberry, and it's lightyears ahead of what I used on my EnV2 with Vcast

On my Droid I have
-Youtube (high quality set as a default),
-Listen (podcasts, download them to my phone),
-iTv, a program that lets me stream full episodes of TV shows to my phone (about 50% of them don't require wifi)
-HTML5 Webkit browser (similar to the iphone as far as page rendering).
-Pandora (that I use constantly)
-I've downloaded I don't know how many apps and plan to continue to do so.

The droid has the capability to be a very data heavy device...
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jasonfedelem

Dec 10, 2009, 9:32 AM
Just a minor correction, the other carriers limit 5 GB on data cards, but there is no limit (at least with VZW and Sprint) on data usage on phones.
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zrock02

Dec 10, 2009, 9:35 AM
yeah and there's no limit on the 3G availability either. I've been all over the country with my storm and not a single problem or lack of service anywhere
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JeffdaBeat

Dec 10, 2009, 11:36 AM
Um...if that were the case then a lot more people would use their phones as a modem instead of buying an aircard...
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jskrenes

Dec 10, 2009, 1:17 PM
JeffdaBeat said:
Um...if that were the case then a lot more people would use their phones as a modem instead of buying an aircard...


Not sure about Sprint, but with VZW, there is a difference between tethering (phone as modem) and using data on your phone (reading emails, facebook, pandora, etc). Tethering costs extra and there is a 5 GB limit.
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Menno

Dec 10, 2009, 3:39 PM
If you jailbreak a phone, can't you get past that 10mb limit? I think that's whats going to come out of this. People who hacked their phones to get around those limits.
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bluecoyote

Dec 10, 2009, 4:13 PM
You can download files larger than 12MB from a 3G connection, just not from the App Store and iTunes, so it's something put in place on each respective marketplace.

My guess is there's no such limit on any jailbroken portal. My other guess is that there's some unauthorized tethering taking place, as you really have to work to break 5GB/month with an iPhone.
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Menno

Dec 10, 2009, 5:13 PM
ah alright, thanks for the clarification
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