Derek Turner for Wired:
Though it’s trying its best to hide it, the truth is that AT&T’s motivation here is to prop up its slowly declining voice and text revenue streams, which are expensive services that the open internet is making obsolete. If AT&T can weaken the FCC’s Net Neutrality protections at the same time, well that’s a bonus. The decision to block FaceTime likely will not be the last anti-consumer thing AT&T attempts as it tries to reassert its control over the communications ecosystem that the open internet pried away long ago.
Turner hits the nail on the head.
No he doesn’t. This is just more anti-AT&T hooey.
I don’t see anything wrong with paying for the data I use/consume/transmit. Mobile Share is simply a better, more efficient way of doing that. With it, AT&T also stops charging for voice minutes and text messages, along with allowing Facetime calls as simply data usage.
That seems fair to me.
How long have you been employed by AT&T?
Would an AT&T employee call you an idiot? I am for you assuming such.
More efficient at defining one use of bandwidth as more expensive than another, yes.
That’s up to us customers to see for ourselves. There’s a sliding scale discount as data usage goes up.
It’s also up to us customers to see when powerful industry cartels sidestep laws they helped weaken. Your devotion to AT&T is heartwarming.
I don’t agree with him, but the practice of saying “you must work for company” just because that person agrees with said company’s policies when you don’t is ridiculous. If you can’t refute his argument, then why bother posting.
I don’t see a problem with paying for data I use/consume data, but let’s be honest, if the Mobile Share plan didn’t fit your needs you wouldn’t be saying it’s just “anti-AT&T hooey”.
The cheapest plan they offer is $85/month for goodness sake!
Why AT&T and every other carrier can’t just give us honest, straightforward pricing is beyond me. Holding features hostage to force you into a plan that may or may not fit your needs is anti-consumer.
daniel — if youre not on an unlimited plan, youre already paying for the data you consume.
I recently chose AT&T over all the competition to service my iPhone, so I’m clearly not an “anti-AT&T hooey” spewer, but even I can see that this is a painfully clear attempt by AT&T to get customers like myself off of limited voice and texting plans. I have 450 voice minutes a month and pay for texts individually (on the very rare occasion that I use them). I use FaceTime over WiFi with my wife, leaving all the 450 monthly minutes for others, and this works fine for me EXCEPT when I happen to be away from WiFi. iOS 6.0 with cellular enabled FaceTime would cement my dedication to my particular (relatively inexpensive) plan. AT&T doesn’t really want to sell me the plan I currently have, but apparently realize they need to at least appear to offer a low-end plan, so they’re just doing everything they can to push people like me into more expensive plans (our cable company did exactly the same thing to us, by the way, until we managed to cut that cord). This “no FaceTime over cellular” policy is just another cheap manipulation that once again demonstrates that AT&T doesn’t want people like me (relatively poor individuals) as customers. I’ve made a choice to spend what little discretionary money I have each month on an iPhone because of the return I get on that investment, but I definitely CANNOT afford one of the more expensive Mobile Sharing plans. I guess I’ll be switching to T-Mobile and saying goodbye to reasonable cellular data speeds once my contract is up.