Will AT&T Charge Extra For MMS & Tethering? 326
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Bill Snyder questions whether AT&T's jockeying on tethering and MMS may signal coming iPhone pricing surcharges. After all, as Apple's exclusive US partner, Ma Bell should have plenty of insight into upcoming iPhone features and revenue opportunities. Yet AT&T was very conspicuous in its absence from the list of providers who will support tethering and MMS at Tuesday's launch of the new iPhone at WWDC, and by Wednesday, it was backpedaling furiously, saying it will offer both services — later in the year. Certainly, the exclusive arrangement between the companies is proving to be an ugly roadblock to Apple's iPhone vision. But Snyder thinks it may go deeper than that: 'My best guess is that we'll see horrendous pricing surcharges for tethering and MMS, on top of the already expensive data and voice charges iPhone users pay. I don't think AT&T execs wanted to stand up at WWDC and announce that.'"
By Design - US lags world in wireless features (Score:5, Insightful)
Do people actually think VZW will be any better? (Score:2, Insightful)
VZW is notorious for charging for everything .. people put up with it due to verizon has outstanding voice quality and good speed for data. As much as you all want LTE it's at least 2 years away to have adequate coverage so Apple needs to either suck it up and make a short term CDMA based iPhone or wait and make a LTE based with CDMA backband so you have coverage anywhere outside of major metro areas. Not to mention you think carriers are going to roll out faster networks and reduce data prices? Bandwidth and buildout cost money - where does this mindset that this should all be as lost cost as possible? Another thread I read on this (as there are hundreds at this point) is you have a group of people that think and react to this from the point of being a computer user and not a cellphone user. To the pc users this pricing is just not something they feel is fair, while the cellphone crowd has been used to it. I'm in the middle - seeing I don't pay a dime for mobile devices or service being a mobile professional I would never pay upwards to $100 a month. My iPhone is sim free and I only use WiFi. My Bold is on at&t and tethering is $10-12 a month last I checked for a user so they are not about to give services other devices charge for free to iPhone users. Apple should just cut ties with everyone - sell the iPhone for cost and force carriers to offer attractive plans to a growing iPhone user base - I doubt it would work or see the sales volume with $500+ devices but then it's a set price and users are free to change devices everytime Apple trots out a new model yearly.
Favorite Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it doesn't make sense to allow tethering (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't really matter in the short term. (Score:2, Insightful)
AT&T has Apple by the balls, and Apple has its fanbois by the balls. All of this complaining is just a smoke screen; they will gladly pay the extortionist prices because they are Apple fanbois and are used to it. In the short term AT&T will rake it in. In the long term, who knows? Businesses today aren't really concerned with the long term anyway. With any luck AT&T HQ will be attacked by Godzilla.
Re:Maybe it doesn't make sense to allow tethering (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe the problem is that tethering competes directly with their data-only "Internet found!" campaign, which doesn't seem to be hindered by lack of facilities.
Then don't buy it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sheesh, if you don't like AT&T's terms, then don't buy an iPhone. It's not like there aren't alternatives out there that provide nearly the same functionality.
Want to play their games? Use their apps? Get the iPod touch.
AT&T sucks balls (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, we are happy enough with the iPhones that we will stay with AT&T as long as the exclusive agreement lasts, but listen up AT&T, you are expendable and we would GLADLY drop your ass. We and everyone else is fed up with your BS.
Re:By Design - US lags world in wireless features (Score:5, Insightful)
My experience with both, and T-Mobile is that they do not offer reduced rates if you intend to use a phone you acquired from another source. Their rate plans are all designed with the intent that they should subsidize the purchase of a new phone for much less money based on the entering of a long duration contract. In effect, the telecoms are financing your cell phone-except that if you already have one, you dont get a reduced rate.
The entire business model for the mobile telecoms revolves around contract pricing to subsidize reduced price phones, giving them extraordinary power over mobile handset manufacturers. In my mind, this tying arrangement is horrible for consumers because in effect, the handset manufacturers serve the telecoms, not the end users. The telecoms deem which features are allowed on their network and disallow any features that would conflict with their own profitable value-add services(such as uploading ringtones to a phone).
The FTC should have stepped in 10 years ago and realized there is no real competition among handset producers-the telecoms decide who the winners and losers are. If you want REAL competition among handset producers leading to technological advancement, you have to end the tying of phone purchases to cell contracts.
Re:Maybe it doesn't make sense to allow tethering (Score:1, Insightful)
What would be special about iPhone MMS, other than that all of a sudden millions of iPhone users are suddenly going to start using the service.
I never understood the point of MMS on an iPhone considering you can bloody E-MAIL photos to people...
Re:Maybe it doesn't make sense to allow tethering (Score:5, Insightful)
I never understood the point of MMS on an iPhone considering you can bloody E-MAIL photos to people...
If your buddy doesn't have a phone that can do email, how can you get it on his phone? Most phones can do MMS.
The fact that iPhone can't do MMS is pretty sad.
Re:By Design - US lags world in wireless features (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want REAL competition among handset producers leading to technological advancement, you have to end the tying of phone purchases to cell contracts.
True, but even then you won't have REAL competition until you force them to be more open about various things. Like when you advertise "unlimited" data plans, what are the restrictions? Those plans aren't unlimited. Or why do SMS messages cost so much? What is the real status of each network's 3G rollout? Their 4G rollout? What are their real costs/profits?
I get much more upset about our wired data infrastructure, since there's pretty much zero competition in that space, but my objection is pretty much the same: If we're going to allow a private company to build out our national communications infrastructure, then that company should be forced to adhere to a higher standard of fairness and transparency. If there isn't sufficient competition (or even if the barrier to entry is too high) then they should also be heavily regulated.
Re:AT&T sucks balls (Score:3, Insightful)
I can state definitively that the instant it is possible to part with AT&T we would do so. Don't get me wrong, we are happy enough with the iPhones that we will stay with AT&T as long as the exclusive agreement lasts, but listen up AT&T, you are expendable and we would GLADLY drop your ass.
So basically you like the iPhone so much that as long as the exclusivity agreement's in place, you'll put up with any amount of AT&T's crap and paying them anyway.
So presumably if the iPhone moves exclusively to another network, you'll go with *them* too.
Therefore, AT&T and/or other networks have no reason to care about or pay attention to your complaints or threats, only to ensure that they have (and continue to have) the iPhone exclusivity agreement.
Re:Maybe it doesn't make sense to allow tethering (Score:5, Insightful)
Because its so hard to add 5556667777@mms.cellphone.com to a contact?
User friendly or not, it has always been incorrect to say that iPhone users cannot send pictures to MMS devices.
MMS was designed for use with camera phones with a bare bones OS. With email to MMS available, specific MMS support on smartphones is just keeping alive a technology that should die sooner rather than later.
Re:Not just AT&T, folks (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a Verizon customer. They have HORRID billing practices (throw in lots of ambiguous "fees"
That's another little problem that I'm sure we're all familiar with: all the "taxes" and "fees" on your cell phone bill. Why are they allowed to do that?
If I were running a store and I advertised an item for $50, but when you came in to buy it I said, "Well, it's $50, plus sales tax, plus another $10 to cover various taxes associated with running my store, plus another $5 in fees," what would happen? I would guess I'd get in trouble for false advertising. Yet my $40 cell phone bill always comes out $60. Every single month.
Personally, I've always thought it was kind of silly that advertised prices don't already include sales tax, but cell phone plans definitely take it too far.
MMS: no. Tethering: yes, +$30. (Score:3, Insightful)
Tethering, on the other hand, they absolutely *will* charge for. You can opt for the "official" tethering ability on the Blackberry and other PDA data plans. It costs and additional $30 month (for 5GB of data) on top of the $30/month data plan. Considering that many of these phones have 3G, I see no reason why they'd charge differently for iPhone 3G tethering. Unless, of course, they want to.
I'm not saying that I think it's ok to charge another $30 for "more-unlimited" data. It's asinine. Unlimited data should be unlimited data. And it clearly isn't. But anyway, those "in the know" understand that it's trivial to tether _right now_ with a stock iPhone. Just pick up a Samsung Sync for $25 off eBay. Use it + your iPhone SIM + bluetooth/USB cable to connect to your favorite PC/Mac/Linux machine. Poof. 3G tethering. Yes, it's against the TOS but AT&T historically hasn't cared so long as you don't abuse it. Of course, they could crack down on this if they wanted to.... YMMV + use at your own risk.
Re:Maybe it doesn't make sense to allow tethering (Score:4, Insightful)
It is a burden. MMS is convenient and easy. Sending email to an MMS email gateway is not.
Re: One sided partnership (Score:3, Insightful)
AT&T could tell Apple to screw off, in which case they would lose iPhone exclusivity. Plenty of other carriers would beat Apple's door down to get either future model exclusivity, or at least availabilty on their network.
That would substantially reduce AT&T profit because there are plenty of iPhone users ready to switch carriers, and plenty potential users who won't even consider AT&T but would consider an iPhone on T*mobile or others.
Apple could tell AT&T to screw off and you'd have the same result.
Who has the power in this relationship?
AT&T allows both tethering and MMS (Score:3, Insightful)
So just to take a dispassionate look at this.
First, AT&T's network supports MMS and tethering just fine. I use connection share on my Windows Mobile smart phone via Bluetooth all the time. No problems. I send MMS on the AT&T network all the time as well. So I'm not sure why there are so many stories that suggest the AT&T network is incapable of doing this. I'm not sure about the HSDPA, but for GPRS... there really isn't any effective way for AT&T to prevent you from using connection sharing. And you can put any GSM phone on their network.
Second, how many iPhones are on AT&T's network? Three and a half million, maybe? With over 75 million subscribers the idea that 4% are going to overload the MMS or GPRS infrastructure is crazy. That stuff is so over-built at AT&T that they hardly sweat. Now, RF capacity might be a different story... but I rarely see any articles even mention that. And its hardly an iPhone specific problem.
AT&T definitely benefits from its deal with Apple. AT&T definitely wants to maintain an exclusive deal. So how could they be dictating to Apple? To me it looks like Apple is the ones who either want rules changed for their benefit or some other concession. You build a phone to the GSMA spec, AT&T can't stop you from allowing people to share the GPRS connection. You can definitely turn MMS service on and off per MSISDN... but it has nothing to do with the device. Why do it?
None of it makes economic sense. Generally, mobile providers are selling phones at a loss or at cost if you don't sign up for a contract. I don't see how AT&T has an interest in crippling Apple phones. All they want is the subscribers. The more people who think an iPhone is good to by... the better.