# AT&T's Terrible Plan to Bill App Makers for Your Data Use.



## BubblePuppy (Nov 3, 2006)

> AT&T thinks it's figured out a new way to make money off the rise of smartphones: Instead of just having consumers pay for mobile data, AT&T plans to allow app makers to cover the cost of data themselves, so it doesn't count against users' plans.


This isn't good at all. 
http://techland.time.com/2012/02/28/atts-plan-to-bill-app-makers-is-terrible-news/


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## Alan Gordon (Jun 7, 2004)

BubblePuppy said:


> This isn't good at all.
> http://techland.time.com/2012/02/28/atts-plan-to-bill-app-makers-is-terrible-news/


Since data seems to be such an issue for AT&T, they should simply stop offering data... LOL!!!

~Alan


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## dennisj00 (Sep 27, 2007)

This is the best idea from a carrier since the text message rip-off!

What'll they think of next?


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## BubblePuppy (Nov 3, 2006)

"Alan Gordon" said:


> Since data seems to be such an issue for AT&T, they should simply stop offering data... LOL!!!
> 
> ~Alan


My MotoRazr V3 is starting to look very good again.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

What is interesting is the idea that AT&T wanted to convince users that it would result in them not paying for the data... when we all know that IF they made the app-creator pay, that would be passed to the end-user as part of the cost of the app.


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## Alan Gordon (Jun 7, 2004)

BubblePuppy said:


> My MotoRazr V3 is starting to look very good again.


As great as I think smart phones have the potential to be, I sometimes miss the reliability of mine...

~Alan


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## BubblePuppy (Nov 3, 2006)

"Stewart Vernon" said:


> What is interesting is the idea that AT&T wanted to convince users that it would result in them not paying for the data... when we all know that IF they made the app-creator pay, that would be passed to the end-user as part of the cost of the app.


How will AT&T charge the developer, one time charge, flat rate monthly subscription, with limited or unlimited data? This is going to be a cluster regardless how this is implemented. Of course the user will ultimately pay.


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## jacksonm30354 (Mar 29, 2007)

From what I read today, it would allow someone with a limited amount of data to purchase a movie and have the data included as part of a price. The seller might be able to get a better bulk rate on data than the user.


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Hmmm. So basically, this is targeted at streaming. If the App maker pays AT&T then what you stream won't count against your limit. And, of course, when there's congestion that App maker's traffic won't be throttled.

Actually this is a "clever" joint marketing idea. If YouTube, as an example, were to agree to this and jointly market the benefits, and thereby some other sites, say HULU decide to pay, over a period of time AT&T could start charging more for "excess" customer data use, except when it involves a partner sites.

Unfortunately for the major corporations like AT&T and Bank of America, there's this thing called the interwebs and it keeps fouling up their reputations.


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## Alan Gordon (Jun 7, 2004)

phrelin said:


> Hmmm. So basically, this is targeted at streaming. If the App maker pays AT&T then what you stream won't count against your limit. And, of course, when there's congestion that App maker's traffic won't be throttled.
> 
> Actually this is a "clever" joint marketing idea. If YouTube, as an example, were to agree to this and jointly market the benefits, and thereby some other sites, say HULU decide to pay, over a period of time AT&T could start charging more for "excess" customer data use, except when it involves a partner sites.


I actually thought of this idea some time ago when ISPs first started throttling.

~Alan


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

BubblePuppy said:


> How will AT&T charge the developer, one time charge, flat rate monthly subscription, with limited or unlimited data? This is going to be a cluster regardless how this is implemented. Of course the user will ultimately pay.


That's where I thought it got a little dodgy too... A one-time charge would have to be big to try and guess-timate "lifetime" of the use of the app... otherwise it might be in-app purchases to access content, so you get dinged each time for each usage of the app.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

*A*lways *T*aking *&* *T*aking.


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## MysteryMan (May 17, 2010)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> *A*lways *T*aking *&* *T*aking.


+1......looks like they took Gordon Gekko seriously when he said "Greed is Good".


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

Pure marketing spin by AT&T. Instead of people being angry at AT&T for charging so much for data, they want people to be angry at the app makers for charging so much for the apps.

Either way, the consumer ends up footing the bill.

- Merg


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## BubblePuppy (Nov 3, 2006)

I'm also wondering how users grandfathered in unlimited data will be treated along with those who mainly use wifi for the data connection. I fall in both of those categories. I'll be dam*ed if I give AT&T more $$$!


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

BubblePuppy said:


> I'm also wondering how users grandfathered in unlimited data will be treated along with those who mainly use wifi for the data connection. I fall in both of those categories. I'll be dam*ed if I give AT&T more $$$!


Yet another loophole... I expect it would result in customers essentially paying twice for the data in those scenarios.


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## wingrider01 (Sep 9, 2005)

BubblePuppy said:


> I'm also wondering how users grandfathered in unlimited data will be treated along with those who mainly use wifi for the data connection. I fall in both of those categories. I'll be dam*ed if I give AT&T more $$$!


suspect that the grandfathered plan is going to be a thing of the past very soon. Back in October 2011 they started throttling the grandfathered unlimited users at around 2GB usage and just brought in a new tiered plan of 30.00 for 3GB. It has all the earmarks of being removed from the plans the sameway they removed the "no data plan for smartphones" in 2009 - they altered teh grandfather clause to include the device that the feature was on, once the device was remove via upgrade or siwtching sims to a different device the feature was removed.


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## BubblePuppy (Nov 3, 2006)

"wingrider01" said:


> suspect that the grandfathered plan is going to be a thing of the past very soon. Back in October 2011 they started throttling the grandfathered unlimited users at around 2GB usage and just brought in a new tiered plan of 30.00 for 3GB. It has all the earmarks of being removed from the plans the sameway they removed the "no data plan for smartphones" in 2009 - they altered teh grandfather clause to include the device that the feature was on, once the device was remove via upgrade or siwtching sims to a different device the feature was removed.


I've upgraded 4 times, each time I was able to keep my unlimited data plan. The most recent upgrade was last week. I went from a HTC Inspire 4G/DesireHD to the Samsung GalaxySII Skyrocket LTE. This upgrade required a new LTE SIM card. 
I'm not concerned about the throttling since over 95% of my data usage is over wifi. 
I am interested in finding out how many users are still grandfathered vs capped data plan users.


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