Apple/Mac/iPhone/iPad Ping!
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Posted on 06/02/2010 8:36:10 AM PDT by Clint Williams
_KiTA_ writes
"AT&T announced today that the iPhone will gain tethering, finally, at an extra $20 a month, but only for people on a new 2GB a month plan. They also quietly announced at the same time the real news — that the $30 Unlimited Data plan on the iPad 3G will be axed in lieu of the same data plan. Yes, this would be the same 'revolutionary data plan' that Steve Jobs was so proud of during the iPad unveiling — it lasted just a month after the 3G model was delayed to May 7. People feeling vibes of previous Apple iDevice releases are not alone. Existing accounts will be allowed to grandfather in, although Apple has removed the ability to purchase the iPad from the online store at this time, and AT&T has a history of changing its plans without warning. Finally, there is no word on what happens if you ever let your Unlimited plan lapse for a month at this time."
Usage-based bandwidth pricing is inevitable. Try getting your electric or water utilities to quote you a rate for "unlimited" use of their product. The only question is setting reasonable rates and tiers. For current-generation iPhones these may be adequate (less so for iPads given their better suitability for mobile video), but bandwidth costs decline constantly which means that the limits should be increasing over time as well. As mobile video-chat becomes more popular the current limits will need to move up considerably to be useful.
Sure. I think at one time tethering was not a big deal to the cell companies. But now they hate it so much I think they all will drop your service if they find out you're doing it without paying extra for it. Though I guess that can make it even more fun ;)
Indeed, metered usage is inevitable.
Problem with the analogy is that you don’t have someone else turning your water on without your knowledge.
The issue with tethering is the data plan is designed for phone use, not for full blown computer use. Order of magnitude difference in bandwidth usage. Wasn’t a big deal in the days of dialup, but not now.
Headline should read: “New Devices Come Out And AT&T Cuts Own Throat. Thousands Will Now Wait For Verizon iPhone.”
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
I don't know. I am a fairly heavy user of my iPad... but I have WIFI at home... and I analyzed my iPhone use over the last almost three years. I decided to only get the $15 250MB plan... and had 61MBs left when it rolled over yesterday. On the other hand, I am not streaming any movies... Had I been using the 3G for ALL of my usage, I would have exceeded the 250MBs in about two weeks... but a lot of that was on WIFI and that is not counted.
“Usage-based bandwidth pricing is inevitable. Try getting your electric or water utilities to quote you a rate for “unlimited” use of their product.”
Electric and water are poor comparisons. A better comparison is cable TV or satellite TV. Just like 3G and 4G, the network is there whether you are using it or not and it costs the carrier nothing when you have it tuned in 24/7 for a fixed cost. Cable modem broadband internet is also unlimited for a fixed cost, and so is DSL. To have metered usage simply makes 3G and 4G uncompetitive for home use. Especially considering that it takes much less installation, equipment, and maintenance costs per given metro area to operate a 3G or 4G network than it does to maintain a cable plant covering the same metro area.
Thanks for the input, but the issue might be moot now. Went down to my local Apple Store to try and buy a 3g iPad, and none are currently available. You apparently have to make a ‘reservation’, and they will email you when your number is called. However, your reservation is only good at 1 specific Apple Store, and for 1 specific configuration. Doesn’t seem to make sense. When I bought my iPhone, I bought the 16gb model instead of the 8gb that I wanted, because that was all they had available at the 3rd-4th store I contacted. Hmm, don’t really understand the reasons behind the reservation system, but it probably means that I can’t get my hands on one before the Monday data plan switch. BTW, none of the Best Buy stores in my area have any 3g models either. I may be SOL... :-(
“Hands up everyone who didn’t see this coming.
Apple users take one in the @#$ again!”
Very classy, but incorrect. It looks like the best bet is to just get a 3G/4G Wifi hotspot and go with the Wifi iPad. Personally, my use will be almost entirely at home and Wifi will work fine regardless. If I’m on the road I can just read/view content I’ve already downloaded.
I don’t know...my Verizon guy told me specifically I could do it with my Blackberry.
He actually talked me out of the MiFi by saying that!
What you posted is of interest to me. My high speed dsl at home is not working. My wife and I have a couple of Mac laptops with wireless capability. Exactly how would we go about hooking up the iPhone to the laptops and use the phone as the router? I would really like to know how to by-pass the dsl/router.
Well, you should investigate more because not only is setting up tethering specific for each phone but for each carrier. And I don’t really know how they do it for the Macs :-)
I checked around the ‘net briefly and found and article that says AT&T does not allow tethering with the iPhone. But then I found this article that explains how to do it - http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-10265889-233.html
I can only suggest to poke around some more, maybe find a board where other people have done this. Or just try the link I gave above and see if it works.
I also would suggest though that if you get it working you only use it lightly because depending how much AT&T is really against tethering they may just turn off your service if they notice you doing some heavy duty surfing over a period of time.
I pinged Swordmaker as he may have run into this before with the Apple equipment.
Another reasons I am glad we’ve stayed away from AT&T despite wanting an iPhone for a long time. That want was cured a few weeks ago when we bought a HTC Hero from Sprint. Blows the iPhone away. I can tether to it without spending a dime & multi-task, use Flash & HTML 5, etc...
By contrast, if every household in a neighborhood turned on all their water taps at once the water pressure would plummet. So too, cellular towers have shared bandwidth (as do their backhaul links) so that the more people draw from them the less there is on a per-user basis. It's easy to provide "unlimited" data when (almost) nobody is using it. However the demand for mobile data is skyrocketing (thanks mainly to the iPhone and iPad) and the current situation is unsustainable.
Cable and DSL net access have the same issue, however because the infrastructure is denser and cheaper, you just don't notice. If it costs a mobile provider a dollar to provide a gigabyte of data that same gigabyte of data can be provided for a penny by the wired infrastructure. The actual numbers aren't important and change rapidly as technology evolves, but wireless data will always cost more than wired data so it makes sense that metering would appear there first.
It is not "Apple's" 3G cap, that belongs to AT&T. The company we all love to hate.
Maybe no one noticed but the other carriers raised their rates as well. May have something to do with Government intervention that is expected.
Strange because Time Warner already tried implementing metered cable usage in a couple cities. Didn't work out to well as I recall.
Oh good point. Thanks for the correction.
The problem isn’t metering, it’s choosing ridiculous rates and limits. You’d howl too if your electric company decided it wanted to charge you $10/kwh. That’s the sort of nonsense the cable companies tried to pull. Charge a penny per gigabyte (and halve that rate each year going forward to reflect technology improvements) and few would complain.
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