ATT getting rid of "all-you-can-eat" data

[SlimDizzleATL]

Sucks for people not granfathered in. I guess it may be better...I dont know. I believe all carriers are going to move to this tiered model soon.

http://www.androidcentral.com/att-radically-changes-its-data-plans-loses-unlimited-adds-tethering

[jkhonea]

Verizon has already said they will probably be doing tiered going into 4G. I have a feeling most will follow this model, they've just been waiting to see who will do it first.

[Kainedogg]

As long as they keep the pricing competitive...I will live.

[wallypiper]

I have and occasionally use a 3G modem. Anybody that manages to approach the current 5 gb limit for monthly data use on the "unlimited" plan has the patience of a saint and the dedication to go with it. 3G is painfully slow and, in high traffic environments, very unreliable. 4G isn't that big an improvement. In fact, I just read in this article (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/data/2010-06-01-4G-wireless_N.htm) that ATT 3G will be faster than the initial 4G offerings by Verizon and Sprint for a year or two. Using 3G, even some faster, slightly better than current 4G connections for accessing the internet is like doing a track day on a scooter. You're out there, running your scooter for all it's worth, maxing it out on every part of the track but you're totally missing the real point of doing a track day.

[TroyBoy30]

contrary to popular believe the unlimited smartphone data plans do not have a 5 gb cap. Only the tethering ans wireless aircard unlimited plans have a cap. I use 30 gig a month on average with no issues for the last couple of years.

my 3g speeds while tethered are just fine thank you

http://i287.photobucket.com/albums/ll152/troyboy30/Iphone%203G%20S/3f88680e.jpg

tired pricing will work out great for all but the most heavy users. most will save money with these changes

also 3g is not faster than sprints 4g. the tech speed limits between the 2 are not even close.

[SlimDizzleATL]

Wally,
I dont know the benchmarks for the new 4G stuff, But my ATT 3G is miles faster than Verizons. Im happy with the speed here in Atlanta. I try to use my girlfriend's Droid Eris and it's painfully slow. No point in having coverage everywhere if your 3G is slow.

[SlimDizzleATL]

contrary to popular believe the unlimited smartphone data plans do not have a 5 gb cap. Only the tethering ans wireless aircard unlimited plans have a cap. I use 30 gig a month on average with no issues for the last couple of years.

my 3g speeds while tethered are just fine thank you

http://i287.photobucket.com/albums/ll152/troyboy30/Iphone%203G%20S/3f88680e.jpg


tired pricing will work out great for all but the most heavy users. most will save money with these changes

also 3g is not faster than sprints 4g. the tech speed limits between the 2 are not even close.

Lol...Im not gonna ask what you do to run up 30Gb worth of data in a month.

[Mongo]

Seems like an awfully small screen for that much pron :D

[TroyBoy30]

Lol...Im not gonna ask what you do to run up 30Gb worth of data in a month.


Seems like an awfully small screen for that much pron :D

that's data used while tethered to watch movies from movieforumz when I was on 3rd shift for 12 hours a night! 15.5 inch screen works fine for porn and non porn movies! :crackup:

[SpeedGeek]

Yeah, I think ATT is just putting another nail in their own coffin by this sort of thing... The iPad 3G was available for only 32 days before they announced this change, after one of the biggest points in the product announcement was the "All you can eat for $30/month" data plan... They just pissed a LOT of people off (you should see all the screaming i the Macrumors forums over this!)

You can bet the second iPhone + iPad are available on another network, people will leave ATT in droves...

Personally, it doesn't matter to me. I picked up a Sprint 4G Overdrive unit and connect my 3G iPad, Macbook and iPhone to the internet through that. It's faster than ATT 3G Network, I get coverage pretty much everywhere I go in Atlanta, its costing me no more than I was paying ATT for the 3G USB dongle I had on the laptop, and now with the new plans, I'll be able to drop the 3G data plan on the iPhone down to the bare minimum and save some $$$.

[Lazarus]

Supposedly less than 2% of their clients use more than 2 gigs a month in data. So if you are under 2 gigs you can save yourself $5. I like having unlimited though, dont have to worry about anything. In reality though I'm not even sure how much data I use.

[Lazarus]

No point in having coverage everywhere if your 3G is slow.

Moving slow is still moving, remember that.

[TroyBoy30]

Yeah, I think ATT is just putting another nail in their own coffin by this sort of thing... .

seems the big 2 disagree with you. verizon announced plans for tiered data months ago

[NiceGuysFinishLast]

seems the big 2 disagree with you. verizon announced plans for tiered data months ago


This are truth. Thankfully, I'm still grandfathered in with my Vcast VPak @ 14.99/mo for unlimited data.

[SlimDizzleATL]

Moving slow is still moving, remember that.

Thats crap Laz...well when it comes to data speeds. Verizon touts the most coverage with 3G, yet their 3G is about as fast as AT&T's Edge. It doesnt matter if you have more coverage if its just as slow as GSM Edge. If thats the case, ATT has just as much coverage. At least from my experience.

[jkhonea]

Thats crap Laz...well when it comes to data speeds. Verizon touts the most coverage with 3G, yet their 3G is about as fast as AT&T's Edge. It doesnt matter if you have more coverage if its just as slow as GSM Edge. If thats the case, ATT has just as much coverage. At least from my experience.

What would be considered a good 3G download/upload speed? Not being sarcastic, wondering what the benchmark is.

[wallypiper]

2300 kilobits/second is OK? You're watching movies at 2300 kbps? My internet connection at work is 1.33 MEGAbits/second and I skip most video links because it's not really fast enough for anything but a low res image.

As for the benchmarks, I don't know. I only know that the article I linked said that in actual use, ATT 3G will be faster than Verizon 4G for the first year or two of Verizon 4G service. Read the article for more info. But you're experience sort of backs up the gist of the article which is that ATT 3G is much more capable than Verizon's implementation of it and that is one reason that Verizon is rushing into 4G - they are at the limit of the 3G technology they use but ATT isn't.

[Lazarus]

Thats crap Laz...well when it comes to data speeds. Verizon touts the most coverage with 3G, yet their 3G is about as fast as AT&T's Edge. It doesnt matter if you have more coverage if its just as slow as GSM Edge. If thats the case, ATT has just as much coverage. At least from my experience.

I just switched over to Verizon from AT&T 5 days ago. I don't have a problem with the internet speed. I have an Eris btw, cool phone.

[Lazarus]

I just went to speedtest.net and my mac connection is 17.68 mbps via wireless cable connection. Where can I test my phone?

[wallypiper]

same place - open the browser and go to speedtest.net or www.my3gspeed.com

My phone on ATT 3G is 3208 kbps.

[TroyBoy30]

2300 kilobits/second is OK? You're watching movies at 2300 kbps? My internet connection at work is 1.33 MEGAbits/second and I skip most video links because it's not really fast enough for anything but a low res image.yes it's more than fine. once the video caches you don't need much speed to keep up. If what you where saying was true then the youtube link on my phone would be worthless and I use it constantly. I was also talking about watching movies while tethered.

att's 3g is much faster than verizons. verizon is also going to lte which is not truly 4g as it does not meet the standard.

the capable speeds on 4g are much higher than the capable speed of 3g. I don't care what your article says. 4g may start off slow, but the max speed of the 4g is much higher than 3g is capable of. Right now att's 3g is limited to 3.6Mbps, with plans to go to 7.2Mbps "in the labs" and then 20Mbps by upping its HSPA service, but that's no time soon. Right now 4g with sprint is simply the fastest solution out there in the market place.

3g is capable of around 600kbps - 1.7mbps with a peak of 3.1mbps...........4g is capable of around 3-6mbps with a peak of more than 10mbps

of course att and tmobile are the only ones who are able to increase there 3g speeds. verizon is topped out and it's painfully slow compared to att

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/electronics/2010/05/sprint-htc-evo-4g-network-philly-philadephia-tests-reviews-3g-hero-impressions-download-speed-video-battery-life.html

http://androidandme.com/2010/05/news/speed-tests-how-fast-is-sprint-4g-with-the-htc-evo/

[Gypsyangel]

Ugh, Guess I'll keep Sprint locked into this ancient $10 unlimited Data plan as long as possible.

[Sanchez]

2300 kilobits/second is OK? You're watching movies at 2300 kbps? My internet connection at work is 1.33 MEGAbits/second and I skip most video links because it's not really fast enough for anything but a low res image.

2300 kilobits/sec is faster than 1.33 megabits/sec. :up:

[TroyBoy30]

2300 kilobits/sec is faster than 1.33 megabits/sec. :up:

he's not good with math! It's about twice as fast

[SlimDizzleATL]

Yep. What Troy said...

[wallypiper]

2300 kilobits/sec is faster than 1.33 megabits/sec. :up:

Yeah, but still nothing close to real broadband speed. My home connection is 20-25 mbps. According to an article at Apple.com, H.264 which is the best system right now for video over the internet has the following capability:

Use Scenario-------------------------Resolution & Frame Rate----------Example Data Rates
Mobile Content ----------------------176x144, 10-15 fps-----------------50-60 Kbps
Internet/Standard Definition--------640x480, 24 fps---------------------1-2 Mbps
High Definition -----------------------1280x720, 24p ---------------------5-6 Mbps
Full High Definition ------------------1920x1080, 24p---------------------7-8 Mbps

So if you can get steady 2.3, AND it H.264 which isn't widespread yet, you can get 640 x 480 (VGA!) at 24 fps. I guess that works for "funniest motorcycle stunt disaster" videos. But a movie?

[SlimDizzleATL]

But we're talking about mobile. It will never be as fast as a wired (coax/fiber) connection.

[TroyBoy30]

yes a movie works just fine tethered. It makes no difference if you have dial up or fios once the movie is cached

[wallypiper]

Bit rate is bit rate. The best bit rate you can get on any current cellular system is less than 4 gbps. If that's fast enough for your use of the internet, then fine. I consider it barely acceptable as a backup plan when something faster simply isn't available. I know the companies starting to roll out 4G are ADVERTISING faster speeds but nobody is actually DELIVERING faster speeds. But if you're happy with it, stick with it.

[SpeedGeek]

Ok, couple things...

1) Sprint's 4G is really through Clear (which Sprint owns something like 49 or 51% of...) The advantage though is that if you have a Sprint 4G unit, it will use the Clear 4G where available and then fall back to the Sprint 3G, which, while the slowest 3G of the Big 4, it's also reportedly the one with the most speed STABILITY (ie, you typically get the same speed no matter where you are.)

2) Sprint/Clear 4G is based on the Intel WiMax technology, which is more like a huge city-covering Wifi setup, designed for data, rather than cell voice.

3) LTE *IS* 4G, but it's primarily designed for voice traffic. The advantage with LTE is that ALL 4 carriers are planning to go to it, so it *should* eliminate the current issues we face where a phone will work on Network A but not Network B.

4) DATA traffic on LTE *currently* is no better than what AT&T's 3G network is, but it has more headroom to improve over time.

5) AT&T's 7.2Mbps rollout is largely complete... If you have a newer 3G phone (like iPhone 3GS) you'll see the faster speeds, but that of course depends on how saturated their network is... that 7.2Mbps is the theoretical max TO THE TOWER. If the pipe from the tower out to the rest of the Internet is overloaded, that's not going to help.

6) while Verizon is reportedly rolling out LTE pretty soon, AT&T isn't planning to have it out until 2012, and I don't think Sprint or T-Mobile has plans to get it out before then either.

Honestly, I LOVE the Sprint Overdrive module I have. It works GREAT for data all around atlanta. I've found very few places where it hasn't gotten 4G signal, but even when on 3G it's been very stable and relatively fast.

[SlimDizzleATL]

Its plenty fast for my purposes. I was tethered the other night and was able to stream videos with little wating. But Troy is right, once the video is cached, speeds dont matter. What are you doing that you need such a fast wireless connection Wally? If you dont mind me asking.

[wallypiper]

Well, just general business stuff a lot for one thing. Emails with 10 MB attachments are pretty common. Looking up product data etc which often means downloading multi MB pdf files etc. And for fun, I just do what everybody else does. I watch stuff on Youtube. I hang out here. I watch MotoGP races in hires plus.

I don't understand what you guys are trying to say about caching. If I am watching a video that requires a bit rate of 5-6 mbps, how is caching going to help? I click a link, the video starts feeding and right now it needs 5 mbps. If I happen to get 6, it can get ahead and maybe overcome a period of only getting 4, but if the available bit rate on my connection is only 4, how is caching going to make it work? Caching, to me, implies that data is downloading faster than it has to for you to watch it or your browser and/or the server are anticipating your choices and downloading data before you start watching. I rarely watch anything predictable except the MotoGP feed which is virtually live. I suppose that the codecs use variable bit rates depending on the amount of information needed for a given frame or sequence of frames, but if you want more than VGA resolution (I do. I'm, spoiled now.), don't you have to have the underlying bit rate to deliver it? I use mapping sites to find my way to someplace. Yikes, takes forever for the hi res satellite views to load.

My connection right now is only 1.37 mbps. If I go to MotoGP.com and try to watch the hi res video of the Le Mans race, it just does work. It hesitates, freezes, sound messes up generally not worth trying to watch. How would caching help with this? If I go to Youtube right now and try to watch something at 720P, fuggeddaboudit. herky jerky waste of time. You telling me you can watch this stuff on a 3G connection without those problems? I've tried it using my cellular modem and it is generally just frustration. Would it work at 3.1, which is what my phone currently says I have on 3G at this location? I dunno. I'd have to try it and see. I doubt it. I'm thinking, based on my experience at home watching MotoGP.com, that I need at least 8-10 mbps to get a smooth hi res video feed of a live event.

[SlimDizzleATL]

I would say at least 5 for Hi-res video. And your business stuff...1.3 is way low for business needs. I get 5 at the house, burstable to 10. What I do to cache, is play. stop for a minute or so, then continue playing. By the time it catches up, the video is already loaded.

[wallypiper]

play. stop for a minute or so, then continue playing:down:fail

[NiceGuysFinishLast]

:down:fail

Why? That's how caching works. You can download the data at whatever speed you can pull, and then watch it once it's buffered some.

[TroyBoy30]

Bit rate means nothing. Start the video and hit pause. Let it get ahead then watch. Just like pausing live tv so you can fast forward through commercials


Sent from my iPhone 3Gs using Tapatalk

[wallypiper]

That's not how I use the internet. I'm totally spoiled by broadband. I click and watch. If the "system" can't accommodate that, I click on something else. Bit rate is everything. My first connection to the internet was via a 2400 baud modem. I will never go back there.

[TroyBoy30]

boy thats a surprise. you being different and disagreeing!

just to end the 3g is faster than 4g debate. An early speed test on 4g with the evo from my buddy in chi. My personal best on att was already posted, so yea it's tons faster

http://www.speedtest.net/result/837237546.png

[wallypiper]

Faster but I was getting 3+ on my phone so it's not the giant leap that's being marketed.

[TroyBoy30]

Makes sense coming from the guy that cant decipher mbps to kbps. It's tons faster


Sent from my iPhone 3Gs using Tapatalk

[wallypiper]

Fine. Do the math for me.

"My phone on ATT 3G is 3208 kbps."

Looks like just over twice as fast to me. Not awful but not up to the hype and still painful compared to the 25-30 Mbps I get at home.

[NiceGuysFinishLast]

That's not how I use the internet. I'm totally spoiled by broadband. I click and watch. If the "system" can't accommodate that, I click on something else. Bit rate is everything. My first connection to the internet was via a 2400 baud modem. I will never go back there.


Well, then, as a nerd, I hate to tell you this.. but you're using the internet wrong. You can be all contrary if you like, but that's how those videos were designed to be watched. They're made to buffer specifically FOR people who have a slower connection. If that's not how YOU want to use it, fine.. but don't gripe that it doesn't work right, cuz it does, you just refuse to use it correctly.

[TroyBoy30]

Fine. Do the math for me.

"My phone on ATT 3G is 3208 kbps."

Looks like just over twice as fast to me. Not awful but not up to the hype and still painful compared to the 25-30 Mbps I get at home.

again speaking for everyone. 1st off I don't believe you get 3208 with att. second not everyone gets 25-30 at home. that 4g speed on sprint is only 4mbps faster than my home cable connection speed. so to me it's huge for a phone!

+1 to what nick said also

[wallypiper]

MotoGP hires live feed of a race is made to be buffered? Yeah, right. What videos are you referring to? Streaming HD is where the web is going and, if you've got a fast enough connection, it's already there. So I'll use the internet that way as will most other people. Feel free to remain in the 20th century if you like. It's certainly your choice.

[wallypiper]

That speed is what I got from this site: http://my3gspeed.com/
If it's not accurate, I'd be glad to test it somewhere else for you if you know of another spot.
I realize not everybody gets 25 at home but lots of people do. It's not even the top tier at Charter. Just because you don't doesn't mean that it's not available. And it doesn't mean it's not a valid benchmark for connection speed. I don't expect my phone to be as fast as my cable. But I do expect to be able to get live streaming video over the web because I do it all the time. So while 7 mbps may be impressive for a phone, it's not all that impressive in general.

[TroyBoy30]

Keep changing the subject to fit your argument. You might as well be Dave!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BlueLghtning]

Man, I would happy with 7mbs on a phone. I've been bitching about my home connection for a while, but we are on a 3mbs connection and usually lucky to pull 2.5mbs most of the time. Both Charter and Comcast come right to the main road, but won't come in our S/D, so we are stuck.

[wallypiper]

NGFL said I was "using the internet wrong" because I expect streaming video to actually be streaming, not download then watch video. Since I don't have a Verizon or Sprint account or a 4G phone, I can't really check out how fast it is. The reviews I have read say that ATT 3G will be FASTER than the initial implementation of 4G. If that's true, then it seems to me that rushing out to get a 4G phone doesn't really make sense, especially if you'd be switching from ATT in order to get it. On the other hand, if you already have Verizon and their 3G service is slow (which it reportedly is) and can't get any faster (which it reportedly can't) then maybe switching to a 4G phone would be worthwhile. But based again on what I've read, it still won't be all that great. I've watched ATT's commercials where the guy in a suit accesses the internet in a variety of made up situations and demonstrates how fast ATT's 3G service is. Those commercials are BS. ATT's 3G service is OK in a pinch but calling it "broadband" is a stretch. Being the general skeptic that I am, I imagine that the hype around 4G is also marketing BS and that most people will find the reality to be much less impressive than the advertising makes it look.

The start of this thread was about ATT dropping the "unlimited" data plan which has never really been unlimited anyway. I commented that using up 5 GB of data use on a 3G connection would be a chore because the actual throughput on 3G is so slow that I usually give up on big files and wait till I have a faster connection to access them. And, again just from what I've read, 4G won't be than much better than 3G IN REALITY. Twice as fast seems impressive, sort of, but twice as fast as painfully slow is still slow.

Somebody said they watch movies on a 3G phone. I couldn't imagine how you can watch a movie on a connection that slow. Finally, it was explained that the way you do it is to wait while enough of the movie downloads so that you can watch it uninterrupted while the rest of the download completes. I'm all too familiar with that concept. I've been using modems and, eventually, the internet to transfer data since the early 90s. My first modem was 1200 baud and it was pretty cutting edge at the time. I don't miss it.

[TroyBoy30]

whether you feel it's fast enough or not is irrelevant. The bottom line is att's 3g was the fastest option until friday when the evo 4g came out. now sprint has the fastest bandwidth on a phone. period. we could care less whether you think it's fast enough or not, it's the fastest you can get on a phone so comparing it to what you get at the house is pointless

[TroyBoy30]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/10/uks-o2-to-impose-3g-data-limits-for-iphone-4-users/


UK's O2 to impose 3G data limits for iPhone 4 users

It seems like the entire United Kingdom (at least those who aren't out partying it up with Patsy Kensit at the Met Bar) has emailed us in the last two minutes to clue us in on the fact that O2 has posted its new iPhone 4 (http://www.engadget.com/tag/iPhone4/) pricing. It looks like your beloved "unlimited 3G" plans of are a thing of the past -- instead, you'll be paying for up to 1GB of data of month. As you approach the limit, a text message will notify you and let you purchase an 500MB for £5 or 1GB for £10. How very AT&T (http://www.engadget.com/tag/att) of them, eh? But don't worry, kids! Texting (http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/texting-makes-kids-dumb-science-fact/) is still unlimited.

[NiceGuysFinishLast]

http://www.bpwrap.com/wp-content/duty_calls.png

That's the end of my contribution to this thread, unless someone says something too interesting for me to pass up.

[TarzanMan]

Ok, couple things...

1) Sprint's 4G is really through Clear (which Sprint owns something like 49 or 51% of...) The advantage though is that if you have a Sprint 4G unit, it will use the Clear 4G where available and then fall back to the Sprint 3G, which, while the slowest 3G of the Big 4, it's also reportedly the one with the most speed STABILITY (ie, you typically get the same speed no matter where you are.)

2) Sprint/Clear 4G is based on the Intel WiMax technology, which is more like a huge city-covering Wifi setup, designed for data, rather than cell voice.
Sprint's 4G is Wimax, and besides sharing a lot of towers...Sprint has a pretty large share in Clear. Signal stability is largely irrespective of whether you're using WIMAX, 3G, LTE, CDMA or EDGE. It has a lot more to do with the frequency, your surroundings, and the cut-off the cell (tower) you are communicating with has been set to.



3) LTE *IS* 4G, but it's primarily designed for voice traffic. The advantage with LTE is that ALL 4 carriers are planning to go to it, so it *should* eliminate the current issues we face where a phone will work on Network A but not Network B.

Not quite. The major difference between 4G (LTE and Wimax) and 3G is that they are completely packet-switched networks relying on OFDM instead of circuit switched networks (with packet switching for NRT data) relying on CDMA. It isn't a matter of being designed for voice or for data... both networks were designed for carrying both types of traffic.




4) DATA traffic on LTE *currently* is no better than what AT&T's 3G network is, but it has more headroom to improve over time.

5) AT&T's 7.2Mbps rollout is largely complete... If you have a newer 3G phone (like iPhone 3GS) you'll see the faster speeds, but that of course depends on how saturated their network is... that 7.2Mbps is the theoretical max TO THE TOWER. If the pipe from the tower out to the rest of the Internet is overloaded, that's not going to help.

6) while Verizon is reportedly rolling out LTE pretty soon, AT&T isn't planning to have it out until 2012, and I don't think Sprint or T-Mobile has plans to get it out before then either.

Honestly, I LOVE the Sprint Overdrive module I have. It works GREAT for data all around atlanta. I've found very few places where it hasn't gotten 4G signal, but even when on 3G it's been very stable and relatively fast.

Clear has a big head start on everyone, but LTE is the 800lb gorilla knocking on the front door.