Imagine you bought a Corvette and then, a couple months down the road you get a message from Chevrolet "you drive way too fast".
You go to an 'all-you-can-eat' buffet and the manager breaths down your neck each time you go back to get something to eat.
BP and Exxon call you to complain that you buy too much gas.
Roll all that together and you get the following story.
In October of 2011 my old HTC Pure died on me. Just died without warning and long before I wanted to use my upgrade.
My research lead me to the Samsung Galaxy SII (the i777) because of the nice screen and powerful processor. I like to surf the net and listen to music such as SomaFM or DI.fm.
I had an unlimited data plan through which I constantly streamed those music 'stations' and never ever heard a whit of complaining from AT&T.
When I got my Galaxy, I managed to get to keep the unlimited data plan.
I did not, to my knowledge, alter my usage whatsoever.
In mid January I got the following text message, which was followed up by an email message:
The "nice" threatening message:
Like other wireless companies, AT&T is taking steps to manage exploding demand for mobile data. We're responding on many levels, including investing billions in our wireless network this year and working to acquire more network capacity.
As mentioned on a previous bill, we're also taking additional, more immediate steps to help address network congestion and improve reliability. One of these steps involves a change for some customers who use extraordinarily large amounts of data in a single billing period - about 12 times more data than the average smartphone user.
For the current billing cycle, your data usage indicates you could be affected by this change. Here's how it works:
Smartphone customers with unlimited data plans may experience reduced speeds once their usage in a billing cycle reaches the level that puts them among the top 5 percent of heaviest data users. These customers can still use unlimited data and their speeds will be restored with the start of the next billing cycle.
We're writing because you are in the top 5 percent of heaviest data users for this billing cycle. Because we recognize that data usage can change from month to month, you will not see reduced speeds this billing cycle.
Beginning with your next billing cycle, we'll send you a text message if you are approaching the top 5 percent of heaviest data users. We'll also send you a second text message if you cross into the top 5 percent of heaviest users, at which point you may see reduced speeds for the rest of the month.
Customers have several ways to manage extremely high data usage.
Wi-Fi offers great speeds and doesn't add to your wireless data usage. Consider using Wi-Fi when possible for applications that use the highest amounts of data, such as streaming video apps, remote web camera apps, large data-file transfers (like video) and some online gaming.
You may also consider switching to a tiered data plan if speed is more important to you than having an unlimited data plan. Customers on tiered plans can pay for more data if they need it, and will not see reduced speeds.
I could rant about this bullshit from an hour, but that would accomplish little.
I called "customer service" and the "polite" man on the phone was NOT, repeat NOT helpful and made what I considered a condescending comment when I attempted to explain there should be no way under the sun somebody like me would use "more date than 95% of America". When you get condescending with me, I respond in kind, robustly.
Again. I didn't change my habits, insofar as I knew. There is just no way I use more data than my boss, a sub-30-year-old tech geek, or children, or teenagers who play movies and games, let alone business people who do serious things with a phone like this.
In additon to this, the Galaxy S II is a heinous battery hog and when the data service is on, that thing will run itself down inside of 3 hours doing exactly nothing. So I tried to keep the data service turned off as much as possible.
The dumbass in AT&T customer service told me a bunch of shit that was wrong and got the sort of treatment nobody here at Daily Kos gets from me - no matter how stupid or offensive they are, beciuase of the itchy HR fingers possessed by many (who seem to live to find a reason to donut somebody). I told the guy to go fuck himself and hung up.
I went and looked at my data use and, for sure, December's data use was 7+ gigabytes! And I agree, that is outrageous, especially considering I dodn't do anything with my phone, other then stream somafm or a new hardrock station I like. I did do some youtube streaming one or 2 afternoons while I was on vacation and out of wifi reach. Apparently that was part of it.
I had a variety of services such as google maps and google sky which appear to spend a LOT of time "phoning home' and compiling data or something. I uninstalled almost every app I ever installed, double and triple checked to amke sure 'data service' and 'background services' were OFF.
And for the last feww weeks I have been monitoring my cell data use: it's been ZERO.
yesterday I turned the data service on, loaded a couple of pages from daliy kos and read them while waiting for tacos at one of my favorite Mexican restaurants. I then shut it off. It could not have been on more than 6 minutes.
This morning I find that eyeblink of data use was 7.15 megabytes.
Ergo, this phone is a datahog.
AT&T sold me this WITH an unlimited data plan, apparently to get my $200 and then they turn around and bitch at me for actually using it.
Well, it seems I am not alone
Judge awards iPhone user $850 in throttling case
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — When AT&T started slowing down the data service for his iPhone, Matt Spaccarelli, an unemployed truck driver and student, took the country's largest telecommunications company to small claims court. And won.
His award: $850.
Pro-tem Judge Russell Nadel found in favor of Spaccarelli in Ventura Superior Court in Simi Valley on Friday, saying it wasn't fair for the company to purposely slow down his iPhone, when it had sold him an "unlimited data" plan.
AT&T has a contract clause that - somehow - totally prevents people from banding together to form an action-class suit against this blantantly deceptive and unfair practice.
In that news item it is mentioned that the victim DID use his phone to tether his iPad and that was a violation of terms: I have not used mime to tether anything.
Long and short, when AT&T got it's license to sell the iPhone, things were pretty good in terms of their available bandwidth, but with their aggressive marketing of their network, they - in my perspective - oversold their availability and began to choke on the 'data-hungry' devices they are all-too-happy to sell you.
I believe they sell the 'unlimited data plan' to get people hooked into the phone and it's myriad services, and then strongarm you to make you switch to a 'tiered plan' which would be costing even a relative non-user like me in excess of $80 a month.
If they told people UP FRONT
"in order to do ANYTHING with this phone other than make a call or send a text message, you'll need to pay more than $80 a month"
sales would plummet. (In order to make any monry, AT&T has to sell these things to the 99% because there's just not enough 1% to help them make any money.)
When I made the observation to the dumbass customer service 'representative' corporate whore that this seemed to be about money, I was told.....(wait for it)....this isn't about money.
Refer to the email I posted and check the bolded text:
You may also consider switching to a tiered data plan if speed is more important to you than having an unlimited data plan. Customers on tiered plans can pay for more data if they need it, and will not see reduced speeds.
Anytime somebody tells you "it's not about the money"....you can be certain, it's about money.
Anything corporate - ANYTHING - is about money, especially if they tell you it's not.
In fairness AT&T has good service overall, I have had very few complaints with them.
I fussed with them in 2009 about jacking around with my data service and I cursed them out. They gave me 2 free, really nice phones, and HTC tilt 2 (which got stolen) and the Pure, which just died.
But this is not remotely acceptable.
I'm not going to "boycott" AT&T because telecommunication corporations have us all by the short-n-curlies. I honestly don't know enough about a service like "Credo" to really trust making a switch.
But I am not giving up my unlimited data because I paid for it 'fair and square' and I bend over backwards to not 'abuse it'.
I will pay what I was contracted to pay and also send them a dildo each month: if they don't like it, they can go fuck themselves.