UPDATE: 8:42pm EDT: AT&T Wireless retracts terms of service changes, apologizes for error – April 03, 2009
“AT&T’s taking some aggressive steps to manage network traffic,” Nilay Patel reports for Engadget.
“The carrier updated its data plan terms of service last night to specifically single out and prohibit ‘downloading movies using P2P file sharing services, customer initiated redirection of television or other video or audio signals via any technology from a fixed location to a mobile device, web broadcasting, and… any applications that tether the device… to Personal Computers or other equipment,'” Patel reports.
Full article here.
Electornista reports, “The difficulty is that such terms may not only restrict the likes of BitTorrent clients, but also mainstream video applications, such as CBS’ TV.com app for the iPhone. The wording of the terms also appear to be directly targeted at Sling Media’s SlingPlayer app, which relays broadcasts from a person’s TV and also enables control of DVR functions.”
Full article here.
Robb Topolski reports for Public Knowledge, “All of these changes probably have something to do with the recent $28,000 PR disaster covered at The iPhone Blog where a Chicago-based AT&T subscriber was charged international rates for viewing a football game over the service, generating a bill of $28,000. It should be noted that this was an error since the consumer was in Miami and not at sea, yet AT&T responds as if the billing was justified and now starts revising the TOS to prohibit the activity!”
Full article here.
Dong Ngo reports for CNET, “Personally, I have the unlimited data plan on my iPhone 3G, but I’ve almost never streamed anything via the 3G connection, mainly because it is just not possible most of the time in San Francisco. Nonetheless, I don’t think 200MB a month or even 5GB a month are enough for a heavy streamer, considering a full-length high-quality movie uses up to 1GB of data.”
Ngo reports, “It’s important to note, however, that the changes only apply to cellular data plans. It seems you can still stream as much as you want via a Wi-Fi connection, provided your phone has this feature.”
Full article here.
UPDATE: 8:42pm EDT: AT&T Wireless retracts terms of service changes, apologizes for error – April 03, 2009
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “M.” and “Sir Gill Bates” for the heads up.]
