MacDailyNews Take: It isn’t. It’s a scam. Just like charging separately for SMS text messages which are also just data. As long as consumers act like suckers, they will be treated like suckers.
Luoma continues, “Since AT&T has started metering data usage for the iPhone 4 and iPad, it seems only logical to ask (and I know I’m not the first): Why isn’t AT&T rolling over data too?”
MacDailyNews Take: Because they don’t want to be the dumb pipe that they are and they want to continue to fleece their sheep as often as possible.
Luoma continues, “The almost-too-painfully-obvious-to-even-say-aloud answer is that AT&T will make more money by not offering rollover data, so they aren’t.”
MacDailyNews Take: BINGO.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If your elected representatives (in the U.S., at least) really wanted to do something constructive for a chnage, they would look into these telecoms and their repricing of the exact same data based on what you’re doing with it (SMS, for one glaring example) and immediately legislate the practice out of existence.* Of course, that would necessitate not taking campaign contributions from AT&T, Verizon, etc. or actually doing the right thing regardless of whether they got a campaign contribution from a telecom or not. Good luck with that happening.
We haven’t touched or paid for SMS for years, purely out of principle. There are plenty of other ways to “text” that work just fine, thanks. In fact, threaded push email is close enough to “texting” for us. Others to check out are: Yahoo! Messenger and the like. Please add other “texting” options below.
*Data is data. We have no problem with the telecoms charging what the market will bear for it. We just do not think it is right for them to charge different, separate rates for what amounts to the same old data. And, yeah, rollover data would be nice, wouldn’t it? Maybe when multiple U.S. carriers have iPhones and have to compete against each other, competition will deliver something like that to us.
This won’t happen for a long, long time. We will probably be on the iPhone 10G
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What texting alternitives do you reccomend? I really want to find a good one.
We haven’t touched or paid for SMS for years, purely out of principle. There are plenty of other ways to “text” that work just fine, thanks.
Amen, brother. Preach, preach! We had incoming texts disabled on both iPhone lines so that we don’t get charged 20 cents a pop for 0.1 kB from random parties, too.
It’s a friggin’ PHONE. Just CALL ME. Speak. It has e-mail, too, for Chrissake.
I will never understand text messaging addicts or Twitter users…..
MDN Always says SMS is just data, but I disagree
I agree with MDN in that I think AT&T;should have rollover data. If they don’t maybe Verizon will in January, and then AT&T;will have to follow suit, or lose even more iPhone subscribers.
Anyway, SMS/MMS actually aren’t “just data”. Just data would be a web/HTML request that gets sent. Maybe it gets a response, maybe it doesn’t. If it doesn’t get a response, it requests it again. That would be an example of “just data”.
SMS/MMS messages have to be collected by SPECIFIC MMS/SMS servers, that have capture and hold the messages. Then, they have to repeatedly try to send the text message to the recipient’s servers. Then the recipient’s servers have to attemp to send, repeatedly, the message to the recipient’s phone. That’s specific, dedicated servers, for storing, and re-attempting delivery of messages over a several hours (maybe even days?) period. They has to be high availability, and high reliability, in contrast with “Just Data” that sends or doesn’t send, receives or doesn’t receive, but surely DOES NOT STORE, NOR ATTEMP TO RESEND. There’s your difference, and that’s why they cost more.
I use the TextFree app, does a great job, and it is satisfying not to give those few extra dollars to greedy AT&T;every month.
Whatsapp all the way!!!
TextFree
Textie
Textit!
textPlus
Smiley Ping! Lite
All FREE alternatives
Yeah. More government regulation. That’ll fix everything.
Meebo.com! Down with the scam of paid SMS.
Sorry I don’t remember all of the details but SMS is not just “Data”. In fact, SMS is even cheaper than data for the telcos. The SMS messages are somehow incorporated into unused space into the cell connection. I’ll have to look it up to refresh my memory but the incremental cost for a telco to handle an SMS is zero, zip, nada.
Here you go…
http://communication.howstuffworks.com/sms.htm
The term I was looking for was “Control Channel”.
Technically, my understanding is that SMS is not “just” data. I am probably fuzzy on the details, but I believe that it is sent over the SS7 signaling network which is used to set up and tear down voice calls. It’s essentially a separate network from both the voice network and the data network.
By now, I think most of the major carriers have converged their networks into one (voice & data) for the actual transfer of the bits (i.e. there is no distinction between voice & data on the network).
The different pricing for voice vs. data is purely a marketing/business model choice by the providers’. It’s their network, their service, so they get to choose how to go to market. It’s America.
You can always choose to use MetroPCS which bundles everything into one price.
MDN technological ignorance (as usual)… sms text messages are NOT “also just data”. the sms runs through the voice system. similar to how a pager or fax works. it sends a bunch of tones over the ordinary “telephone” system, corresponding to the letters in the message. sms has been on basic cellphones for more than 10 years, long before the widespread adoption of separate “internet data” capabilities. it is because sms runs on the “telephone” side of the device that the telcos have been able to continue to [think they can] make a case to charge extra. their position is that the messages are no different than using minutes for a call, but since the transmissions only last seconds, they charge “per transmission”. it IS rather bogus at this point since the relative overhead is very minimal. unfortunately the masses have just accepted these long-outdated terms and continue to use sms. even though most people now have real email on their phones and/or the ability to use internet-based IM like yahoo messenger (or whatever). unfortunately the issue preventing most people from completely abandoning sms is that there are still too many non-smartphones in use (who can only recieve/send the old way).
The legislation scenario you mentioned left out one important component of politics. Compromise! Of course the polititians will give up the contributions as long as the agreement enables them to tax the crap out of the internet and charge sales tax on everything that changes hands.
America is an enterprise and capitalist society. Always has been and always will be. Free enterprise!
Telephone, cell, and cable companies are the most hated companies among consumers.
Don’t all providers do this? Why such venom over AT&T;.
The last thing we need is the idiots in Washington sticking its grubby hands in anything. Pricing is as it is because the market supports it. How much of your bill is TAXES? How about we remove those instead of whining about this?
I have a 1000 minute plan with T-Mobile for $39.99/mo and T-Mobile gives 50 free SMS messages a month (courtesy for customer loyaty the invoice says).
Not a texting person and having a crappy old phone to even try to figure out how to text, I just don’t use.
I don’t know what T-Mo would offer today if I signed up for the same rate plan.
I’m glad I got “grandfathered” in. I got my iphone 4 an love it but if I had no phone and had to pick a provider and phone now, I would go with verizon just because they still have unlimited data, along with every other carrier about. Even though I only went over 2gigs of data twice in the past 8 months with my 3gs. I like that security blanket. Thats kinda why I like at&t;in the first place is the roll over minutes. I love that security blanket of having 1500 rollover minutes plus my plan. I don’t have to worry about going over minutes. I use to hate that, always worry at the end of the month if I was gonna go over my minutes. I don’t wanna do that with data
Love the security blanket.
We don’t need legislation. We need competition.
MDN… you guys are Democrats now?
Jesus:
Do you think that your name will prevent someone from calling you a moron, Moron?
Have a cup of tea.
Hello? Knock knock? Every drop of voice, data, sms, mms, web, email, gps, etc are all just digital data – packaged different ways, but it is all just 1’s and 0’s folks. Just like your cable TV / phone / internet package (or FIOS) is a three way fleecing. It’s all just data…
I think the next step is not with any carrier, it’s moving to a MVNO setup. I’d sign up tomorrow.
I currently have 2 phones on my plan one iphone and one razr2. I pay 69.99 for 450 rollover minutes, 30 for unlimited data and 20 for unlimited text. after taxes and everything per month I pay 130 for the family plan.
http://healthproductadvice.com/acai-lean-zone-reviews/
this one is iphones fault, without such a clear market advantage att would never have the nerve to remove unlimited data. goverment regulation is the only real solution as lock-in contracts have stifled competition.