AT&T Gives users more data with out them asking! Oh and they are gonna charge them for it… Wait WTF?

So AT&T is in the news AGAIN! This time they are fucking over long time customers on older plans by giving them 15gb of data extra per month but then charging them for it. AT&T is claiming that these customers have the option to change plans if they would like and its a small number of customers that are still on older legacy plans.

Ok so now for my opinion (I am very good at giving it!)

Fuck that if I have been a customer on the same plan for “X” years I should be able to maintain that plan. Don’t tack on additional charges and fees just because you want me to switch to a newer more profitable plan that you offer. This ties into my previous post about deceptive marketing with the “unlimited” plans that were offered that were not unlimited. All the big phone providers are just screwing over customers where ever and when ever possible. The only thing we can do as consumers is find a provider that screws you over as little as possible that you can tolerate.

Fail!

-Tracker

Source[Gizmodo]

At&T has a new “Unlimited” plan

Ok so here we go with some info about AT&T and a opinion of the big 4.

At&T released info on its new “Unlimited” plans (or not so unlimited) they are giving users the following choices for single lines

$65 for Unlimited data. What they failed to mention in the press release was that data throttling would be possible at ANY TIME down from a soft cap and throttling after 22gb. What does this mean? Well if you are in a congested area your speeds are going to suffer extensively.

They are also offering a plan for $65 that includes 15gb of hotspot usage and a 50gb soft cap (Throttled after 50gb) a long with a $85 plan that includes a 50gb of hotspot and a 100gb soft cap along with HBO Go (Does anyone really care about that?)

So they are saying its unlimited but hiding in the fine print that its not really unlimited and after you use a certain amount on some plans its throttled and on the lowest tier it’s ALWAYS possible to be throttled.

Now for the opinion portion of this…

If your going to advertise something then deliver on it. I have said for years on the web hosting forums I use to be a part of as well as well as on my own hosting website when I ran that company that “Unlimited” simply can not exist there will always be a limit. Companies bury those limits in the fine print and expect the average customer to not be smart enough or care enough to notice it. Don’t get me wrong AT&T is not the only one to do this. The provider I use (T-Mobile) has a 20gb hotspot limit and a 50gb high speed limit with the plan that I am on or lower if you have a different plan. However if you look at any of the promotional info online in big bold letters it always states “Unlimited”. Sprint and Verizon use a very similar strategy and don’t get me started on the smaller providers like simple mobile, h20, trackphone, boost…ect…ect.. as all of these guys are using tower time leased form the big 4 providers and are subject to being throttled at any time in favor of the priority customers from the provider itself.

This is not a issue centered around cell phones either. Look at any major web hosting site and they will offer unlimited storage and transfer. Cloud backup sites do the same thing. Now I have spent countless hours on different websites and have yet to see an “Unlimited” hard drive. While storage media is extremely cheap these days the simple economics of it is that no provider is going to let you store 4tb of data on their cloud for $5 a month. Again if you read in the terms of service there are limits just perhaps not clear ones.

I wish that some of these providers across all the industries would practice more fair and reasonable tactics when it comes to the services they offer as well as be more up front about what it is you are actually paying for instead of trying to hide it in the fine print where most every user wont be able to see it.

Seems I may have rambled on a bit but I feel I made my point.

Remember, Always read the fine print when you sign up for a service. You never know what little tricks are hidden in there

-Tracker