AT&T Scrapping Texting Plan

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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May 9, 2000
Messages
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Beginning on Sunday the 21st, AT&T will be dropping its 1000 text for $10 buck plan and replacing it with an unlimited for $20. If you were contemplating buying into the old plan, you better hurry since it will be ending tonight. The old plan will be grandfathered in, so existing accounts can opt for either plan as part of the original contract agreement.

Siegler points out that text messages are easy money for carriers – "a revenue stream of billions of dollars for carriers, with profit margins approaching 100 percent for each message."
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$20 dollars for unlimited? Good lord what a ripoff. It's included in my $50 plan on Telus.
 
Capitalism at its finest. I am going to enjoy when ATT pays Tmo billions when the DOJ denies the purchase of Tmo.
 
I hope they deny it. But I don't trust the goverment to do the right thing.
 
Well there goes any chance of going back to AT&T for me. I was considering it since I get a slightly higher discount with them than with Verizon, and I liked the 1000 text plan too. Oh well.
 
Yay another reason to hate AT&T.

If they don't Deny the ATT/TMo buyout someone is getting paided *Cough Comcast/NBC Cough*
 
So if I change my plan in any way (breaking my grandfathered plan) I have to spend 2x as much for something i hardly use?

Guess I need to do some simple math and look up how few SMS's I send each month. Might still be cheaper to spend the INSANE 20 cents a text in the long run.
 
I'm pretty sure other companies charge 15 or 20 for SMS. And as the article says, it's almost 100% profit.
 
I live in NZ, we have 2 major telcos and 1 very fast up-and-comer. There is not a lot of competition here for who you choose. But in saying that, we can get 2500 txts for $12 a month, and thats prepaid, not a contract.
 
I pay $30 for my phone plan and that includes unlimited data and text., $20 just for text is just wrong.
 
We as a society are so hopelessly dependent on our cell phones that we reluctantly pay almost any price now for cell phone service.
 
$20 is absurd. I pay $5/mo for 250 messages from Verizon and that's plenty for me (I talk to people via Google Talk a lot anyway)
 
Good thing there are free/cheap apps that give you a phone number with unlimited texting.
 
nickel and dime.

texting costs them negligible bandwidth. Now they force the $20 plan down everyone's throat.

another example of pay more, get less or the same.
 
As long as people keep paying these high prices, the companies will keep charging them.

For me, a text messaging plan is not even worth the extra $10 that T-mobile charges. Since I still had a few people who kept sending me text messages even though I told them not to nd they could send me an email instead, I went to the T-mobile web site and completely disabled text messaging on my phone.

If I had a need for a 2nd phone with voice/data/text, I'd be looking at the new plan that T-mobile has.
2 phones for $49.99 each, including unlimited talk, 2 GB data and text on each phone.
 
if an at&t customer sends a text message to another at&t customer, that message gets paid for from both accounts. :(
 
Silverghost said:
$20 dollars for unlimited? Good lord what a ripoff. It's included in my $50 plan on Telus.
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Man you guys get raped.

Costa Rica i pay about $20 a month at most for my cell service, that included internet, text and calls, all unlimited.

mind you i do pay $100 USD for a 4Mb/756Kb connection.
 
Can someone explain why people use AT&T at all??? I assume it's just because of the iPhone? Is there any other reason?
 
sfsuphysics said:
AT&T - We hope to squeeze every dime from you that we can.
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this is a fucking rip off. how is this good for consumers?

i've already decided to cut the cell phone off when contract ends. why? because all these companies charge too damn much.
 
We Canadians have always been hosed on cellular plans compared to the US but lately, we've gotten some competition from Wind and Mobilicity who offer unlimited local voice, text and data for $25 (Mobi) and $29 (Wind).

I'm still with Robbers (Rogers) and have a $10 package that included 2500 outgoing texts (unlimited incoming), Caller ID and Voicemail. This AT&T $20 deal stinks but teens text so much that AT&T can milk them.
 
Being fair, unlimited text also brings unlimited mobile to mobile calls to any carrier, but that does not help everyone out all that much. Most of the people I call are on at&t already so I rarely use minutes as it is.
 
so no cross network unlimited mobile calls in the US ? (text as well ?) if i remember your mobile networks charge for receiving text as well (we get charged only for sending)

in the UK unless your on an pay as you go mobile you cant get an contract that is not cross network talk and text, most networks seems to have an limit of around 2500 text (3uk its 5000 text but you get, msn msg, skype and facebook for Free for ever, and does not come out of your data amount as well)
 
Hazard said:
We Canadians have always been hosed on cellular plans compared to the US but lately, we've gotten some competition from Wind and Mobilicity who offer unlimited local voice, text and data for $25 (Mobi) and $29 (Wind).

I'm still with Robbers (Rogers) and have a $10 package that included 2500 outgoing texts (unlimited incoming), Caller ID and Voicemail. This AT&T $20 deal stinks but teens text so much that AT&T can milk them.
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Do we ever, some third world countries have better cell phone and internet pricing then we do, at least according to the Harvard study.

Of course if you listen to the CRTC (ex telecom executives) the duopoly is competitive in its pricing.
 
MrGuvernment said:
Man you guys get raped.

Costa Rica i pay about $20 a month at most for my cell service, that included internet, text and calls, all unlimited.

mind you i do pay $100 USD for a 4Mb/756Kb connection.
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Ouch. 50/5 interent for $59. Win some, you lose some. But hey, you live in Costa Rica
 
dr.kevin said:
nickel and dime.

texting costs them negligible bandwidth. Now they force the $20 plan down everyone's throat.

another example of pay more, get less or the same.
Click to expand...

This type of pricing has been around for a while. And the bandwidth is 0. SMS uses unused bandwidth on the messaging side. The most expensive part of SMS is probably the infrastructure required to enable billing. It's is the money for nothing.
 
And nonsense like this, along with the ever-increasing monthly fees of most cell phones and the cost of the phones themselves is the reason I'm hanging onto my "dumb" 100 minutes for $17 VM plan. Yes I get charged whether I make a call or take a call. And I was getting charged through the nose when people insisted on texting me - so I turned it off.

When I have to get a new phone, I will stay with VM. I think it'll then cost me something like $25 a month for pretty much what I've got now.

I'm not a big cell phone user obviously, I don't have the thing surgically attached to my ear (drives me nuts when my roommate walks around the house on her cell when we both have landlines), if I want to use my phone for internet quick use I have to buy a top-up card which I can pick up for like $20 if I really, really need to get a message out to people and comcrap does it's every other month "maintenance" no internet overnight. So far I've not had anything that urgent to drive me out the house to the local cvs to get a top-up card.

So I'm living in the dark ages. I'm also not paying $50 or more a month for cellular service. Plus I'm on SSDI - my food budget isn't even $50 a month!
 
This is BS! For me it isn't a big deal, I just have 200 texts for $5 on my phone since I hate texting. My wife however had to increase her's to 1000 texts earlier this year. Our contract is up and we were thinking about getting new phones because she HATES her ATT FUZE, but paying an extra $10/month just to get what she has now is stupid.

I so want to switch carriers, but I haven't found another one that gets reliable coverage at my house. ATT does, but the loaner DroidX on Verizon didn't and my inlaw's Sprint phones get horrible reception when they are here. Unfortuanately I don't know anyone with a different carrier to test reception at my house for a week....
 
Doesn't affect me, I already pay $20/mo for unlimited texting (actually $30/mo for the family). Sucks for those who don't need unlimited and would rather just have a set amount though :(
 
I get unlimited for $10 with Tmobile. I hate to see them merge with ATT
 
And the top comment on the Gizmodo article says that NOT spending $20 on a text messaging plan...is socialism.

Doomed. Doooooooomed. :(
 
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