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Comments on news posted 2011-01-31 11:20:27: Courthouse News Service notes that AT&T is facing a new class action lawsuit over the way the company bills iPhone and iPad data rates. ..

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vag16v
join:2001-07-27
hereandthere

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Re: turning off 3G

I bet we have just only a 3G network here. Our local telco is now in bed with Rogers in this city and took over all of Rogers customers here.
scross
join:2002-09-13
USA

scross

Member

Billing fraud

Listen, folks, if you haven't figured it out by now, "billing errors" are business as usual for the telecom companies. They figure that with enough of these floating around out there, in various amounts, at least a certain percentage (typically a fairly high percentage) are going to get paid without question. Easy profits for the company doing it, and if you pay it and end up fighting it later (you actually have very little leverage in this area, if you want to keep your service), well then they just get to keep your money for free for a while. It's my understanding that the accounting rules which telecom companies operate under are biased in such a way that makes this behavior quite favorable, even if the money itself never gets paid.

Back when I was younger I worked for a company which had huge long-distance phone bills. We had a PBX which monitored all this traffic down to the tenth of a second. The phone companies (there were multiple) were required to send us itemized bills on tape, listing every single phone call in detail. We compared our call record data with theirs, and regularly beat them over the head if there were any major discrepancies. This was a constant and on-going battle, because they might very well fix a "mistake", stay clean and honest for a while, then turn up with a whole new set of "errors" when they thought we weren't paying close enough attention any more.

I even worked with a guy once who had spent years at one of the big guns (a name you would recognize instantly). He said they were told that billing could never and would never be correct, so they spent more time working to build systems for service recovery (to keep customers from defecting) than they ever did fixing the billing problems - even though this was their number one source of complaints. He seemed quite shocked that anyone on the outside like me had such a good idea of how the game was actually played.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

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Re: More Proof that All Data Plans with Overages Are Bad

said by fifty nine:

I would support a truly unlimited data plan if there was allowance to deal with the data hogs and true abusers.

WTF???
There is no such thing as a data hog or abuser.
People use their connections for different things.
You can't judge others based on your usage.

How would like it if judge your usage based on someone who uses their internet connection sparingly and only to check email?

Usage of your connection is not how the costs are determined. The ISP has to pay for the fixed line and equipment regardless if you use your connection all day or if you never use it.

The only way you save the ISP money is if they see you never use your connection so they sell your share of their backbone bandwidth twice (whic is not much as the equipment and physical line still must be paid for). That works as long as you never use your connection, but you can't sustain an ISP like that in the long run as all users are going to use their connections.
Many large ISPs are also Tier1 ISPs so they do not have to pay anyone for backbone bandwidth. They own the backbone lines and equipment.
If everyone uses their connection for 2 hours a day from 6pm to 8pm that is no different than if everyone used their connection constantly 24/7. The effect on the network is the same so because you don't think you use your connection much does not mean you cost the ISP any less.

fifty nine
join:2002-09-25
Sussex, NJ

fifty nine to innoman

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to innoman
I agree that the 2GB limit is pretty low, but if you're streaming constantly just to spite AT&T you're going to go well over 2GB.

The point isn't the amount, it's the intent.

There has to be a balance between artificially low caps and users being allowed unconditional unlimited access. Neither really works out well.
fifty nine

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Bandwidth is always oversold. If it wasn't, we'd each pay much more than we are paying now.

And simply leaving your device streaming constantly just because you can is pretty much the definition of abuse.
fifty nine

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to vag16v

Re: turning off 3G

said by vag16v:

I bet we have just only a 3G network here. Our local telco is now in bed with Rogers in this city and took over all of Rogers customers here.

Oh you live in Canada... didn't realize that.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984 to IPPlanMan

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to IPPlanMan

Re: How?

said by IPPlanMan:

How is it possible to have phantom traffic?

Easy.
Traffic that your phone did not request is being sent to your IP address. The network has no idea if that traffic is legit/requested by you, it just send it to your phone and counts it as usage.
Now your phone reads the packets and drops them as it knows it did not request the data. So you might not have used your phone, but you get charged for data as the network sent it to your phone.

Also there can be apps or even the OS using bandwidth without you knowing about it.

Your phone might phone home to tell ATT where it is at over data and ATT could be counting traffic like that even though it is their traffic to your phone.
r81984

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Re: More Proof that All Data Plans with Overages Are Bad

said by fifty nine:

If it wasn't, we'd each pay much more than we are paying now.

That is not true at all.
How much do you think the equipment and lines costs?? Especially on a wireless where they have no last mile physical lines.

Do you really think wireless bandwidth cost more than your cable company or phone company that had to bury lines to every house??

Leaving your phone streaming is not abuse. You can't judge one persons usage to anothers. Also if you stream 24/7 the network would just be as congested if you only did it during peak usage times in the evening.
24/7 usage does not matter. The network must be built for peak usage.
Caps do not prevent people from using their connections at the same time.

Gbcue
Premium Member
join:2001-09-30
Santa Rosa, CA

Gbcue to innoman

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Re: How?

said by innoman:

Actually... they happen almost constantly... as least it would appear that way if a human is looking at the log files (I have done a great deal of this on many devices). There are measurement reports, location/routing area updates, paging requests, handover requests, cell reselection, acknowledgments for everything, etc... A device has to talk to the network often or it won't know where to send the page requests if someone calls it. In UMTS, coverage for each cell site grows and shrinks (it's referred to as cell breathing I believe) based on the number of users, network conditions, etc... to prevent interference, saturation, etc.

But should all those "behind the scenes" data transactions be counted towards a users' data bucket? No. This stuff happened long before there was 3G data and nobody was charged for it.

Rambo76098
join:2003-02-21
Columbus, OH

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How would that fix Shoan's problem if his phone was never on?
chgo_man99
join:2010-01-01
Sunnyvale, CA

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Re: This is exactly what's wrong with our civil justice system

Same with health insurance with denied coverage for individuals

They almost pay nothing except for visits and prescription (generic mostly). Will they pay for brain scan MRI? You bet, they will count you against fully deductible and out of pocket expenses before they cover. And if you are poor, even if you are healthy the best you can afford is high deductible health insurance plan with deductible as high as 5,000 sometimes more. Medicaid, give me a break that is bullshit with hole. They won't pay you unless your household earns so little that you live on cat food.

So now you get a new job and have health insurance. great but you have to wait 3 months or sometimes 6 months for full coverage to take effect and it often does not credit coverage from previous insurance if you had individual health insurance or in case of employer-sponsored group a break of more than 2 months.

insomniac84
join:2002-01-03
Schererville, IN

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Re: More Proof that All Data Plans with Overages Are Bad

There is. A higher cap that allows reasonable use. Probably somewhere around the 10gb range. And only throttle after that, so small amounts of data like basic web surfing, text chats, information updates, etc. work just fine.

The only reason they set the cap at 2gbs, is because they are setting it low enough so the average user will probably be paying another 20-30 bucks a month in data overage charges. And children will run up 100+ dollars in extra charges. It is designed to replace the text messaging bill shock from the last decade.

Also they could demand phone manufacturers to have better data controls in the phone settings.

A user should easily be able to set certain apps and services to be restricted to wifi only.
chgo_man99
join:2010-01-01
Sunnyvale, CA

chgo_man99

Member

faster 3G vs 1.5Mb commercial wi-fi

we all know ATT recommends using your wi-fi to prevent counting against your limit. Not mentioned benefit is a higher response due to lower latency. The one (wi-fi) that has higher speeds will be usually only your own or sometimes workplace. If you go to gym, starbucks, mcdonalds, bookstore, it is usually limited to 1.5Mb. Not taking into account when you are out of range or many people connect to wi-fi and slow down, it seems to be 1.5MB wi-fi is enough just for smarphone.

Last time I was able to watch netflix at my gym (on eliptical machine) on wifi at only 1.3Mb fixed speed and pictures were sharp and high of quality.

When do you think I would need just for smartphone the data rate faster than 1.3mb? Nothing else comes to my mind except downloadable videos, music or applications.

At off-peak hours, I am able to achieve speed on my 3G close to 5Mb down, 1.5 up which is very good.

insomniac84
join:2002-01-03
Schererville, IN

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Re: This could be easily explained

AT&T is in on it. You are claiming they never tested their own network or never test any phones being used on their network.

Every phone branded by AT&T is heavily tested on the network. AT&T would be testing everything like crazy. You have to in order to make the network reliable.

When these things are happened to a user, AT&T cannot play stupid. They probably made a decision somewhere to charge the user for internal data updates that have nothing to do with user generated traffic. And now it is going to bite them in the ass.

For all we know this phantom data is usage data that AT&T makes branded phones send to them so they can read user behavior to see how people use their phones.

fifty nine
join:2002-09-25
Sussex, NJ

fifty nine to insomniac84

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Re: More Proof that All Data Plans with Overages Are Bad

You could make it 10GB or 100GB, people will still cry that it's not unlimited, like the Comcast 250GB cap is cried about today.
fifty nine

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said by r81984:

Leaving your phone streaming is not abuse.

It absolutely is. No one is listening and you are using data. For what?
fifty nine

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Re: How?

said by skuv :

And updates for phones don't happen often enough for the phone to need to constantly check for updates. iPhoneOS and Android updates are few and far between.

iOS updates are actually done from iTunes which gets the software update over your computer's broadband connection, not over 3G.

SLD
Premium Member
join:2002-04-17
San Francisco, CA

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Re: More Proof that All Data Plans with Overages Are Bad

Not just data - I've noticed that my T-Mobile prepaid minutes magically disappear - they seem to overbill about 20%.

Ben
Premium Member
join:2007-06-17
Fort Worth, TX

Ben

Premium Member

said by SLD:

Not just data - I've noticed that my T-Mobile prepaid minutes magically disappear - they seem to overbill about 20%.

     Are you sure?  Maybe you make many short calls and you tend to end your calls partially through a minute.  It's standard practice to round up such partial usage up to the next full minute.
innoman
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Premium Member
join:2002-05-07
Seattle, WA

innoman to insomniac84

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I can agree with that. Once newer technologies are out that are capable of more, then I think the caps should increase or go away.
innoman

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Re: How?

They should not, nor are they.

Those types of communications between the device and the network take places on different logical (and in some cases, physical) channels. There are a number of logical and physical channels that are established between the device and network.

They can't be counted towards the users consumed data. Who know's what AT&T is doing in the instances that they are billing for data not consumed...
Crookshanks
join:2008-02-04
Binghamton, NY

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Re: More Proof that All Data Plans with Overages Are Bad

said by fifty nine:

There has to be a balance between artificially low caps and users being allowed unconditional unlimited access. Neither really works out well.

I don't understand why nobody has done a "nights and weekends" thing for data. It seemed to work well enough for voice calls back in the days when capacity for them was actually an issue. Why should AT&T or Verizon care if you are pegging the tower at 4am when hardly anybody else is using it?

This seems like something they could give away that would cost them next to nothing and earn a little bit of goodwill in response.

Bill Neilson
Premium Member
join:2009-07-08
Alexandria, VA

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said by fifty nine:

I agree that the 2GB limit is pretty low, but if you're streaming constantly just to spite AT&T you're going to go well over 2GB.

Constantly? If you stream anything at all even just 1-2 movies chances are you will go over if you remotely use your phone for other means like email, apps, etc...

I agree with your overall point but I think the true answer is that a suitable cap should be one that is high enough for todays users to not hit even if they stream some movies or do other activities on it.

With the speed increasing & more companies putting apps out there, that "suitable" number is probably considerably higher than some seem to think

I consider myself to be an "average" user as I don't stream movies, BARELY stream music (as in, maybe 5 minutes total every 2-3 weeks if that), and just news apps/email primarily.
Crookshanks
join:2008-02-04
Binghamton, NY

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said by r81984:

Do you really think wireless bandwidth cost more than your cable company or phone company that had to bury lines to every house??

It's not just a matter of cost you know. The bandwidth on that tower is shared by every other user on that tower. EV-DO provides a maximum of 3mbit/s per channel. That bandwidth is shared by every single data user on that tower and channel. Do the math on that, it's not a lot of bandwidth. In reality it's probably less than 3mbit/s because that data rate is only achieved under very good RF conditions which may not exist for most users.

Cable operates under the same sort of shared bandwidth arrangement but they are starting with a higher number (around 40mbit/s for earlier flavors of DOCSIS) and can split overloaded nodes easier than a cellular company can deploy new cell sites/purchase more spectrum.
said by r81984:

Leaving your phone streaming is not abuse.

It is if you aren't actually using it. What's the point? You are consuming a finite resource for no purpose. Do you also leave your faucets wide open just to spite the water company?
MrHappy316
Wish I had my tank
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join:2003-01-02
Columbia, SC

MrHappy316 to Crookshanks

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I agree, what happened to the old days you could use your minutes for either data or voice when data worked as a modem more than an on all the time connection.

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ

Premium Member

300KB a day?

Neat. I don't get that charge. I wonder if they allowed diagnostic data to apple when they activated the phone. That would be funny if they did.

My usage seems to track perfectly on the phone and the AT&T site. I guess I am really lucky. Oh wait, the other two phones track exactly too.

Should be fun to watch.

SimbaSeven
I Void Warranties
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT
·StarLink

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Re: More Proof that All Data Plans with Overages Are Bad

said by fifty nine:

You could make it 10GB or 100GB, people will still cry that it's not unlimited, like the Comcast 250GB cap is cried about today.

I wouldn't. 10GB or 100GB is a ton better than the crappy 2GB they give you. I wouldn't have switched if their data plan wasn't absolute crap.
SimbaSeven

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said by fifty nine:

said by r81984:

Leaving your phone streaming is not abuse.

It absolutely is. No one is listening and you are using data. For what?

I pay for the data.. I should be able to use it without restrictions instead of that at&t "tells" me what I can and can't do with it.

BTW: Voice is data, too.. If you want to get technical.

JohnInSJ
Premium Member
join:2003-09-22
Aptos, CA

JohnInSJ

Premium Member

6.6MB/month...

In background internet noise. Sounds about right.

I make that out to be 3% of 200MB, or .3% of 2GB.

Lawyers... they're not good network engineers.

SimbaSeven
I Void Warranties
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT
·StarLink

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Re: More Proof that All Data Plans with Overages Are Bad

said by Crookshanks:

It's not just a matter of cost you know. The bandwidth on that tower is shared by every other user on that tower. EV-DO provides a maximum of 3mbit/s per channel. That bandwidth is shared by every single data user on that tower and channel. Do the math on that, it's not a lot of bandwidth. In reality it's probably less than 3mbit/s because that data rate is only achieved under very good RF conditions which may not exist for most users.

times how many channels? Also, what kind of backhaul are they using? I'm sure 3mbps * 300 1.25MHz channels (375MHz of Spectrum) = 900mbps.. Plus a GbE fiber backhaul and you could easily handle a decent number of users.
said by Crookshanks:

Do you also leave your faucets wide open just to spite the water company?

Depending on where you live. Some places if you don't leave it trickle at night, you could end up with blown pipes due to them freezing.
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