I really like my iPhone. I have had one from the early days when you got them for piles of money. In fact, I could almost buy my iPad today for what my iPhone cost back then. So I have been with the platform awhile. Which means that I have been with AT&T for quite awhile now. That is what I want to briefly touch on, AT&T and what I think of them. The Good: This will actually help out a number of people. First, me. I will be able to move to a plan that is $15 cheaper each month. I look at my data, I rarely use more than 150MB a month. I am almost always on wi-fi. I have been paying AT&T a premium for the option to use a ton of data, $30/mo. That is around 20 cents a megabyte, given my standard usage. Of course it is nothing compared to the stratospheric cost of texting, per megabyte, but whatever. The savings of $15/mo will save me $360 over the course of my 2 year, soul binding agreement. Which you may be able to use to buy back some of the organs harvested from you when you are assessed your early termination fee. Anyway, after subtracting the cost of the phone ($199), I still come out with a savings of around $160. So, this option is good for me.
I feel like I pay through the nose for my iPhone plan. That may or may not be true, and certainly you can point to other plans in the marketplace and say how comparable my iPhone plan is, but I *feel* like I am paying through the nose. I feel sorry if other people are paying these prices for non-iPhones. I am willing to pay it, but only just. It is something that bothers me. 3 main ‘competitors’ in the mobile market, each with ‘lock in’ phones that you cannot get elsewhere is not a free market to me. But whatever. I could stop paying them, if I thought it would do any good. Just before the new iPhone was announced AT&T started making some changes to their contracts. I appreciate the need to simplify (who can really understand all the confusing plans out there). Some of it was good, some of it I am not to thrilled about.
The change in plans is great for my Dad as well, but for an entirely different reason. Something of a road warrior, he spends five or six nights a month in hotels. He is delighted to have a legitimate tethering option. Because of the fees that some of the hotels charge to access their Wifi, he figures that he will come out positive too. In the long run. He will be able to link up to his laptop or netbook wherever he is, and this is a big plus for him, worth every penny of the $20 convenience charge associated with tethering. Plus, it is not such a big deal because he will be paying $45 total for data, which is really a net increase of only $15 for him right now. So he is excited, but at the same time is going to have to increase his overall blood money to AT&T for the foreseeable future.
The Bad:
Which is really what gets me irritated. Paying for tethering gets you no additional benefits in terms of data usage. You only get the same megs you are already paying for in the $25 plan. All that is different is that you are allowed to use those megabytes from a computer. This has the feeling of a shameless money grab. They already are paying for the data. In addition, you promised this to them *last summer* AT&T. You should be giving this to them for free, at least for the amount of time in between your broken promise and the time that you actually delivered. Jerks. You have grown so complacent over your locked in subscriber base, that you feel like you can treat your customers like garbage. I hope the day of reckoning is coming. I have seen very little that is truly strategic come out of AT&T in awhile (new tiered data is a good move, actually), you haven’t really made an effort to get any other interesting smart phones in your line up, your service is overloaded and terrible in many of your trend setting markets (not to bad in Dallas, by the way, although my new office is in a deadzone). In Vegas, people say that they don’t count on service at all on the weekends. Ouch.
When you stop holding iPhone exclusivity rights, what will you hold? A bunch of angry, pissed off customers looking to jump ship. That is ok, you tell yourself. When exclusivity ends in a year, but everyone who just got the new iPhone 4 with us is going to be paying us recently increased blood money on the way out. Perfect timing for us. Whatever, let your short term goals overshadow any sort of cohesive long term strategy. You are biggest in terms of subscribers because you *bought other companies*, and because people have to go with you to get the hottest smartphone on the market. Not from any brand loyalty. I certainly hope that Apple doesn’t have any loyalty to you, you have limited their technology and pissed off their customers. They won’t stick around to pad your coffers any longer than they are contractually obligated to.
Conclusions:
Well, when all is said and done this is really just my opinion. Some of it is fact, some speculation, but I think the speculation is not to far from the mark. Relying on another company to innovate for you does not seem to be a good long term move, AT&T. You are killing the Golden Goose with your bad infrastructure, failed promises, and general lack of concern for customer well-being. Even in a closed, oligopolistic market like the US mobile market, these practices will come back to bite you. In the meantime, sign me up for another 2 years.
