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Oh man... I thought that I would never use this picture associating with AT&T again. Boy, was I wrong.
As Engadget reports it, the largest wireless carrier in the US is turning its data rates around. One can only hope that something good will come out of it, but I'm not so sure after seeing some of the screenshots on the site.
Effective on January 20, 2008, their plans are being revised. The once unlimited on-device data and messaging is not going to be so unlimited anymore. They decided to be a "soft limit" of 5GB to those people who uses tethering function. If you constantly goes over 5GB, you might actually not be charged! But you'll be relieved from AT&T.
Throughout all of this, AT&T also mentioned that they will probably no longer sell any "Windows Media Devices" that probably means all Windows Mobile phones those without the QWERTY keyboard.
I guess we'll see how things will work out after the 20th.
If you read the slides from AT&T carefully, it specifically says:
Quote:
...removal of "Unlimited" use from DataConnect & all Blackberry/PDA tethering plans.
Quote:
DataConnect and BlackBerry/PDA plans with tethering functionality will no longer be marketed as having "unlimited" usage. Instead these plans will have soft limits of 5GB.
DataConnect refers to PCMCIA cards for your laptop, but for devices like the Q, the "Unlimited" only goes away if you are paying the extra $30 for tethering capability.
And with the availability of PDAnet for the Q, I think you'd have to be pretty thick to pay that charge.
Here it is in black & white:
Also the part about "Windows Media devices" says nothing about no longer selling them altogether. That would be a very bad business decision indeed and would essentially mean that AT&T is no longer interested in business customers. However, that's not what they said:
Quote:
In support of the AT&T device strategy of no longer selling windows media devices with non-QWERTY keyboards, (referred to as "smart phones"), the Smart Phone Connect data add on features are being grandfathered and will no longer be available for provisioning.
They aren't saying they are going to stop selling Windows Media devices, only those that include a non-QWERTY keyboard, which is any clamshell or flip type phone that runs Windows Mobile and the bar type HTC Typhoon and Faraday. I don't see why anyone would want to use one of those anyway, so I say good riddance. I doubt they'll be missed.
Anyway I'm no fan of AT&T, but I am even less of a fan of irresponsible reporting.
I thought I mentioned the non-qwerty keyboard on my post, but I guess that wasn't clear enough.
For unlimited data access, I wasn't clear at all on the tethering. I apologize about that, but at the same time, some people have called them and checked things with AT&T, normal people will be effected too (those who are not connecting with the internet) but what effects them is the "unlimited text messaging". In any case, I'll change that in my post.
You were only reporting what Engadget was reporting. I don't blame you, I blame Engadget. Their headline clearly states: "AT&T retooling data plans (hint: buh-bye, unlimited)" which is sensationalist and misleading. I would wager that the percentage of data users that pay for the tethering option is very, very small, and thus the number of people affected by this change will be as well.
Oh man... I thought that I would never use this picture associating with AT&T again. Boy, was I wrong.
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