From electricity to earmuffs, once you buy a product or service from a company, it shouldn't be any of its business how you choose to use it.
The power company doesn't say you can't use the energy-saving features on your new refrigerator unless you buy more electricity; and your grocer doesn't make you buy an extra loaf of bread if you stop purchasing potato chips.
Then there's the upside-down world of AT&T -- where Ma Bell's spawn sees nothing wrong with making you buy more of what you don't want just to use something you like.
AT&T's latest proposal is a clear violation of Net Neutrality -- the fundamental principle that keeps the open Internet free from discrimination -- and a serious test of whether the Federal Communications Commission will protect mobile users.
AT&T just announced that unless its iPhone customers subscribe to a more expensive "mobile share" unlimited text-and-voice plan, the company will cripple the device's built-in FaceTime app so users can't make mobile video calls.
So if you want to use an app rather than make a call -- something you'll be able to do on a "3G" network when Apple updates its operating system -- then you first have to pay for more old-fashioned phone calls and text messages. Say what?
Who Benefits?
AT&T is defending this plainly stupid and completely unnecessary restriction as offering customers an "added benefit."
But let's take a look at just how this works in practice: Say an AT&T iPhone customer today pays AT&T $70 each month for three gigabytes (3 GB) of data and 450 voice minutes. When Apple's iOS6 operating system is publicly released later this month, this same customer won't be able to use a portion of that 3GB of data they're already paying for to have one of those tear-jerking FaceTime conversations you've seen in the commercials.
No, to make FaceTime work, this user instead would need to pay AT&T at least $95 a month for a plan that includes just 1 GB of data, along with unlimited text and voice minutes that they didn't want or need in the first place.
Got it? To use your phone to make video telephone calls, which could reduce the amount of voice minutes you need to buy from AT&T, you'll first need to pay AT&T more money for less data and unlimited voice minutes.
What if you actually need more data? Get out your wallet, sucker.
Where's the Competition?
If we had actual competition for mobile phone services in America, AT&T's latest arbitrary excuse for you to pay more for less would never fly. You'd simply take your business elsewhere.
But we don't have any competition. We have a market dominated by AT&T and its partner in crime Verizon, which force consumers into ridiculous service plans that will now make you pay for the same data twice.
Indeed, Verizon just dispensed with the niceties and is simply making all new and upgrading users sign up for its own pricey "family share" plans. And it's only going to get worse, unless policymakers in Washington recognize these companies are ripping off Americans without restraint.
Think there oughta be a law against these kinds of shenanigans? Well, we do have decades of communications case law, statutes and regulations that have prevented this kind of anti-consumer behavior on traditional phone networks. That's why the old Ma Bell couldn't push their voicemail service by preventing customers from using answering machines.
What about Net Neutrality?
And though the big phone and cable companies have done their best to ensure that our government looks the other way when they abuse their market power, the FCC did manage to enact a Net Neutrality rule in December 2010 that, while weak, still should prohibit AT&T from screwing over iPhone customers this way.
The FCC's rule explicitly says mobile Internet service providers are not allowed to "block applications that compete with the provider's voice or video telephony services." And here we have AT&T prohibiting their customers from using a video telephone service unless they first pay AT&T more money -- not for more data, but for AT&T's voice and text services.
It's pretty much an open-and-shut case that this latest move is a Net Neutrality violation.
So why would AT&T even go this route? Though AT&T's reputation as a regulatory puppet master has taken a hit in recent months (contrast its failed union with T-Mobile with Verizon's current dalliance with the cable cartel), its political influence is still strong in Washington.
And AT&T -- which tepidly endorsed the FCC's Net Neutrality rules when they were approved -- understands that if it can get the FCC to condone this kind of Net Neutrality violation, then they can get away with just about anything.
(Verizon again has taken a more direct route to the same goal -- suing the FCC and claiming the agency lacks the authority to make any rules at all.)
History Lessons
History makes it quite clear that carriers and ISPs will consider all sorts of ridiculous things in the name of propping up declining revenue streams like voice and text.
Today AT&T blocks FaceTime unless you pay their toll, but tomorrow it will be Skype, Google Voice or iMessage.
And that's why users everywhere need to speak out against AT&T's harrowing vision for our wireless Internet future.
You know the story about boiling a frog. If you put it in the pot and slowly turn up the heat, the frog won't know it's being cooked. That's exactly what AT&T's doing here. Only the amphibians in question are its customers.
If you're one of them, look out. The water is starting to bubble.
Follow Craig Aaron on Twitter: www.twitter.com/notaaroncraig
Personally, I'm done with the subsidized phone model. Once my contract is up, I'll be banking the extra savings for when I want or need to upgrade my phone.
If people started buying their own phones and using prepaid plans we'd be much better off.
"AT&T just announced that unless its iPhone customers subscribe to a more expensive "mobile share" unlimited text-and-voice plan, the company will cripple the device's built-in FaceTime app so users can't make mobile video calls."
If you want to make mobile video calls, you will need more bandwidth. Does this need to be explained?
Lack of bandwidth alone can cripple this app.
There are plenty of valid complaints to be made about our "too big too fail" telecommunications providers - including Sprint, although you fail to mention them at all. This is not one of them.
Please, I think highly of Free Press.net I find it embarrassing to read a rant like this from their Communications director.
Today, tomorrow and yesterday, it's always best to do your homework before you publish, especially when you use your business letterhead.
David Roknich
http://indyradio.nu
I pay AT&T for my wire-line service that says I can use X amount of bandwidth. Wireless should work EXACTLY the same way. I've been working in wire-line & wireless telecom R&D for 30 years. AT&T has over-subscribed and over-promised. If lack of bandwidth can cripple the app, let it cripple the app. Then users can shop around for either a better compression technology (i.e. better app) or better wireless service.
If AT&T can charge users for more bandwidth or priority quality of service, it can do so for any 3rd party app, not just their own apps. AT&T is still running an ancient business model that AOL, AT&T and Yahoo have all tried and failed because end-user applications are difficult to write and these companies do not have solid leadership to win in the market with best of class products and service. Instead these companies, especially AT&T, nickle and dime with poor quality end-user apps and half-baked integration.
Apple also forces you to drink their cool-aide, and while not perfect, their leadership has vision and has seen to it that the user experience is best in class.
Let them charge users for premium service, but don't let them block content.
See: www.EMRActionDay.org/science for hundreds of scientific studies that show wireless radiation and Wi-Fi are dangerous to the health of biological beings, by damaging DNA, causing cancer, harming the endocrine system and the production of melatonin by the pineal gland, effecting fertility rates, causing sleeplessness and depression, etc. etc . Since radiation poisoning is cumulative, every new source of wireless radiation adds to the poisoning. Frequencies from wireless radiation, as measured by RF meters, are trillions of times higher than those of the human brain and the Earth's own natural healing resonance.
My wife and I saved money by switching our plans this week. We have 2 smartphones with the cheapest talk plan and texting, and an iPad. We use about 1GB of data on both phones and around 500 MB on the iPad (it is mainly used around WiFi). Yet we had 3GB plans for all of them and were paying $180 ($60 talk, $30 text, $90 in data...$30 for each device) we now pay $160 for 4GB shared between them. We saved $20.
Granted, some people will see an increase, a single user who uses over 1GB of data but less than 3GB would.
You point out "block applications that compete with the provider's voice or video telephony services." I don't think that counts in this case, because at this time AT&T does not offer a video telephone service. The wording makes it sound as if it only a violation if the block something that competes with them.
People get so ripped off with their iProducts and insanely overpriced contracts.
I donno why anyone does business with ATT, sh*tty service at a sh*tty price. At least Verizon is quality.
Just wait till the complaints and tempers begain to boil when the "shared everything costomers" realized how they are beinh ripped off. I wouldnt bundle ANYTHING on att. It is a NIGHTMARE when you dispute one discrepancy on the bill, and because everything is tied to "one bundled service" , everyone and every thing is in jeaopardy if you dont give in to pay it.
....KEEP YOUR PLANS , SERVICES AND LINES SEPARATE on the beast!
I am SO over this "FAT Ma Bell"!
I can NEVER make sense of my Iphone bill and am getting ready to leave AT&T alltogether and I have been with AT&T for years now. I have NEVER been able to make sense of my bill. I can reduce my services but my taxes and fees suddenly go up. It is really weird. I have also started noticing new charges on AT&T's bill. Instead of the 911 charge there is NOW the 911 charge and another charge called 911 Addon or something. I pay about $20.00 per month in fees and taxes and my original bill is only $70.00. That pushes my bill up to almost $100.00.
Just get rid of all these bloodsucking smartphones because the exploitation won't stop.AT&T is a BEAST with an INSATIABLE appetite. It will NEVER be satisfied and will spend every waking moment figuring out how to pull more money from customers.