Thread: AT&T Cuts Unlimited Data Plan

Originally Posted by rock_lobster

That makes perfect business sense, but who has that type of capital to start a company like that?

I don't know. I certainly don't. And maybe you don't, and Civil doesn't, and neither does Keiron. But if we pool our money, then maybe we do.

You can find one guy with a ton of money, or a few guys with a lot of money, or a lot of guys with a little bit of money. They're called "investors", and when your company incorporates, they become "shareholders", and after your IPO, they're "boardmembers". Convince others of the soundness of your plan.

In exchange for their investment of capital, they receive a share in the equity of the company that guarantees them a share of the profit made by the expenditure of that capital. Ergo, capitalism.

Draco

Originally Posted by draco7891

Start your own cellphone service provider. If there really is a profitable market to be served by truly unlimited data plans, then you should have no problem recouping your investments.

It's a glorious, wonderful capitalist market out there. Either accept the service already being provided, or provide your own and reap the untapped potential.

Draco

I would love to if I had the money. And besides I said it doesn't bother me much for the cell phone services since I don't have a smart phone.

My problem is it will set precedence and broadband companies will start to follow suit as I said in my other post. Not sure if you just overlooked it or didn't think it was important.

Originally Posted by Keiron

My problem is it will set precedence and broadband companies will start to follow suit as I said in my other post. Not sure if you just overlooked it or didn't think it was important.

It's not important at all. The precedent was set long ago by many companies well before AT&T came into being. Unprofitable market segments are not served; when a company sees that the service they are providing is no longer profitable, it is entirely within their domain to change the service to make it profitable, or cease it altogether. That's exactly what's happening here.

It's not profitable to continue offering unlimited data service to customers. That's what's happening here. An extremely small segment of AT&T's customer base are affected by this decision, just like (as I'm sure you are aware) an extremely small segment of Comcast's customer base are affected by their 250GB usage cap. So, even this decision is nothing new; there is no precedent to set.

Unlimited data access is not a right. It's not a privilege either. It's a service, one rendered under contract under the premise that the offering company will see a profit by it. When that profit is no longer possible, the terms of the offered service change, or the service stops. The only way to make a company offer unlimited data access is to make it sufficiently profitable that they stay in the market. That means paying more money. That's what's happening here. For those (extremely few) customers affected by the change in service, AT&T has provided an alternative, which basically boils down to paying more money.

Again, if that's not acceptable, the alternatives left to you are to find a company that will provide such a service, or to start your own company and provide it yourself.

The system as it is now is a bit like a hospital, where people pay exactly the same amount of money no matter what's wrong with them. They come in with cuts, scrapes and broken bones, but a few need more serious care like a heart transplant or oncology care. So sure, your heart transplant costs way less than it might normally cost, but you're also absorbing a lot more of the hospital's resources in time, manpower and material. Most people come in with simple, minor things, but even though everyone pays exactly the same amount every visit, a very small segment of visitors is allowed to consume a majority of the resources for exactly the same price as visitors that may need very little care at all.

We solve this conundrum by making the price paid for a procedure comiserate with the complexity and resources involved. In the same way, data service should make the price paid comiserate with the amounts of data and bandwidth consumed. Light users continue to enjoy their bandwidth when they need it and the extremely few heavy users pay for their part of the burden on the system.

Until those heavy users make it profitable to continue to serve customers with unlimited and unhindered data access, this is the only course that businesses that hope to stay in business will take.

Draco

Originally Posted by draco7891

I don't know. I certainly don't. And maybe you don't, and Civil doesn't, and neither does Keiron. But if we pool our money, then maybe we do.

You can find one guy with a ton of money, or a few guys with a lot of money, or a lot of guys with a little bit of money. They're called "investors", and when your company incorporates, they become "shareholders", and after your IPO, they're "boardmembers". Convince others of the soundness of your plan.

In exchange for their investment of capital, they receive a share in the equity of the company that guarantees them a share of the profit made by the expenditure of that capital. Ergo, capitalism.

Draco

Wanna buy a tower with me?