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Spheric Harlot · Jul 14, 2009, 04:38 AM

Originally Posted by glideslope

Well, we will just have to wait and see. As for at&t I certainly have no wet dreams of Verizon. Simply reading at&t customer satisfaction numbers are enough. Also, you will be past 2012 before you see any LTE/4G on at&t. You'll be lucky if you have MMS by Christmas. $10 for 200 MMS per month.

You know, in most of Europe, 200 MMS would be €80 (at 40¢ per MMS). Even the top T-Mobile iPhone contract here in Germany (at 120€/month) only comes with 100 MMS included. (Though of course, we don't pay for incoming.)

Welcome to capitalism.

glideslope · Jul 14, 2009, 06:29 PM

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot

You know, in most of Europe, 200 MMS would be €80 (at 40¢ per MMS). Even the top T-Mobile iPhone contract here in Germany (at 120€/month) only comes with 100 MMS included. (Though of course, we don't pay for incoming.)

Welcome to capitalism.

Ok, I was too pessimistic. at&t hypothetical MMS plan. 150 in&out, $10.00. 100 out .10 in, $8.00. 25 in& out $5.00, plus 200 free text.

Spheric Harlot · Jul 14, 2009, 06:47 PM

Did you read my post? I pointed out that 200 SMS would cost about US$ 110.

How is underestimating that cost by a factor of ten "pessimistic"?

glideslope · Jul 18, 2009, 10:29 PM

Anonymous source inside at&t:

"MMS will be included in TEXT plans when announced by Labor Day. No extra fee. at&t will also offer a "Circle of Friends" similar to Verizon's." My source is quoting 5 Friends per plan. Verizon is 10.

"at&t will be acquiring Alltell. Deal almost done". 4G Verizon phone still on track for late 2010, IMO.

End of exclusivity looking like reality, and moving faster due to Feds possible intervention. The stats that 1/3 of at&t customers are solely due to iPhone exclusivity. Could be a reason for the Alltell move. The writing is on the wall.

Verizon late 2010. Daddy is coming home!

glideslope · Jul 18, 2009, 10:30 PM

"Did you read my post? I pointed out that 200 SMS would cost about US$ 110.

How is underestimating that cost by a factor of ten "pessimistic"?

It can't. Incorrect on my part.

ghporter · Jul 19, 2009, 08:03 AM

I have just had dealings with AT&T's current text plans. "Per message" billing is 10¢/text. 200 text messages costs $5/month, and 1500 messages costs $15/month. Unlimited is $20/month. Note of course that the user gets billed both for outgoing AND incoming text messages. Interestingly enough, IM features come under text message billing-which is why I had these recent dealings...

If AT&T makes adjustments to their current suite of text/data/etc. plans, I think one big area they could improve that would attract customers would be to simplify the whole SMS/MMS vs data vs "other stuff like IMs" issue. For example, my wife's LG phone has an IM app along with a mobile browser and so on, and her unlimited data plan costs $15/month. Why should unlimited text messages cost MORE than unlimited data? That doesn't make much sense, and is confusing to most people-and it can drive customers away. Applying this to the iPhone, why should there be an added need for a text message package at all? Why not hike the "unlimited data plan" that everybody MUST have to $40/mo, and include unlimited text and MMS? Doesn't that sound like a winner for everyone?

glideslope · Jul 19, 2009, 09:06 AM

Originally Posted by ghporter

I have just had dealings with AT&T's current text plans. "Per message" billing is 10¢/text. 200 text messages costs $5/month, and 1500 messages costs $15/month. Unlimited is $20/month. Note of course that the user gets billed both for outgoing AND incoming text messages. Interestingly enough, IM features come under text message billing-which is why I had these recent dealings...

If AT&T makes adjustments to their current suite of text/data/etc. plans, I think one big area they could improve that would attract customers would be to simplify the whole SMS/MMS vs data vs "other stuff like IMs" issue. For example, my wife's LG phone has an IM app along with a mobile browser and so on, and her unlimited data plan costs $15/month. Why should unlimited text messages cost MORE than unlimited data? That doesn't make much sense, and is confusing to most people-and it can drive customers away. Applying this to the iPhone, why should there be an added need for a text message package at all? Why not hike the "unlimited data plan" that everybody MUST have to $40/mo, and include unlimited text and MMS? Doesn't that sound like a winner for everyone?

Very doable, and IMO changes to the unlimited plan will come by Labor Day. All I want is a robust Network for an iPhone. Competition is needed yesterday.

Phileas · Jul 19, 2009, 09:31 AM

SMS messages are a huge money maker for the networks. Technically, and SMS doesn't cost them anything to send, simply by the nature of how it works. There is no additional data burden, no matter how many messages you send. If you've got a signal, you can send an SMS without imposing any additional work on the network.

So for the networks to charge for SMS messages means that they are getting money for nothing.

driven · Jul 19, 2009, 09:46 AM

Originally Posted by Phileas

SMS messages are a huge money maker for the networks. Technically, and SMS doesn't cost them anything to send, simply by the nature of how it works. There is no additional data burden, no matter how many messages you send. If you've got a signal, you can send an SMS without imposing any additional work on the network.

So for the networks to charge for SMS messages means that they are getting money for nothing.

Just to be clear ... technically there isn't a cost to send a message within their own network. To pass SMS between networks there *IS* a cost and usually that's to a 3rd party vendor that does the data movement. If you are on a non-standard system (such as CDMA) where SMS was really more of an afterthought, then the costs may be even higher as the data has to be massaged before the pass-off.

Here is one company that deals with inter-operator SMS/MMS traffic:
http://www.sybase.com/mobileservices/operator-services

Andy8 · Aug 13, 2009, 07:17 PM

Originally Posted by driven

That said: China Unicom (the most likely vendor for the iPhone) has 80% of their subscribers on GSM. So I sincerely doubt that the iPhone will ship in China with *any* variant of CDMA.

China Unicom had already paid Apple 10 billion yuan ($1.46 billion) for 5 million WCDMA standard iPhones.

driven · Aug 13, 2009, 08:03 PM

Originally Posted by Andy8

China Unicom had already paid Apple 10 billion yuan ($1.46 billion) for 5 million WCDMA standard iPhones.

You DO realize that WCDMA is a 3G GSM phone, NOT a CMDA phone, yes?
(It uses the same core as the GSM / EDGE phones, NOT the same as the 1xRTT/CDMA phones that VZW and Sprint use)

This tech is heavilly used in Japan (DoCoMo). Often you will see it labeled as UMTS (esp. on Sony devices).

The CURRENT iPhone 3Gs has WCDMA (UMTS) in it.

So your point was????

Andy8 · Aug 13, 2009, 11:01 PM

I am not questioning the GSM/WCDMA details, just nice to see a nice big fat order from China Unicom.

More iPhones around is a good thing I believe, which would hopefully tip more iPhone users into using a Mac at some point at least. win/win.

driven · Aug 14, 2009, 07:53 AM

Originally Posted by Andy8

I am not questioning the GSM/WCDMA details, just nice to see a nice big fat order from China Unicom.

More iPhones around is a good thing I believe, which would hopefully tip more iPhone users into using a Mac at some point at least. win/win.

Good comeback my friend.

I like.

I am not sure the halo effect will be as helpful in China unless they can find knockoffs of the mac. (I'm saying this entirely due to the income differences.) But yes, more iPhones/more Macs is always a good thing.

Andy8 · Aug 14, 2009, 01:23 PM

Originally Posted by driven

Good comeback my friend.

I like.

I am not sure the halo effect will be as helpful in China unless they can find knockoffs of the mac. (I'm saying this entirely due to the income differences.) But yes, more iPhones/more Macs is always a good thing.

Another interesting thing to watch will be the Chinese iPhone apps that are developed just for the Chinese mainland market.

anthology123 · Aug 18, 2009, 04:32 PM

One thing that has not been discussed here is Verizon has its own media content provider. Are they going to bring the iPhone in and have all the media content be sold through Apple and they not get a piece of the action, or will Verizon insist on getting a chunk of that? Or will they insist only their media content of choice can be sold on their network? Or will they agree to have both content on the iPhone and let the consumers decide which one to use? Doubt Apple would go for that.