June 24th, 2009 at 9:54 AM

Gawd… What is it with cell phone companies?! How can ‘unlimited’, as in ‘unlimited data plan’, really be fairly translated into ‘unlimited except for using the phone as a modem for another device, sending or receiving more than X number of SMS or MMS messages, or getting data from a satellite that’s in orbit?

Mind you, with my 2G iPhone, I’ll apparently not even be able to send or receive MMS, I don’t have ‘real’ GPS, and I’ll rarely have use for tethering which the 2G phone also can’t do. However, the point is that if a plan has the words ‘unlimited data’ in its name, then how can AT&T get away with not including all cellular data transfer for free? If they want to charge a certain amount for a set of downloads from the web, more for GPS and more for messaging, then I guess they’re free to do so, but they really shouldn’t call the main plan ‘unlimited’ when there are so many real limits on it.

Before anybody responds with anything like ‘Yeah! I can’t wait for Apple to offer iPhones on Verizon’s network’ or anything like that, just don’t. I’ve been a customer of Airtouch (back in the day), AT&T CDMA/TDMA, Verizon, T-Mobile, and now AT&T/Cingular. All of the wireless carriers have only one driving motivation: bleeding as much money out of their customers as possible, without pissing those customers off enough to make them want to switch to another carrier as soon as their two-year contract is up. I think that, out of all of the above, Verizon is actually the worst, as they even go so far as to try and hobble any method of data transmission to/from their phones that doesn’t route through their network and cost customers money.

So, while I’m not happy with AT&T’s idea of an ‘unlimited’ data plan, I guess it could be worse.

June 24th, 2009 at 10:13 AM

What does a decent stand-alone GPS unit cost, about 2 years worth of iPhone GPS service from AT&T?

June 24th, 2009 at 3:37 PM

Better hope the GPS’s maps are updated.  If they aren’t, William Shattner’s experience will simply be repeated from his book “I’m working on that: A Trek from Science Fiction to Science Fact.”  He went into Boston’s Big Dig only to discover the highway onramp he had chosen is a parking lot under a building!