Friday, March 12, 2010

The Gatekeepers strike, again

Well we can thank AT&T for fucking up another useful technological innovation for consumers. Call me a pinko-socialist armpit sniffing drug addict commie, but everyday I’m getting more convinced the government should be running the communications business, not the marketplace. Why am I so pissed?

You want more video? Pay up or shut up!

AT&T is introducing pricing tiers for mobile customers based on how much data they stream for their 3G network. Verizon, with it’s soon to be implemented 4G network has got wind of this and is going to drop its all you can eat plan in favor of tiers as well. Sprint is sure to follow as are other 4G network companies. It stymies the reason why people want faster networks in the first place. They want to stream Pandora while watching YouTube while downloading the latest video game, and on and on.

Please sir, can I have some more?

These companies should be competing on how good they provide their service for the price, instead of trying to limit customers usage of data by picking their wallets. If you can’t keep up with customer demand, make the service better don’t limit customer usage. Back in the days of dial up, this policy almost killed Juno, forcing them to merge with their rival NetZero, they’re now plodding along as United Online. Heavy users (most of their customers, including moi) abandoned them for better services, especially when DSL, cable, etc became far more affordable and competitive  than dial-up. Now we have a similar situation with the burgeoning mobile networks. It’s only a matter of time before Verizon and AT&T finally do the final hookup and the monster known as Ma Bell will rear its ugly head once more. Don’t believe me? Watch.