So, I just got home from a harrowing day of tutoring math. A lot of people. Ok, so I sit down in my comfy chair and at my trusty PC and start going through Google Reader and my RSS feeds to see what happened since I checked earlier today.
Well. Apparently AT&T is going to subsidize the cost of the new 3G version of the iPhone down to $199. I was at first very happy. I’ve been waiting for the 3G iPhone since its launch several months ago. I kept telling myself, “Just wait. 3G is gonna blow your mind. Stick with that crappy HTC 8125 for a while longer and get a good 3G phone.” In fact, I even got my wife into getting an iPhone. So, our plan is to get the new 3G iPhones when they are released and all will end in happiness.
Then, I thought about the move AT&T is (pseudo) announcing. If you sign a new two-year contract, you can take advantage of the new subsidy. Ok. Sounds good on paper, but think about it. What is one of the big things everyone is worried about with the 3G iPhone? Data transfer. I read somewhere (and for the life of me, I can’t find out or remember where) that the average data usage on the iPhone is 100MB per month compared to 10MB of usage on average for Blackberry users. If you bump the transfer speeds to 3G levels (~1.5Mbps), those numbers are going to exponentially skyrocket.
Undoubtedly, AT&T is worried. They are afraid that their brand-spanking new 3G network will crush and die
a horrible death under the power of the iPhone and its users. I don’t blame them. So, this brings me back again. Why would they subsidize the iPhone, even if the offer is only for new contracts? Because they are planning on cutting back the iPhone plans. I have no proof of this, but it is just a prediction. I present to you that the 3G iPhone will have no unlimited data option or if it does, it will be in the higher end “business” plans. They will limit talk time, data, and probably even text messages, but truthishly, I can’t really see that last one, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Why would AT&T cut the iPhone at the knees? To recoup the loss of cutting around $200 per iPhone. If you get data-happy iPhoners (iPhoneys?) blowing past their monthly “limit,” you can make a fortune. Especially on a phone that automatically calls to several places, using data you didn’t actively tell it to. Naturally, I know that other phones do this too, but I’ve heard the iPhone does it a LOT comparitively, though I could be wrong, not being an iPhone user. This seems like something a big company like AT&T would do, but it also seems like something that will make a lot of people VERY unhappy. If this does happen, if we can’t use the 3G data network to our iPhone heart’s content, what is the point? If we can’t browse and download new apps through the App Store on the 2.0 firmware or do anything we feel like doing on the net, why buy something like the iPhone? If AT&T is going to kick its iPhone customers in the balls as hard as it kicks its regular customers, I’m not sure I want any part of it.
Maybe it won’t happen and I can get a 3G iPhone and go to town on a sea of free, unlimited data access.
Now. We wait.
