Shocker: AT&T does something nice for iPhone users | Hacker News Reader

Shocker: AT&T does something nice for iPhone users

itworld.com

9 pointsabennett5 comments

Going to have to agree that this isn't at all shocking nor a "nice thing". MMS doesn't cost any extra on any other carrier and AT&T already charges outrageous prices for their SMS plans. Not sure why this article was written in the way it was. Don't give AT&T credit they do not deserve.

Not a shocker, AT&T announced that it will do for the iPhone what it has been doing for every other phone it has and every other phone that every other major US carrier does. It would be a shocker any other way, conforming to the market is entirely unsurprising.

(MMS and SMS used to be on separate pricing tiers but a couple years back all the US carriers switched this and count them as the same. You can't buy a MMS plan from AT&T Wireless anymore, though some legacy customers may have something similar. Humorously, AT&T had to create a SMS only plan for the iPhone since it was the only device they carried without MMS support.)

This is such a joke. I can't tell what is sadder, the fact users have been messed with so much that its "something nice" that at&t is gouging more money from them for MMS (its usually the same price of sms on every phone) or that at&t is so bad that its notable when they dont charge more for something that costs them fractions of a penny to send.

> its usually the same price of sms on every phone

Source? The only data I could find was WAY old (2006) but had the global price of MMS pegged at 4x the price of SMS [1].

You can claim that some plans come with MMS/SMS allotments, therefore they are the same price. That still isn't the same cost, because providers will dock you for a message + the data. That means you need an unlimited data plan AND a text plan for them to essentially be the same price.

It then follows that it makes perfect sense that AT&T would do this. All iPhone users MUST have an unlimited data plan, easily covering the data of sending MMS.

[1] MMS pricing worldwide http://telephonyonline.com/wireless/metrics/mms_pricing_worl...

Source? Every national US carrier. Go check. Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile all count SMS and MMS as "messaging" with no price differences. And no, they do not charge you for the data too.

They have treated SMS/MMS as the same for quite some time. I forget who switched first (I want to say Alltel which is now part of Verizon), but it was a very short time between the first and the last.

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