In Australia, the ACCC banned the use of the word "unlimited" (with respect to Internet access, wireless or fixed-line) unless it truly was unlimited. No shaping, hard or soft quotas, excess usage charges and vague "fair use" provisions. The result? You get what you pay for and you pay for what you get. If you pay for 1TB/month on an ADSL line you're absolutely going to get it.

The real problem here is a combination of false advertising and people with completely unrealistic expectations. Not everyone can use 73Mbps all the time. There simply isn't the bandwidth for it. If you want to download 100GB+/month you should absolutely be paying more than someone who only downloads 2GB/month.

Back to the "new iPad" (why not iPad 3? Seriously!), i'm excited about it. Having it be able to do 1080p is great, although I think it's high time they up the flash storage at this point. 64GB doesn't go that far at Full HD.

The RAM, CPU and memory upgrades make this a pretty serious device now. The release of iPhoto is probably going to be unfortunately for many photo app makers (and hopefully it'll mean an end to Photoshop Touch's ridiculous 1600x1600 limit).

Apple just continues to cement their complete dominance against, well, everyone in the tablet space.

The resolution is kind of awkward for moving watching no? There's no 1:1 mapping of source pixel to hardware pixel, so you're going to get some filtering regardless. But, a step up regardless. The current iPad screen is downright painful to look at once you've been spoiled by high-DPI screens.

> "although I think it's high time they up the flash storage at this point. 64GB doesn't go that far at Full HD."

I actually don't think this is a big issue. It would seem to me that Apple is moving slowly towards the Amazon model - cloud-based content provision of everything. It used to be that you'd have to download giant files to a "mothership" computer, then pipe it over USB to your mobile device, but with iCloud and now downloading your movies over the air, this seems positively archaic.

My point is that they're not being consistent. They call it "the new iPad" in the presentation, but then the guy in the video calls it "the third-generation iPad".

Numbers are messy, it's better to have a product represented by its name and have its generation just be a property.

That's why they make the extra effort of saying "third-generation" rather than iPad3. They don't want it to be referred to as an iPad3, just as an iPad.

I was surprised they called the second one iPad2.

They are simply moving the iPad to their established naming scheme.

I've not really read up a huge amount on the specs of this, just a couple of basic articles - new stuff includes higher def screen, better camera, 4G support. Evolutionary rather than revolutionary, maybe that's why they decided it doesn't need a whole new release number. Who knows.

I'm not arguing the evolutionary/revolutionary angle, just that it's completely unprecedented for Apple to use TWO DIFFERENT NAMES to refer to ONE PRODUCT in their marketing materials.

However, 3G (and 4G) are much more expensive, in terms of the price it costs to transmit a given quantity of data. And compared to glass and copper, the total number of bits available within a given geographic area at any given moment is a fraction as large. Unfortunately, cellular companies failed to realize that offering "unlimited" data plans would set up poor expectations. They (apparently) didn't anticipate seeing a significant percentage of their customers try to use the cellular networks for transferring large quantities of data, and thought that for most people "unlimited" would just be a marketing-friendly euphemism for "a couple hundred megabytes."

In turn, people who assumed that "unlimited" really means unlimited, and assumed that the prices that were originally offered for "unlimited" were realistic prices for high volumes of cellular network usage, now seem to think that the prices that cellular network providers want to charge for data usage are rapacious. On the contrary, it's not that the price they're trying to charge now is disastrously high; it's that the price that they used to be charging was disastrously low.

There's also a serious resource contention issue on cellular data. The towers can only be placed so close together before they start interfering with each other, and the bandwidth that's being advertised is the bandwidth you'll get if you've got the tower to yourself. Chicago's an illustrative story: A company came along offering household internet service through a 4G network, promising impressive bandwidth numbers. And they delivered on them for the few months between when they first opened for business and when they started getting serious traction in the market. Since then, they've earned a reputation as a pretty crappy ISP, simply because the technology itself couldn't deliver quality service to that many users at once. A wireless network cell is effectively a hub, and like on any hub resource contention can be a serious issue.

Which, I suspect, is ultimately why Apple goes along with the file size caps for cellular network transfers: From a user experience perspective, they would much rather allow everyone to transfer small files at high speeds, than let everyone's user experience suffer because the network is being choked by large file transfers.

I wonder if many execs and marketing people at large mobile companies really didn't see this coming, as we had years of 'unlimited texts' being promoted, and an entire generation of people texting thousands of times per day. Did execs get adjusted to 'unlimited' as it applies to texting, and naively assume that 'web' usage wouldn't be significantly different?

I can't really say for sure, but that just struck me as a possibility for why many mobile execs don't seem to 'get it' with respect to mobile data.

I'm pretty sure they 'get it' just fine, but did the math and carefully worked out exactly how shitty service they can offer at what price without making too many people cancel.

not exactly, that's if you've got the sector to yourself. AFAIK one tower has at least 3-12 sectors.

That's why LTE can't replace all of our data connections (for now).

You can't objectively define what constitutes "royally fuck[ing]" their customers.

Just saying "this cost more than I think is reasonable as a wireless customer" means absolutely nothing in court.

We have a saying in my country, when a child exhibits some great talent, that we also use ironically when a child does or says something very dumb.

"How can you not send this kid to college?"

I think one of the two intentions applies perfectly to the quoted comment.

While I was not charged overage fees, my data rate was crippled to 57Kbps.

The thing sits in the drawer and I NEVER use it because its useless.

I am paying $100 a month for it. They want $400!!! to cancel it.

Fuck these carriers.

If you don't have free roaming, a similar strategy might work with unlimited minutes on their own network if you just use enough of them that their costs are too high to support you. If you don't have unlimited minutes, you can probably upgrade your plan, use a ton, then if they try to force you to switch or pay overages, you will likely also have the option to walk away from the contract without a fee.

It's not about not being able to borrow, it's about companies refusing to accept your business because you're a "risk", even when you offer to pay out the entire contract up front to show you're good for the money. It's a fucking pain in the ass

And what kind of crap-ass site would ban someone for the three (out of five) comments I've made today which have been downvoted?

Pretty sure I can spot the actual troll here.

If you make enough comments that are bad enough then your account is likely to be banned. If that's your goal then at some point along the way you'll be only three comments in.

(I am not remarking on the quality of your other comments; I have not read them.)

Personally, I think it's a terrible idea. It's a much better plan to work together a couple decades of good borrowing history without paying much interest and then get unsecured loans totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars and cash out.

and no, there is no censorship or anything either. i dont have quite the same speeds as theus does, buti get ehat ipay for, andits cheap.

While it is perhaps somewhat legitimate to criticize an HN'er for failing to calculate the rate at which a data plan will be consumed at a given bandwidth, it is of questionable appropriateness in regard to the general public.

I can see how others may be misled by that marketing, though, so it’s no super great. No reason to get angry, just reason for concern. Some German carriers are much more upfront about that (they might say “1GB of data, throttled to GPRS speeds above that”) and I obviously prefer that kind of marketing. It’s less confusing and more honest.

I'm pretty sure no carrier in the US offers a better deal than $10/GB.

That is a load of horseshit.

Thank you.

- unlimited data plans were doled out when network operators knew full well that people couldn't actually use enough data to cause a crisis.

- Data usage spiked because people found new uses for phones which demanded more and more data (e.g. streaming shows)

- Operators found themselves underdeveloped with no prospect of demand tapering off

- At these levels, it maximizes the operator's profits to push people into rate-limited plans.

But, thanks for the insults. This place is really friendly!

I bought an iPad 2 last year and I didn't even consider buying one with a data plan. I am near wifi about 99% of the time, discounting driving, hiking, and airplane time. In a pinch, I can check email on my Droid.

Eventually 4G will become inexpensive, but it isn't right now.

No. I don't use the work wifi because it is severely limited (paranoid IT guy) and my iPad may access material I'd rather they not sniff (just NOYB stuff). I use it on the road for mapping, impromptu parking-lot Grouponing, whatever far from wifi. Open routers still often have some irritant signin or blacklists. Even at home my iPad often gets 3G better than wifi.

Don't underestimate the value of "always connected". A legacy unlimited plan multiplies it.

There are also sites with rules about what's allowed to be on the network or not. Often a consultant or guest can't put his device on the network, at least without a lot of work (BYOD isn't done on many networks), but having network access is useful. There are also sometimes IP considerations (using an iPad or 4G hotspot during a break from a day job is less likely to be "using employer resources" to manage your startup if you're moonlighting than if you use their wifi...).

For +$130, it's worth it to me to have the capability. It also makes GPS more accurate, and maps is a really cool thing. I only replace my iPad every second generation, though.

Still, I bought a 3G ipad only because of the GPS chip in it. Even without the data plan it's quite valuable if you hook your ipad to your phone's hotspot or another wi-fi network.

Also, your download patterns are unlikely to change a lot. It'll still be email, web surfing and some youtube. LTE makes netflix possible while not on wifi, but that's about the most data-hungry thing an average user is going to do. For the most part the only thing this changes is that things like installing apps when off wifi are much faster.

If you use up your data, you have to manually sign up for more data. If you sign up for more, it's like starting the month over from the time you sign up. You're also given the opportunity to switch to a plan with a different data size.

I think Sprint is excluded because their 4G service is based on WiWax for now, although they are switching to LTE later this year and continuing into 2013.

The proper way to fix this is to have very local cells (or wifi). I would like to see cell networks pay individuals to connect mini cells to their home connections, and then allow any phone to connect to the cells. Wireless users get connectivity everywhere, mini cell operators have financial incentive to exist, and carriers reduce demand on their macro-scale network. If the telcos could agree on reasonably low prices (cost plus?), I would even agree to usage-based billing.

The wireless carriers would become dumb pipes (as they really are to begin with). Their new role would be to coordinate distribution of mini cells.

This system also creates incentive for wire line ISPs to increase their transfer rates to customers, and perhaps get into the mini cell game themselves.

I don't think it makes sense, but I'm sure they've evaluated it. As a customer, having Apple as my single point of contact for everything mobile would be amazing, even if I had to pay a premium. Still wouldn't get around the limitations on spectrum and towers, though, but given that Apple's cash on hand is probably 15x Sprint's market capitalization, ...

Once they had a critial mass they could release some new device and restrict initially just that one to their network.

It's time for these contracts to become more reasonable. Right now they border on being nothing more than theft. Imagine this: You pay AT&T for your DSL line and you also pay them for wireless access for your iPad. You are paying them twice but only using one of the pipes at any given time.

I definitely agree that they should do it your way though. Pricing is part of the product, and simple-to-understand pricing schemes will sell.

In the meantime, you might be able to get creative with swapping SIM cards around.

I explain it to laypeople in one simple sentence: "You can't really watch the game on your phone."

They do lack a plan with a decent cap, I can live without unlimited but the cap should be decent.

On my non-us LTE plan they reserve the right to throttle it if I use more than 30 GB a month. I think thats a decent cap (the price is approx. 52 USD a month including 25% VAT, cheaper plans with less data is available).