Do you also complain that your cable TV isn't used to capacity because you're not watching all channels 24 hours a day? It seems so peculiar that people complain that they're not using their internet account to saturation when they don't make the same complaint about other things.

I don't think this argument is analogous.

With a CATV subscription, you can hook up an essentially unlimited number of TVs. You could in theory watch every channel 24/7 for the same basic rate. The basic costs associated with cable are related to the infrastructure to bring the signal to your house, plus whatever licensing fees for content that are essentially passed through.

With Internet plans, we are charged repetitively for multiple devices, and in essence you are basically discouraged (throttling, excess usage fees) from actually using the service to 100% of the contracted rates over the billing period.

For example, I have on my account 2 iPhones with data plans (mine, wife's), 1 with tethering (mine), and 1 4G USB dongle. I went over the 5G limit on the dongle, but both of the basic data plans on the iPhones were under budget for the month, and I hardly used the tethering. Do you think I'll get a break from Verizon, or any kind of 'net usage' billing for the overage on the 4G dongle?

As others have pointed out in other threads, the mobile Internet space is ripe for disruption. It's not going to come from 2 college drop-outs on a $15,000 Y Combinator budget, but it's going to happen as soon as the economy lights up a little bit and we get some real infrastructure investment rolling.

I am having trouble finding where in my post I said anything about using a service to saturation. Not that the cable TV analogy holds up.

If you are using an iOS device to download a 100MB game app over WiFi via AT&T DSL --that you pay for-- while, at the same time paying for a cellular data plan, AT&T is making making more money on you because their cellular data bandwidth is not being utilized by they still charge you.

I would venture to say that most iOS devices spend the bulk of their time within WiFi zones (AT&T or not). This means that a portion of what AT&T charges for cellular data is never actually used and that is pure profit for them.

As I said in my post: I don't know what the right solution is, but the current setup is starting to smell pretty bad.

If the above example doesn't do it for you, think about this. Twenty people working at a company. The company pays (maybe through AT&T) for Internet access and provides WiFi to all employees. Every single one of them has a personal iPhone. Every single one of them pays for a cellular data plan. And, while at work, every single one of them is using the WiFi access point for the bulk of the data traffic on their devices. AT&T is making a nice profit on data bandwidth they never have to deliver over the cellular network.

Later on, those same people go home and are likely to transfer data over their own (paid) DSL connection rather than use cellular data. Again, double charging by the telcos, if you will.

Once you do the math past a single iPhone the effect starts to become obvious very quickly.

Maybe what I am saying is that if I am paying AT&T for cellular data as well as DSL I should receive a credit on my cellular data plan for the data moved over DSL as opposed to the cell network. Again, I don't know the first thing about their business equation, so I'll be the first one to admit that this proposal could be beyond ridiculous for a hundred and one reasons.

The actual cost of the data itself is trivial in comparison to the cost of connectivity in the first place.

If you really hate it that much, and claim that you effectively never use it, then get a phone plan without data and just use your wifi. Problem solved.

The thing is, you do use your cellular data, and maintaining that service is more than just pushing a few ones and zeros.

I am having trouble finding where in my post I said anything about using a service to saturation.

Your post is complaining about paying for unused data, and why can't you just pay for the data you're actually using - in short, you want a plan that you saturate and just want to pay for that.

> Your post is complaining about paying for unused data, and why can't you just pay for the data you're actually using - in short, you want a plan that you saturate and just want to pay for that.

Nope. Sorry. Didn't say that. This is your interpretation and nothing more. And that's OK.

All I am saying is that I a starting to think that we are over-paying for connectivity. I don't know exactly where or how, but something about it just feels wrong. I can't point to it directly because in order to do that I'd have to know more about the internal numbers of a telco. I don't have that data. For all I know we are getting a deal. I am more than willing to concede that. But I need data.

Right now, without said data it feels very much that paying $250 per month for connectivity when most of the data is going over DSL is not quite a good fit.

Obviously we all (or most) have a need for cellular data outside WiFi zones. The question is how much and whether or not pricing is fair. I don't have the answers, just an overall feeling of rotten tomatoes somewhere.

Your suggestion that I personally drop cellular data has nothing whatsoever to do with the idea that cellular data might not be priced correctly in the context of multiple devices and the availability (and payment for) parallel connectivity over DSL/WiFi.

In other words, whether I personally drop cellular data service or not has no effect over whether or not cellular data is correctly priced.

So, I guess I am not getting your point. Does cellular data service become fairly priced for everyone else if I -single handedly- drop my service?

You're hung up on the flow of data, rather than my point which is having the connectivity in the first place. Pure data costs really are trivial - plans with different caps are simply a way of segmenting customers.

I'm also not understanding the difference between "wanting to pay for a group plan that's only big enough to avoid saturation" and "paying too much for data we're not using over multiple devices". They seem to be two different ways of referring to the same thing.

Does cellular data service become fairly priced for everyone else if I -single handedly- drop my service? I wasn't saying that. I was saying that since you were implying that you don't use cellular data, just drop the plan and move wholly to wifi. It was a solution to your stated problem.

I also said that of course that wasn't the case - which was why I then talked about connectivity rather then simple ones and zeroes.

Is wireless data priced correctly? How long is a piece of string?

In theory they now have pooled data plans, but in reality they're not cheaper so you probably don't care. Also, I've heard that a 3G PDP context costs money, so seven devices using 5GB total does cost more than one device using 5GB, although probably not as much as they charge.

we don't get a discount when the iOS devices use [Wi-Fi] for data as opposed to cellular

Sure you do; that data doesn't eat into your cellular cap. Effectively cellular is ~$6/GB and DSL is <$1/GB.

I guess bundling would be nice, but I don't really see the logic to placing requirements on how the providers structure device plans.

I think the furthest I would go in that direction would be to require companies that control a large percentage of nationwide spectrum to sell access to their towers at regulated rates.