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AT&T mobile data clamp-down to threaten mobile VoIP?
AT&T's consumer services head, Ralph de la Vega made some interesting remarks that might effect the growth of mobile VoIP on Wednesday. Speaking at the UBS investor conference, de la Vega said that AT&T would soon give heavy mobile data users an incentive to cut back on their data usage.
According to AT&T 40 percent of data usage on the iPhone came from streaming audio and video data by about 4 percent of the user base. With audio streaming lumped into the offending sum, one has to wonder if this is going to cramp mobile VoIP's style. According to Apple Insider, "the average iPhone user consumes 10 times the bandwidth of a typical smartphone user." And that figure probably will only grow once AT&T and Apple make good on their promise to enable VoIP over 3G applications.
For more:
- read this blog post
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Comments
Posted by Fred Stein | December 10, 2009 - 4:06pm
Interesting statistics about 'power users'. This is a well-know phenomenon. It should have been predicted, at least to some degree.
I would be more interested to see AT&T discuss where in their network they have found choke points and how they plan to address it.
I would not mind a variable rate data plan, if it were fair and simple - and did surprise users with whopping bills for overages. This should not be too challenging.
Posted by Johnny Wireless | December 11, 2009 - 4:18am
AT&T is voice, there is no way they will ever purposely allow cannabilism.
That´s why xG Tech is the only way to go, unless AT&T will do a flat rate at 20 USD. Bye Bye AT&T.
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