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SAN JOSE, Calif.
— Attention iPhone owners:
AT&T
has heard your complaints about its sometimes-slow
network.
A word of
warning, though: You may not like what the company has
in mind.
AT&T
is mulling a new pricing plan that would force its
biggest data users to pay more than others. That would
be a sharp change from the company's current plan, where
it charges users of
Apple's
iPhone and other smart phones a flat monthly rate for
unlimited data usage.
The
proposal, which isn't final, is a possible response to
traffic patterns on
AT&T's
network,
Ralph de la Vega
, president and CEO of the company's mobility and
consumer division, said at an investor conference in
New York
on Wednesday. Just 3 percent of smart phone customers
account for about 40 percent of the traffic on the
company's wireless data network, he said.
"We're
going to try to focus on making sure we give incentives
to those small percentages to either reduce or modify
their usage so they don't crowd out the other customers
in those same cell sites," de la Vega said.
Soon, the
company plans to send real-time updates to customers who
are using excessive amounts of data, he said. But, he
added, "longer term, there's got to be some sort of
a pricing scheme that addresses the usage."
De la
Vega did not say when
AT&T
might roll out such a pricing scheme, how much it would
cost consumers or how much data consumers would have to
use before they'd be affected.
No
matter, many iPhone users took to Internet message
boards and social networks to bash
AT&T
for even considering the idea.
Among
them was
Patrick Leal
, 38, who bought the original iPhone two years ago and
now owns an iPhone 3G. A technical writer from
Los Gatos, Calif.
, Leal said he uses his iPhone every day to read news,
check stocks and connect to Pandora's Internet radio
service. While he's run into dead spots where his phone
calls drop, Leal said he hasn't had any problems with
his iPhone's data connection.
Leal said
he understands the position
AT&T's
in, but still would be "pretty mad" if he had
to start monitoring his data usage because the company
no longer offered an "unlimited" plan.
"They're
admitting that their network is slow," he said.
"They're admitting that they can't handle the
capacity."
San Francisco
resident
Earl Neconie
, 52, said he was "shocked" at
AT&T's
plans. Neconie, who is a graduate student at
San Francisco State University
, has had an iPhone since the first one was released and
now owns the latest model, an iPhone 3GS. If
AT&T
ends up putting in place the pricing plan, Neconie said
he would consider unlocking his iPhone and switching to
T-Mobile
.
"Unlimited
data was the reason I chose the iPhone and
AT&T
," he said.
The
iPhone has been something of a mixed blessing for
AT&T
. The device has attracted millions of new users to the
company's wireless service. But the reputation of that
service has taken a battering thanks to the loudly
voiced complaints of iPhone users. And the company's
network has clearly been taxed by iPhone customers, who
account for the lion's share of Internet data usage
today.
De la
Vega defended the company's record, but he acknowledged
a few problems. Service provided to wireless customers
in
San Francisco
and
Manhattan
is "below our standards," he said.
But he
said it's working to beef up its service in both cities.
"In both of those markets, I am very confident that
you are going to see significant progress, and our
company is committed to bringing those two markets up to
the standards that we are seeing in the rest of the
nation," he said.
An Apple
representative declined to comment on de la Vega's
announcements, deferring instead to
AT&T
.
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