Members Anderton Posted June 19, 2014 Members Share Posted June 19, 2014 Very interesting: http://gigaom.com/2014/06/18/t-mobile-exempts-music-streaming-from-its-data-plans-partners-with-rhapsody/ But if you subscribe to the $50+ data plan that allows this, does any go to the artists, or are they counting on Pandora, Spotify, etc. to do all that? Also seems like another attack on iTunes Radio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JeffLearman Posted June 19, 2014 Members Share Posted June 19, 2014 I think you're misreading that. I think that all it means is that audio streaming isn't counted against your data limit for the carrier. It's still up to you and your music service provider to figure out how to pay for the music service, which is unrelated to carrier data charges. In other words, they were always counting on Pandora, Spotify, etc., to do that. None of the revenues from your carrier ever goes to content providers, unless it's specifically called out as a billable item on your telecom bill. For example, if you buy an app and it goes on your bill (though that's not how mine works ... I have a credit card filed with google app store. But there are things you can buy that get posted to your phone bill.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted June 20, 2014 Members Share Posted June 20, 2014 Interesting. I used to be a T-Mobile subscriber -- but I left for the very different 'disruptor' service, Ting (and ended up saving a rather breathtaking amount of money on a two phone/person account -- mostly because voice and msgs are cheap on it and you pay for the usage tier you actually use each month. Data is pricey but our use is minimal.) T-Mobile might have been able to keep me had they rolled out some of their own 'disruptor' packages a little earlier. This particular one, however, wouldn't do much for me unless I got a 4G phone. 3G is barely enough to stream lo fi -- and currently my cheapo Android's 32 GB add in storage has got a whole bunch of 320 kbps files from my current stream service, Google All Access.* I had unlimited data on my old T-Mob account and streaming even lo fi internet radio over 3G was basically a carp-out fest. (I'd found one of those 'hits of 1962' type 'net stations and I was enjoying walking around my flat streaming "Duke of Earl" and such -- just like my first transistor radio -- but when I walked outside range of my Wi Fi and it switched to 3G, the radio streams crapped out. And this was without going into 'throttled mode' when you exceeded 2 GB of data use.) Would it be nice to have the ability to (conveniently and cheaply) hear anything on All Access at any time from my phone? Sure. But, I have to tell you, I've yet to use a streaming subscription service on my phone that wasn't a pain compared to the desktop. Strike that: Beats Music was actually even worse and more limited on the desktop!) Searching for stuff -- even with a fast WiFi connection -- is always a pain, small screens make for crappy search return displays, touch screen interfaces are an annoying pain. And, of course, that last ('annoying pain') applies to larger screen tablets. Touch screens are only adequate for the simplest interactions, far as I'm concerned. And I've had a Google Nexus 7 tablet since they came out. Great for watching TV in bed.) *Actually, I'm also doing a 3-for-1 trial of Spotify Premium, since I've been on virtually all the other on-demand streamers (except Rdio, which, like Rhapsody, only has lower fi streams -- although I think they may edge Rhapsody's 192 kbps streams with at least some 256's -- they used to run a mix of formats, according to the FAQ I read maybe last year). So far, I'd have to say that Spotify and Google work the most like I like, both having good search engines (Spot's is actually better since it allows 'drill-down' searches like artist+title, which tends to choke Google, vaguely amusingly), and both having pretty good play queue interfaces and control But Google Music's queue control is a bit more sophisticated, adding features like 'play next' along with 'add to queue.' (By contrast, Beats Music has neither -- because unlike every other of the 6 on-demand services I've used, it has no play queue. When the current song, album or playlist is done, you have to be there to start the next one manually. There's not 'add-to-queue' or 'play next' at all. It's one of the most-complained about feature issues on Beats, judging from my perusal of the customer support forums there.) __________________ Now this is funny: The people behind Paul Mitchell hair products and Patron tequila are launching a mobile carrier. ROK Mobile will be a smartphone-centric virtual operator, but it’s not focusing on data. It’s focusing on music. http://gigaom.com/2014/06/09/meet-ro...music-service/ Why not? Dr. Dre has his 'personally branded' music stream (and headphone) division of Apple... I think I'm going to hire this guy and put HIM in the nominal figurehead position at a stream startup built around his clearly burgeoning brand... Er... the one on the left... http://mashable.com/2014/06/20/jeremy-meeks-mugshot/ Heck, maybe I could sign up both of them... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Etienne Rambert Posted June 24, 2014 Members Share Posted June 24, 2014 Since I live overseas, I'm qualified to say Americans are totally ripped off by carriers. There are no stupid plans over here. You buy your phone. You buy your minutes up front. And there are no additional data charges. I pay $2.50 a month for 3G. I buy my minutes in advance.no stupid drop zones either. American politicians, lobbyists, FCC bureaucrats and carriers are screwing Americans royally and have been for decades. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted June 24, 2014 Members Share Posted June 24, 2014 Since I live overseas' date=' I'm qualified to say Americans are totally ripped off by carriers. There are no stupid plans over here. You buy your phone. You buy your minutes up front. And there are no additional data charges. I pay $2.50 a month for 3G. I buy my minutes in advance.no stupid drop zones either. American politicians, lobbyists, FCC bureaucrats and carriers are screwing Americans royally and have been for decades.[/quote'] Since I travel overseas and use a phone, I'm qualified to say Americans are totally ripped off by carriers. No stupid plans. You buy your phone. You buy your minutes up front. No additional data charges. Here's what it essentially is: overseas, you are getting MORE for LESS. Far better coverage for US$4/month. Far better coverage even in rural areas. I cannot emphasize how easy it is to use a phone in India. You can take calls at the top of a 18,300 ft/5500 meter mountain pass without drop-outs. You buy a phone, then simply pay for your minutes. Done, Simple. Easy. Effective. Great service. Cheap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Etienne Rambert Posted June 25, 2014 Members Share Posted June 25, 2014 Since I travel overseas and use a phone' date=' I'm qualified to say Americans are totally ripped off by carriers. No stupid plans. You buy your phone. You buy your minutes up front. No additional data charges. Here's what it essentially is: overseas, you are getting MORE for LESS. Far better coverage for US$4/month. Far better coverage even in rural areas. I cannot emphasize how easy it is to use a phone in India. You can take calls at the top of a 18,300 ft/5500 meter mountain pass without drop-outs. You buy a phone, then simply pay for your minutes. Done, Simple. Easy. Effective. Great service. Cheap. [/quote'] That's how it is in most parts of the world. Most Americans don't know how badly they are being ripped off. Data charges? That is something some internet providers tried in the 1990's. Apparently US cellular carriers are still getting away with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted June 25, 2014 Members Share Posted June 25, 2014 I finally busted out of the monthly fixed-tier thing ('ironically,' I was leaving T-Mobile -- but it was more than a year before they finally loosened things up a bit). I went to Canada-based (but not serving, I don't think) Ting. They're owned by Tucows and buy network from Sprint. They do have tiers (many of their customer lobby for straight metering, of course) but you only pay for the tier you use. And it's really cheap to add new devices -- $6 per device. I split the service with my mom and we went from minimum bills of about $130/mo. on our respective T-Mobile and Verizon accounts (and we'd both had recent, really expensive go-overs due to 'emergency' use) down to $60 a month for the both of us when my mom was using her mobile a whole lot down to about $37 a month the last few months. The key, with their billing, is keeping data usage low. Previously, I wasn't using much data anyhow, but just having it was adding ~$30 to my base T-Mob account, and I wanted it for emergencies. Now, our data charge is always less than $3 a month. Messages are stupid cheap -- unlike 20 cents a pop at T-Mob! The great thing, if you go 'over' your 'current tier' (which is simply whatever you were charged last month), it just bumps you up. If your usage drops, it drops automatically to the cheaper tier. Straight metering would be better, of course. But THAT would clearly be too logical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted June 25, 2014 Share Posted June 25, 2014 Yeah, it's sad to say, but we're pretty backwoods in the USA when it comes to bandwidth and costs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RoadRanger Posted June 26, 2014 Members Share Posted June 26, 2014 Kindof funny, I'm limping along on a T-Mobile "MiFi" hotspot after having my home network and cable fried by a lightning strike . I'm paying $10/mo for 1GB of high speed data and unlimited low speed data thereafter - but as I'm in a "no high speed" area I'm just using the low speed data, on track for about 6GB a month. It peaks out at about 125Kbps, almost 3x the old max "dial-up" modem rate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted June 30, 2014 Members Share Posted June 30, 2014 Yeah' date=' it's sad to say, but we're pretty backwoods in the USA when it comes to bandwidth and costs. [/quote'] And it's not just bandwidth and costs. It's that other people's coverage is considerably BETTER. Cheaper. Much cheaper. Better. Not just a little, but a lot. Easier. Much easier. It's tough when you see how good other people have it, and then you come back home, and you see most of the packages, and you think, "$85/mo for AT&T, how much for Verizon....for something that doesn't even work very well? Why do I want to do that?" I just got a smartphone last year. I got the cheapest thing I could find that seemed like it would work reasonably well, which was T-Mobile. I pay about $40/month. And it's still a rip-off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RoadRanger Posted July 1, 2014 Members Share Posted July 1, 2014 I bought a dumb phone for $20 in May of 2013 and put $10 of service credit on it that I haven't used up yet. I have free incoming messages so mostly use it as a super cheap pager. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Iamthesky Posted July 1, 2014 Members Share Posted July 1, 2014 and you see most of the packages' date=' and you think, "$85/mo for AT&T, how much for Verizon....for something that doesn't even work very well? Why do I want to do that?"[/quote'] In my case, the answer to that one is that when I'm deep in the backroads on my motorcycle, often Verizon is the only carrier that has any signal at all. That coverage trumps any data package for me. It's all about differing priorities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted July 1, 2014 Members Share Posted July 1, 2014 Verizon has the best coverage by far. And it's still not really all that great compared to a lot of other places outside the U.S. That's what we're trying to say here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted July 4, 2014 Author Members Share Posted July 4, 2014 I'm still trying to figure out why the more expensive the hotel, the more they charge for wi-fi. I mean, some cheapass Super 8 gives it to you free...admittedly it's slow, but some of the more expensive hotels have painfully slow intenet, and you pay like $15/day. Classic example of "if you're willing to pay $300 a night for a room, surely we can hit you for another $15 and you won't care." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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