Some may call it the izonePhone, the crackberry from another fairy, the Apple soul sucker, but I call it my new favorite toy.
The iPhone.
One and all who feel ignored can thank my dad for this early Christmas gift as my eyes glaze over and my fingers dance across the touch screen. Going from a junky Walmart phone that stopped receiving calls to a beautiful tiny computer brings joy to my Christmas season.
However, it”s probably a good thing I don”t have a roommate or family here in Lake County because I have joined the masses of smart phone users who no longer pay attention to people – at least when I”m not working.
Not only does this black rectangle steal people”s lives, it steals other AT&T users” network.
The intense smart phone use is evident in AT&T”s apparent network problems.
AT&T plans to curtail excessive iPhone online data use that requires more bandwidth and expensive equipment and cables, according to a Wall Street Journal Technology article published Wednesday.
The company said it will provide “incentives” to encourage customers to cut back use, possibly including a tiered system that charges users based on how much data they use, according to the Wall Street Journal article.
No one appreciates a slow network or losing an important call, but is AT&T really teasing America with this fabulous phone and then saying users have to pay more to play.
I have yet to read the fine print on my contract, but at the least it doesn”t seem ethical for a company to agree to a fee then charge more because the company hasn”t expanded its network enough.
The problem is worse in San Francisco and New York because of the large amount of smart phone users.
Concentration of the problem goes further. About 3 percent of AT&T users account for 40 percent of the company”s traffic.
Although I zone out on Facebook and Google many inquiries, I doubt my obsession has gone that far.
I follow Robin Hood and Democrats when I say steal from or tax the rich in order to feed the poor. Make that 3 percent aware of their usage and that they will be charged an extra fee and maybe they”ll change.
That”s what AT&T came up with, too.
The company was a bit vague but said if AT&T tells customers how much data they use it can change their behavior, according the Wall Street Journal article.
“What we actually found out is customers didn”t know how they were using data … but once you alerted them to it, they actually reduce their consumption significantly,” said Ralph de la Vega, who runs the wireless and consumer part of AT&T.
So take this into account, dads and cell phone junkies when you think about an iPhone buy. It”s user-friendly and one of the best toys I”ve received in a while, but this toy like television and video games for some of us growing up has a limit on usage from our parents, or AT&T.
Or as focus pages editor Cynthia Parkhill so aptly put it, “It”s like AT&T was bit by its own dog.”
Katy Sweeny is a staff reporter for the Record-Bee. She can be contacted at ksweeny@record-bee.com or at 263-5636, ext. 37.
