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dallasmay
June 26, 2009 9:33 PM
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9 Gigs in a few hours. And at 3G speeds. That's not bad at all. A hour of a Hulu HD stream is less than 1 gig. I would have trouble doing that on my regular connection.

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3 replies
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CapitalC
July 3, 2009 5:54 AM
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@dallasmay: Lest we don't get Hulu in Canada... it must have been pr0n!

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sleze69
June 28, 2009 11:23 AM
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@dallasmay: The 3G connection in Canada must be WAY faster than AT&T's connection in the states as 9 GB in 3 hours seems impossible based on my tethering experiences in which I have never gotten faster than 40kb/second.

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Bailen
June 28, 2009 6:57 PM
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@sleze69: Rogers wireless here in Canada boasts 7.5Mbit 3G speeds through usb modems, that running full tilt could eat up 9GB in just a few hours, but we believe in Rogers as much as you guys down there believe in AT&T, so I say sustaining those speeds is rather unlikely.

But it may still be possible, I get a constant 2.5Mbit/s with my iPhone here, and I think that is exactly what the iPhone caps at.

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Smashville
June 26, 2009 9:47 PM
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I'll roam if I want to. Roam around the world.

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5 replies
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Aladdyn
June 27, 2009 12:03 AM
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@rwalford79: B52s rock, ive seen them live twice now, both times unintentionally though.

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HogwartsAlum
June 27, 2009 12:41 AM
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@Aladdyn:

??
How do you see them unintentionally?

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Aladdyn
June 28, 2009 3:17 AM
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@HogwartsAlum: The first time was during earth day way back when in NYC, I was there with my parents and they happened to be playing in Central park so we stayed and watched them. Second time was last year, my wife likes the band Tegan and Sarah and they were playing in the true colors tour at Foxwoods casino, so I got tickets then found out B52's were playing also.

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SabreDC
June 27, 2009 3:38 PM
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@HogwartsAlum: Show up for an airplane demonstration at a local outdoor festival and get hit with a little Love Shack instead.

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Trai_Dep
June 26, 2009 11:19 PM
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@Smashville: When traveling, nothing beats a roam with a view.

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Stannous Flouride
June 26, 2009 10:51 PM
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@Smashville:
Well, just remember roam wasn't billed for a day.

(really sorry, just couldn't hold it in)

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thefezman
June 26, 2009 9:50 PM
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9 Gigs at 1.7Mb/s (THEORETICAL maximum of the Mercury) is 11.7 hours of solid usage, at 100% capacity.

I'm going to call BS on AT&T here.

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1 replies
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Xerloq
June 26, 2009 11:07 PM
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@thefezman: Wouldn't it take nearly 13 hours to do that much data, maxing out the connection?

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TheName
June 26, 2009 9:51 PM
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Best part is at the quoted .015 cents per kb he should owe far less than $11,000 even if he did stream 9Gb.

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5 replies
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ludwigk
June 26, 2009 11:33 PM
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@TheName: At .015 cents per KB, 9 GB = 9,437,184 KB = $1415.58

But if its .015 cents per Kb, then it comes out to $11,324.64.

But his twitter is the exact same x100 magnitude problem that verizon had with 0.015 cents per kb ≠ a penny and a half per kb.

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wallspray
June 28, 2009 3:09 PM
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@ludwigk: For someone who did so much math, you did not pre-read your comment before you posted.

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Oranges w/ Cheese hates what Christmas has become
June 29, 2009 7:05 AM
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@ludwigk: I know it says .015 cents but its 1 cent per kilo, basically. That's what we're told to quote over the phone, I have no early idea WHY they have the .015 cents, which is stupid.
It should be $0.015 cents if anything, showing the fact its actually 1.5 cents of a dollar.

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Sian
June 26, 2009 10:20 PM
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@TheName: Wasn't there an article a while back where AT&T couldn't understand the difference between .015cents per minute and .015 dollars per minute?

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Kevin Wolf
June 26, 2009 10:41 PM
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@Sian: That was Verizon and it was 0.02 :)

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Xerloq
June 26, 2009 11:16 PM
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@Kevin Wolf: Here's a link: [consumerist.com]

It was over the difference between being charged $0.015 per KB when the quoted rate was $0.00015 per KB, the former being one-and-a-half (1.5) cents, the latter being one-and-a-half hundredths (.015) of a cent.

It was hilarious. Too bad the audio is no longer available.

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Nighthawke
June 26, 2009 9:53 PM
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Theoretical yes, at 100% LOGICAL capacity (a little bit different than engineering where it's plus or minus a few percentage points), but I seriously doubt that Adam could have hosed that much pipe running streaming bandwidth.
P2P, maybe, but then again, I doubt he would have put it at full cap.

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taking_this_easy
June 26, 2009 10:01 PM
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and Time Warner wanted to cap broadband at 40GB a month.... (ya, i know, TW backed off)

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Corporate_guy
June 26, 2009 10:07 PM
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\"And I got the \"data is charged at .015 cents, or a penny and a half, per kb\". About to try to explain the difference to them. Sigh.\"

I remember reading in the past about other people trying to win that battle. I assumed they failed since AT&T is still having problems converting cents to dollars.

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Oranges w/ Cheese hates what Christmas has become
June 29, 2009 7:03 AM
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@Corporate_guy: It isn't .015 cents, its .015 dollars, which I know is confusing. At least, it should be, but its stupid how rigid they are with their pricing all the time.

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Corporate_guy
July 1, 2009 8:34 PM
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@Oranges w/ Cheese: I know it's .015 dollars. But the stupid operator called it .015 cents. Because no one at AT&T understands the difference and probably never will. You'd think they send out a memo or something.

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Sarah Black
June 26, 2009 10:21 PM
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@Corporate_guy: that is why it was just called \"Verizon Math\". AT&T has now stepped up it's game!

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sven.kirk
June 26, 2009 10:08 PM
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I am very curious how this will play out. Are they going to be firm, or let him off easy? AT&T (any cell co.) now is in a lose-lose situation. 1, you alienate a bunch of people for not backing down to a 'famous' person. Or 2, you have to eat major crow and waive the fee along with MANY other peoples fees.

If you are roaming, either turn it off, or man up to the fees.

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3 replies
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Munchie
June 29, 2009 1:17 PM
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@sven.kirk: I see a whole case by case basis response here. We found proof there was an error on our part for him because he is famous. Now when this happens to you we are going to have a different conversation.

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Oranges w/ Cheese hates what Christmas has become
June 29, 2009 7:02 AM
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@sven.kirk: Thank you for your last sentiment there, I wish more consumers were as responsibly-minded as are you. Unfortunately most will just come sniveling to us crying \"I didn't knooooowww!!\" and expect us to hand them money.

-_-

Anyway, most likely what happened is that his card attached to a canadian tower well before he was in the country. So the 9 gigabytes might actually be over a longer period of time then the 3 hours he claims to have been in the country physically.

But one thing I know if the system says you used it, you did. Just a matter to sort out where he was at the time.

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Saisu Mimen
June 28, 2009 3:49 PM
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@sven.kirk:

In most cases they'll lower it to a more \"reasonable\" amount (which is still way too high) in the hopes that you'll just give in.

But... due to the fact that not only has this been made public AND it's from a celebrity, it's also on the \"hottest\" new social network. Don't take what happens in this case as the usual scenario; PR people are already at work with their Starbucks coffee and designer handbags scattered on the table looking at the best way to \"spin\" this.

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coren
June 26, 2009 10:13 PM
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I smell a new myth to bust!

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1 replies
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ohenry
June 26, 2009 11:34 PM
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@coren: Next week on Mythbusters: Can ATT do math?


*spoiler: it gets busted*

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RobThy
June 26, 2009 11:42 PM
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@donttrythis Today the tweeps became twoops. Just got off the phone with AT&T and they've taken care of everything to my great satisfaction.#twitterrules

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trujunglist
June 26, 2009 11:48 PM
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It looks like he got the problem fixed. I'm not too shocked. He says that it's basically because of twitter that the problem is fixed. So, if I'm not a star but I have the same problem, my guess is that AT&T completely fails. Yayyyyy, nothing solved. Ever.

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STrRedWolf
June 26, 2009 11:54 PM
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AT&T got in contact with Adam after he got 50,000 people to retweet his message. His phone and 3G modem's back on, and it's impressed AT&T at the following.

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rwalford79
June 27, 2009 12:01 AM
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I was gone in Los Angeles for a whole month and I had used my EVDO A phone as a modem, streamed movies, music, and did constant web pages, emails, pictures, etc, even streamed music to the phone directly for 9 hours a day...YES BELIEVE IT...


I did not even break 5GB!


And at $0.03 per kb it would be about $125,829.12 for roughly the amount Ive used.. ALL MONTH. There is NO WAY that he could have used 11GB in a few hours! Not on Rogers HSPA network, and certainly not at 1600kbps AVERAGE speed.

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tekkou
June 27, 2009 12:30 AM
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I'm having a similar problem this month. My wife and I are now stationed on opposite sides of the country. She was having trouble getting internet where she is now, but had a great 3G signal, so went to AT&T and got one of those USB wireless devices. She was never told that there was a data transfer limit, and it was nowhere in the documents she signed.

Fast-forward 2 weeks, and after a couple Skype sessions of an hour or so, we bust the 5 Gig limit. We now have a $1240 bill. My wife went to return the device and cancel service (since it had only been 3 weeks since she got it). The charges were supposed to go away, but they are still there.

Too bad I don't have 50,000 twitter followers so I can get stuff taken care of that fast too :(

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Chuck Thorne
June 27, 2009 1:18 AM
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I used to work for AT&T and I know what the problem is here. We used to encounter it quite often in international cases, especially when the iPhone came out.

You aren't thinking in _METRIC_ GB. 1 GB = 10 MB = 100 KB = $$$.

Seriously, when I was there, there was both the 1.5 cents per kb and the 0.015/kb in our rules and training, which had to be followed verbatim. I cut the difference and said checking email would cost a few dollars and emailed them the step-by-step directions for turning the internet off.

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runswithscissors
June 27, 2009 3:47 PM
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@Chuck Thorne: By gum you're right! Everyone is thinking in imperial measurements, but Canada is metric. So you have to convert these GBs into litres first.

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DaBull
June 27, 2009 1:19 AM
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I don't understand how these wireless providers can have such absurd calculations of usage. If they're usage numbers are wrong when you're roaming, how do we know they aren't charging us for minutes/bandwidth we never used while at home?!

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Grrrrrrr, now with two buns made of bacon.
June 27, 2009 4:17 AM
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Maybe phones should be required to have a running readout of bandwidth used and accumulating charges if they're roaming.

Nobody would use a gas pump that doesn't tell you how much you owe until you're done filling up, so if cell companies want to charge the crap out of people for roaming data, they should be required to show what the cost is.

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krista
June 28, 2009 3:28 PM
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@☠Grяrяrяrяrя sings the doom song now!: Even without providing a running readout of charges, I can't believe that they don't cut you off after $500 or so, and make you call to tell them that yes, indeed, you know you are going to get a several thousand dollar charge for what you are doing.

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XianZomby
June 28, 2009 1:00 PM
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@☠Grяrяrяrяrя sings the doom song now!: That'll end up being \"technically not possible,\" because it prevents them from f**king you over with obscene charges.

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jamar0303
June 27, 2009 7:10 AM
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@☠Grяrяrяrяrя sings the doom song now!: My Toshiba has this. In fact, just about every Japanese phone does. Then again, their local providers help too; one of them offers a $2/MB roaming rate for its users on AT&T (though the fact that said provider helped AT&T make 3G happen for Hawaiians is probably why).

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jamar0303
June 27, 2009 6:51 PM
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@jamar0303: Although said rate only extends to 15MB or so (they count data usage by the packet- fun). But still, if only AT&T would extend such a courtesy to roamers to Canada.

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Grrrrrrr, now with two buns made of bacon.
June 27, 2009 9:01 PM
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@jamar0303: Every phone should have such a thing. I'm sick of companies shrugging their shoulders and saying \"You should have read the 75 pages of legal fine print in your service agreement\" and then leaving people with $10,000 bills.

That would be like arresting people for speeding even though the one and only speed limit sign was hidden behind a tree 300 miles ago.

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logicalreasoning
June 27, 2009 4:40 AM
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I know from experience that ATT can and potentially will reduce the charges, even if they are 100% your fault. I used to work as a personal assistant for a woman who travelled around Europe for 2 weeks using her ATT modem to occasionally check emails. She was completely computer illiterate and was definitely not surfing the web at any point. Her bill was $4500 when she got home and she was able to talk them down to around $600. Her only defense was that she simply did not know the data usage fees, or else she obviously would not have used her modem while abroad. She was extremely nice and polite on the phone and maybe got lucky with a rep who was having a good day. Either way- it IS possible to get the charges reversed, and worth giving it a shot if you find yourself in the same situation.

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Anonymous
June 27, 2009 6:46 AM
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\"If you sign up with AT&T for service, they will eventually screw you.\"

Myth... or Fact?

Uh, Fact. Their customer \"service\" people will hide behind \"policy,\" \"the computer says,\" or the favorite: \"YOU NEED TO CALL...\" (some other clueless AT&T department, there are BILLIONS.)

If you're a business customer your rep will have been promising you a bill credit \"to resolve everything\" if you just sign the contract renewing services for X number of years. S/He will be reassigned immediately after the new contract has been executed - and then your promised credit will be denied. The new rep will act helpless and pretend to feel bad that \"management\" has done this to you. Not to worry though! If your new contract was for two years your \"new\" rep will string you along about another \"credit\" for 23-ish months. It repeats.

RUN away from AT&T. The honeymoon might last a couple of months but it's not WORTH IT!

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CyberSkull
June 27, 2009 4:05 PM
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I can't wait to see the episode of Mythbusters that deals with data roaming!

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Tankueray
June 29, 2009 12:59 AM
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I've had three data cards for over four years now. Even in a 3G area with my Mercury, BTing my ass off (Linux distros of course), it took me 3 days to use almost 5GB. I figure I've given Cingular/AT&T at least $8000 for this privilege. (Not including the five voice lines I've had since 1995.) I just dropped one card. One's not up 'till November and the Mercury in Dec. 2010. I haven't been able to get the Mercury to work for a month. Last Friday I tethered my iPhone and got better speeds than I ever did with the Mercury. I figure if I pay the ETF on both cards, I'll save around $1300.

Time to say goodbye to the Death Star.

I think data cards will quickly become obsolete with all the free wi-fi and tethering. Especially since they charge $60/month for the shittiest connection known to man.

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Oranges w/ Cheese hates what Christmas has become
June 29, 2009 6:59 AM
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My feeling on this is that he was most likely fringe roaming before he even entered and after he left Canada. There's no way to explicitly tell your cellphone or card to use a United States Cell tower.

Granted, AT&T's rates are pretty horrendous for this sort of thing, but I'm certian if he provides an accurate itinerary they'll be able to see the fringe roaming on there. They're probably not willing to consider this as an option though because he was actually IN the country for a while, and they want to shove it all to him.

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CapitalC
July 3, 2009 6:03 AM
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@Oranges w/ Cheese: Actually, you CAN force your cellphone / wireless card to use a specific network rather than an \"automatically selected\" one. I've been able to do it with my cellphones for years, a feature which is especially important being a Canadian living so close to many US cellular networks and not wanting to \"accidentally\" roam just because the signal from a US tower is stronger than my home network's.

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axiomatic
June 29, 2009 4:12 PM
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I hope Mythbusters does a TV episode on this where they throw AT&T under the proverbial bus.

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