[chc]

Your suggestion that people need to curb their 3G usage to help AT&T's poor towers is precisely the logic they're employing. It isn't valid, though. The capacity of AT&T's network is not a finite resource. They can make more. In fact, the government gave them money to improve their network, but they just pocketed it and opted to create artificial scarcity instead.

In other words, AT&T's towers are overwhelmed because AT&T didn't build enough capacity. That's not my fault and I shouldn't be paying for it.

[martey]

The article claimed that the new data plans would cause people to use their phones less. I do not believe this is true, but I do think it will either cause people to use wifi more and cellular data less (if they are heavy data users like the authors) or not make any changes (if they are "normal" users). Nothing in my original writing was meant to suggest that AT&T subscribers with data plans (like myself) should use wifi more.

[ericd]

A few insane overage charge stories in the media will definitely cause people to avoid using their phone as much. It's not something people should be thinking about when they use the phone, it's counterproductive.

[kscaldef]

> In other words, AT&T's towers are overwhelmed because AT&T didn't build enough capacity. That's not my fault and I shouldn't be paying for it.

Who exactly is supposed to pay for it, if not the people using it?

[josh33]

Please link to something about how AT&T got money from the government.