AT&T: Tighter Control of Cell Data Usage Ahead (Sarah Winter post #4)

This article is from the New York Times and it addresses that issue that the cell phone company AT&T has been having regarding service. Their clam is that they have bad service because of the overwhelming amount of smart phone users more specifically i phone users that they have had over the past year and a half. AT&T claims that 3% of smart phone users take up 40% of their data network space. They are not sure what they are going to do about this situation yet, other then they know that they need to inform users of how much data they are really using. They are not sure if they are going to limit the amount of data a user can use because right now consumers can use as much data as they would like.

How this relates to social control is that there was a company that released a great product (The I phone) which really has endless opportunities for the consumer as far as technology goes and they are trying to limit them and control how they use them. The Smart phone or I phone plan with AT&T costs an extra 30 dollars a month added to your phone bill, but you are allowed to use as much data as possible because with some of the applications that these smart phones have you are connected using data 24 hours a day.

It's not the consumers fault that they are just using their device the way that it was intended to be used and they are using up all the data space. The company is punishing the user for the flaws within their own company. Instead of trying to fix their network problem by getting more network space they are trying to make their customers suffer the consequences.