PhoneBoy Speaks Ep 342: The Worst of Both Worlds
I was reading a review of the Nokia Lumia 1520 on Ars Technica when I came across a couple of paragraphs that reminded me of what operators like AT&T do to things that aren’t iPhones. That along with the “lag” between Microsoft releasing new versions of Windows Phone and operators actually allowing handsets to update, well…
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PhoneBoy Speaks Ep 342: The Worst of Both Worlds
Here are the paragraphs in question:
Windows Phone 8 includes a thing called Data Sense that allows you to track data usage, see which applications are using most data, and so on. At launch, Data Sense wasn’t widely available, as it required carrier opt-ins. With the second update to the platform—one that almost everyone should have access to—it became almost universally enabled, with the carrier opt-in largely removed. I say “almost” because there’s one whopping great exception to that: phones with AT&T-branded firmware. They don’t get Data Sense, which I can only imagine is because AT&T is secretly hoping that users of its network go over their data allocation and have to pay overage fees or something.
AT&T does have an app, My AT&T, which provides some of the functionality that Data Sense provides, but isn’t as complete or capable. For example, Data Sense can provide warnings when you’re close to your data limit, and take certain measures to reduce data usage when the limit is approached. My AT&T doesn’t do this.
