New Togo plans (rant)

[Overtaxed]

<begin rant>

Wow, doing a little investigation here, these plans are really nothing more than a slap in the face. For those who don't know, Togo is going from unlimited data for 360/yr to:

5 GB per Month $25 per month Same
22 GB per Month $90 per month New
50 GB per Month $175 per month New
100 GB per Month $300 per month New
100 GB for 12 Months $325 one-time New

Which, just on the face of it, is bad. But it's even worse than bad, it's going from one of the best deals in wireless to perhaps the worst. For example, looking at the ATT site, here's a comparable (not at all related to Togo or RVing) plan:

Unlimited Elite SM
Unlimited talk, text & data
After 100GB, AT&T may temporarily slow data speeds if the network is busy.
5G access
High-definition streaming
Plan includes Stream Saver®. Stream video in HD quality, when available, with Stream Saver turned off.
30GB of mobile hotspot data per line
After 30GB, mobile hotspot speed slowed to a maximum of 128Kbps.
65/mo.

So, 65/mo for the unlimited data (on your cell phone), 30G of hotspot (which is what Togo uses), a phone number (of course, it's a regular phone plan), 100G of data on the phone for... 65/mo. Or the Togo plan, which is "hotspot only" for 90/mo for 22GB of data, no phone, no streaming, no 100G of data directly on the Togo (I realize this isn't possible, but, data is data to ATT, if I suck down 122GB of data using my phone, 22 on the hotspot and 100G on the phone itself, guess what, it's EXACTLY the same as sucking down 122G of data on the Togo to them). And you can "trust me" on this, I used to work for the "other" major provider, and it's like like we analyzed network capacity for hotspot vs phones, if it's "busy" or "full", it's full, phone, hotspot, whatever.

It's really crazy, IMHO, that ATT is making this change so drastically. OK, discontinue the unlimited/unthrottled plan, that MIGHT make sense. But replace it with a plan like you can get on a phone, in fact, should be better than the phone plan because, of course, you can't make calls on a Togo, so that's less capacity you could possibly use (if you suck down all 122G on your phone and spend 700 hours a month on it to boot, that's even MORE data your sending over the network).

Honestly, if they are willing to do 130GB on a phone for 65/mo, they should be willing to do that on Togo (or any dedicated hotspot) for the same (or lower) price. Instead, if you want 100GB per month on Togo, your looking at 300/mo (vs 65/mo for the same amount of network usage on a phone). It's really insanity, and it tells me that ATT want's out of the business entirely, these plans are horrific, you'd be MUCH better off getting an ATT phone, turning on the hotspot and having Togo link up to the hotspot! That makes -0- sense, absolutely none at all. And, of course, if you did that, you'd still have a phone, and you'd still have all the streaming on the phone you can ever use, so long as it's not hotspot streaming.

Insanity. Maybe 360/yr for 50-100G/mo, I MIGHT be able to get on board with that as a reasonable adjustment. Or 360/yr for 30G/mo full speed and the rest throttled. That probably is a reasonable deal too. But going from one of the best to perhaps the WORST deal in wireless in one stroke of the pen? Wow, that's really something else.

<end rant>

Just looked at Verizon plans. How about 20/mo for a hotspot plan with 15G/mo at LTE (unlimited data, but 15G/mo at high speed). I suppose it's a plan like this I'll use if ATT doesn't provide something more compelling, 20/mo for 3X the data they are trying to get for 25/mo? That's a no brainer.

[Wicked ace]

Before you go jumping off a cliff listen to this. I have been with Verizon using an unlimited plan and using it as my data source for years. I found early that tethering my phone to my laptop was a way to get around the data limits. That being said they have been aware since the beginning and are getting wise, plugging leaks as it were. I had the original unlimited plan that came out in 2011, I should have kept it. When Verizon came out with the new Unlimited Plan about 4 years ago I switched because it was nearly identical and less costly. When it came out Verizon realized it was much more popular than they anticipated. They had built in contract language to be able to alter terms this time. It's now evolved with data limits and even three different unlimited plans, depending on how unlimited you want to be. It is true hotspot data is throttled at 15Gbs but usually only at peak times. You'll experience this more in remote areas as available bandwidth is generally less. By tethering I have been able to run wide open going consistently and unthrottled well over 15Gbs month to month. That is, until this fall when things slowed abruptly while streaming TV. I checked and saw I was at 52Gbs per the data log on my phone. So that ATT plan you mention that offers 100Gbs phone data for $65 / mo. sounds like a good deal. I want to add that if you are streaming TV just a few hours a day along with laptop and phone data, it doesn't take long to get to 50Gbs or even 100Gbs. I also want to add that the data is additive not cumulative as you put forth. Hotspot and phone data were all included in the 52Gbs wall I hit. With the ATT plan 100Gbs is probably all you would see, not 122Gbs.
Next....... I stumbled on another wifi / LTE receiver similar to the TOGO. WIFIRanger is now being offered as an option on some other RV makes. Looking into the ATT link for data plans I saw the $90 / 22Gbs choice. If you dig further and click on tab for "Explore plans" and open the page for "tablets and other mobile devices" you can find an option for unlimited for 30 days with auto renewal. I haven't pursued it but if you are able activate the account then start and stop the service as needed (I.E. active in June, off during July and August then Active in September). https://buyasession.att.com/sbd/Comm...tePlans.action
I agree the Unlimited for $360 was the deal of the century but that company is going through evolution and is needing to tighten up. It finally just got to the RV world, which is a small market and of little consequence. Look what they did with Direct TV to see where things are going.

[Overtaxed]

Now that's really interesting. I looked into the plans, those are "like" the Togo Plan, prepaid/pay go plans. For reference, here's what they are currently offering:

Domestic DataConnect Pass Auto Renew Plans* Cost
1GB of data for 30 days
Renews every 30 days $19.99
Monthly recurring
Unlimited MB for 30 days
Renews every 30 days
After 22GB of data usage, AT&T may slow speeds when the network is busy $34.99
Monthly recurring
7GB of data for 30 days
Renews every 30 days $55.00
Monthly recurring

Bolded the "interesting" one. That's a "reasonable" plan if you can put it on a Togo. Unlimited, with some network management if you start to really suck down the data. I'd buy that (or that type) plan. I guess, scratching my head a little, who would buy the 7GB/30 days at 55.00 when you can buy "unlimited" with 22GB before network management for 35 dollars? <quizzical look>

I guess, more than anything, it's how incredibly deceptive all these practices are, starting with, as you said in your post, multiple "unlimited" plans. Their pricing/packaging and marketing make no sense at all if you examine it with any level of rigor at all. And frankly, a lot of it is just trying to "catch someone slippling", sure, pay 60/mo for what we sell in another package for 20/mo, if you're not smart enough to find the 20/mo plan. Companies that do that, in general, I try to avoid doing business with (however, they are all guilty of it, cable, telephone, etc).

[D2Reid]

My rant; Unlimited data is such a crock of pudding. All of the plans I looked at had language that said after x number of GB's speed may be slower. Ok, that's limiting the amount of data I can use.

So we are currently two timers, I have Verizon, something unlimited plus, I get my wifi device for $10 a month limit 15gb, my phone has 30gb of hotspot, so for my plan 45gb hotspot, plus my phone is allowed a phone only data usage of 60gb. After that the limiting begins, the devices will still operate, but it takes a web page a couple of minutes to load.

My wifes phone is on the ATT plan. I think she gets 30 gb hotspot and 100gb phone data, it's been a while since I looked at hers, but essentially we don't use her phone for hotspot. I really need to sit down and analyze what is going on with her phone, it keeps getting throttled back. I bought her a top of the line Iphone when I switched her over, big mistake. I don't know the Ios OS well enough to be effective with it. Sigh, more work for me coming up.

We have enough data for us, we have even been watching 2 episodes of netflix each night. My phone expense is running about $225 a month.

[Wicked ace]

Pudding is good....I like pudding. $225 / mo. phone expense is not good.

[Overtaxed]

I like pudding too.

Just thought I'd update, I contacted WG and got the admin password for the Togo. Yeah! No more horrible app necessary, you can login directly to the Togo and do all the stuff you'd do on the app, change Internet to Wifi, change the SSID/passwords/etc. Much, much better, the Togo app was/is like something out of the dark ages.

Unfortunately, while I now have all the functionality, still losing the great plan. But, given that I can much more easily login and work on the Togo now, I'm a heck of a lot more likely to actually switch to campground WiFi than I was before. And I can run WiFi at home, I have an AP out by the RV that works great, so I can still remotely control/monitor the rig at home. All in all, it could be worse, and I have another 11 months to figure out what I'm going to do after the ATT deal ends. I have to believe that Togo's "job one" right now for the employees is finding a new plan to bundle with Togo. I'm sure they did a much more exhaustive analysis than I did and came to realize that the new ATT plans are perhaps the worst deal in wireless internet currently available, so, hopefully they are out negotiating with the other wireless providers to find something new they can bundle (and, of course, that we can all use when our contracts expire). If not, of course, Togo as a company will soon be gone, nobody is going to pay more for Togo over the WG branded version for the new plans. Shoot, I might pay more for the WG version just out of spite, the new plans are an insult to my intelligence.

I'll post up some screen grabs if anyone is interested, but it's what you'd expect logging into an router. You can do all the admin functions from the app as well as some other settings that aren't surfaced in the app (retrieve your WiFi password, for example). Also, it's now clear why the admin password for the Togo has never been found, it's not "one" admin password. It's based on your particular unit, to unlock it, they need the SSID and some hardware details, it's probably a hash of a few values (SSID, MAC addresses, etc) that's used to set the admin password. My password is 4WZ579zv281k. Not exactly something that you're gonna find trying your typical "admin/admin" password combos. And yes, you can leave that password posted here, to be able to use it, you'll have to hack my Wifi, and, if you can get through that, well, there are much more interesting things you can do on my network than change my router IP addresses or from Wifi to cellular.

[Wicked ace]

I didn't look extensively but from what I saw the AT&T data rates are in line with Verizon. T-Mobil or Sprint may be less but so is coverage and bandwidth.
The thing about every campground WIFI I experienced is lack of bandwidth. Most have only installed it to advertise it's available, not to promote the wifi experience so not a lot of investment there. Get a few people on the network in the morning or evenings and it just bogs down. One campground in N. Caroline that made it a point of interest in promotion had a hotspot at the office only that only two could log onto at a time. Get a few grandmoms emailing and checking pictures from their laptops/tablets and you don't stand a chance.
I do believe TOGO is more a service provided by Winegard to promote their equipment. In all probability, as interest declines, it will quietly fade away. They still make and offer the unit as a standalone item so support for that will be around.

[Overtaxed]

I didn't look extensively but from what I saw the AT&T data rates are in line with Verizon. T-Mobil or Sprint may be less but so is coverage and bandwidth.

I'll have to disagree here, it's not in line at all, even with other currently offered plan on ATT. Currently offered plan:

Unlimited MB for 30 days
Renews every 30 days
After 22GB of data usage, AT&T may slow speeds when the network is busy $34.99

New Togo plan:

22 GB per Month $90 per month New

That's almost 3X as much for the same amount of data, and, BTW, the non-Togo plan, it's not a hard cap at 22GB, it's 22GB until they MIGHT network manage you. In most people's experience, network management isn't universal it's not "will" manage you, it's that they have the option to manage you. So, effectively, that plan is pretty similar to to the one offered today on Togo, it's a bit more expensive, and the Togo plan doesn't mention network management, so it's clearly "not as good", but it's close. But the new Togo plan, at 3X the cost for the same amount of data with a hard cap? As I've said, it's a "slap in the face". Togo made someone at ATT very mad, this is the kind of plan you offer as a telco when you want to exit a business, not when you're hoping to make more revenue in that business by increasing prices.

[Wicked ace]

NT.............

[Maximus216]

I know this doesn't help you guys that purchased the Togo, but I've been researching LTE routers and just purchased one on ebay with the MC7455 modem (pci card) which has more bands than the mofi4500 and works with Verizon. There are unlimited data only plans on eBay for less than 40 a month that I'm going to try. The router has both 2.4 and 5ghz bands. You can also change the settings so your cell carrier thinks the data is going to a phone instead of a Hotspot. I also ordered lmr400uf cable and directional antennas. I recommend going to ltefix.com and looking at what they offer. The one I purchased was cheaper than what I could build one for. Hopefully soon I will be able to post pics on my setup. Here is a video I recommend

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lIj6VPYzkzM

Here is the link to the one I purchased
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?m...2F223651018990