Slashdot Mirror
Verizon Droid Tethering Comes At a Hefty Price
Pickens writes "Tom Bradley reports in PC World that the new Motorola Droid smartphone will cost users $199.99 with a 2-year contract, with an additional $30 per month for the mandatory 'unlimited' data plan that has a monthly cap of 5Gb. Verizon will charge $50 for each additional gigabyte over the 5Gb limit on the unlimited data plan. Verizon has confirmed that tethering will cost another $30 per month for an additional unlimited data plan that is also limited to 5Gb. If you want tethering you will pay $60 above and beyond the monthly contract for service for an 'unlimited' 10Gb of data per month, and if you plan on connecting with an Microsoft Exchange email account you have to pay another $15 a month. 'Verizon seems to be doing everything it can to make the Droid as unappealing as possible by nickel and diming customers so that actually using it is not cost-effective,' writes Bradley. 'After all of the hype around Verizon's marketing efforts, and generally favorable reviews of the Motorola Droid, users that rush out to get the new device may be in for a shock.' Droid users will have to wait until sometime in 2010 for tethering. 'That service is on our schedule for next year,' says Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney. The delay is because 'the service has to be tested on the phone so until we know it works, we don't offer the service. It is not uncommon for us to introduce the phone and continue to test the service and offer it later.'"
For all of us cavemen out there who still just use our cell phones to make phone calls:
Tethering is using a mobile device to gain Internet access for another device.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethering
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
Sounds like we need a fourth law of robotics:
4. A Robot may not grossly overcharge a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to be grossly overcharged, except where such orders would conflict with the first, second, or third laws.
If the plan is limited, it's not "unlimited", so please stop pretending. No, any cap is a cap is not no cap is not "unlimited". How many marketeers do you need to fire to stop believing otherwise, verizon?
hmm - there must be another meaning for this word I did not know about
What are you talking about?
T-Mobile offer a £12 (or 12.50) add-on for their contracts (or included in some of them) that gets you 3GB including tethering. You're being ripped off if you're still paying late-90s data prices.
they are free to kill their sales and nobody should be in urge to stop them
God's gift to chicks
This doesn't sound like that big a deal to me, except for the delay in actually delivering the service. I would see $60/month for 10GB as a pretty competitive plan. After all, I wouldn't think too many people would be using this as their primary means of internet access, and for speed reasons I doubt people are going to want it much for torrents or things of that nature, so why worry about a cap of 10 GB/mo? If I had the money right now, which I don't, and if this weren't Verizon, which I hate for other reasons/experiences, I would very seriously consider buying into this scheme.
On the other hand, how can they call any capped thing "unlimited"? How would they not end up in court for some kind of false advertising or breach of contract?
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
I LOL'ed at this one. An unlimited data plan limited to "5Gb." What a country!
How are Verizon getting away with calling a plan with a 5GB cap unlimited? Where I'm from there are laws against that. What, unlimited as long as your credit card is unlimited too? That dog won't hunt mont senior.
Sigger than your average
So does that mean that you can only get a Droid telephone with a verizon account?
If so, there's your problem: your markets for mobile telecom are vendor-locked, and thus not very free. Say what you might about the EU, they really whipped the mobile telco's into submission and as such, we don't have a system where your phone is branded by the telco. Incidentally, Apple is trying to push such a model to Europe, but people here are not buying into it.
If not so, what's the big deal? Just buy the droid and don't choose Verizon as your provider.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
These aren't the Droids I'm looking for
Verizon is born of an unholy alliance of old baby bells. Bell-Atlantic and a few others. All the management and culture of that company dates back to the days when they were the monopoly, and they still are as far as wired access to homes are concerned. They are the kind of company that will bribe the lawmakers to outlaw municipal wi-fi networks even in small towns that they will never ever offer broadband other than some flaky version of DSL with 728Kbps service. Way back when that socialist Indira Gandhi ruled India, the Indian Posts and Telegraph department run phone service used to have this kind of customer service and billing procedures.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
couldn't some group of americans sue the shit out of dumbass companies who use misleading marketing - calling something with a cap "unlimited" should result in their whole marketing department fired and any manager who approved it receiving hefty financial fine.
Rich
This simplifies things a lot for AT&T (who still hasn't introduced tethering for the iPhone): All they have to do to get back on the high horse is come up with a better pricing plan than Verizon's and have the service available in the next couple of months. Even AT&T can potentially pull that off.
As for the Exchange data plan - both Verizon and AT&T already do this on paper for smartphones, but that's the "corporate" data plan. On all the phones I've seen (for both networks) it doesn't actually matter - if your phone supports ActiveSync and you have a personal account it still works fine.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
You should see the fine print that we've managed to cram into "land of the free"...
This is the same pricing scheme used for other smartphones under Verizon. This isn't news. $30/mo for data, $60/mo for tethering. Unless there is a special App on the Droid that is required for Exchange and Verizon charges $15/mo for that or you're using some hosting service for Verizon, there is no cost for Exchange. I certainly don't pay $15/mo for exchange access on my HTC phone from Verizon.
Also outside of the iPhone, AT&T charges the same rates last I checked:
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/cell-phone-plans/pda-personal-plans.jsp
Actually they're $5/mo more.
So, does this mean they're going to have some draconian lockdown that prevents tetherbot from working? T-Mobile doesn't like it either, but it works even on a non-developer G1.
Robert Scoble compares the Droid to to Windows 3.1.
The Droid fails AS A PRODUCT when compared to Palm Pre and iPhone
Between this review, the increased cost of dumping a crappy phone, and the general high cost of actually using it for data, I'm going sit on the sidelines a little longer
A battery cover that falls off? A physical keyboard that "peels" off?
Come on Motorola! I think you're better than that!
To Copy from One is Plagiarism; To Copy from Many is Research.
'That service is on our schedule for next year,' says Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney. The delay is because 'the service has to be tested on the phone so until we know it works, we don't offer the service. It is not uncommon for us to introduce the phone and continue to test the service and offer it later.'"
Yeah, just like they did with the Blackberry Storm. When my friend and I first got that phone about a year ago, it was the biggest pain in the behind phone I think I've ever used. A lot of the people I know who have the Storm also had the same feelings towards it. Slow, froze up all the time, things would "stick" on the screen, the touch screen keyboard absolutely blew, sometimes when you went into the camera you'd see what the camera sees on the screen but the touch screen function bar at the bottom of the screen to take the pic etc wouldn't be there, etc.
Most of this has *FINALLY* been fixed in the Blackberry OS 5.0, but with ALL the issues (phone automagically erasing my microSD card which really pissed me off) I will never get a phone until the kinks have been worked out. It's not worth paying the "first adopter" price just to find its full of bugs (think the iPhones).
Also, that extra money for the tethering is crazy. I never got why in the hell they charged in the first place! (besides the whole "because they can")
Am I reading this right? They call the 5GB a month plan "unlimited", and charge $50 PER additional gigabyte (when they were perfectly willing to accept $6/gigabyte before you went over the limit)
Why don't they control usage another way? Say, if you go over 5GB a month, your data rates get slashed to 1/5 or 1/10 the normal speed, and the phone gives you an OPTION to pay an additional fee if you want your full speed restored. I actually think a cap is a good thing FOR PHONES because radio spectrum is a finite resource. Verizon only owns so much spectrum, and using current modulation technology, can only send so much data through the air in a particular cell at one time. There are high tech ways around this problem, but they cost a lot of money, and heavy users should pay more.
But they way they are doing this is just a trap basically. I bet the phone doesn't even tell you if you go over the limit, unless you look in some deeply buried menu. They are just setting you up for a huge bill during that one month when you actually use the phone's internet capabilities to their full potential.
And the phone had so much promise. They say the screen kicks the ass of the iphone, and that the CALL QUALITY is vastly clearer and better. I believe it - I had a CDMA phone years ago, and I recall it being nearly as clear and stable a connection as a land-line. Darn nokia phone would work everywhere as well. I've never, ever gotten service this good through ATT.
And people will still pay this extortionist price because they absolutely must have the latest electronic crack pipe available. Suckers. People will never learn, at least here in the USA that the only way to force companies not to do this shit is to stop paying them to do it.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Interestingly I just bopped over to /. from pricing out a move from my current expired Sprint contract to Verizon+Droid. Holy CRAP! To mirror my current Sprint plan (1400 min + unlimited SMS, unlimited data, tethering, etc.) would be over 4 x the cost!!! The Droid is a cool phone, but Verizon is absolutely insane if they think they can charge this much and still gain market acceptance.
Sexpuppy is right about this marketing ploy
Early adopters always get the shaft. You keep your wallet in your pocket and within months, the wave of competition with ensure that you made a very wise (and obvious) decision.
I record my sleeptalking
If the "unlimited" plan is indeed limited to 5Gb, that is only 640MB/mo! I could easily surpass that any given month with my iPhone.
Why can't companies just put a huge $$ tag on everything and just say "Here's how bad we're going to F^&$ you. Have a nice day." I think I'd be less pissed when I opened the box knowing I'm about to take it up the pooper.
Be glad you're not in Canada -- typically we start with 500 mb of data, pay $50/gb for overages. Our providers often promise to release features after testing, then don't (i.e. 2 years is a long time to wait). Like Verizon, they also try to control all the features on their phones.
More like hacking and slashing at limbs...
This is precisely why I just have a basic cell phone that makes phone calls. I'm not going to spend $50-100/mo for the privilege of using my computer away from home. I am not so addicted to the Internet that I'm going to incur that expense. At most, it'll cost me a couple of bucks to call information and find out where the nearest public library is if I really have to get online that badly.
My wife and I pay about $119/month for "unlimited" data and 200 text messages each per iPhone. We get no reliable signal in most of Virginia past Prince William County unless we are on a major state highway. There are places where Verizon would be 5 bars that AT&T doesn't even get signal at all, and by that I mean not even Edge.
The moral of the story? You get what you pay for. Verizon may be more expensive, but AT&T is a perfect example of what happens when a telecom doesn't plan ahead for getting the kind of revenue it needs to really build out its network. I wasn't very happy with Verizon's customer service, or their phone selection a year ago, but they obviously put that money SOMEWHERE good since I can't remember any place other than inside the Luray and Skyline caverns where my phone didn't get a signal with Verizon...
Verizon charges "corporate" customers an extra $15/mo to access "corporate" (aka Exchange) email. This is true with all of their smartphones and is similar in pricing to what ATT & Sprint charge. Personal accounts can access Exchange w/o any additional charges.
The unlimited that is limited, the free you have to pay. And Orwell and I laughing in the newspeak sense.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
Android phones have an open development model. What stops somebody from writing their own tethering or Exchange app?
The key sequence to access my Slashdot bookmark in Firefox is Alt-B-S. I don't believe this is a coincidence.
No. Not any Exchange account, only the one that is provided by Verizon. Connecting to your corporate account doesn't cost anything extra. Other than getting the data plan.
Best Slashdot Co
Does anyone have reliable info about when the GSM version of the Motorola Droid will be release?
And what will it be called? Sholes? Milestone? etc?
The Motorola Milestone is supposedly launching in Germany... can we import that and use it with T-Mobile or AT&T in the US?
The data plan is, in fact, unlimited. I go over 5 GB a month on my current Verizon phone regularly. This is no different. Tethering specifically has a 5 GB limit which is stated in the contract for it. There are also readily available hacks to make tethering work on an Android phone.
My Babylon
couldn't some group of americans sue the shit out of dumbass companies who use misleading marketing - calling something with a cap "unlimited" should result in their whole marketing department fired and any manager who approved it receiving hefty financial fine.
What if a customer agrees to pay the bill subject to a 5 dollar a month fair billing policy?
Turnabout is fair play.
*I* have not yet looked at all the contract and associate fun stuff, but on the PCW article itself there's a lot of debunking already going on in the comments section about the fees. I realize Verizon is more expensive overall, but it looks like they should have fact-checked a little strictly based on the comments so far.
That was tried in the UK with ADSL providers advertising "unlimited" broadband. They got around it by reclassifying exactly what is unlimited - it is now "unlimited access" so at any time 24/7/365.25 you can have access, but it isn't unlimited bandwidth.
Sue all you like - they'll find a loop-hole somewhere and the only people to really gain will be the lawyers.
The only real way to fix the current advertising problems is to educate the general public to not fall for stupendously unrealistic claims in advertising - unfortunately the general public seem somewhat immune to the effects of such education probably because critical thinking doesn't appear to be fashionable.
Or you can just use any unlocked Symbian phone on a GSM carrier and tether it to your heart's content. And in most places other than the US, that's exactly what you're supposed to do. You know, $30/month 5Gbyte data plans and all that.
Mind you, Symbian sucks as a phone OS compared to Android, but Android really needs to get Symbian-like tethering. And Verizon's data plans are laughably expensive.
...usually doesn't add a reoccurring charge of $60/month. I believe a more appropriate term would be Jackson and Granting (after President Andrew Jackson whose face appears on the $20 bill and President Ulysses S. Grant who is on the $50 bill).
The Droid has been grossly overhyped probably because everyone wants to see something close to the iPhone but on Verizon. It has many major weaknesses.
Cannot use more than 256MB for applications. This is a stunning weakness making many iPhone type apps impossible on the Droid.
The physical keyboard is near unusable and the onscreen keyboard not much better.
No multi-touch. Android multi-touch does not have the pinch gesture anyway and is very slow.
The entire device is slow. Scroll the home screen and watch it lag. Browser is much slower than the iPhone 3GS and is not 100% ACID compliant like the iPhone.
5 megapixel camera but it sucks,
Multimedia support is awful.
Cannot do data and voice at the same time.
This isn't new: these terms are exactly the same as Verizon's current plans for Blackberry service. $30/month for the smartphone "data plan", plus an extra $30/month for tethering. And yes, they've always called it "unlimited", but it's always been capped at 5GB. I've been paying these rates for some time. It's annoying, but it's been going on for ages.
It's amusing to me that people are only getting outraged about this now because Verizon is selling a popular new phone that everyone wants to buy.
Tethering has always been free in Sweden, I've been using it since like 2001 or something. We have the same cellphone network standard in not only Sweden but the whole EU as far as I know. I even know two competitive operators here in Sweden (Tele2 and Telia) that share the same network for 3G (called Sweden3G). We also don't have branded phones, most of our phones are sold unlocked and can be used with any operator you like. etc I feel sorry for you.
The additional $15 is only for corporate accounts which apple also charges. You can use your personal account to access your work e-mail without the additional charge.
This crap has been circling the web and it's not completely accurate. With the $30 and $45 data plans for smartphones, you get unlimited data for the phone itself. If you want to tether, it's an additional $30 for the $30 plan or $15 for the $45 plan and will allow you 5GB of tethered data and unlimited on the phone. In any case, if you want to tether and be within their TOS, you need to pay $60. It's still possible to tether without the extra cost and their software, it's just not within their TOS
The difference between the $30 and $45 data plan isn't documented well and leads to a lot of confusion. I fault VZW for not getting this strait. All the $45 gets you is access their WirelessSync service and supposedly allow you to do Exchange ActiveSync within the TOS. The $30 plan CAN DO Exchange ActiveSync, but it's supposedly not ok within their poorly documented TOS and every VZW employee will tell you that you need the $45 plan if you're going to do Exchange ActiveSync.
If you do use a lot of data on your phone, VZW can cancel your data account according to their TOS. I've used >5GB/month without a peep from VZW and any additional charge on my bill. It has been said in HoFo, if the data usage is extreme by VZW opionion, they could consider that your must be doing something that's violating the TOS. If VZW was smart, they wouldn't do much canceling since they're launching a bunch of Android phones and saying streaming YouTube and music is ok, which obviously will soak up a lot of bandwidth.
I suggest that Pickens and the article author do some fact checking before publishing assumptions and hearsay.
I played with one at Sam's Club over the weekend. The keyboard sucks. It'll probably be a flop until they make a new keyboard. Maybe I'm wrong, but I spent like 3 seconds playing with it and HATED it. That was all I needed.
This is Verizon trying to use the publicity and 'celebrity' status of the Droid (ironically as an 'iPhone Killer') in the same way as AT&T abuses the iPhone by dropping value and hoping people will still buy it for what it is!
AT&T does it by selling crap service at standard price - Verizon has decent service, so is going for extortionate prices instead!
I'm convinced PC World has it out for the Droid and has only been carrying negative articles about it. This article is particularly misleading. First of all, the unlimited phone data plan IS unlimited - it's the tethering, WAN card, Mifi, etc plans that are limited to 5GB a month. Just head over to the Verizon website and check out the fine print. Now the catch is if they think you're tethering without a tether plan (which is really easy to do) they'll charge you for tethering. So if you use 10GB a month of phone data (which, lets be honest here, is not realistic using just your phone) they'll hit you for tethering.
Next, the $15 a month for Exchange is if you're an enterprise customer. I'm not really sure what that means - if they host the account for you, or handle some extra securtity stuff, or what - but if you're just average Joe user with your own personal account, you won't need to pay it. There is no problem using Exchange with the regular personal data plan.
These facts can easily be confirmed by checking out Verizon's website, but the boys over at PCWorld are too busy making out with their iPhones to do any fact checking.
"Can you gouge me now?"
I'd love a really good smartphone, like the iPhone or Droid, but until I can get one for around $50 a month for unlimited service with tethering, I'll stick to finding WiFi for my Touch and using my cheap cellphone when I need to talk to someone.
Especially the "luxury of a choice" bit. I love starting the day with a good laugh.
It still surprises me that people still cannot tell the difference between Gb (Gigabit) and GB (Gigabyte)
There are many other ways to tether your computer to a smart phone other than the Verizon approved way. These are, of course, against the terms of service, but are still relativley simple and much cheaper than $30 a month.
If you actually check Verizon's plans, you will see that the $45 charge for "Exchange" is only on corporate accounts and is the same no matter what phone you get. (See http://www.gearlog.com/2009/11/personal_droid_data_will_cost.php)
If you are not on a corporate plan, you will only pay $30.
That was tried in the UK with ADSL providers advertising "unlimited" broadband. They got around it by reclassifying exactly what is unlimited - it is now "unlimited access" so at any time 24/7/365.25 you can have access, but it isn't unlimited bandwidth.
Except that the website does not advertise "unlimited access". The text on the website reads, and I quote, "Unlimited Data for Mobile Web and Get it Now/Media Center".
It says quite clearly, "unlimited data". I know that Verizon [and the other telcos] will happily fight and say there's fine print somewhere that says otherwise, but please, there *HAS* to be some lawyer out there who's good enough to get a judge to realize that this is nothing but false advertising, and some pretty obvious bait-and-switch tactics.
Nothing to see here
there are a couple apps out for Android that allow tethering, all free. PDAnet is the most accessible, as it allows ANYONE with an Android based phone to use it as a wireless modem over USB.
:-P
Or if you're a bit more tech savvy, like me, you can root your phone (which is just plain beneficial anyway) and install the free Wifi tether for root users app. It works like a charm, kinda sucks battery tho
My blood hurts...
That was tried in the UK with ADSL providers advertising "unlimited" broadband. They got around it by reclassifying exactly what is unlimited - it is now "unlimited access" so at any time 24/7/365.25 you can have access, but it isn't unlimited bandwidth.
Not so - the ASA don't care as long as you can demonstrate that the vast majority of your subscribers aren't impacted by the cap and that you mention clearly that a fair use policy applies. See here, here, here, and especially here. Extract from ASA ruling:
The ASA noted all the ads made clear that a fair-use policy applied to the service and the level at which the allowance was set. We noted the information provided by Vodafone demonstrated that only a very small proportion of their customers had exceeded the fair-use policy limited and that action was likely to be a request to moderate their usage in the first instance. We acknowledged that the vast majority of customers used only a small amount of the available allowance and concluded that the existence of a fair-use policy did not contradict the claim "unlimited mobile internet".
Sue all you like - they'll find a loop-hole somewhere and the only people to really gain will be the lawyers.
Agreed - they're all bastards
-- Intelligence is soluble in alcohol
there's a separate conflict here.
on one side, verizon is doing everything it can to make people not desire to actually use their data plans.
On the other side: Very soon if this phone takes off you'll have an iphone-ish "OMFG THE DATA IS SLOW/PACKETLOSS/WTF VERIZON" etc. They don't want to have to upgrade their towers. By taking such a phone on which has the *chance* to be extremely popular, that may be the end risk here. That and acknowledging their lack of competition vs Tmobile.
calling something with a cap "unlimited" should result in their whole marketing department fired and any manager who approved it receiving hefty financial fine.
1) go to http://slashdot.org/journal/212295/
2) Replace Comcast with Verizon
Basically, When they say "Unlimited Internet", What they actually mean is "Always on Internet"
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
It says quite clearly, "unlimited data".
Fair catch. But win this one in court and then they just point out that it says nothing about guaranteed rates. Used more then 1Gb? 1Kbyte/sec maximum it is for you then.
there *HAS* to be some lawyer out there who's good enough to get a judge to realize that this is nothing but false advertising, and some pretty obvious bait-and-switch tactics.
Oh there no doubt is. But the people who want him to fight the case can't afford his fees, and the people who would prefer he didn't can afford to keep him busy elsewhere.
As I posted a few days ago, I've realised that much like all manufacturers specs, ISP speeds and numbers are padded and offer performance under optimal conditions.
I look at all ISP promises as I do most specs now; Drop by 50%. Now I realise that I'm paying £30 per month for 4Mb downstream, and I'm quite happy with that. In fact, I'm over the moon when I get 6Mb! It's like I'm getting 50% extra free!
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
It could be ground for class action. "Unlimited" and "10GB limit" are mutually exclusive. This is deceptive marketing. Isn't that bad enough that we still have to pay to receive phone calls and text messages?
Can everyone please give themselves a reality check and stop whining about the 5GB cap?
1) It's high time the geek community understood that bandwidth isn't free. Low-usage customers always have and probably always will subsidize high-usage customers. This is how landline ISPs do it, and even they are unofficially capping usage for users who consistently eat up crazy amounts of bandwidth. If you're downloading multiple terabytes every month, you're slowing down your ISP's "series of tubes" for everyone else, and you either need to get throttled back or pay a lot more for your share.
The only alternative is a pay-per-byte model -- so please, keep up the whining, let us know how you like it when your browsing/streaming/torrent/pr0n habits start costing you $500/month, while your mainstream neighbors are only paying $10/month for shopping online and checking their email.
2) Who the f*ck cares if they call it "unlimited"? The 5GB cap is well documented and well-known. Sure you have to read a little fine print (which isn't even all that hidden anymore), but if you're a remotely tech-savvy user, you're probably reading forums like this one and are acutely aware of the 5GB cap anyway. And for 99% of users, 5GB/month on a cell phone may as well be unlimited.
How about you put all that whining energy into protesting overall costs. You can start with the ridiculous 20 cents for a text message. Feel free to attack the $30 5GB/month data plan too. And those overage charges, yeesh, please have a go at those too.
Wow. And I was complaining about the telecompanies in Sweden. We pay 10 dollars a month (or not even, thats what they charge me) for real unlimited 3G. No hidden fees, no caps, no sudden bandwidth caps after a certain amount of use.
Sweet, so you can sue them for any downtime? We've always had "always on" internet since the days of modems (if you wanted to pay to be on all the time), so it's absurd that they could even try to claim that that's what "unlimited" means. What's the point in advertising something that basically everyone already has?
which is totally what she said
But every other data plan also gets "unlimited access", which should make it pretty obvious that that isn't the "unlimited" to which they're referring.
Verizon sells 'Unlimited' data plans that cap out at 5 Gb. AT&T advertises the 'fastest 3g network' with 'more bars in more places' with the smallest 3g network of any carrier. And that's just the wireless carriers. There is so much blatant advertising fraud on American TV anymore, yet nobody seems to notice or care. .. They have 'the fastest 3g network' even if it's only available at the stop sign in on main street in Barstow California, and nowhere does it say that the more bars are 3g bars. As long as there is a signal, they are covered, and they don't say more bars than who? But I cannot imagine how Verizon can argue can argue that a 5Gb limit is 'Unlimited'. It's all fraudulent by intent, but since there is no morality in advertising, I guess it can exist, but 5Gb 'Unlimited' access I would think is actionable. Maybe Pamela Jones can explain it all to us.
I can see how AT&T can argue their lies aren't
Part of the problem in moving to unlocked phones is that US customers are used to seeing low up front costs, believing these are the actual prices of the phones. The Droid costs $600, but Verizon sells it for a third of the price, choosing to spread out the missing $400 over 24 months. Since that's only $17 per month, it's easy to slip into other charges that may or may not be mandatory as long as the average customer pays enough.
This works as long as the large providers don't compete in pricing of plans for unlocked smartphones. Without specific regulation, they have no interest in doing so, making an unlocked smartphone look too expensive for the average Joe.
The good news: there are now two usable touch-screen smart phones on the market
The bad news: they still run on the same networks.
Verizon is also increasing the early termination fee to $350 for advanced devices.
Source
First of all, what's unrealistic about it? And it's not even a claim, i.e. as a result of using their service, they claim a particular result. It's the service itself they are talking about and they do not deliver.
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
The problem is, what makes for "stupendously unrealistic claims"? All-you-can-eat buffets seems stupendously unrealistic. Paying less than $1.00 for a thousand gallons of water seems stupendously unrealistic. Buying a double cheeseburger for $1.00 seems stupendously unrealistic. In fact, people having stupendously unrealistic expectations is actually a good thing; if a company is actually sued over such claims, a jury should be much more likely to find against the company.
No, the current advertisement problem has a lot more to do with the FTC not prosecuting such advertisers. As others note, individuals suing is generally a loss for the individual. That's one reason the FTC was created, to bring cases against businesses so consumers would not have to bear the cost of prosecuting their own consumer protection. But, the FTC is the enemy of nearly all businesses, so is it any surprise that it has been made so weak against deceptive or fraudulent advertising?
Put another way, your argument amounts to the idea that if only people had critical thinking skills, e-mail spam would be eliminated. The fact is, most people (99.7%, IIRC) do have the critical thinking skills to not buy what spam is selling. But, spamming is so cheap and with so little consequences that it only takes a very small percentage of buyers to keep the spammers afloat financially. Do you think print or tv advertising is really so radically different?
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
They used to be called "unmetered" plans, because you paid a flat rate instead of being billed per-MB or per minute as in the dial-up WAP days. "Unlimited" sounds better.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
... $30 per month for the mandatory 'unlimited' data plan that has a monthly cap of 5Gb.
Verizon has confirmed that tethering will cost another $30 per month for an additional unlimited data plan that is also limited to 5Gb.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Really? Around here (Portugal) those speeds are already considered low (we are starting to get 100Mbps via fiber optic, and already have 30Mbps via cable). I have 10Mbps contracted, and reaching 11Mbps is not rare. It also hardly goes below 8Mbps. It depends on the ISP, too, but it's much better now than a few years ago.
Dilbert RSS feed
I have an 8Mbps connection and if I do a speed test I can fairly routinely get 7.5Mbps or so... I have done downloads at 980KBPS.
Though agreed, advertised performance is often under ideal conditions.
Verizon has had these plans for the past year. This is nothing new with the launch of the Droid.
Android Tether can be done on any rooted android device. Though you still have a cap with this "unlimited" plan, and someone at VZ may or may not notice the fact that you're tethering without a tether plan. But there are ways! I've used the phone and I think its awesome, but VZ is going to kill it with this. Anyone with a blackberry data plan care to comment, is this the same deal you guy's get or new for android?
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Sweet, so you can sue them for any downtime?
Technically, Yes if you can prove they are cutting you off because they feel like it rather than a service outage.
What's the point in advertising something that basically everyone already has?
http://xkcd.com/641/ sums it up nicely.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Fair?
I think that would be more like $30 per month fee, with a $50 surcharge for each truckload of bullshit after the first five truckloads of bullshit (on the mandatory unlimited bullshit plan).
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
But the people who want him to fight the case can't afford his fees
I think you underestimate the power of large groups. If someone can rally enough people around a (worthy) cause...enough to donate $5 here, $20 there and the occasional $100-$1000 then large sums are not as unreachable as you would think.
That however depends on someone actually taking the lead and being able to get people to rally around said cause...
When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
IANAL: If it's spelled out in the contract that there is a 5GB cap, and the sales junkie indicates that there's a 5GB cap then I don't think a court will let it fly. Otherwise, if someone start spouting off that it really is "unlimited" then there's possibly a case.
The solution Verizon is competition. It's pathetic that Verizon is trying to charge $75 for Tethering and Exchange. That's on top of the voice plans they have which already push the high end. Sadly, like the iPhone, it'll be the carrier that dooms the device to a limited share. Hopefully another carrier can step up, provide a well priced service, and free this phone from the idiocy of Verizon.
I can't comment too much about the tethering, though I've already hacked it up to be a wireless access point. But no, you do NOT need to pay an additional $15 for Exchange. Only corporate accounts ($45 per line) are charged extra for Exchange.
Galen
In your face, and always right!
While you're technically correct, I don't think that most people understand "unlimited" to mean "infinite." I wouldn't say that I have "limited" water at home, even though, yes, technically, I can only fill a finite number of buckets in a month.
There's a big difference between "we're cutting you off" and "you can have as much as we can physically give you."
Heh, that asbestos thing is a stroke of marketing genius I have to say..
Well, surely if there are any service outages then the service is not "unlimited" even in always on terms? There is just something very definitely wrong about it all, it really riles me when I see stuff like this on billboards. UNLIMITED* data plan! Or FREE texts for life**!
*subject to fair use policy of 1GB, thereafter you are LIMITED.
** when you spend £15 a month
which is totally what she said
Is this MEGABITS or MEGABYTES? Mb = bits, MB = bytes, HUGE ass difference bucko!
Jawas did it with R2d2
I understand that I'm on a contested connection, and quite a way from my local exchange. I don't expect 8Mb 24/7, and I'm happy when I get it. I've had 1.2MB/s (yeah, big B) at around 10pm, but that was a freak occurrence. All in all, 4Mb/s is enough for watching TV on demand, playing WoW, downloading updates etc. I can manually throttle traffic at the router if I run multiple apps at once, but that's rarely the case.
I don't even see it as lowering my expectations; I see it as being realistic. There's a reason for T1 being 1/4 of my connection speed, but costing 20x more.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
i don't know. i have been "educated", but i'd prefer being able to rely on advertising to at least not outright lie or redefine words. and for that they should have been hit hard with misleading advertising fines.
Rich
the 5 GB cap is only if using it for tethering. It is unlimited if you do all that browsing on our device. Not sure how you could possibly use 5GB without tethering anyway.
And the costs are exactly the same as I've been paying to tether with my almost 2 year old Blackberry Curve. There's nothing new here. Tethering with any Verizon Wireless smartphone is going to cost approx. $60.00 (US) per month. The charges are intended to add up to the same cost as you would pay for using one of their air cards... with the same 5 gb cap.
I've suspected for a while that Verizon is run by the Ferrengi, but this nickel and dime scheme reeks of the rules of acquisition.
Since I've had a few outages this year, even my access isn't unlimited.
No, I'm pretty certain it wasn't tried in the UK, I've certainly never heard of such a case and have been following this for years. All that was done was complaints were put to the advertising watchdog (the ASA), and the watchdog basically gave the practice a greenlight based on some previous precedent (all you can eat restaurants or something). Their argument was that as long as it appeared unlimited to the average user this was acceptable, if a minority of users hit the cap then that was fine, I believe the threshold had to be 1% of users or something. For what it's worth tho, I'd bet you anything it's more than 1% of users that are actually affected at many ISPs and that they just fiddled the stats for the ASA.
I took my old ISP (Demon) to the small claims court after they limited me to 128kbps for a month down from 2mbps after they said I'd breached a cap which was never advertised and never in my contract. I claimed for a lost days work due to working from home but being unable to reliably use VPN at that speed, I claimed for the costs to switch ISP including the first months subscription, I claimed a month of XBox live and Dark Age of Camelot subscriptions for 3 accounts amongst a few other things and came away with £330 as they simply accepted the costs and settled.
Make of that what you will, but I'd wager that what the ASA says is one thing, what a court would say is a whole different story. It's such a small thing in most people's lives - i.e. they usually only run out of bandwidth a few days before their new month starts and it resets that they just put up with it, and of course, if they do lose then that's much more money out of their pocket if they have to pay the ISP's lawyers costs that no one has really bothered to try and sue properly because of the comparitive effort and risk for likely very little personal gain. They may get ISPs to change their practices but personally all they'd probably receive is a months ISP subscription back and £50 in compensation or whatever if the ISP decides to fight it but loses.
And there's the rub. Very few people have both the money and the interest in fighting this sort of thing on principle.
Is it a blatant lie? Absolutely.
Is it wrong and misleading? Absolutely.
Is anybody out there going to spend thousands, potentially tens or hundreds of thousands, and years of entanglement in endless court documents and fact finding to fight about a dishonest $30 a month offer?
No.
Companies can get away with anything they want provided that it's more expensive to fight them than just accept it. Banks and credit card providers have this particular tactic down to a science.
couldn't some group of americans sue the shit out of dumbass companies who use misleading marketing - calling something with a cap "unlimited" should result in their whole marketing department fired and any manager who approved it receiving hefty financial fine.
That's how it works in Europe. Unfortunately, the US let Corporations take over years ago.
The terms of service are not clear.
In one ToS document it says...
For individual use only and not for resale. We reserve the right to protect our network from harm, which may impact legitimate data flows. We reserve the right to limit throughput or amount of data transferred, and to deny or terminate service, without notice, to anyone we believe is using an Data Plan or Feature in any manner prohibited above or whose usage adversely impacts our network or service levels. Anyone using more than 5 GB per line in a given month is presumed to be using the service in a manner prohibited above, and we reserve the right to immediately terminate the service of any such person without notice. We also reserve the right to terminate service upon expiration of Customer Agreement term."
However, that is not the ToS I get when I try to upgrade my phone to a Droid and add the $30 data plan. I get this one...
http://support.vzw.com/terms/products/broadbandaccess_nationalaccess.html
and I see no mention of any fixed cap. I do see stuff about not impacting their network, but no 5GB cap.
Semantics is important. "Unlimited" could just as easily mean "you can use it anytime, not limited to 'offpeak' times". Back in the dialup days, there was often a different per-minute charge depending on what time of day one accessed the internet. Without a qualifier like Unlimited *data*, there's no basis for being indignant. The lesson is to always, always, always read the fine print and never assume that what you think something means (or should mean) is what it actually means.
It says "Unlimited Data for Mobile Web and Get it Now/Media Center" Looks elsewhere in the contract and you'll find that mobile web is through the device and *not* tethering. Mobile web, specifically, is their application for web browsing not your tethered web browsing application.
See the loophole? Annoying, I know. I call it deceptive business practices but the courts say lawyer speak trumps normal speak.
It is unlimited data. Verizon isn't going to limit your data usage.
Oh sure, they're gonna charge you if you go beyond 5GB, but nobody claimed it was "unlimited free" data usage! ;)
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Could you please point me to the URL that you say is stating "unlimited" broadband?
I think you are getting their different plans mixed up. I believe their "mobile web" which is for browsing from regular phones with a web browser is indeed unlimited. But everything that I have found where you are using their "Broadband Connect", ie. tethering a phone or using an air card, clearly states that it has a 5GB limit and I cannot find anything stating that it is "unlimited data".
You people seem to be stuck in the past and cannot come to grips with their change in wording and want to ignore that they have complied with demands from the consumer that they be honest.
Actually all smart phones on Verizon have these charges. This is normal, I don't know why people are making such a fuss. Look at AT&T and the charges on an iPhone are considerably higher than on a regular phone.
... to smartphones on Verizon. There's a map for that!
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
Fair catch. But win this one in court and then they just point out that it says nothing about guaranteed rates. Used more then 1Gb? 1Kbyte/sec maximum it is for you then.
Which is still an improvement. Going from outright lying to just being slimy is much better than we've got in the right now. Unlike jolly old england, we don't actually have an agency currently enforcing truth standards in advertisements.
The ______ Agenda
It's probably far more productive to contact your state's public utility commissioner (name varies by state), the FCC, or your state's attorney general.
Really, you're already taxed out the nose for regulatory agencies & law enforcement, might as well utilize as much free muscle as you can.
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Community Comments by Psyc0lops, jwclark, Caiged, and others, dispute the accuracy of the contract and pricing info contained in the article.
These views express my own personal opinions, not those of the other voices in my head
And that's why we hate monopolies.
When they act badly, the market can't punish them. So they keep acting badly.
Why do you think iPhone is the only other option? Verizon is advertising like they invented Android and tethering, but there are several other phones running the OS. I'd recommend a mytouch or magic. Root it and get tethering for free (you don't even need to root it if you want web-only tethering). T-mobile is actually a pretty damn decent company and the data plan isn't capped.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Some of this information is a bit inaccurate. First, the "unlimited data plan" he refers to is not Verizon's unlimited data plan. It is their basic data plan. And it is capped at 5GB has he stated. Verizon also has a truly unlimited data plan for $44.99 Then there is the claim: "and if you plan on connecting with an Microsoft Exchange email account you have to pay another $15 a month." Which is just flat out false. I can tell you that I am using the exchange integration right now, and I only have the $30 data plan and nothing more. Just as a side topic here, if you root your phone there are free open source tethering applications out there anyway. But I would point out that Verizon charges $2.99 for visual voice mail. Which is cheap of them IMO...
If somehow someone manages to hit 5GB without tethering, good luck proving it.
Pandora
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Verizon just doubled the early disconnection fee
http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=8202
350$ it is yes sir we will suck you dry
It says quite clearly, "unlimited data".
Fair catch. But win this one in court and then they just point out that it says nothing about guaranteed rates. Used more then 1Gb? 1Kbyte/sec maximum it is for you then.
there *HAS* to be some lawyer out there who's good enough to get a judge to realize that this is nothing but false advertising, and some pretty obvious bait-and-switch tactics.
Oh there no doubt is. But the people who want him to fight the case can't afford his fees, and the people who would prefer he didn't can afford to keep him busy elsewhere.
that's where class action suits come in
But from TFS, from info in the second article:
They are clearly *not* just going to throttle you when you have used enough, they will keep charging you more at 5 cents/MB. So in a way it is "unlimited", but only in the sense that your bill for that month is also unlimited...
Maybe if one lives in such a world, one gets used to it. But my fellow Americans, let someone from overseas tell you, that that is pure fraud. Plain and simple.
Removing a very simple built-in function of your phone, and then asking $30 to put it back again is in my eyes a criminal offense, similar to taking someone or something hostage.
Calling something "unlimited" while it is officially limited to 5 Gb (is that really with a small "b"?), is at minimum false advertising. But more likely something more criminal.
And the fact that Verizon does not either get sued out of business, or pushed out of business by real competition, shows that the government is right in bed with them. So complaining to some government straw man won't change anything. Just as voting with your wallet won't change shit.
I recommend thinking about tertiary options. :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Perhaps when they say "unlimited data" they mean you're free to download and process any data (web, video, music, txt, voice, etc). I know when I hear "unlimited" in reference to a web-enabled device I think no download limits, but, it wouldn't surprise me if legally/contractually they are contrasting that with other digital devices that are limited to processing voice data or limited to processing text data.
Runesabre
Enspira Online
Same here. For $30 a month for a dataplan, I could go out and buy a new netbook EVERY YEAR, and be content on wifi if I got a call from work that something had gone completely pear shaped. I'm usually not THAT Far from wifi, and I certainly am not going to be hacking config files in VI with my smartphone while driving down the interstate.
I received this response:
I also called a couple of weeks ago and a phone rep told me (paraphrased) that I could keep my own service and deal with dropped calls all the time or pay more for better service.
So basically, Verizon thinks its service is worth more money despite providing the same level for more than any other carrier.
My t-mobile with 2 G1 phones comes with 1000 minutes, unlimited data, unlimited m2m and nights and weekends, 400 sms. My bill is an average of $130 a month.
Verizon's comparable plans would be $180 for less minutes.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I dig your precision in including the extra quarter-day :)
I really wish Verizon read slashdot. Here's what I'd tell them:
...but I'll pick the devil I know.
Hey retards: Last week I was so excited you were getting a droid phone that I actually stopped by one of your run-down looking stores in my town. I talked to a sales chick who looked like she was on meth and asked her about the phone. She was completely clueless.
Your website said you had an unlimited plan for $100/mo. It included everything except tethering. Your price was better than AT&T, and the phone was better than an iPhone. Now you're adding all sorts of stupid extra charges, caps, and limitations? Screw that. If I want to get fucked by a cell phone company, I'll stick with AT&T who constantly drops my calls, bills me incorrectly, says my 2-year contract was renewed because I called in and talked with a customer service rep, and has horrible devices and plans.
I'll bet it costs less money to beam data to the space shuttle than it does between two phones on your damn network.
Thanks for stopping me from becoming a Verizon customer.
There's no place like
You mean other than that judge "realizing" how well money changes one's mind? ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
So, it's $30 for the first 5GB and $250 for the next 5GB? That's quite an expensive unlimited plan! Hope is this fair? Oh wait, we're talking about cell phone companies - fair doesn't come into play!
Actually, my karma has been stuck on excellent for several years now. I really had no idea what "tethering" was, and just wanted to let others know.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
Data is unlimited, tethering's capped at 5GiB, as many people noted. Also my Droid seems to do exactly what it was advertised as being able to do; it's Android-based and fairly unlocked, although you've still gotta do Android mods if you want things like overclocking or non-Verizon-based tethering.
Anyway, yeah, Verizon's sometimes underhanded, but I put the screws to the salespeople to make sure they weren't shitting me, and it turns out that this really is as good of a deal as it appears. It's a legit phone with a legit contract, it really does play back Vorbis audio, it really is DRM-free, etc.
Also tethering is quite overrated and if you really really really need it, you should have your employer shell out the cash for a tethering dongle instead of abusing your cell phone. Or, y'know, learn to live without Internets while you're driving through deserts in the middle of nowhere.
~ C.
well you do get unlimited data they dont cut you off after a point they let you use all the bandwith you want you just have to pay for after a point they dont say unlimited data at no additional charge all they say is unlimited data so its not really dishonest its just misleading based on what people tend to think they mean.
I'm sure it won't be long before the Android developer community responds with "There's a hack for that"
Oh no, nobody saw this coming!
They may advertise differently but all of the carriers have a 5gb limit.
That may just work based on contract law, although even then it would be seriously dodgy since you couldn't do any normal net activities like web browsing on it, but it would definitely be considered false advertising.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"Unlimited Data for Mobile Web and Get it Now/Media Center".
They are called "Mobile Web" and "GetItNow" because they are "custom connections", neither are traditional broadband connections and are subject to the rules the "offerer" decides to apply. Smoke and mirrors and half-truths, sure. That's what they do.
That's why the Droid marketing was so short on facts and details before the release, they're playing it so the emotional consumers will buy it up before they realize they're getting gouged every month for the next two years(or pay the $300+ termination). Sue all you want, the lawyers will take your money faster than VZW will... hard to believe, but true.
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
You want to stop corporations from lying? That's tantamount to socialism!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I suppose this is the way to throttle the users...make 'em pay dearly for the the privilege to use their network for anything other than the direct use for the PDA mode.
If it applies to the ancillary functions of the device (i.e. Data's data, you use Google maps, that 5Gb cap's going to be hit QUICK if you GPS nav with it...)- that would be very problematic. I think the caps apply to things like tethering or tethering-like applications and general use on the phone itself IS unlimited. If not, expect people to badger them for that because the phone's mostly useless otherwise.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Has anyone with a Verizon Droid tried the RyeBrye hack on it? It would be interesting to know if the Verizon units are as easy to mod as the T-mobile ones...
iDon't have limits, but DROID DOES!
ahahaha.
Ok in all seriousness I wish AT&T would have an Android phone; but that's because I have line of sight to a Centennial tower, and Verizon won't get reception at my house nor my in-laws 7 miles down the road
My wife and I pay about $119/month [...] There are places where Verizon would be 5 bars that AT&T doesn't even get signal at all, and by that I mean not even Edge. [...] The moral of the story? You get what you pay for. Verizon may be more expensive
O_o wtf omg bbq o_O !!!
You get what you pay for?
It seems like the only way you can make that make sense is if you claim to pay for oligopoly abuse.
Point of reference: in Denmark, what I consider an extremely expensive subscription is ~$50 / mo. 90% land mass coverage, 99% population residence/work coverage (IIRC, roughly, grain-of-salt, etc.). I get 50 free SMS'es and 50 free minutes per month for NOTHING, zaroo bucks, then 10 cents / minute, 4 cents / SMS beyond that.
Get your regulators to regulate the telecommunications industry.
Err... I mean, get them to regulate it in a way that's good for society, not good for oligopoly rent-seekers.
Right now I'm wearing a T-shirt that says "Science -- it works, bitches" (you may have seen it on store.xkcd.com). I'm wondering whether I should get a red one that says Socialism instead of Science; it does seem to work for telecommunication.
$119/mo with bad coverage and "you get what you pay for"... I'm stunned...
(please don't take it too personally; I'm stunned not at you but at what passes for good telephony "over there")
That's what Verizon does and why even if they got the iPhone I wouldn't switch. They wanted an extra dime for every feature of my razr as well and I got tired of it. What the hell good does that map do if it costs you 5 bucks every time you want to see it.
Why bother
Sounds like the Verizon network lauded previously may not be quite so much an incentive to lose the iPhone as previously reported by slashdot ;).
"But win this one in court and then they just point out that it says nothing about guaranteed rates. Used more then 1Gb? 1Kbyte/sec maximum it is for you then."
You know, I would actually be (mostly) okay with that. It's not 1Gb or 5 Gb that I'm concerned about, it's the possibility to run up ridiculously large bills because I didn't notice hitting a limit. Throttling service after the limit is not too problematic.
I say mostly okay, because the idea of a cap or strict throttling doesn't make technological sense. Under peak load, you need to come up with a fair scheme for using bandwidth. Ideally, you first handle modest requests from people who haven't used a lot of bandwidth. But if the network is not being used to capacity, it's just lost throughput to deny it to heavy users.
...here *HAS* to be some lawyer out there who's good enough...
Of course there is... the questions isn't is there one, it's who will pay to purchase their super-hero legal services that's the problem. Verizon has super-hero lawyers on retainer -- the general public doesn't have deep enough pockets and those who do shouldn't be expected to spend vast amounts of private wealth being a societal-savior to a public whom refuses to educate themselves and is more interested in shiny than intelligent.
I am Jack's smirking revenge.
I did a survey of tethering options from the big carriers when they closed up the few outbound ports that were still open at work. The only one I found with a real unlimited data option was Sprint. I have a Blackberry Curve, and had no data plan (just use it as a phone/PDA). I had to get the "phone as a modem" addon to my voice plan, which was $40/month (less with discount via my employer). This also gave me a data plan on my phone so I could browse the web with it as well. They give you SprintVision software that works as advertised (you get a NIC on your PC with a public IP once you connect). I use it for remote desktop and occasionally for WoW when away from home (though WoW latency is about double or worse, compared to home Fios). Sprint has drawbacks - if getting missed call or voicemail notifications is important to you, forget it. Sometimes I get them days later. But the phone as a modem plan is a winner.
(NOTE: Almost completely offtopic)
/. readers to basically do the same and represent our non-tech friends and others? It would be great if stories like this, ones that piss us off, have a "Write a Letter to your Congressman/Woman/Comcast/Etc/" option. Have some sort of system where you can click a link, add your (real name) to a list with a pre-written quick intro (Dear [Your Name Here] - Attached are a list of X no. of petitioners who are knowledgeable in technology and have taken umbrage with your decision to Y." and then after X amount of time the petition gets sent, en masse, to the appropriate party.
So to heck with the general public. One of the Ask Slashdot articles today is a SysAdmin asking for suggestions on how to explain Web traffic/network uptime/etc. to his PHB. Why not make it easy for
Bark less. Wag more.
But the people who want him to fight the case can't afford his fees
Two words: class action.
let's compare it to iphone tethering. oh wait, they don't even have the option. if you read the latest buzz, the cost will be the same for iphone, when (and if) it is released, and it will also have a 5Gb cap. what are people comparing this to? just a wishy washy feeling that $30 is too much?
tethering adds a second device onto their network. a device that is considerably more bandwidth hungry than a smart phone. did you think that your carrier was going to give you an (almost) free data plan for general usage just be because you are a nice person?
Oh goody, so instead of the stress of a lawsuit with a huge telco, I wait 3 years and get a coupon good for "$10 off my next Verizon phone purchase", while the law firm makes $50M in fees and contingency?
Color me unexcited.
necessary evils
Average Joe's don't see asterisks.
verizon
asterisk. i don't see an asterisk. it just says unlimited
They did the same with ISP's in Australia, we won.
The ISP's then tried advertising their services as "Unlimited*" with the bandwidth cap in small print down the bottom. These ISP's were sued for deceptive advertising and lost. Now all ISP's advertise the bandwidth cap before shaping, not as unlimited.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
You do not need the $45/mo plan for ActiveSync/Exchange support. They will tell you to do, but from *personal* experience, this is BS. Browse the droid forums, plenty of people will tell you the same thing. Verizon is just like every other cell company - they will squeeze where they can (But I think mostly it has to do with inadequate training).
To be honest, I don't even see how they could block it... it's just an SSL connection...
Here are some comments about Exchange access from Verizon a spokeswoman. Full article here: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/11/verizon-droid-exchange/
“Most customers will pay $30 for the data plan that gets them internet access and push e-mail,” Brenda Raney, a spokesperson for Verizon Wireless told Wired.com. “Customers who use an enterprise server are, in general, business customers and an IT department is facilitating the access. [Those] are the ones who need the $50 plan.”
In some cases, Droid users who get the $30 data plan could still access Exchange, says Raney. But that will be a decision for their companies to make. “Many companies required a corporate-approved device for it to access Exchange,” she says. “In those cases, Droid users will have to get a business account with Verizon.”
The policy is not just for the Droid. It applies to all Verizon smartphones, including the BlackBerry, that want to get corporate e-mail, says Verizon.
I am a Verizon Wireless customer. They make "horrible customer service" sound like something to aspire to.
They haven't been able to get my bill "right" for months. Every single month there are random charges tacked on, that they cannot explain when I call. Until recently, they've cancelled these charges with good apology. But now?
I have two phones suspended because they are lost. Originally, I was told I could suspend them indefinitely. Then I was told that I could only suspend them month-by-month. Then I was was told I could suspend them three months at a time. Now, they're telling me that I can only suspend 6 months per year.
So I decided to buy out the contract. They're charging me for two months' service for two phones I don't even have. And they're charging me for an entire month of service for both of those two phones AFTER the contract has been cancelled!
If you are ever, EVER tempted to go Verizon, RUN LIKE HELL OUT OF THERE. They make a pack of lying vultures seem friendly!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Cell phone.... what use is a cell phone? There are actually people in the western world who do not own or use a cell phone, myself included. Perhaps I should hand in my Slashdot number and geek card at the door.
Now that's caveman!
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
Hence the rush to support Obama-care....even though we in the US are so far down the debt hole, that we cannot possibly afford such measures at this time....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
"...general public seem somewhat immune to the effects of such education probably because critical thinking doesn't appear to be fashionable."
Hence the rush to support Obama-care....even though we in the US are so far down the debt hole, that we cannot possibly afford such measures at this time....
I thought that was more to do with noticing that, amongst other things, despite how bad the NHS is at times over here (and three are parts of it that really need attention) we spend far less per capita on health care yet manage to have a better average lifespan. Or are you one of those people who thinks that all is OK as long as it is only poor people who can't afford exorbitant medical insurance that have problems? Caveat: I know almost nothing about the American health care system (though that is a little more than those using ours as a counter example know about it).
Someone please do the right thing and mod the both of us off-topic. Because we are. Grossly off-topic.
It is "unlimited" in that there is no hard cap at 5GB. You can use all you want, you just have to pay for it. See, no fine print. Your fault to assume that the "unlimited" plan for $30/month includes additional fees...
Technically, it isn't unlimited -- but that is because there's a finite number of minutes in a month so anything less than infinite bandwidth will result in a hard cap.
Coverage or not, if you tell me i have unlimited service, and then cap me at 5gb a month, that is not unlimited. When i went to look at the phone and asked all the questions regarding the "unlimited" service, the sales person mad no mention of the 5gb cap, nor did he mention that there is a $15 a/mo charge for the exchange service. The sales rep said that the exchange service was part of the $30 a month. So either sales rep was uneducated in the plans, or was trained to pimp it on the shady side.
http://www.DRIOD.com has a better price.
This is nothing new, nor is it Droid specific. This has always been Verizon's data rates.
An important demographic for Droid is not the single-phone plan geek, but rather family plans in which the parents use Verizon (and would not even think of any other carrier...for excellent reasons). The kids have been complaining for years that they're stuck with dorky phones because their parents use Verizon. Droid's function is to give the kids a phone with at least some "kewl cred" so they will stop nagging about iPhone (which would, shudder, meaning having to use, shudder, AT&T) and let Mom and Dad use their BlackBerrys in peace.
Once you realize Droid's position as the non-dorky phone for kids on a family plan, everything else starts making a lot of sense. Kids don't tether. Adult geeks and business people tether, and they can afford to pay a premium for the privilege. Kids want lots of texting, IM/Twitter, and cool games.
I have a "smartphone" in large part because I want to be able to access certain information and tools without having to lug a laptop around.
I've always wondered why I would want to tether my laptop to my phone. It seems to me that my phone, an iPhone in my case, allows me to use a browser, access my email, and get maps and directions, so why do I want to tether my laptop?
Every use case that I can think of places me someplace where I can get some kind of WiFi, which would be cheaper and faster.
I don't know, maybe I just don't need to be connected to everything all the time, in every way possible.
My guess is Mobile Web is the data plan for the phone and exludeds tethering.
I remember when I got a Bluetooth phone from Verizon. The only Bluetooth function that worked was headset - all other profiles were locked out. It had a camera but there was only one way to get a picture off of the phone and onto a computer - attatch it to an email and send it to yourself through Verizon's proxy for $1.50 EACH. Things to remember: "Get It Now" means buy stuff from Verizon and download it to your phone now. "Free" almost always has a fee attached and "Unlimited" is never what it appears. And when you hear them talking about a potential feature as "we're studying it to make sure it's useful - or stable - or safe from viruses or hackers then what they're really saying is that that feature presents a "revenue leak" to Verizon and they'll never enable it unless they can keep you from working around any of their "pay per use" features.
Remember when there was a big fuss about Verizon breaking Bluetooth on their phones? They settled a class action over falsely claiming that their phones offered real Bluetooth. There were lots of press releases about how they were going to fix it - but if you check with Verizon today you'll find that the Bluetooth is still crippled on their phones - not just the ones they got sued over, but also the new ones they're offering today. The only thing they do different is to add some fine print to their advertisements that talks about "limited Bluetooth functionality".
So when you hear them talking about tethering in the future after they "study" it a bit, what they're really saying is that it's not going to happen. If you want their data service on your laptop, they'll sell you an adapter and service for your laptop IN ADDITION to your cell phone plan. If they allowed tethering, it would cut into that revenue stream - it's not going to happen unless they're forced to do it.
My guess is Mobile Web is the data plan for the phone and exludeds tethering.
Ah but TFS says, "Verizon will charge $50 for each additional gigabyte over the 5Gb limit on the unlimited data plan. ". That has nothing to do with tethering. If I surf on my phone over 5GB, they charge me more, in spite of being advertised as unlimited web surfing.
Nothing to see here
It is "unlimited" in that there is no hard cap at 5GB. You can use all you want, you just have to pay for it. See, no fine print. Your fault to assume that the "unlimited" plan for $30/month includes additional fees...
Technically, it isn't unlimited -- but that is because there's a finite number of minutes in a month so anything less than infinite bandwidth will result in a hard cap.
So under those conditions, I can open up a restaurant that advertises an All-You-Can-Eat buffet for $9.99, with some small print listed on the bottom of the plates that says, "$2 for each additional plate after the 1st plate".
I suspect the FTC would have something to say about that. :)
Nothing to see here
Well, there was nothing really wrong with the US health SYSTEM itself...the Dr.'s the tech, drugs and facilites, etc.....but, the problem IMHO is largely with the middlemen...the bean counters with HMO's...and the insurance industry, and big pharma.
Unfortunately, the laws being passed are less about addressing these quick fix issues...and more of making it a huge federal govt. power grab.
They could have simply made it lawful for medical insurance companies to sell policies across state lines, much like the car and motorcycle insurance industry can now do. That would have opened up competition for insurance..and dropped the prices pretty radically. They could have made it to where Medicare could have bargained for drug prices with big pharma, they way the VA system does..that would save a fuck-ton of money for that system (which is about $30B in the hole I think too at this time)...that right there could have made some major fixes to the system, and would have been easy for everyone to read, and less than 10 pages long. But, that's not what they're after.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Yep. Verizon sees any standalone feature in your phone as a threat to some portion of their revenue stream.
the beatdown. Voip transitioning in Android is going to be a reality, soon open wifi spots will bring this whole internet debate to a head.
I hope the teleco's drop to 10% of their current marketshare. I think people will realize that usually when they WANT their cell phone to work they are A.) At home. B.) At the office, and once those two are free people will move over more and more to free cell phone usage.
Canada just outlawed using cell phone's in cars (though Bluetooth headsets are still legal) add on public transit open Wifi and the future is very Telecom unfriendly. And about time.
If part of the settlement is that Verizon is banned from advertising 5GB plans as "unlimited" (or, better yet, actually has to provide unlimited data), it's still a net gain.
I'm still trying to figure out how that could be used in a way that doesn't make a complete lie, or a term that would make it go from false to just douchey. Unmetered obviously doesn't work since that would be, if anything, even MORE of a lie; I suppose they could make the argument that they're not limiting what content you can access, but the net neutrality side of things is just a different type of limit.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
That's my thought as well, but I still think that's false advertising. Unlimited is a very vague term (speed? content? volume?), but the idea of using it in the net neutrality sense of the word only occurs to informed geeks that are trying to find a way to make their claim valid. The idea that "unlimited" means that they're not blocking any sites isn't going to be on anyone's radar since it's simply never used that way in the context of internet access. IANAL but I'd certainly think that false advertising laws are about public perception ("unlimited - $30/mo! That means I can use as much as I want for $30/mo"), not some sort of contractual bullshit buried in page 27 of illegible fine print. Obviously there are practical limits to "unlimited" - a connection with X bandwidth has a finite amount of data it can download in a one-month period - but nobody is contesting that.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
so its not really dishonest its just misleading
You don't consider being intentionally misleading to be dishonest? Remind me to never do business with you. It may not be false, but it's sure as hell dishonest.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
1) Unlimited data for phones and smartphones is sold and advertised as unlimited, and is really unlimited, within reason (I'm sure they make sure there are no abuses of their network such as those users that tether without purchasing a tethering plan).
2) There is no such thing as unlimited mobile broadband or tethering. Verizon doesn't offer it or pretend it exists in their services.
Prove me wrong.
Say what you like about AT&T (and who doesn't) they are not in the same class as Verizon when it comes to add-on charges. I add a company Verizon phone and was horrified at the extra charges. I switched to a personal AT&T phone and was pleasantly surprised.
Yes, Verizon has better coverage - but not where I live and mostly not where I travel.
Verizon beats all others when it comes to squeezing more blood out of a stone.
Like thousands of others I would like to see phones and service suppliers as separate purchasing decisions. In fact I would be happy to pay the extra if all phones were always unlocked.
Oh goody, so instead of the stress of a lawsuit with a huge telco, I wait 3 years and get a coupon good for "$10 off my next Verizon phone purchase", while the law firm makes $50M in fees and contingency?
Color me unexcited.
I think you may be completely missing the point of a lawsuit like this. That's... disheartening.
I see Slashdotters rant and rave about how companies use lawsuits as revenue streams, and yet here we have a comment that shows no interest in a lawsuit that doesn't result in a significant personal gain.
Sometimes you sue just to get things changed.
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
In Australia this was also tried. Thankfully we have a decent consumer watchdog, the ACCC, which has now made this kind of thing illegal.
As others have said, the "$15 extra for exchange" is wrong; if you have a "corporate" account, then you have to pay $15 extra for the data plan, but it is the same data plan as the "regular people" plan. You can access Exchange just fine with a regular data plan.
Also, it is possible to use tethering without any permission from Verizon. I just got my Droid and spent some time last night setting up TetherBot. It lets you create a SOCKS 5 proxy over USB, which is good enough for web browsing (and anything that can connect over SOCKS). In my test last night, I got speeds of 1.2Mb/s down and 0.44Mb/s up over Verizon's EVDO.
As far as I know, the 5GB "unlimited" limit still applies, so use that tethering carefully.
http://www.google.com/search?q=300+kibibits+%2F+second+-%3E+mebibytes+%2F+hour
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
$50 gb or $0.50 per GB?
My wife and I were looking at a 2 line family plan.
It was $97/month for both of us to have 700 minutes, unlimited SMS, unlimited data.
That was with purchasing two eris for $99 each.
Could someone please explain to me what is the big deal with tethering in the US? I live in Europe, specifically in Slovakia, and here we have data plans as cheap as 6 EUR/month for an essentially unlimited (AFAIK technically 4GB/month FUP) amount of data. Mobile operators here couldn't care less about tethering and they certainly don't go out of their way to prevent it! I find it hard to understand why it's such a big deal in the states and why I keep seeing headlines about XYZ limited/disabled/outrageously expensive tethering.
Wow, you can't throw a rock in this thread without hitting 16 idiots. Here are some facts for you knuckle-dragging morons who are either too lazy or stupid to do a little research:
- Data plans on VZW PDAs are truly unlimited. There is no 5gb limit on using data on your PDA. Verizon calls it unlimited because it is unlimited. This article is incorrect, and I can only suppose so many of you fell for it because you think that whatever gets printed on the internetz are always true!
- 5 gb is the cap on using any broadband device to connect a PC or a laptop to the internet. This goes for VZW, Sprint, ATT, and T-Mobile (pretty sure), whether it's an aircard, MiFi, or tethered handset. And the price is $60 with VZW, ATT, and I think
Sprint.
- All you jackalopes complaining that VZW's prices are too high, I have some news for you: in a free market, the market determines the price. There's a reason that customers don't flock to cheaper services like Cricket or even T-Mobile: the service isn't as good. If you're such a frakkin' genius, and these evil corporations are overcharging the poor unsuspecting consumers, why don't you leave your mom's basement, go down to your local bank, get a 5 billion dollar loan, start your own wireless company, and inform the consumers of America that you are going to have just as strong of a network as Verizon but you're going to charge half the price. It doesn't work that way. Here's how a free market works: pay more, get more. And if the paying more isn't worth it to the consumer, they go elsewhere. But they aren't, so it's obviously worth it.
Cripes some of you people are sad.
What next? Verizon sues Merriam-Webster to redefine the word, "unlimited"?
Bark less. Wag more.
How are they supposed to find out if I'm using some tethered device or the phone itself? FWIW, I've been using my (SE X1, WinMo 6.5) phone's data connection through my notebook for several months, and to me this only seems to establish a PPP connection (over Bluetooth, USB or an Ad-Hoc WiFi net) between notebook and phone, using the existing data connection.
Oh yeah, tethering doesn't cost extra here, but the bandwidth is metered ($50 equiv for 5 GB/mo).
Tethering through a mobile phone generally results in Big Red not able to determine what was tethered and what was actually used through the device itself.
That said, $59.99 for 5GB/month with $.05/MB over is not unreasonable. I don't think people realize that cellco's don't operate an unlimited network. It's capped because they can't just let go all their bandwidth for it. When Verizon launches LTE, they'll have more bandwidth AND speed, but who knows if they change their plans. I imagine they will increase the caps.
All this bickering about Fraud. You people are idiots.
Verizon has never advertised their MoBro plans as unlimited. If they have, then you're probably at an indirect location and should be going to a corporate store. On all your receipts of plan interactions, on your MyVZW accounts through vzw.com, all the limits are listed there right in your plan.
Just saying.
Seriously folks. You either pay for the products or services you want or you don't. The big providers are trying to offer a price point to users that don't need push email or plan to use their cell phone as a broadband hub. The downside is incremental charges to those that can't live without those extras. The smaller providers give you a hell of a deal that has crappy coverage. There ain't no free lunch. Choose one or the other and be happy.
And honestly, I think I threw up a little in my mouth when I read another whine digging into the legaleeze about what "unlimited" means. That is so 2002. Get over it.
That goes for the latest gotta-have phone on the market too. Having switched to AT&T to get the iPhone I coveted, I have no pity on people that complain about the special service terms for the new Droid. At least you know Google will be omnipotent and greedy enough to put more devices out on other networks faster than you can say "Apple".
Tethering is overrated. It's useful as a last resort. Maybe the phones out today pass data better. I tried this using a Treo then later a Blackberry on VZW a couple years ago. The best data rate was barely better than a dialup connection. Plus, on a CDMA tether, a voice call interrupts the data connection. That kinda sucks if you have to share something over a concall. Of course it's intentional that either tethering doesn't work that well or isn't available until its "evaluated." These guys are in business to make profits, not save you money. No matter what they say in the ads.
I have never heard of unlimited bandwidth for wireless data card, or USB modem for PC. I have been looking, and looking hard, as I also live in a rural environment. More info is needed to confirm that accusation. I finally decided on a combination of both tethering (Verizon BB Storm) and satellite (WildBlue) both suck (mildly) for PC use, but I'm not going back to dial-up. As of three months ago I paid monthly $140.00 for internet at my house ($5 dial-up)($65 ATT Netbook)($30 BB Storm tethered)($40 WildBlue), had to drop ATT because the service sucked, didn't need dial-up if I was getting rid of my house phone.