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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?
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
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
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"...
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.
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.
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
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
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
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.
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.
They can't enforce it, people tether with Verizon phones now without tethering plans, and there are already tethering apps for Android. Also, Exchange is only extra if you're a corporate customer.
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?
It's going to be heavy and called Millstone.
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.
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'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.
The leadoff negative point about the droid is that he doesn't like the way the back of the phone looks because you can see the battery cover. Come on, that's ridiculous. Most of use the front of the phone.
It still surprises me that people still cannot tell the difference between Gb (Gigabit) and GB (Gigabyte)
No, no, lemme break it down.
Data is cheaper in bulk, but I probably won't us that much data. I'd certainly use more than 15MB if it was both cheap and convenient; the web browser on the Droid's better, I can download MP3s from Amazon, and I may not always have Wifi access, so I might find 1GB/mo at $6/mo reasonable. However, as I can break 800 text messages easy and the difference between 1000 and Infinite is $5, it's likely I'd be paying $60 + $30 now(!), nevermind my $60/mo bill somehow costs me $80/mo.
Looking at my bill, I pay almost $15/mo for data; 2mb of data, and $10 for owning the VZNavigator app. As the Droid will give me a mapping utility that should replace VZNavigator, plus unlimited data, I should lose that $15... so my bill should drop to $72 plus the $30 ... $102/mo.
By the way, 1112 text messages, plus 336 within Verizon's network, plus 86 picture messages. That 1000/mo for $15? Not doable. It's either $40 + $20 for 5000, or $60 for unlimited. Yes, it costs the same to get INFINITE texts/pics as it does to get 5000.
Well I'm getting the Droid, and I'm definitely abusing the data plan.
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Well, I am in Canada. I'm on Telus. I have an unlimited data plan that actually is unlimited and it costs me $45/mo. I easily use 25GB of data a month (tethering included) and still just pay that $45 fee.
Good plans are out there, you just have to find them. Canadian carriers don't make it easy.
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
Actually there's no hard-and-fast standard for capitalisation of the abbreviation of "bits" and "bytes". There's an IEEE recommendation on the subject, but if you follow it, you should only use "B" for bytes of unspecified size, and "o" for eight-bit bytes. Thus there's a hard core of technically literate, but perverse, souls who favour the lower case, for consistency with the SI units.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
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.
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?
Unlike the iPhone, the Droid has removable storage, so apps can be split between the phone's onboard storage and the memory card. Google is also working on a way to introduce loading off of SD cards, similar to apps2sd. So, as an example, you could have the main DOOM binary file on the phone's memory, and the WAD file on the memory card.
The physical keyboard's fine. Yes, it might have been better if it were thicker, but it's hardly the worst keyboard out there. And since it doesn't take up half the bloody screen, I prefer it. The store mock-up units have a keyboard that's nearly impossible to press down, but that's not how it is with actual units. When they gutted the phone of anything valuable to put on display, they probably took out the bits behind the keyboard. I've only used the on screen keyboard for a few simple things, like entering my YouMail PIN, but it seems just as good as the iPhone's portrait keyboard. Which is to say they both suck, and take up half the bloody screen.
There is multi-touch, but something people seem to have problems understanding is that pinch zoom != multi-touch. I don't understand the fascination with pinch zooming anyway. It seems a completely unnatural way to use your phone to me.
My Droid is amazingly fast. At least as fast as I remember the 3GS being the about 2 weeks I had one. Even some of the areas reviews says it lags a little, I'm not seeing it. My Droid ranks right up there with the iPhone and has multi-tasking.
The Droid's browser is based on the same WebKit engine Safari and Safari Mobile are, so you might want to know what it is you're knocking before you actually knock it. Because right now, you're basically attacking the foundation for your beloved iPhone's Safari Mobile. So in case that was too subtle... To say that the Droid browser sucks is to say that the iPhone's browser sucks, because they're based on the same rendering engine. Actually, the Droid's browser is based on a more recent version of WebKit than the iPhone. This may well change with the next OS update, but for the present time... Also, while I'm as big a supporter of open standards as the next person, from a pragmatic standpoint let's be honest. Being 100% ACID compliant doesn't really mean much. The bulk of the web pages out there are generated by some program, or just poorly written in general. And so long as Internet Explorer, with it's rather spotty standards support, remains the dominate browser, that is what people are going to be writing to. Very few people will use features that aren't supported by Internet Explorer, so until Microsoft starts setting its sights a bit higher with regards to standards support, passing the ACID tests is really just one of those feel-good-do-nothing sort of things. It's unfortunate, I wish it weren't the case, but that doesn't change the way things are. If I could change the world just because I wanted something to be a certain way, I'd probably have about 10 different supermodel wives who are complete nymphos. Sadly I don't.
The camera is maybe a bit sub-par for a high end phone, and allegedly there's a fix in the works, but honestly for a cell phone camera, virtually every photo I've seen taken with it is pretty good. I don't expect $500+ DSLR level quality out of a cell phon camera myself, but there are apparently some people who fancy themselves some kind of great and glorious master photographer, yet refuse to use anything more than a cell phone camera. I just sit and scratch my head in a strange mix of confusion and curiosity when I encounter these people.
The Droid supports more formats than the iPhone, out of the box, from my recollection. The media player app that ships by default may be rather spartan, but this is another one of those things I wonder about. Do you want a cell phone or an MP3 player? Any company that tries to make a device that's everything to everyone will generally fail at doing both. I can understand having some basic abi
-Aerogems-
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
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.
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).
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
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."
The reviewer seems a little clueless. Seriously he thinks learning programming in java is harder than using javascript css and html? And he tells developers to run (from android) based on his opinion of a single phone? Seriously? I think he lacks a basic understanding of the phone market.
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
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...
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.
"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...
Mod Parent Up. This is exactly correct, and exactly how service is set up for Blackberries on the Verizon network. The data plan is unlimited for data used from the phone, it's the tethering that has the 5gb limit on it. There are also ways around VZW's tethering fee, there are many programs available that can use the phone's own net connection as a proxy an allow tethering, rather than using the "official" tethering method. Such as PDANet for Windows phones (and Android, I believe) and TetherBerry for blackberry phones.
Bork Bork Bork!!
You want to stop corporations from lying? That's tantamount to socialism!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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 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.
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.