Verizon Hints At Scrapping Unlimited Data Plans

BusinessWeek reports that Verizon may be preparing to follow AT&T's example by eliminating unlimited data plans later this year. Quoting: "'We will probably need to change the design of our pricing where it will not be totally unlimited, flat rate,' John Killian, chief financial officer of Verizon Communications Inc., the wireless unit’s parent, said in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York today. The company anticipates 'explosions in data traffic' over wireless networks as new phones on 4G networks incorporate data-heavy applications, such as video downloads, he said. Verizon is working to keep its network running smoothly as more of its customers switch to smartphones that connect to the Internet. ... 'The more bandwidth that you make available, the faster it will be consumed,' said Craig Moffett, analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York. 'From Verizon’s perspective, the last thing you want is for another generation of consumers to be conditioned to the idea that data is always going to be uncapped.'"

Comments

Why not raise the price instead?

[YA_Python_dev]

Why eliminate them completely, why simply not raise the price until it's profitable if some consumer want them?

Re:Why not raise the price instead?

[drinkypoo]

Why eliminate them completely, why simply not raise the price until it's profitable if some consumer want them?

That's what they're doing. It's called "charging by the minute" (or megabyte).

The simple truth is that if you sell an unlimited connection, some users will cost you far more than other users. Further, if you kicked all those users off your service tomorrow, you wouldn't lose that much money. And if you charged people the actual cost of unlimited service and then spent it on providing it, which includes actually building out new capacity, then you wouldn't be able to give your execs gigantic bonuses they don't deserve.

Re:Why not raise the price instead?

[hedwards]

I'd like to see a citation as well. Considering the way that the iPhone and iPad function, I can't imagine him being opposed to anything other than the term. As those products use an excessive amount of bandwidth. If you're going to use those devices as intended, you're going to burn through a huge amount of bandwidth, that's just the reality of it.

Re:Why not raise the price instead?

[westlake]

some users will cost you far more than other users. Further, if you kicked all those users off your service tomorrow, you wouldn't lose that much money

You might be making more money - with less investment in infrastructure.

if you charged people the actual cost of unlimited service and then spent it on providing it, which includes actually building out new capacity, then you wouldn't be able to give your execs gigantic bonuses they don't deserve.

This assumes there are enough customers willing to bear the real cost of providing "unlimited service" to make the investment worthwhile.

Re:Why not raise the price instead?

[tsm_sf]

That's what they're doing. It's called "charging by the minute" (or megabyte).

It's spelled "charging by the minute" but it's pronounced "collusion".

Re:Why not raise the price instead?

[WrongSizeGlass]

Why cater to the customers needs in the first place? Just screw them as much as you can.

If you're a hooker those two are one and the same. I'm just sayin'

Re:Why not raise the price instead?

[drinkypoo]

Who are you to decide what someone else deserves? Unless you are a voting shareholder you have no valid opinion on the matter.

I'm entitled to my opinion, and so are you.

Re:Why not raise the price instead?

[laughingcoyote]

How about if I'm a "voting customer", who will happily take my money elsewhere if someone tries to screw me?

And if there are so few choices and they all (in reality or in fact) collude, by making changes in lockstep, that's exactly what regulation is for. So no, it is not only shareholders who have a vote-ultimately, the public can veto anything the shareholders decide, through exactly that mechanism, and that's much more likely to happen if the company makes people unhappy on a regular basis and does not respond to negative feedback by scrapping or changing what it planned to do. The ability of those shareholders to be shareholders with highly limited liability is the result of a corporate charter granted by the government, and thus also the people. If the company starts to abuse that charter by utilizing a large market share to charge more and offer less, the people have every right to modify, limit, or revoke that license to operate with limited liability, and to define boundaries outside of which the company may not step.

It absolutely sickens me to see "No, just shareholders! Shareholders! Screw the customers, the employees, and the public!" Giving customers something they'll want to keep even when their contract is up, keeping employees happy so they will stay long-term, and maintaining a good reputation with the public are all part of the long-term viability of a company. You're ultimately hurting even the shareholders when you piss them all off for a short-term quarterly boost.

Re:Why not raise the price instead?

[ChairmanMeow]

The ISP could charge a flat rate for everyone, and the power users who go over 250 GB can be charged 10c for each additional gigabyte.

Are you kidding? This is Verizon we're talking about. I'm currently have a phone with them (a cheap phone) and was recently looking into their data plans. Their non-"unlimited" plan is $10/month, and beyond a limit of 25 MB (not GB, MB) the price is $1/MB (again, not GB, MB). Somehow I think any new non-unlimited plan of theirs would be a lot more expensive than what you're thinking of.

Re:Why not raise the price instead?

[_KiTA_]

Why eliminate them completely, why simply not raise the price until it's profitable if some consumer want them?

Because they know in 5, 10 years their network will easily be able to handle any data usage -- presuming they can stop buying their execs yachts and cocaine -- even while the advent of stuff like streaming HD Netflix Movies will send data usage through the roof. By getting us weaned off unlimited data NOW, they will make much more money LATER when everyone is hitting a paltry 2 gig cap.

Whenever you have a pay-per-minute system, you eventually see it shift to a pay-per-month system, and the price drops. We've seen it in ISPs, MMORPGs, Long Distance, and Cellphones. In each case, the companies remain profitable, but no where near as much if they were able to keep the pay-per-minute scheme going. But market forces force the companies to give customers a pay-per-month system over X number of years, which seems to be where consumers are happy enough.

Data plans on cellphones are evolving to that point. The next step would be the price dropping like a rock, which is the "part 2" of the market forces mess above. The cellphone companies are (probably illegally, but it's the US, so whatever) conspiring to price fix their market by simply dropping the rates en mass so that customers can't just flee AT&T for Verizon or Sprint or whoever has a sane plan, since they're all dropping the plans.

But this isn't about money. At least, not short turn.

It's about forcibly preventing that evolution so they can ride the wave further on out. Their networks are woefully insufficient, data usage is going up at a rate only Raymond Kurzweil expected, and it's only the start of the exponential growth (helloooo iPad HD Netflix App)... But all of these pale in comparison to the hope that they can stop the evolution of their market. ... Because if they can get people used to the idea of $25/2GB data plans that sound ok now, but in 5 years would get you maybe a movie or 4 streamed before the obscene data charges kick in... $25 is going to look like chump change. Remember that these are the assholes who thought ahead far enough to make the web buttons, which load just enough on your data plans to cost you a few cents, stupidly easy to press. They make millions from it.

If they can get the average user -- or the average for their network -- to spend more than $6 a month in overage fees, this whole mess becomes hugely profitable for them. IF they can get it to $7, $10, or even $15, it's even better.

Re:Why not raise the price instead?

[dgatwood]

Which is nice, in theory. In practice, there are only two cell providers in the U.S.: AT&T and Verizon, and they're both doing this. If you live in a major city, you could use Sprint/Nextel or T-Mobile, but neither of them has the infrastructure to be a viable competitor to AT&T, much less Verizon.

And this is why I keep saying that widespread telecom infrastructure can feasibly be operated only by government-founded nonprofit orgs. As soon as you have for-profit companies providing the infrastructure for critical services, you end up with a market with insufficient competition to prevent abuse. If you want ubiquitous free-market competition in telecom services, you have to take the infrastructure out of the picture.

And lest you say that cell phones aren't critical services or that you can live without a cell phone, I would point out that most homeless people I've seen in California have cell phones. It's so essential to modern society that people choose a cell phone over a roof. And although cellular data is not in the same category right now, it's only a matter of time until it is (and cellular data can't exist without cellular voice anyway, making that a moot point).

The only alternative is extreme government regulation, and although this can help fix the worst of the monopoly/duopoly problems and increase coverage areas, it rarely results in any significant amount of true competition. We need a nationalized cellular tower service that leases nationwide tower services at a low cost, and we need it twenty years ago.

Re:Why not raise the price instead?

[Macrat]

Which is nice, in theory. In practice, there are only two cell providers in the U.S.: AT&T and Verizon, and they're both doing this. If you live in a major city, you could use Sprint/Nextel or T-Mobile, but neither of them has the infrastructure to be a viable competitor to AT&T, much less Verizon.

Sprint and T-Mobile can drop calls just as good as ATT/Verizon in major cities.

Re:Why not raise the price instead?

[Shakrai]

How about if I'm a "voting customer", who will happily take my money elsewhere if someone tries to screw me?

Am I the only one that refuses to pay $30-$45 a month for the privilege of having a "smart" phone? I look at from two different vantage points, A) I'm not paying [mega-corp] the same amount of money for 5GB as my unlimited cable modem connection costs, B) If the matter is truly important whomever needs to reach me can just call me.

I've set up numerous smart phones for co-workers of mine and I'm not convinced that they actually increase productivity. They are a neat toy for looking shit up on the go but Google SMS is sufficient to look up the information (weather, phone numbers, addresses) that I need most often.

Re:Why not raise the price instead?

[laughingcoyote]

Erm, that's the opposite of what I said. That may work in markets with low barriers to entry and large numbers of genuinely different competitors, but there are fewer and fewer of those. For the most part, barriers to entry are high, and most people have access to one giant quasi-monopoly, or maybe a few giant oligopolies. Regulation absolutely has its place there.

If you want to regulate in such a way that meaningful competition is allowed by lowering the entry barrier, such as mandatory linesharing at reasonable rates, I'm actually alright with that. In some cases, that may even be a better case than direct regulation of what the existing players may and may not do (though even then, there probably have to be some "lines in the sand").

But no, overall, it's not the "land of opportunity" for whoever says to themselves "All the cell companies suck. I'll go do better than all of them." I can't go do that, even if my idea really is superior to anything they're doing, because the barrier to entry in terms of initial cash required is so high. Can you?

Unlimited already means 5G

[wesw02]

Verizon's current unlimited plans aren't actually unlimited, they translate to 5G per month, if you exceed it you'll be fined. IMHO that's already a class action waiting to happen. This just sucks though, cell phone carriers charge more for internet and you are getting less of it.

Re:Unlimited already means 5G

[rolfwind]

They should really stop advertising "unlimited" in America. If there was an ounce of consumer protection in the government, they should hammer such terms as what it is, fraud.

Re:Unlimited already means 5G

[hedwards]

I think most people assume that unlimited means that it's as much as the device can use. I don't think anybody seriously believes that they're entitled to more than the full capacity of bandwidth use constantly over the month. That would be stupid. But, any constraints that the carrier places beyond what the device can handle is fraudulent in my view. If they want to call it unlimited, then they damn well better not be putting in any limits that the device itself doesn't require.

Re:Unlimited already means 5G

[ScytheBlade1]

It isn't a 5GB cap. You're free to transfer as much as you please.

Anything over 5GB gets rate limited to 56k speeds, though.

They're giving you unlimited data, and past 5GB, you still have unlimited data. It just isn't fast, and nothing in their terms of use prohibits this. You can't really drop a class-action lawsuit against them doing that either.

You're not fined for going over 5GB, just throttled.

Re:Unlimited already means 5G

[ScytheBlade1]

Sorry to reply to myself, but I thought I linked this.

http://www.intomobile.com/2007/11/03/verizon-wireless-when-we-say-unlimited-data-we-mean-5gb-worth-of-unlimited-data.html

While that article is just as good at trolling a subject line as the OP is, the part we care about is this:

And, should you exceed the 5GB/month limit on your “unlimited” plan, Verizon will “reduce throughput speeds of any application that would otherwise exceed such speed to a maximum of approximately 200Kbps” – with actual speeds “subject to change.

It remains functionally unlimited, and the same type of cap pre-5GB applies: connection speed. Just a different speed.

Re:Unlimited already means 5G

[internic]

I'm guessing part of the problem is that even if one carrier/ISP wanted to be honest and explain the limitations that they would really impose, their competitors won't do it, and as long as the average consumer is unwary they will opt in favor of the better sounding deal. I assume the reason this may be changing with mobile phone carriers is that enough users are starting to bump up against the hidden or unstated limits that the lie of "unlimited" service is no longer tenable.

Re:Unlimited already means 5G

[bynary]

I just called T-Mobile on such fraud. Here is the abridged version of the conversation I had in the T-Mobile store (oh wait, even though the store has the T-Mobile logo plastered everywhere with nary another brand name in sight, apparently it's an authorized reseller) with a sales rep:

Me: Do you sell air cards?
Rep: Yes!
Me: Great! Can you tell me about it?
Rep: Sure. You get unlimited data for $39.99 a month.
Me: Unlimited? Really?
Rep: Yes!
Me: Is that 3G or 4G?
Rep: It's 3G but it's actually faster than Sprint's 4G.
Me: Great! Sign me up.

(I know what you're thinking: that should have set off warning bells in my head)

Signed up, took the air card home, and did some speed tests online. Expected: 2-3 Mbps. Actual: 730 Kbps. Two weeks later, after updating the firmware on the air card and trying two computers (Mac OS X and Win7), I placed a call to T-Mobile to cancel my service due to false advertising. After two customer service reps and a tech support rep, I finally got through to a "manager." Oh, and it turns out "unlimited" means 5 GBs and then they throttle your connection speed down to below half. And, it turns out, their new, faster 3G service isn't actually available in my area yet.

Me: I want to cancel my service without incurring the early termination fee because I was lied to by a sales rep in your store.
Mgr: It's not our store. They're an authorized reseller.
Me: (Rather irritated at this point) But they bear your logo. Regardless, T-Mobile ultimately sets the prices and dictates the terms of the contract. I want to cancel my service because what I was sold in the store and what I'm experiencing at home are two entirely different things.

(After lot of back and forth about network speeds, technical issues, pricing, contract terms and etc.)

Mgr: I can offer you half off of your termination fee or if you can get the store to take your equipment back we won't charge you any fees.

I got the T-Mobile/not-T-Mobile store to take the equipment back and canceled my service. T-Mobile is all kinds of FAIL, and I can only imagine what other wireless carriers dream up to sell to their customers.

No surprise

[name_already_taken]

This isn't really surprising.

Verizon has always seen their customers purely as a source of profit, and has done everything they can to maximize the fees they can charge customers - going as far as disabling bluetooth file exchange on their phones so customers have to send things like pictures via the Verizon network so they incur data charges.

Eliminating unlimited data plans is a logical step in maximizing profits.

Jjust admit you found another way to fuck us.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Just admit you found another way to squeeze money out of your user base. Thats all this is really.

Its like text messaging. Everyone wants it, so lets charge everyone ridiculous rates to send text.

Now that everyone wants smart phones, lets charge everyone for data because we can.... and theres nothing you can do about it.

Re:Jjust admit you found another way to fuck us.

[massysett]

Its like text messaging. Everyone wants it, so lets charge everyone ridiculous rates to send text.

Now that everyone wants smart phones, lets charge everyone for data because we can.... and theres nothing you can do about it.

Boost Mobile. $50, text all you want, unlimited web.

Cricket. $40, text all you want, unlimited web.

So there is something you can do about it, but you'd rather sit around and whine. Or maybe you want the top notch devices and top notch network but you don't want to pay for it. Okay.

Re:Jjust admit you found another way to fuck us.

[Zak3056]

I never understood why people are WILLING to pay exorbitant amounts of money on stuff because they believe it is "premium".

Bad example, here--AT&T, Sprint, or VZW actually are "premium" services compared to Boost or Cricket. Just look at the coverage maps.

Re:Jjust admit you found another way to fuck us.

[azrider]

Bad example, here--AT&T, Sprint, or VZW actually are "premium" services compared to Boost or Cricket. Just look at the coverage maps.

News flash - use Boost CDMA and you are using Sprint (IDEN on Boost is the old Nextel which, while still Sprint, does not have the coverage).

Re:Jjust admit you found another way to fuck us.

[tweak13]

News flash - use Boost CDMA and you are using Sprint

Bullshit.
Boost uses Sprint, but gets none of Sprint's roaming agreements with other providers. That's a HUGE change to coverage. Those roaming agreements are the only reason Sprint has good coverage. Take away the ability to use those Verizon towers and your only hope is that you are one of the lucky few that live within range of a Sprint tower.

Re:Jjust admit you found another way to fuck us.

[Zak3056]

News flash - use Boost CDMA and you are using Sprint

I hereby retract "Sprint" from my statement above (not using Sprint, I didn't realize how poor their coverage actually was) but what I said still applies to AT&T and VZW.

Consumers are getting mixed messages

[ClaraBow]

All the content providers are pushing for mobile TV, streaming music, video chat, stream movies and the cellular data providers are trying to condition consumers to the fact that data is limited and you must pay for it! What really gets me is that the data providers are also pushing content and at the same time are worried about usage. Something doesn't seem right here!

Re:Consumers are getting mixed messages

[grumling]

For the most part, the cell companies in the US are pushing THEIR content, not general web content. Their content is cached at an on-network data center, formated to fit their bandwidth constraints (320X200 video, 4KHz mono audio), and in some cases, content providers paying for access.

Going off their formula to 720p YouTube isn't what they want you to do.

Not so backwards after all

[lul_wat]

Here I thought New Zealand was 10 years behind because we don't have unlimited data. Turns out we were 10 years ahead.

SMS != data

[name_already_taken]

What they need to do is uncouple phone from the network -- to the point that the subsidized phone contract is seperate from the phone plan (allowing a customer to switch from month to month) and to stop distinguishing between different types of data -- like texts vs emails and the like. It's all just data.

Verizon's network has been CDMA, which I'm not terribly familiar with (I closed my Verizon account back in 2002 and haven't looked back), but at least for GSM, text and data are not the same thing. I don't know how it works in CDMA, so it could be different for Verizon, but over GSM, SMS messages are squeezed into unused space in control packets that the phones and towers exchange normally even if there's no call happening. So on GSM networks, SMS isn't data and incurs no cost at all to the operator. SMS should be completely free on GSM providers.

Data, on the other hand, takes up packets/bandwidth that would otherwise be available for voice service, so there is a cost.

Re:SMS != data

[lancejjj]

SMS messages are squeezed into unused space in control packets that the phones and towers exchange normally even if there's no call happening. So on GSM networks, SMS isn't data and incurs no cost at all to the operator. SMS should be completely free on GSM providers.

I agree that there is little if not zero "tower-to-handset" bandwidth cost for SMS messaging.

However, SMS (and MMS) messaging does depend on all that infrastructure that's in place, and by providing SMS services, the telcos are required to reliably route and deliver the messages around the world. That message handling and routing certainly has a cost, and therefore I believe that providers have a right to fairly pass on a portion of the cost of their infrastructure investments (plus a fair profit) to the users of SMS services.

HOWEVER, I am no apologist here. At least in the USA, providers charge very high fees for text messages. If I send a 15 character text message to my wife, we get charged $0.40. A few pennies may be fair, but far more than $0.39 of that $0.40 is profit. Furthermore, SMS is configured to be parasitic - my friends (and spammers) like to send me text messages without my authorization. That costs me $0.20 every time, and there is no way for me to stop them without giving up my wireless service altogether.

What is even more disturbing is that all the telcos in the US have generally increased their SMS rates to a new high. They now charge the same outrageous fee ($0.20 in, $0.20 out), leading me to believe that instead of competing, they are colluding.

In short, telcos have decided (individually or together) not to compete in this area, to the detriment of all telco customers. Laws should be considered to encourage fair and healthy competition in this space, which will encourage healthy SMS industry growth and efficiencies.

Re:SMS != data

[shawb]

SMS... incurs no cost at all to the operator

Not exactly true. Transmission to the tower is essentially free, but transmission of the data in the SMS packet across the network, and subsequent routing to the destination phone does cost the carriers money. Additionally, having SMS in the protocol means that bandwith is no longer free to add increased functionality or allow compression that would allow a tower to strip the dead space and allow communication with more phones.

But, yes, SMS is not carried over the 3G channel and so should not be incorporated into that billing. And while the per message cost of supporting SMS isn't that much... the actual total cost to a telecom is significant; I would almost suspect something on the order of millions of dollars annually. Although I will gladly acquiesce that claim if someone shows me actual internal figures.

The Lowest Common Denominator

[Enrique1218]

The only competition these guys do is seeing who can give their customers less. Forcing data plan, hiking early termination fees above the value of the phone, charging for text messaging, ring tones, and now limiting data plans. There is little difference between any of the wireless service providers in terms of what they provide. The cell phone lock in and multiyear contracts allow this to happen and stifle innovation. By getting a $600 smartphone for $200 with a multiyear contract, we lock ourselves to vendor and can't leave them when they cut service. Instead of developing the technology to meet the customer demand, they would rather trained their customers not to expect too much

Re:The Lowest Common Denominator

[Fnord666]

By getting a $600 smartphone for $200 with a multiyear contract, we lock ourselves to vendor and can't leave them when they cut service

I have found this is incorrect. If your provider changes the terms of your service agreement, you have the option of discontinuing service instead. To change the terms, they are basically terminating your current agreement and starting a new one. If you chose to leave, you should not have to pay an early termination charge because the provider chose to terminate the agreement.

Yet another excuse to charge more money

[Xpendable]

This is BS. This is nothing more than an excuse for Verizon to squeeze more money out of customers. I am getting frakked in the the a$$ by Com-Xfinitysucks-castic by ridiculuous price increases and equipment fees. I pay over $100 a month for 1.5 mb download and digital basic tv, and that's WITHOUT HD. If I want HD, I have to pay an additional $40 per month plus an upcharge on an HD box. Now Comcast just forced me to get these stupid DTA boxes which eliminate the ability to get any free HD channels and effectively eliminates the QAM channels I used to be able to pick up on my LCD HDTV. WIthout the DTA I can only watch 15 channels. And of course they only give you 2 "free" DTA's... if you have more TV's, you have to rent them for $2 a month. Nothing but a SCAM. I am cancelling Comcast. And when Verizon ends the unliminted data plan, I am cancelling Verizon. Seriously... I might as well forego internet all together. Frak these companies who make it so expensive to enjoy technology with their 400% upcharges on services.

Re:Yet another excuse to charge more money

[hedwards]

Ouch, that must hurt. I'm paying roughly half that for a 6mbps connection. I've personally had a lot of good luck with DirecTV and Qwest. Earthlink wasn't too bad for DSL, but whatever route you take, you're pretty much guaranteed to give money to either the cable company or the telephone company for internet. There's just no meaningful competition.

Around here, you drive around and you see a huge number of satellite dishes popping up. I guess it turns out that people were sick of paying for channels that didn't come in properly on Comcrap. It might be a bit better if you're getting cable through a bulk package as a part of a condo association or similar, but the cable company just doesn't care enough to provide the service that it promises.

Same really goes for cell service. Since for the most part they all suck, there's basically no motivation by any of them to actually improve.

Two comments

[c0d3g33k]

First: Contrast the behavior of big companies like Verizon who consistenly reduce their level of service with that of companies like Linode, who consistently increase the level of service offered to their customers for no additional charge: http://blog.linode.com/2010/06/16/linode-turns-7-big-ram-increase. THAT is how you ensure customer loyalty. Sometimes squeezing every last penny out of customers isn't the best way to do business.

Second: When I purchased my smartphone, I didn't like being forced to purchase the "unlimited" plan for $30/month. Since the phone has WiFi and I'm usually near a WiFi access point, I was willing to rely on that to save some money. Instead I had to drop a second phone from the plan so my monthly bill didn't increase too much. If their new data plans include limitied but reasonable data allowances for a lower cost, I'm actually ok with that. The real problem is that it seems many (most?) current smartphones don't easily allow 3G to be disabled until needed. Or deprioritized with respect to WiFi - eg. Use WiFi preferentially when in range, only fall back to 3G if necessary and only for the apps configured to do so. (Note I say *easily* - I know data can be turned off but it's a PITA. The normal state is "data always on".) Given that these devices are constantly accessing the network, if simply having the phone on with data enabled puts people in danger of incurring overage charges when using the standard plans, they (Verizon) did it wrong. The new plans should take "normal" use into account, be less expensive than current plans, and provide reasonable options for heavy data users. Then this move might actually be a good one, benefiting everyone.

Re:Two comments

[markus]

What you are asking for is arguably a very specific feature and something that is probably too complicated for typical end-users. But it is nonetheless quite useful and something that should in fact be available for power users who don't get confused by the fact that they might accidentally disable all data-communications on their device.

On GSM/UMTS devices, you can probably do most of what you want to do by installing APNDroid from the Android market. It allows you to selectively disable non-Wifi data connections. There are a few other applications (e.g. Timeriffic) that are aware of APNDroid and that can be configured to en-/disable data based on other factors (e.g. time of day). I believe there are similar applications that can trigger based on location, but I haven't tried that myself.

Unfortunately, I believe that this option is not really available for CDMA devices such as the Droid. Last I checked, APNDroid only worked on devices that actually use APNs -- and that's a GSM/UMTS technology.

Normally, in a situation like this, I would suggest you look at community-firmware such as the Cyanogen project, as they tend to be quite good about adding a lot of features for power users. But again, I think that won't help you. Last I checked, the Droid was difficult to work with and didn't have much in the way of community-firmware.

Sorry that I can't be of more help. But maybe some of these suggestions will give you an idea on where to look for a solution.

Re:Two comments

[Floritard]

Netflix is a great example of this. I just love the company. My girlfriend has been a member for years now. They recently added support for streaming on my PS3 and more recently the Wii. No additional charge for this. They even sent us the disc for free. Then we just decided to cut back from having 3 discs out at once to having just the 1. We still get the streaming option with this plan. So really we've started giving them less money for, arguably, more service as we don't even have to wait for the mail now. Of course the selection isn't quite as large yet but still, most of the stuff we want to see is stream-able. Money's getting tight and we might have just canceled the service altogether.

Especially if we didn't just like Netflix. I feel like I'm taken care of with them in a way I can't say many other companies whose goods and services I buy make me feel. Lose a disc in the mail? No problem, we like you so not only are we going to forget about it, we're going to go ahead and promptly send out the next disc in your queue right away. They even do this if a disc is scratched. That is, if you tell them it's scratched. They just go, okay go ahead and mail that one back to us, but in the meantime we're going to send out another disc right away. They don't even wait for the damaged disc to return to them for evaluation. This is a company that values customer satisfaction over their own stock. Because ultimately my satisfaction is more valuable than a few pieces of their stock.

Then there is a company like Blockbuster Video. I was living for a time in a separate town from my girlfriend. So no Netflix for me. There was however a Blockbuster right next to where I worked. I went there occasionally, mostly because I had long had a membership and it was just easier than signing up for a new place. What can I say I'm lazy in odd ways. Then Blockbuster finally decided to get into the online game and I let a cute girl go ahead and sign me up. I figured I could rent some dvds, rip them that night and return them when I went to work in the morning. I powered through entire series of television shows in days and after two months of membership I canceled and had months worth of entertainment to watch at my leisure. I realize I was still giving money to Blockbuster, but I like to think that with all the processing costs I was at least a small loss for them. In fact I seem to recall them hiking their rates around the time I canceled, probably just due to them not fully appreciating the cost of their program, but I like to think that abusive customers like myself had something to do with that.

Because fuck Blockbuster. After years of exorbitant late fees, charging 1/5 the price of a game for a rental, hawking crap at the register, and finally just flat out pulling late fees off my credit card (this unexpected action cost me an overdraft fee or two in my lean college years!), I have slowly built up an attitude of contempt for these guys. I hope they fail in their bid for online and I hope they die a miserable death. I see the Blockbuster sign and I loathe it. I see the Netflix logo and I feel kind of warm. Sooner or later these businesses will come to understand the value of that.

Re:I'm so fucking tired of capitalism.

[speedlaw]

I had relatives on the "wrong" side of the wall. Things there didn't work out too well either.

Honest question

[Nikker]

I have never been involved in ISP grade networks and I pose a question to those more knowlegeable in the field. Have we hit the proverbial wall in terms of bandwidth? Is it possible (once last mile is satisifed) to have a somewhat reliable 1000mb low latency connection into every home or is this something that is limited not by finance but by some other principal? Lastly can any one provide an approximation where large ISP's are today in terms of backbone connections and maybe some hints of the major bottlenecks (aside from last mile) that is being encountered?

Re:Honest question

[Comen]

I work for a big ISP, and bandwidth is not a issue on the backbone, we do more bandwidth in VOD video to the home than internet service will come close to for a long time.
The amount of bandwidth in the last mile has always been the real issue, but for home internet service that problem is getting much better and I would says both cable and dsl services have been able to provide over 100mb services to a house for awhile now, but there is a cost of upgrading equipment, and you will need more equipment (dslams,cmts) since you will be able to put a smaller amount of customers on a device. But these are just money issues, not technical ones, and these companies make lots of money, they are VERY profitable.
This goes for Verison also, it is very cheap for these companies to use several fiber rings around a city to get fairly cheap bandwidth, more bandwidth than they could ever use for cell phone back haul (10 gigabit ethernet between towers) but I would have to assume the bottleneck is the tower to the phone. I do not know much about this equipment works really, I am not sure if this equipment is limited by the amount of connections on the tower or the bandwidth of each connection, but I would assume that this is a issue that can be solved by spending money on more or better equipment.
I have a hard time listening to these companies whine about bandwidth, when they are making a killing, you can not even get attention in a Verison store where I live the demand is so high you get a number like you are at the DMV. The number one highest growing market is cell phone service, these companies know these very well. So having to upgrade equipment should not be a issue, it should be what they do, what they provide us, its a good problem to have!

Now about the unlimited plan thing, for most customers that buy a unlimited plan, it is not about having lots of bandwidth, its about insurance, or piece of mind!
This allows them to let someone play with the phone with out counting pennies, or that little johnny did not get a hold of my phone and run up a big bill by mistake, it lets you play with the phone with out counting minutes, but I guarantee for every 1 person that uses allot of bandwidth, you get 20 that do not use much bandwidth at all but want the unlimited option to make them feel protected from 1 bill that they are not ready for.

Of course they will

[nurb432]

Everyone else is doing it, so why wouldn't they? Just like the bad old days ( for those that remember it ).

I still think this was the intent all along. Make it 'free' long enough for people to start relying on having data available, introducing even more bandwidth hog services, then after it will be hard for most to back off, start charging "per use" again. They are no better then drug dealers, except they get away with it.

Re:MBA solutions to technical problem

[hedwards]

Yes, and he's correct. Bandwidth lasts infinitely if nobody uses it. I say bravo on the courage to piss off your customers and chase them to the competitors. It takes real guts to preserve bandwidth in such a courageous way.

This is about VoIP.

[barfy]

Unlimited Data ultimately means that VoIP wins and the entire pricing structure for cell phones is over.

Cellular "minutes", must still be worthwhile or cell carriers are over.

This will be a big hit for mobile internet radio.

Phone companies wet dream

[hpa]

The monopoly telephone companies have always been obsessed with getting users to pay by the usage unit, even when flat pricing made them more money. It does seem to reflect their thinking more than profit maximization; one possibility is that they have a vastly exaggerated notion of the inadequacies of their own plant, or alternatively they are suffering from lottery-style thinking -- the executives have happy dreams about the poor sucker who left their phone connected and got a $10,000 bill.

In the USA, at least, flat-rate long distance did not become common until it got to be way too easy to bypass the monopolists.

This is a load of crap

[bl8n8r]

I find it hard to believe that millions of people having one or more computers capable of downloading movies, ISO images, Youtube, music streaming, gaming and emailing 50MB attachments in their homes can pay a flat rate for internet access with unlimited bandwith but the same people trying to view some pics or webpages on their mobile phones are causing "explosions in data traffic". Smells to me like someone is fishing for something to pin cost increases on. Frickin crooks.

Re:This is a load of crap

[Bruha]

Verizon Corporate has consistently lost money over the last decade, the only reason they're profitable is because of the money they bleed off Verizon Wireless. If Verizon Wireless had been a separate company it would of been a gem on the NASDAQ. Same goes for AT&T wireless, AT&T bleeds the wireless division to maintain it's failing business models.

Re:I'm so fucking tired of capitalism.

[AHuxley]

Sure in your Zil limousine's, but the FSB and NSA will record every call and data packet.

Insensitive clods.

[BrokenHalo]

'From Verizon's perspective, the last thing you want is for another generation of consumers to be conditioned to the idea that data is always going to be uncapped.'"

I don't know what generation they're talking about, since 300 baud was considered a fairly good linespeed when I was in my 20s, and the amount of data you could transmit was limited by the size of the trolley we used to carry all those mag tapes around.

Re:Insensitive clods.

[cbiltcliffe]

Funny, the first thing I thought of when I saw that quote:

'From Verizon's perspective, the last thing you want is for another generation of consumers to be conditioned to the idea that data is always going to be uncapped.'"

was this:

"From Verizon's perspective, the last thing you want is for another generation of consumers to be conditioned to the idea that they might actually get something in return for all the money they give us."

There. Fixed that for you.

Re:Insensitive clods.

[Bert64]

Data was always unlimited, or rather only limited by the speed of the connection...
There was nothing to stop you running your 300bps modem flat out 24/7, the problem is that end user connections have increased in speed faster than the carriers have invested in backbones to carry that data...

The original story is misleading

[ewieling]

I don't know what kind of "unlimited data plan" Verizon Wireless is talking about. They do not currently have and, as far as I know, never have had an unlimited data plan for "air cards" (USB dongles). Originally their "unlimited EVDO service" had a 5GB/month cap. If you exceeded that cap they terminated your service. You could not appeal. This happened to me. After the the class action suit (bruoght in California, I thing) they sent me a refund for the money I paid for the card. As I understand it the court ordered them to stop using the term "unlimited". Then they went to a throttled model where they would throttle your service speed back if you exceeded your 5GM/month limit. I did not have service at that time so I did not personally experience this. Then they stopped throttling and just billed you for over usage. US$70 for the monthly service (5GB included), then about US$250 in overage fees for the next 5GB of data. They still do this, but will now contact you if you get close to your 5GB monthly limit. How nice of them. I now only use my EVDO service when I'm at my weekend cabin. I Verizon is the only cellular provider with service at my cabin. My other options are dialup or satellite, neither is suitable for SSH. I would be much happier if 1) Verizon would stop lying and 2) their service cost US$70 per 5GB of overage.

I'm all for it

[obarthelemy]

in theory

I have Wifi at home, at work, and pretty much everywhere in between. So I barely need data. If there was a very cheap data plan, I'd take it. Right now, I have no data plan at all because it's too expensive for very little utility.

Also, I don't object to heavy users of a scarce commodity (bandwidth) paying more than light users.

That's assuming that telcos are investing sufficiently, and are not sneakily raising prices... but that's another issue, really.

Re:Oh hell no, I can't leave that one alone

[Anonymous Coward]

If you enter into an agreement to extend their network service so they can profit from it, but you get nothing from it, then they are flat out screwing you.

I agree. But I personally wouldn't enter into an agreement where I would "get nothing out of it".

I recommend no one enter into a zero-value agreement.

Re:Why is that "collusion"?

[kaizokuace]

When one company sells something that customers want and then another competing company matches their price/product/etc to access those customers, that is competition.

When one company decides to force a product to become worse but cost the same and then another one follows suit. That's something else.

It may or may not actually involve collusion but it sure doesn't do anything good for the customers.

Re:Why is that "collusion"?

[Hognoxious]

Matching can occur in either direction.

Competitor lowers prices, so must you if you don't want to lose market share.

Competitor raises prices, so can you, and you're leaving money on the table if you don't.

It's only collusion if it's planned and orchestrated. Do you have any hard evidence of that?

Why all or nothing?

[istartedi]

Why just scrap the plans? Why not have a "hard transfer limit", and then pop up a Yes/No dialog on the phone that lets you know you exceeded the limit, and offers you per-minute rates for the remainder of the month.

That's no different than "all you can eat" buffets. Those of us who simply want to get full shouldn't have that taken away just because somebody camped in the restaurant. In fact, that has happened, and I wager most if not all restaurants with "all you can eat" now specify a time period.

piffle

[koan]

so the 2 or 3% of users exercising their right to unlimited data (their right because they paid for that) are bringing down your network.

Then your network is sub standard, try putting some money back into your network so you can grow your user base, because other countries (such as Finland) don't seem to have the problems that ATT and Verizon have with bandwidth.

I'm at the point in my life that if *any* corporation is making a change, it's to screw me and make them more money while offering fewer services.

your argument is flawed, they're unnecessary

[Chirs]

Homeless people have cell phones *because they don't have homes and so can't have land lines*. A phone is a lot cheaper than a roof, so your argument is spurious.

I've got 10yrs experience doing software development for a living. I don't have a cell phone. Heck, I don't have a laptop. There are times it would be convenient to have both, but it's not worth the money to me.

Re:Why is that "collusion"?

[mysidia]

Two companies out of the blue decide to suddenly impose a usage charge on a service that used to be free? (Bits of data transfer)

This is not 'price matching'; this is changing conditions of service to create mutually beneficial revenue opportunities for both companies.

And it has been coordinated, as the changes for both companies are announced in close time proximity.

Do you have a reasonably believable explanation for this other than collusion, planning, or orchestration?

Re:Why is that "collusion"?

[murrdpirate]

I think you really underestimate people. I think the general public understands that movies consume a lot of data, and I certainly think most smart phone owners do. Even if some of them didn't, people generally don't stare at their shrinking wallet as drool drips of their chin. They can learn.

Entities like youtube can adapt too. If people feel constrained by their data limits, they will demand that content providers be cognizant of this. Many content providers already are, simply because it's too fucking slow to watch hi-quality videos on a cell phone (because of people like you who use 10 GB a month!!).

AT&T is planning on putting a cap at 2GB a month. According to AT&T, 98% of their customers use less than that (and 65% use only 200 MB!). http://www.wirelessweek.com/News/2010/06/Business-ATT-Data-Use-New-Plans-Data-Services/