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Verizon Makes It Easy To Go Over Your Data Cap
jfruhlinger writes "Verizon Wireless has revamped its video service; many Android phones can now stream full episodes from a number of current TV shows. You can even choose to just buy access for a day if you don't see yourself using the service often. Sounds great, right? Well, except for the part where all of Verizon's current smartphone plans have data caps — and the new service makes it awfully easy to go over them and incur overage charges."
If you've got an Unlimited Data plan (as I have), this won't be an issue. The throttling of your service will be, however.
Fuckers.
Our telcos have been doing this for years.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
Who the hell is crazy enough to try to stream a full show episode over 3G ? Get a grip, people, use wifi like everybody.
um... the more expensive $20/mo option is ***300M*** ? what the heck are you doing over in that development country you call the states? ;)
I have no problem hitting 300M/day just using the mobile web browser when I'm away from home.... a few gigs on a slow/rainy day.
Not to mention tethering.
Scenario 1, you get a message saying your bandwidth is used up and internet stops. No great problem.
Scenario 2, the net keeps working and there is no indication but you silently get a huge bill at the end of the month. This is really bad
Which is it?
A tax on the stupid.
At least that is network neutrality. Would it really be better if they waived the bandwidth charge when using their movie service but made customers pay extra when using competing services (e.g. Netflix)?
Just think about what you're complaining about, and what it really means. The only problem is that the data caps are low and the overage charges are high -- and that is exactly what one should expect given the competitiveness of wireless service in the USA.
I'm about to return to the United States after living in the UK for 3 years, and enjoying the benefits of its highly competitive GSM cellular market. There are over half a dozen major carriers to choose from out here, each with a wide and unique range of devices and plans to choose from, resulting in overall much greater value for the consumer than is currently available in the US.
I'm not at all looking forward to choosing whether to lie back or bend over before I get rightly screwed by whatever carrier I go with when I return. We've really let these telcos run amok unchecked, and now look at us.
Regardless of carrier, go to http://www.pageonce.com/ and you'll be able to track usage directly - email alerts when approaching max allowed. Mike http://www.sceniccostarica.com/
I just had to replace a phone (canoe accident) and Sprint said the hardware replacement meant my previous unlimited data plan was no longer extended. I assume the phone companies are all watching to see what one another gets away with. At least there is competition. Most USA cell phone users give me a blank stare when I allude to "Ma Bell".
Gently reply
At home- wifi, work- wifi, friends houses- wifi. Granted the app doesn't support it now, but if that's the only thing eating your data plan and you're always going over it consistently then you could always find something else to do aside from watch tv all the time. "Waaa.... Verizon is making it expensive to be lazy... WAAAA"
It looks like the mobile industry is using strategies from the consumer lending playbook...get people in with cheap services and make the penalties extremely high if you go over your limit/late payment. This is a money-making strategy that took the consumer lending industry by storm. Watch this: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/creditcards/view/
So, people are expected to know what they sign up for and be responsible for it. I fail to see the news, other than a company is going to show just how many stupid people there are in the nation, and ones that do not take responsibility for themselves or their habits.
with it's own fee and no data plan needed?
This puts the lie to any claim that the primary problem with people who tether is their bandwidth usage. If Verizon was so burdened by the top bandwidth hogs then why would they roll out this service, thus making more people hogs? It should be obvious to anyone that the real reason is greed. They want to charge for every possible use of their (ours if you consider the publicly owned airwaves that they were leased ) spectrum. Verizon has already eclipsed AT&T as the carrier I hate most. And to think that I was almost enticed to Verizon for their fast LTE network.
I am sick of this whole game with the major cell service carriers in the US. Verizon's whole attitude towards their customer is 'you need us', not 'what can we do to make you be/remain our customer'. I am waiting for my contract to expire in two months, but unfortunately my phone bit the dust over the weekend and I decided to reconsider getting a new contract in order to get a discounted phone, so I go to the local Verizon store and had an experience that completely reinforced this perception that I have of them.
Upon entering the store I observe that there is only one other customer and he is at the back of the store being assisted by a Verizon salesperson. Eight feet to the left is a desk with two Verizon employees behind it, neither is currently involved in any task. Four feet in front of me is a small round table where two girls, not in any type of uniform. They are using iPads and have computer stations. The closer girl asks how she can help me and I let her know that I am interested in looking at new phones and discussing my current plan and options. She says "I will need to check you in, and someone will be able to help you shortly. I look to the left a the salespersons behind the desk. They are looking straight at me. My internal voice is saying, "You have got to be kidding me". I look back to the girl... "Okay". "What is your name?". I tell here my name and she writes it down on a pad and then hits some keys on the computer. I look to my left, one of the sales associates looks at the monitor in front of them, walks around the desk to the small table, picks up the notepad, looks at me and says "Are you ?". Once again, my internal voice kicks in with "You know that is my name, you just stood there and listened to me and say it" and "You do not know me. You should refer to me as Mr. ...". From my perspective, the whole scenario was setup to reinforce the idea that I need them ,not that I am a valued customer and I immediately resigned myself to not staying with Verizon and waiting out my contract.
Once I am out of contract, I will switch to a no-contract carrier and I will be upgrading to an Android phone and I do not anticipate needing more than 100 MB of data per month, so my total cost will be less than my Voice only plan that I currently have with Verizon.
All the smartphone-i-ness while being completely independent of the the cellular carriers.
I tried a Virgin Mobile prepaid phone a few weeks ago (which uses Sprint's network and no other) - and found myself completely unable to activate the phone because there wasn't a signal, in spite of what the coverage map showed. I ended up returning the phone for a refund.
I'll stick with my TracFone for now - since I rarely text, and don't use it often, I can keep it going for less than $7/month, and I can get a decent signal just about anywhere. It sucks in other ways, though - the camera is craptastic, and the phone is deliberately crippled so that you can't get pictures in or out except via MMS, but I can live with that.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
What if eveyone on Slashdot that is concerned about this issue were to file a complaint against these telcos here I wonder what would happen? I think that would be interesting to watch these telcos squirm their way out of this practice once justice comes a knocking.
I think I just found VZ's new marketing campaign.
They just need to license it from Staples first.
I'd comment but I am using my Verizon phone for internet and I'm affraid they will see. ;-)
How about Austin, TX? Mass?
You have huge swathes of bugger all. But where you have a high population density, you have one carrier, two if you're lucky, not owned by the same company.
Buys up all the spectrum, drops unlimited data plans.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
It sounds to me like the marketing department came up with a plan for a service and the billing people set the data caps. This is one of those situations where Hanlon's Razor applies pretty well, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
If you even want to watch TV, let alone stream it on a phone, you deserve whatever you get.
If I was in charge, you'd be taken to a camp for sterilization, because society cannot carry the load
of idiots like you any more.
I don't see anything wrong with Verizon offering content that is so irrestable that they end up making more money. In fact, I'm pretty sure that is their sworn duty.
Grandmother's chocholate chip cookies make be deliciously irresistable but it is still my fault if I fall off my diet.
Cheers,
Matt
Got a letter from Cogeco Cable Internet the other day. Was told that not only were they increasing the speed of my service and slightly increasing my bandwidth, that they would also be increasing the cap to which I pay when I go over my actual bandwidth cap from 30$ to 50$.
I see a movement to a model where you have to go over, and all the profit is from making you do so, and charging exorbitant rates at the same time. So while the bandwidth curve of need is an exponential curve of X, the cap curve will be much lower and Y, the shaded difference is all profit at 1.5$ a GB or what ever it is by that point... Because you know that 50$ will become 100$, and then there will be no limit, and cap will be zero GB...
That is where we are headed. That is where the ISP want to go. It seems pretty obvious to me, that they are just doing it in baby steps and small increments so as to not upset anyone or get the rabble all roused up about how much they are getting hosed.
I'm not looking forward to my data cap at all, but I am glad I renewed my contract last December. I get to keep my unlimited data plan until Dec 2012 and then we'll just see what happens.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
These sorts of scams from wireless providers have always been in place. Their networks have always had overstated bandwidth capacity, have always been grossly overbooked, and have always been overpriced. They're really turning the screws, now, so that I can't believe anybody could possibly overlook how screwed over they are if they sign the contract. All this for being able to view "content" on a tiny little screen, perhaps not even at full motion speeds.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Circa '95 was my first exposure to the WWW. Since then the 'browser wars' have been escalated in order to allow for better 'analytics' (user tracking), layout ('zine-like presentation), motion (video) and 3D (still relatively nonexistent). One consequence of all of these efforts is the increase in the amount of 'data' that must be moved across the web to facilitate (mostly) corporate interests. And as a customer I am required to pay for everything that moves toward me without control or understanding of the the nature of the request(s) I make with a single mouse-click.
At the time, broadband internet service to the home was unaffordable for most individuals. Both POTS and cable companies were able to upgrade their networks to take advantage of demand, and wireless companies followed suit. Now the user/used are asked/required to limit their total data stream per month WITHOUT adequate means to understand where 'it' comes from. This is ridiculous.
As an internet customer I am now charged for 'using' bandwidth without adequate tools to understand where it originates. Personally, I resent this and desire the opportunity to understand the nature and origins of the data that I request when use my browser to 'request' far more than I ever bargained for when I started using the internet.
There oughta be an App that I could use to allow me to track my own usage, en totale, as well as with a more granular breakdown. One that categorizes packet traffic by type: TCP signalling as well as scripted tracking from all the various entities that provide so-called analytics 'services,' and content; with text, graphics, and video broken out appropriately under a 'content' subheading, for each domain; and another subheading for time by day, week, month, year. I believe state commissions should require all ISP's make this type of tool freely available to all their customers. Contracts and tariffs are ever-changing but customers remain, by and large, in the dark, unless they are geeks or professionals. Parents who are increasingly responsible for the their children and most of whom are incapable of keeping up with the volatile nature of the opportunities or consequences of their charges' actions should have the opportunity (at no additional expense) to understand what the network connection they pay for is used to accomplish, from both all ends of the connection.
If you go over your data cap does the provider disable your data connection for the month and send you a notification or do you just get a huge bill at the end of the month without any warning?
When you get a half baked phone that will be fixed a few weeks later with some software updates, who pays for the update data coming down through your pipe ?
I have an unlimited data plan, but I only use 1, maybe 2 GB max a month. This morning I was curious what my options would be if i chose to get off of it.
I currently have the choice between unlimited for $29.99, 2 GB for $30, 5 GB for $50, and 10 GB for $80.
Needless to say, I stayed unlimited.
Can you imagine if ISPs tried to charge these batshit crazy rates?
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
TFA seems to be long on speculation and short on actual data. Obviously streaming video isn't bandwidth-cheap, but does anyone have real figures on how much data streaming, say, a standard 24-minute TV show would take, and how many episodes it would take to hit the 2GB monthly cap? If they can, for instance, stream a low-quality episode in 10-20 MB then this seems like much sound and fury over very little...
What makes it egregious is that Verizon pre-loads a number of applications on to every Android phone they sell, configures Android so that those applications cannot be removed ... and a subset of those shovelware applications regularly send and receive data with no way to disable them.
A service provider offering "irresistable" content is one thing; "an offer you can't refuse" crosses over the line.
Write your republican reps, write your republican friends, or if you are a republican realize this is why we need a CPA.
Someone in the government needs to say "Hey, stop f'ing you customers."
In the long run people will get overage charges like they used to with long distance, local news and national news ( 20/20, dateline ) will "expose" it. Then someone will come along and say hey don't like caps, don't like overage's come to us.
I'm actually more interested in abstracting the actual network. If there are companies that can sell tower time then perhaps Google could just offer direct Internet access.
Now you know why they did it.
Let's start the chant....
Phase 1: Tease.
Phase 2: Deal with customers who are both pissed off and confused.
Phase 3: PROFIT!
Let's go, team!
It's like saying, Amazon is trying to make you spend more money by providing more attractive merchandise.
Plus you can always use wifi.
LOL! Such an epic fail. PR wise.
EPIC win for profits. It's aaaall bullshit :)
Introduce extreme low caps, then introduce a video streaming service to reap insane bandwidth charges on already vastly overpriced bandwidth :D :)
Cool, i'd like to be the one who collects the overages, but i would never signup for a service like this
OK i admit i signed up to dual sim + usb 3G modem for 20€ which disallows P2P, but unlimited otherwise :) now i got a fast "permanent" connection for my garage too :D
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
I've been pleased with the service I get at T-Mobile
You won't be pleased once AT&T completes its acquisition of T-Mobile. A recent review in Consumer Reports says that of the big four carriers, AT&T has the worst customer satisfaction.