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Sprint Cutting Unlimited 4G Data Plans
itwbennett writes "In a notice posted Thursday on the customer support section of its website, Sprint said it would impose monthly data caps on plans for all tablets, laptops, netbooks, USB and PC Card modems, and mobile hotspot devices — everything, that is, except smartphones. The caps will begin with each subscriber's next bill following notification, the carrier said."
They better stop advertising it as "unlimited" since it's not really truly "unlimited" anymore
There's no place like localhost
Glad I don't have to depend on them for anything but phone service, and will get rid of that when contract ends. Buh bye, Sprunt.
Seems like when the iPhone comes, unlimited data always goes despite the baseless concerns on data usage. All this should do is just make people figure out how to make everything look like a smartphone.
Welcome back to yesteryear when everything is nickel-and-dimed, since nobody will provide flat-rate data.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I wonder what this is going to do to Clearwire's stock price. This is clearly a vote of no confidence in their network capacity.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
This makes me want to switch to a Sprint smartphone plan.
A government official that will force the carriers to unmeter data.
Hold the carriers feet to the fire enough, and they'll provide it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Welcome back to AT&T of yesteryear where douchebag hipsters on their iPhones hog all the bandwidth
This only applies to "mobile broadband device such as a tablet, netbook, notebook, USB card, connection card or Mobile Hotspot device" and hotspot apps and tethering for phones. Normal smartphone use is still unlimited.
Yes they are. Smartphones still are and will be unlimited for the foreseeable future. They never advertised unlimited for the USB modems. Stop trolling.
Yeah, I just saw one of their advertisements today.
Uh-oh, Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do!
just jail brake your phone and make it a hotspot
The title is a bit misleading here - Sprint isn't cutting the Unlimited access they advertise on TV (they specifically show phones in the ads I've seen). The cut is being made to other devices. Not that I like that a whole lot better....
They better stop advertising it as "unlimited" since it's not really truly "unlimited" anymore
I hope your shiny new consumer protection system is better than here in Canada. Bell Canada got away with that lie (advertising "unlimited", but having - get this - secret caps for years on the DSL side and never got their nuts rapped for it.
Obama isn't beholden to the telecoms the way he is to Wall Street, is he?
Funny, I just saw an ad on TV about their "unlimited" plan today. I love how corporations take common words and turn their meaning around. "Yeah, Mr. Judge, it's unlimited, but unlimited really means up to 2 GB a month"
Hook, line and sinker. Bandwidth is there to be used.
Hogging the network is a cop-out.
They've made a material change.
Cast your contract into the fires of Mount Doom.
Only there can such evil be unmade.
You bet they better! I just saw one today during NFL football. I think boasting about it then going back is worse than capping it to begin with.
I think ATT and others have been tracking this and are stopping it for the users that still had unlimited data. I wouldn't be surprised if Sprint does the same. (I have a jailbroken sprint android phone which i use hotspot all the time.)
I love how corporations take common words and turn their meaning around.
Its called "lying".
But where will we ever get more bandwidth from? Have you seen how hard that stuff is to mine?
I ended up moving into a Sprint dead zone anyways. I pay my 4G bill month after month with not a single kilobit of of 4G used.
I use Sprint at home, and go through quite a bit of data (in both 3G and 4G areas). I checked TFA for a source at Sprint, but it just said the "announcement" was buried in the support pages. Does anyone have a better source than this "article"?
Here in Australia, the majority of internet providers for home (a)DSL/Cable provide capped plans - but don't charge anything once the plan is exceeded, they simply throttle the connection speed right down (to 64 or 128k speeds). Is that the same in the US, or do ISPs generally just go to a $ per Gb model? The mobile broadband here does generally charge per Mb once a mobile plan goes over the limit however, so a phone bill can very quickly become astronomical.
I am curious if this is the same over in the US/Canada. If a user is merely throttled down to a slower speed once the data limit is reached, it seems like a lot of fuss over something quite small?
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Yeah, I mean, how are we going to build all those tubes? If it were just a dump truck, we would be all set but, alas, we are stuck working with tubes...
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
I don't see how they need caps when everyone I know on Sprint in southwest Michigan can't get anymore then 150-250Kbps anyway. They're doing a great job keeping it unlimited by keeping our speeds low. If my phone wasn't paid for by my job I would have ditched them, but I can't seem to justify $100+/mo for a decent provider with the features that are offered to me on my company plan.
They call this Unlimited* in the UK. Notice the asterisk. That asterisk points to a Fair Use Policy (FUP) that pretty much says: "it's unlimited as long as you don't use it much, but if you do, we'll burn a hole in your bank account - that will teach you to want Internet access, you... you... paying customer you!".
Smartphones still are and will be unlimited for the foreseeable future..
until next week?
until next month?
If you've ever tried to use throttled internet here in Australia, its like trying to shave with broken glass. I don't just mean it's slow, pages just never load.
The big reason carriers want to lock phones is that you drop off the radar for data usage.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
We are ever the first to use "it" (whatever "it" is), we roar and soar for a while, and then the monopolies began to form...although since monopolies are now forming that impact the use and spread of information and technology, we are likely to be technology followers from here on out.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Never heard of that practice, and no why would they. It is not like they really care how much we use they just want to make more money so throttling is counter intuitive unless you are on a unlimited plan.
And it is more like $ per Mb.
My plan for example is $.015/Mb (about $500/30GB) over 5 Gigs.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Actually I have on many occasions used throttled internet here in Aus, probably more in the past rather than recently, but I never really had an issue with it. I was always with decent providers though (such as Internode) and not the likes of Dodo or TPG. Perhaps that makes the difference?
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Didn't their CTO just go on record recently saying the unlimited plans weren't going anywhere? http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/27/sprints-unlimited-data-plans-arent-going-anywhere-cto-confirm/
What's the rational behind capping one type of use, but not others? If it's network congestion, why does it matter how the network is being congested?
If I manage to download 11GB on my phone is that somehow less stressful on the network then if I downloaded 11GB on my laptop tethered/hotspot(ed) to my phone?
Considering opting out of my contract because of this. That, or maybe push for a discount.
What are the odds that after the smartphones, particularly the iPhones, become capped/metered just after sales die down, and the majority of the customers are in a 2 year contract.
You can build as many tubes as you want. Airwaves are a bit more limited, and probably a lot more expensive.
Sprint has been cutting back on features and raising fees for a while now. It's getting out of hand. They're probably doing it all in an effort to make up for the $28B they paid Apple to sell the iPhone. Here is a list of some of the changes.
* Removal of the Sprint Premiere Membership Program and the removal of all its benefits
* Using your phone as a Mobile Hotspot no longer has unlimited data but is now capped. It still costs the same $30.
* Adding a $10 a month 4g charge to every 4g line on an account regardless of whether you get 4g reception or not. This charge was then expanded to include all smartphones on the Sprint network, even if they weren’t capable of 4g.
* No more Billing to Account.
* An increase in administrative fees per line.
* Raising the Early Termination Fee on an account by $150 to $350 for each phone line.
* Changing the arbitration rules for settling customer disputes in a way that heavily favors Sprint.
* Stopping people from leaving Sprint because of the arbitration changes without being charged the ETF, even though Federal Courts have ruled that changes in arbitration rules are a material change in the contract.
* Eliminating unlimited 4g data from it’s Mobile Broadband plans.
* Dropping WIMAX for their new LTE 4g network. This not only means that if you do not have 4g currently, you will never have it for your current 4g phone but also that all Sprint 4g phones being sold today, even if you are within a current 4g area, will stop operating as 4g at the end of next year because they will not work on Sprint’s new network.
Sprint sucks.
Take whatever pill you want, but read the directions this time
Marketing vs Truth. Marketing should be illegal.
Actually, they did advertise unlimited 4g on their PCS cars (USB modems). They didn't advertise 3G unlimited, but they said if you had 4G coverage, and your device was in 4G mode, then it was unlimited data.
Fair use policy?? This is a fair use policy. What sprint (and every other telco) is doing is called a 'Fuck the Users' Policy.
That abandoning cellphones as a primary method of cost-effective communication is a great idea. NetTalk/Ooma. $35 a year, landline service.You can just damn well wait till I can check my email/phone log at -home- . Beats the $250 a month for the absolute 'bare minimum' plans that Verizon will allow for two cellphone lines.
How can the first post be redundant? Why is that even a mod option for the FIRST post...
Sprint 4G to smartphones has always been limited by the really crappy 4G coverage. Even in NYC I hardly ever get a 4G signal. It seems like even a 7 storey apartment building is enough to block 4G.
Any way you look at it, "unlimited" 4G has been a scam from Sprint.
And why does Sprint get to unilaterally delete features from its contract? What's the point of a contract then, except to force the consumer to pay and take Sprint's abuse?
--
make install -not war
The commercials are talking about smartphone plans, which are exempt. I'm not a fan of capping anything, but you should probably make sure you know what you're complaining about or people who don't agree with you will probably dismiss you.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
Well some of us have what they call grandfathered data plans. I have $59 per month unlimited plan on my data card which I signed up for about 4 years ago. They stopped offering that 2 years ago but my plan keeps going despite contract being ended a while ago. If this limit applies to the likes of me, it will be good-bye sprint.
o_O
But it's still unlimited. You can use it 24/7 365 days a year! We don't limit when you can use it so we can still call it an unlimited plan!
Isn't marketing speak fun?!
And T-Mo just cut off tethering for their smartphones, unless you want to pay another $15/month. Seriously, getting to the point to finding $100/month a little ridiculous (and I only use around 1gb/month in data with tethering).
Maybe I should just go back to POTS. Leave me a fucking message on my answering machine.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Yes, but they are trying to apply this to existing plans. Not grandfathering in existing mobile hotspots, but screwing everybody.
Not going to happen. I will cancel, write the attorney general if I have too, and shove the ETF straight up their fucking asses.
3GB is absolutely worthless for a cap. I only have that cap on 3G right now and I don't care because I have it locked to 4G. It's a problem for business too. Verizon and Sprint just don't get it. Average use, and I mean average, would be around 20 gigs per month at least.
If the caps were anything near reasonable I would be cool with it. Unlimited is impossible, I can accept that. Or at least that truly unlimited would have higher associated costs.
These fucking carriers are either unlimited or set you to a small teeny weeny trickle of data. It's stupid as hell. Clear was great for a while till they overloaded their infrastructure and banned VPN. Of course, they won't admit it, but their quality speaks for itself.
This whole thing sucks ass. I got to call up and cancel tomorrow.
Well, many years ago, everyone charged per Mb over the plan limit, but I think the ACCC got involved after a number of "outrageous" bills made it into the news and told ISPs to clean up their act - or perhaps it was bad publicity over the crazy bills people were refusing to pay, but for the most part ISPs now just throttle down. A heavy user will still get the bigger plans, but users won't suddenly get slugged with a $50k bill (there were a few in this price range for a single month).
Sure, it's not really in the interest of ISPs, but it isn't an unreasonable request of them - and they all seem to do it now.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Competition is drying up faster than Lake Meade!
Smartphones still are and will be unlimited for the foreseeable future. They never advertised unlimited for the USB modems.
Given that a modern smartphone is pretty much a 3G/4G modem with a screen, and connection sharing is built into most of those devices, that's a pretty blurry line.
On another note: I wish, 128k is 1.3 gigs a day which is not bad (you could have a new movie or a few TV shows every day on that speed) and even the 64k is not horrible.
In the US and Canada is seems more like we are moving to super high speed, super low caps, and huge charges for going over and no notification.
Personally, I do not really care what my speed is, as even around dailup speed you can still get a decent amount per month downloaded. But it is easier to get a 50Mb connection, that you can only use for 6 hours straight on full speed before you ran out then get anything unlimited.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
just learn to spell
So they could cut it. I was thinking of writing an "Sprint Android 4g Enabler" app that just turns on and says "Searching for network" and then "Couldn't find network", which is all Sprint's 4g button has ever done on my phone. Assuming I can get any coverage at all, which is pretty hit or miss. Seems like we need a better solution...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Look dickweed, I don't begrudge someone making money, but for what they charge for their "unlimited" data to a fucking smart phone is akin to what you can buy REALLY unlimited via your cable, dsl, etc. I know you are going to say, "But it comes magically through the air to you!" Really? No shit? This happens so often with technology is pisses me off. They come out with something they can rape you on, they get together and set the prices to so they can all rape you together and until too many hungry fuckers get in the game and screw it up for them, they keep raping away. Remember back when we paid a quarter a minute on the phone, or higher? They had the tech to make it a flat fee and make plenty of damn money off it, but is that enough to make great money? Fuck no, they have to make OMFG money, and it's easy with these pussy politicians that they buy lock stock and barrel at prices that would make whores blush.
Don't give me your pretzel logic for defending this horseshit, unless you work for these cocksuckers. Then I understand.
As far as making money, how about someone comes over to your house and kicks your teeth down your throat if you don't give them whatever they want? That's "making money", are you going to whine about that? Of course you will, because it's WRONG. You see, that is the beauty of living in something called a "society", we get to make up the rules of what is "wrong". But of course that is currently bullshit, because we don't get to make the rules anymore, the corporate cocksuckers do because they OWN the rule makers. This is why every time you turn around to buy something or pay a bill you are getting FUCKED, they all want as much out of you as they can possibly squeeze.
But if you don't "get it", I understand. Untold fortunes have been spent to brainwash Americans into a disgusting "serf mentality" to be good little drones and wish someday they too will be like those they are told to idolize. I can't undo that kind of brain damage in a couple of posts. Sweet Jesus, if I could I would be the savior of mankind wouldn't I? Who wants that? You end up on a cross or something.
So, Fido, be a good dog and pay that high price just to check your email for more dick enlarging spam or tweeting what you had for lunch to the other dogs. Holy fuck, you sure don't want to miss out on a nanosecond of Facebook, so by all means, don't let me get in your way. I am so damn sorry I bothered to protest the high price of a trifle of data. What was I thinking? I will go gouge out my eyes with a spoon in shame for such atrociousness. Set me on fire with a flame thrower please.
Take the Red Pill.
Did they advertise "unlimited for smartphones" or "unlimited"?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
The devil is in the details.
Unlimited as long as you are on a sprint tower, roam onto another carriers tower and you will be charged for that data.
There is a reason it's called a "cellurar network". It's a network of cells.
Just build more cells and make them smaller!
Telstra still do it, my work ends up with many $500+ phone bills for the first few months after they bring someone new in to work's mobile plans - the users get given a smartphone and use a few hundred MB of data checking email, but sometime someone forgets to switch them to a $10 1GB plan and we get slugged for casual data rates. The cheeky bastards at Telstra know it is a mistake but do nothing to warn the users that their bill is going to be an order of magnitude larger.
While they are douchebag hipsters... There is PLENTY of bandwidth yet.
However it is still a good idea to screw over the rich, clueless, douchebag hipsters with data caps.
Sucks for everyone else tho huh...
I actually don't object to caps for that reason. Some people use way too much and there are limits. You can't just magically increase wireless bandwidth since there is only a certain amount of spectrum you have to play with. You can do it to an extent by building out the network, having smaller segments, but there are limits to that because of interference, and also just practical limits as to where you can put antennas (never mind cost). It is a shared resource, people have to play nice and not use it full bore all the time.
My objection is to the stupidly low limits they set. 5GB on a 4G network is beyond retarded. It is far to easy to get near that even with fairly light use. The caps need to be raised quite a bit. Also they really shouldn't be hard caps, as in you get charged more past a certain point since it doesn't cost any more, they should just be caps at which you start facing speed limits. You download a ton of shit and other people get higher priority on the network.
Didn't your parents teach you that stealing is a crime?
I don't begrudge companies changing their product offerings by any means, but what does irritate me to no end is that companies will ADVERTISE what a good deal their service is, right up until the moment they actually change it. That strikes me as borderline false advertising... Sign-up the day you see the commercial, and get the advertised deal, or wait until a few days a find there's no "there" there... What's the legal limit of how long they have to honor their advertised service levels?
Personally, I'm not too concerned about the caps. WiFi is all over the civilized world, so that covers 95% of my Internet usage. Where there isn't WiFi, hell, be a little frugal, and cut out the videos and you should be pretty safe. I'd go for dial-up speed access if the price was right, just as I'm immensely happy with 3G and don't give a damn about paying through the nose for a 4G speed boost.
There's a world of difference between having SOME internet connection, and no internet connection, and that's really all I want when on the move, or in the middle of nowhere. After that, we just need the overage fees to be reasonable. Best to go with pre-paid cell phone service there, since they pretty well have to advertise that up-front, and can't hide it, or any other fees, in the tiny print in the contract... Billing is simple, and the rates are usually the best you can get. $40/mo (after a year or so) for Boost Mobile unlimited everything with a smartphone, etc. $35/mo for Virgin Mobile's low-end plan, with decent overage fees, and no long-term contract hassle.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
At least the initials are the same (if one follows the tradition of omitting non-critical words)
There is a reason it's called a "cellurar network".
Because it uses a proprietary compression algorithm?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAKNjEi3Xao
It's technically true. The "best" kind of truth.
Just not for anything BUT smartphones I guess...
non-unlimited, de-unlimited, post-unlimited, limited or 'de luxe'?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
sipp brother
Yeah the aholes that torrent on their hacked androids all day are clearly not the culprits. Its those pandora listening porn watching facebooking hipsters. Gtfo.
Sprint is doing what you want them to do if you like to invest in successful companies.
What's that, killing the goose that lays the golden egg? Yeah, short term quarter to quarter thinking is far more important than the big picture.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Several companies offer hundreds of megabytes for $25/month. For a lot of people, that's worth it just to get E-mail, chat, navigation, traffic, weather, and other stuff.
If you are paying Verizon's inflated fees, you only have yourself to blame; there are alternatives.
What a coincidence, Sherlock! What are the odds..
Nice one. :)
Perhaps this is one of Apple's goals. They want you to pay per-song and per-episode, so they're getting you used to paying per-gigabyte, too. All hail the glory of capitalism!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
In the US the majority of ISP's charge based on bandwidth. You pay say $20 / month for a 768K connection up through around $70 / month for a 50 Mb connection where I live. There are no data caps - you can use it as much as you want.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
I usually get by on a few hundred megs per month, and I use my 3G constantly. It's not a problem for normal smartphone usage.
Hey A$$hat they're talking about 4G data. The iPhone is still
3G.
Evidently, you miss the old days when Stalin gave you all the free, high-speed Internet you wanted! Uncensored too!
You don't have to pay penalties, but you still have to pay off your equipment. And afterwards, you're left with a device that is next to useless because it won't run on any other carrier's network.
That is why I have been saying for years we need to have a minimum on the amount of time you can flip a stock, say have 90% capital gains for the first 24 hours, 80% for the first quarter, etc, so that Wall Street will stop being Vegas with nicer clothes. All this sub millisecond trading has made the entire western business world into one giant "fuck everything but the quarterly earnings report!" which is how we end up on the short bus. new lines don't get laid, new buildings don't get built, hell i bet if you fired everyone the stock would go through the roof!
We need to make stocks about INVESTING again and not gambling and quick flips which is what it is now. Reward companies for thinking long term instead of this "fuck everything" attitude. otherwise whileAsia builds out capacity and thinks big picture we'll get to enjoy higher prices while our shit falls around our ears. TFA is just another example of how instead of building more capacity they take it and let their shit get behind. I know in my area the big duopoly hasn't moved a single inch in nearly 20 years, even though the city has grown by nearly double since that time. Now there are sections of downtown that can't get any high speed, similar to what i saw in parts of Nashville a couple of years back. nobody builds anymore and that will leave us without a chair at the table in the future if we aren't careful.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
is a proxy :)
I have an android phone with a 2GB plan from AT&T and, try as I might, I have been completely unable to use all of it. I don't even bother turning on WiFi at home or work anymore because it just chews up the battery. Even running Pandora and Netflix, AND a hotspot on car trips to get my wife's laptop on the web, the most I've been able to use in a month is 1.4GB.
Just by a show of hands, has anyone actually been affected by, say, a 2GB cap, and if so, how do you use it all? I must be missing something :)
No need to hold back; tell us how you really feel.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
goto parent_post;
which is totally what she said
I'm posting this comment from my "Mobile command center": Laptop with wireless keyboard and mouse using a fold out clipboard as a table in the car, tethered to my samsung intercept running ubuntdroid on sprint.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Hypocrisy is an argument! If it could be worse, that means your current situation is good!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I would agree with you, but I live in the ass end of the universe. I live in a dark corner of a State in the middle of "fly over land", I am sure natives living in huts on the Serengeti have more cell carrier selection than we do. We have two carriers to pick from, Bad and Worse and Verizon is the better deal.
Take the Red Pill.
Settle down you dumb cocksucker. No one gives a shit for you or your fucking pig shit story. You are not smart. You are not clever. You are just another speck of geek filth. Dropnthe fuck dead, assmuncher.
You must be a Fox News pundit, no?
Take the Red Pill.
says the man that does not have to work for a living.
Come on back lid when you understand what it's like to work hard for your money. You tend to be far more careful about spending it when you are not sucking off grandpas dead tit called a trust fund.
Stealing doesn't mean you pay for the privilege.
In urban areas. It might shock you to realize most of the continent lies outside la, nyc and so forth.
I was wondering, how do they tell a smartphone from a USB 3G modem? I'd guess that if the majority of the traffic isn't web traffic with a smartphone user agent they flag you.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Fast trading doesn't change the fundamental price that the market thinks a stock is worth. If anything, the added granularity makes the price more accurate. And fast trading really doesn't change how the management of a company behaves.
I love how people anthropomorphize corporations. Also, based on the commercial I saw, the amount of data is not limited. They just slow it down after 2gb. They are just telling the fat guys that they can only use one plate at a time when they go up to the buffet line.
A few friends I know on AT&T used to do that, then they started getting letters from the carrier to cease using the unauthorized thethering application or they'd start getting billed for an upgraded data plan that included tethering in it's cost. It's not exactly difficult to tell PC traffic from smartphone traffic & they're not afraid to do so if it means extra cash for them.
Most people who are not traders will never understand the concept that volume = liquidity. I think you are wasting your time.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
They DO care how much we use in the aggregate. They don't care so much that it is YOU doing it, but that there are people using a lot of data. The flow of data is always limited by something, and this is their way of adding artificial choke points so that the real choke points don't get logjammed.
It's slash and burn capitalism. It's not about industrialism or anything resembling long term thinking. I think you hit the nail on the head. What are we building or producing anymore? I think it's all "creative financing", shuffling paperwork around. It doesn't help when we have trade policies that cut our own throats, leaving a back door for corporations to outsource everything from labor to call centers overseas. Our people need jobs, and if they don't have them, they can't buy our products or services. We can't survive as a nation if we don't have government thinking like one. They all pander to this "Vegas Wall Street" and we are sinking fast.
Take the Red Pill.
Depends on the smartphone I think. I use the fuck out of my Blackberry, and I don't think I ever even hit 100mb a month. That's the upside of their bizarre web browser- it downloads and renders the pages somewhere else and just presents a RDP-like interface to the phone.
I hate to be the one to say this, mostly because I have no doubt I will get flamed and/or modded to hell for it, but I'm feeling adventurous this morning, so here goes:
*deep breath*
Nobody is forcing you to buy a cellular data plan, or indeed buy any cell plan at all. It is perfectly possible to live life in the modern age without any kind of cellphone, and still take part in all that modern life has to offer without having to live like the Amish. You simply have to decide what is important to you.
If having that smartphone with data plan is important to you, then so be it. Be prepared to deal with the companies that sell that type of plan in your area. If you don't like the selections of companies or the manner in which these companies conduct business, then you must decide if that is more important to you than having the phone.
If your principles are more important, then to be true to them you MUST cancel your smartphone plan and go back to a land line and/or VOIP using an answering machine. Or possibly a smartphone without a cell plan using Wifi and Google Voice.
If having that smartphone is most important, then I would say that while you still have the right to your principles and opinion, they hold significantly less weight and are worth little regard to others as you yourself clearly don't believe in them enough to alter your life to suit them. In which case you are little more than a ranting, grouchy troll.
That said, I don't entirely disagree with you, It certainly does seem that the prices for cellular data plans remain artificially high, and the dropping of unlimited plans is not something that customers should want. However, if one looks at the big picture, one realizes that prices have actually come down overall for these plans.
If you think about it, back just 25 years ago a $100 a month cell plan with unlimited talk time was utterly unheard of. The best you could do was something like 1000 minutes and the prices were closer to $200 a month. And data couldn't be had for any price. Now you can get a single person plan with unlimited talk, text and (in Sprint's case, data) for right around $100 a month. Now, you may say that it hasn't come down far enough, fast enough, but ultimately that's a function of the market. If you don't like the prices, don't take part. Cellphones are (despite the protestations of /. members) still a luxury item.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Problem is that nobody has ever really engaged socialism or communism because there was always a cadre of elite behaving in a capitalist fashion.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Volume is not liquidity. If you have two computers trading a stock back and forth (in order to manipulate its price) that increases volume a lot but the liquidity is basically unchanged.
Then there are things like flash orders or whatever they're called which are neither about volume or liquidity but simply about giving an edge to those with a fast connection to the stock exchange... Essentially they can find out bid information which is supposed to be secret.
Your defense of HFT is weak.
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Until they can get the rest of the cartel to follow suite.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
All connecting devices have to connect via wireless. You can't set a phone up to route traffic through a USB nic. Now if someone knows different I would LOVE to hear which one and how!
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Never mind the smelting and recycling costs...a bandwidth foundry takes as much electricity as a small city you know.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Hipsters are culture zombies. Consume consume consume!
Because ignorant android users don't use any data. Get a life. A handful of heavy users hogging all of a wireless service providers bandwidth? Give me a break. it doesn't impact service at all. They're doing this because they can make more money by doing it, not because their network is hurting or can't handle the data. Educate yourself a bit before you speak.
I didn't realize the iPod Touch was so overpriced.
Is Android any better? Is there a Wi-Fi-only Android tablet roughly the same size as an iPod touch with a capacitive touch screen and Android Market that is sold in the United States?
Obviously you shouuld check with a lawyer first.
Wouldn't the bill for an hour's consultation with a lawyer exceed the ETF in the first place?
Wait, seriously? The "most advanced iPhone ever" is still 3G-only? No, wait, I must have been trolled. Let me go check, there's no way --- HOLY SHIT YOU'RE NOT KIDDING.
Really? Apple has managed to go six cell phone revisions without adding 4G? Next you're going to tell me that the only major feature in the 4S is the addition of voice control, something that Android has had for two years.
SON OF A BITCH!
Oh, hey, and it requires a data connection to use, so combined with the new cloud features, the latest iPhone and iPhone OS require more bandwidth than ever before! THANKS A LOT, YOU FUCKING APPLE HIPSTER DOUCHES!
I've been a sprint customer for the last 5 years and in the last few months they have:
1. Raised the Early Termination Fee to $350 per line.
2. Discontinued the "Premier" program for earlier phone upgrades.
2. Released iPhone, but I have to wait until next year for upgrade pricing. And, not offer any upgrade discount than full price.
4. Now Capping 4g?
Why would any customer stay?
Sprint Nextel is ending unlimited data plans for all devices except smartphones, bringing the era of all-you-can-eat mobile data in the U.S. nearer to a close.
Why are smartphones excepted? Bandwidth is a fungible resource - one kilobyte used by a smartphone is the same as one kilobyte used by a laptop.
The electric company doesn't limit me to 500 kilowatt-hours for lights, but allow unlimited power for my television. The water company doesn't limit me to 1000 gallons per month for toilets but allow unlimited water for showers. They don't care how the water is used. Even if they knew, why would they care?
Thank you, this is something that has been bothering me for a loooong time. We used to be about INVESTING and now its all about HFT and quick flips. What this does is distort the market and set unreasonable goals, so that any company that isn't cranking out profits to make the quarterly earnings gets hammered. you can't build the business, as any expense will cause your stock to fall. like I said i have NO doubt if a company announced they fired all the workers and that saved X billion so they made double the QER expectations their stocks would go through the roof!
And i'll have to remember that phrase of yours, as it describes it better than I've ever seen...slash and burn capitalism. it fits perfectly, because just as we had valuable rain-forest, which properly managed could have given us lifesaving drugs and other advances, were turned into deserts simply so one could get burgers cheaper (thus making more money for the parent corp) so too have we seen solid long term business planning thrown in the trash for quick burns that make quick cash, even if they torpedo the company later. For an example look at Circuit City, whose stock jumped after announcing they got rid of their most expensive employees even though those employees were their top sales reps which after two quarters of riding the quick burn saw the company go in the shitter. Didn't matter as the day traders had done cashed out, the CxOs got their golden chutes, it was only the employees and the American taxpayer who got shafted.
Personally I think we'll have our own Arab spring, its only a matter of time. Voting is now worthless, as BOTH sides ignore the people who elect them for their bribing corp masters, wall street has gutted the middle class and won't stop until the USA is a third world nation, our infrastructure is falling apart, we went from being the Internet leaders to a bad joke with speed worse than Romania, hell i could go on all day.
And what i think will be the final nail in the coffin for capitalism as a system is the simple fact that the machines can do it better and the musical chairs we have been playing for the last century is about to run out with the majority not having a seat. We ALL know that every single fast food joint could be replaced by a modern assembly line tomorrow, yes? its only the government subsidizing the pathetic wages with assistance that allows these companies to employ humans. make them pay a living wage and they would all be robotic by the end of next year.All we have done by stressing 'education at all costs!" is make more and more of our young people trapped under debts they will NEVER be able to pay, because the jobs simply aren't there. they simply aren't needed. What are you gonna do, make everyone a CxO? and the average IQ is just 105, that simply isn't enough to be a rocket scientist, not that we'd need millions of rocket scientists anyway.
Nope I predict just like communism and every other ism that has come and gone so too has capitalism had its day. the difference between the top and bottom has never been wider in history and short of winning the lotto most will never rise above their current level. We've created a serf class only we don't need serfs anymore and thanks to offshoring those degrees are quickly being only useful for wiping your broke ass behind. we have too many people, not enough jobs, and with our rapid advancing tech most of those jobs simply aren't needed. I bet if it wasn't for cheap third world labor the majority of our products would be assembled by machines now, but playing "dump the misery and pollution on the third world" is simply delaying the inevitable, that's all. In the end our system has to change, whether peacefully or by violent revolution things simply can't stay on their current path.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Yes they are. Smartphones still are and will be unlimited for the foreseeable future. They never advertised unlimited for the USB modems. Stop trolling.
What part of Limited to 3GB, 5GB or 10GB confused you? Limited plan is limited.
Here in the US if you reach your limit they bill you more or cut your little serf ass down to 1k.
It's not the airwaves that are limited. It's the link-up to the antenna. There are several techniques available to have good data transmission over the air, look at WiFi - >100Mbps over the air. GSM and CDMA use frequencies that are even better than WiFi, are severely protected against interference from other radios and current CDMA techniques can handle 100's of subscribers at 1-5Mbps.
The problem is as I said, the link up. I used to work for a large ISP, the link-ups in big cities are frequently ISDN (256kbps), a leased line (several 64kbps lines) or at best a few fractional T1's (for a total of 3-6Mbps) and even though the infrastructure is there (new towers often have fiber), they simply do not want to use their profits to expand it.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I was going to switch to sprint when my verizon contract expired because they pulled unlimited, but if sprint's pulled it too, that means AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint now have all dumped their unlimited plans, there's no one else to turn to.
Next thing you know, ISPs are going to follow AT&T's example with home internet as well, and start capping that too.
Oh the woes of having a near monopoly, it's a shame the government won't do it's damn job and break them up.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
...to detect if you're tethering with your smartphone from the LTE network equipment iteslf. Tethering detection is built into the AAA interface so it can automatically go straight to the billing system.
The important thing being that, at the end of the day, you as a consumer still get choked and logjammed...
They prefer to call it "enhancing the truth".
Good point. If you don't want to pay for a cellphone, do what people did only 10 years ago without cellphones and make use of payphones, there's always one within... Wait, almost all the payphones are gone now. Yeah, you can get by without a cellphone if you're dedicated, but it isn't as easy as it used to be*.
*I wouldn't know how the wifi/Google option works out, other than it not being as simple/inexpensive as payphones, considering you need to buy an unsubsidized smartphone (or pay for a plan just to get the phone).
My webcomic
just jail brake your phone and make it a hotspot
Why do you want to stop your phone by putting on the brakes?
If the lack of pay phones are your best argument, then you really don't have much of one at all.
I'm 40 years old, and grew up with payphones all around me. I almost never used one except in an emergency.
If all you need is an emergency phone, buy a prepaid "burner" cell phone from your local drug store an/or buy a cheap unlimited "calls only" plan or prepaid plan from one of the large carriers. Problem solved.
Lack of payphones has little to do with complaints about the cost of data plans for cell phones.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
just jail brake your phone
I thought the idea here is to avoid slowing your data connection.
My webcomic
America's information infrastructure has more roadblocks and half-built bridges-to-nowhere than many developed nations simply because of corporate greed. Where Asian and (some) European nations are looking towards gigabit fiber to the home and inexpensive 4G mobile plans, We in America (our Canadian, UK, and Australian friends too, if I am understanding correctly) are stuck with sky-high prices, caps and other restrictions.
Telecoms have basically bent the government to their will through extensive lobbying and backroom deals. AT&T has been broken up, reformed, broken up again and now they're set to do it again on the Mobile set by absorbing T-Mobile making them the only nationwide GSM provider in the country. Everyone else is piggybacking on Verizon's CDMA network, Sprint being the largest. Just like their landline divisions, the mobile telecoms receive large subsidies of our tax dollars every time they cry to Washington about their infrastructure - the very same infrastructure they advertise as being magically unlimited but make policies that completely oppose its perception, all the while raising direct to consumer prices. Like many other "too big to fail" businesses in the United States, all they care about is the continual dual-pronged infusion of cash from the American people direct to their quarterly statement. They maintain the absolute minimum they can justify to do this while through a combination of puppet-legislation and local business deals they lock out anyone else who might provide better service. From suing towns for implementing municipal, public fiber broadband in supposed violation of county or state wide exclusivity agreements, to not allowing any other companies to use "their" hardware be it fiber or copper in the ground, to airwaves and towers on the mobile set (Wonder why all the contract-less phones are CDMA for the most part instead of the much easier prepaid SIM GSM system that most nations have? Well, only Verizon decided it could make a profit by selling bandwidth to Sprint, Cricket, TrackFone etc.... AT&T decided they could do better by NOT allowing others to use "their" GSM towers etc...) they've created a little nest for themselves with our money.
Is it not time to take it back? The nations with the very best infrastructure, including information infrastructure have top-of-the-line hardware owned by the citizens of that nation. We already regulate information infrastructure and subsidize these telecoms to build it, but we allow them to retain private ownership of things built with public funds. Lets fix that. One of the best ways we could help to put an end to this recession would be a modern "New Deal 2: The Rooseveltening!". Lets put people to work repairing and modernizing our infrastructure, including that for information. If we truly believe that information work is one of the things that America is best at and that the Internet is of such importance, than we need to stop control of its access being in the hands of those that only care about profit.
With "We The People" owning and maintaining information infrastructure, it actually widens the gap for private business to have a role to play as well. The government could lease access to both private business and public organizations/co-ops to act as ISPs. Right now, I can't just start up a company to compete with Verizon or Comcast - they control the very lines in the ground and won't allow me to use them. Good luck getting 99% of newcomers to want to lay their own hardware and plant their own towers! Nationalized infrastructure would even the playing field completely to allow competition!
For both landline and mobile infrastructure, we have the equivalent of a patchwork system of heavily subsidized toll roads, filled with potholes. So the owners of said roads don't have the fix the potholes, they petition to set speed limits way below what they should be. With the People controlling the hardware, we'd have the same kind of success we did with the creation of Eisenhower's Inte
given that corporations are incredibly short sighted these days, the foreseeable future is the next quarter.
Balderdash!
Sprint is actually the only major national carrier still offering unlimited data plans on smartphones. AT&T and Verizon have abandoned unlimited data completely in favor of metered billing. T-Mobile doesn't do metered billing, but they silently throttle your connection if you exceed something like 2GB of data use in a single billing period.
Read my blog.
I don't know, perhaps Sprint scrubs its smartphones, but all stock Android phones with 2.2+ (IIRC) can share their 3G connection over either WiFi or USB.
I'm not entirely convinced of that, for two reasons:
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I've seen people using it like a modem via a USB cable. It would be nice to route traffic to a phone and use it as the gateway for a LAN.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Sprint is still advertising, as of the most recent World Series game, that it's data service is unlimited, uncapped.
Seems a bait-and-switch to me. Offer unlimited data for a few weeks, draw in as many suckers as possible then slam them with data limits. Rinse and repeat.
We are talking data plans here, not cell phones. There are plenty of cell phone plans you can get that are reasonable.
Personally, I choose to not get a smartphone for the reasons outlined above. However, I still have a cell phone, and the rates are way way cheaper than a smartphone.
It's not the day traders that affect how management sets policy. They couldn't care less how a company performs quarter to quarter because they are trying to make a buck today. The people who are the problem are people like you and me who have a heart attack every time our 401k drops a little bi, and the people who sit there staring at their stock portfolio for hours a day instead of working at work. In other words, the average Joe is the problem. We have to as a society get back into the mindset of looking at the long term. This also goes all the way to the top. Even if the C level people weren't concerned about stockholders demanding quarter to quarter performance, much of their incentive is based on stock price and so they do everything to maximize it in the short term, and then get the heck out before it comes to light that they killed the golden goose.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I am still on an unlimited Verizon data plan. Says so right on the bill.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Your problem is not with the corporate people. That is just economics: they charge what people will pay. Your problem is with the people. People who just have to know what color poop their friend just made RIGHT NOW and don't care what they have to pay for it. people who have to have the latest handheld toy and don't care what the data rates are. People who see that the hollywood types have data on their phones and so they want it too. These are your problem. As you have said, you may drop the data plan altogether and go back to the regular cell phone. That is great. If even a few million more did that, then the cell phone companies would realize that people would rather do without than pay the high cost, and they would be forced to lower prices to pick up more business. Unfortunately, there are a LOT of people in the U.S. with more money than sense, so it will probably be a long time before we see data prices come down to a reasonable level.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
You're grandfathered in because you signed up for an unlimited plan before they got out of the unlimited-data business. You can't open a new account at Verizon with an unlimited data plan.
And I would venture to guess that they will eventually start squeezing those of you who are grandfathered in as well, too. They'll either force you to switch to a metered data plan in order to qualify for subsidies on a new device, or do the sort of thing that AT&T has already started doing:
Read my blog.
I agree with you however I wouldn't mine paying these prices if they would use it to upgrade their infrastructure a little more. It's like Verizon plugging the shit out of FIOS here in Pittsburgh but guess what, they stopped rolling it out because it cost too damn much. Or when they talk about their 4G LTE network, buy this phone and watch movies, download music and games at the speed of light. Okay, I'm getting one of these devices, oh wait why is my bill $600 this month? It just makes me bat shit crazy.
D-Link and Netgear sell a neat wireless bridge product. Have the rest of your network point to the wireless bridge and the wireless bridge handle connecting to your smart phone via wi-fi. Then it'll be your gateway.
Been a Sprint customer for 10 year, stuck with them through lots ups and downs, heck, I even a bunch of their stock (down 19%). They finally found a way to push me out this time. I'll be looking for a new service and cancel when I do. Been unhappy for about a year
1.) Waited an eternity for the HTC Evo 4G when it came out. Tons of billboards, TV ads, but no phones...
2.) Waited, and waited, for 4G roll-out in San Francisco (beyond 3 blocks of downtown)
3.) Finally got phone, traded in 3G data card and was excited to use Evo 4G hotspot for internet in my home (small place)
4.) Although well within a "in-house" 4G zone in their coverage map of San Francisco my 4G is at the 0-1 bar level, even standing outside. It comes and goes. When it goes, and reverts to 3G things like my VPN connection to work drop.
5.) Thought it would be cool to use EVO HDMI out for streaming Netflix to my TV, nope. Need to root phone for that (really that's an HTC thing, but Sprint and HTC should be more closely aligned)
Now my answer is to get DSL at house and probably MetroPCS Android phone and their $50/mo plan. Will end up saving about $30 month.
So is Dan Hesse stealing from Reed Hasting's playbook (Netflix) about how to alienate customers? Make series of poor/expensive business decisions. Punish consumers with high rates to pay for those mistakes. Communicate with those customers in obtuse and opaque fashion. Do not empower your customer service folks with anything like basic information.
Goodbye Sprint, it's been real.
This page says the Galaxy Player has been out for less than a week. I wonder if the local Test Try store has one for me to try.
Watch how simple that is to solve. you have a touch screen, you choose what you want based on combo or on individual ingredients, in your own language of course, and a robotic female voice reads back what you have chosen and says "If this is correct, please press 1, if incorrect please press cancel and try again" and voila! Its done. and you wouldn't need full industrial bots for the majority of the stuff, a simple assembly line could take care of it. Meat goes on belt through cooker and then rolls out onto bun, bun as it rolls down its own belt gets your choices placed in premeasured doses, it would all be even more perfectly uniform than anything you could ever hope for. a burger in Boston would be EXACTLY the same as a burger in Batesville.
Now imagine how many jobs are being done by third world peasants which if it weren't for being allowed to pollute and treat 'em like shit could just as easily be done by machine. Clothes? shoes? all could be done by machine, just as we've had looms for ages that could weave any pattern you want. hell have you sen the "food printer" MIT is working on? You pick from a menu and it builds and cooks the food in minutes. From what I've read they have veggies down but meat is still being tricky on the texture but they're working on it.
Here are some simple facts: 1.-The world is at 7 billion and growing. 2.-The average IQ is 105. 3.- We have a HUGE and growing underclass, many of whom are having trouble even feeding themselves or keeping a roof over their heads. 4.- We have pushed our young to get degrees while at the same time destroying any reason to actually have a degree with the combo of offshoring and H1-B and finally 5.- those that are only qualified for manual labor have had their jobs taken by illegals with the assistance and cooperation of the federal government, who has gone so far as to threaten states that try to uphold the law. Where once a manual labor could live a lower middle class life with a factory job now he'll be sleeping in his car.
These are BAD signs and I'd argue thgere is no way they will get ANYTHING but worse. you really only have TWO choices, one you can give away money to those that are increasingly left behind by having the government give them "make work" jobs, or you look to find a way that these people can live without working simply because there isn't a job where their skills are needed. BTW have you seen the robotic road builder they are testing in i believe its Korea? With GPS it goes from field to highway, all automated and controlled by computer. there is one more job that will not be needed. The machine don't get sick, get tired, get hurt, it doesn't think about moving up in life or have kids to feed, it don't take breaks or get holidays or get upset about not seeing its family, and over the long haul the machine can be cheaper simply because of all of the above. no 401k, no withholding, no need to plan breaks or worry it won't show up in the morning, and there is a hell of a lot less people that are even needed to service them anymore. Look at how the new blade servers load balance themselves, call the repairman when a part is failing and even tell him what he needs to replace? It won't be long before the admins are replaced by AI and parts monkeys. That's another job that will go from a 100,000 a year position to a 25k a year dead end. We just have more people than we need friend.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You have to give them their money back.
MOD PARENT UP! Just when I think I've lost all faith in /., guys like d3ac0n remind me of individualistic spirit that used to make this place great...
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
customized fast food...
Your a fool if you ask for it anything outside the standard option.
Cheap storage VM.
This isn't practical for long periods of time on the go, especially with Android phones. Even without tethering, their battery often only lasts half a day. Turn tethering on and it drops like a rock. Plug it in if you can, but then your phone might actually overheat. People who go over data limits use a lot of mobile data, likely in places without an electrical outlet.
Not a fan of Burger King's "have it your way" slogan, eh?
More to the point, "fast-casual" places like Blimpie and Moe's Southwest Grill serve inherently customized food.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
What about the machine to put the bun on the conveyer belt? What about the machine to fold the burger into its wrapper? What about the machine to scoop the fries? What about the machine to pack arbitrary combinations of burgers and fries into bags (while solving the associated 3d, non-uniform-size, variable objects packing problem)?
The cost of the machinery to do all that starts to add up, when you're talking about automating thousands of restaurants. And then what happens when the company decides to add a salad (or other new item type) to the menu?! Not only do they then need [thousands of copies of] a whole new machine -- and have to wait for those thousands of machines to be built, instead of just training the employees of each store in parallel -- but they also have to figure out how to fit it in with the rest of the assembly line.
Also don't forget that all these machines have to be cleaned periodically, and cleaning up the non-automated appliances already takes several employee-hours every night already. If you increase the amount of machinery, you increase the effort needed to keep it clean.
I'm not saying that automating fast food isn't technologically possible; it clearly is. I'm just not convinced that it's as economically advantageous as you'd have us believe.
Being a civil engineer who worked in fast food (or at least, "fast-casual") restaurants as a teenager, I can tell you that automating road construction is a lot less complex than automating a restaurant (especially a restaurant that serves more than one type of item).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Oh I'm not saying the initial setup wouldn't be costly and bugs wouldn't need to be worked out, i'm saying we are already paying for this as "make work" simply because the wages they pay are so damned low one couldn't realistically feed themselves and get to work on what they pay, so it is YOU and I who are paying in government assistance. it is classic "make work" because if they HAD to pay a living wage? Then suddenly the costs you mentioned look a hell of a lot more feasible
BTW did you know that when you start at Walmart one of their training videos is how to get on food stamps and other government assistance? It has gotten to the point the corps consider government assistance for the workers to be as SOP as teaching them how to lock up. It is THAT, that right there, that will ultimately be the final nail. you simply can't have a nation of fast food workers and still get enough in taxes to pay government assistance, as the exploding debt proves.
In the end many workers are ONLY cheaper than the machine because the government makes it so and when that dole ends suddenly those machines will be a LOT more attractive. sure it will cost for the initial setup but once the bugs are ironed out? All you need is ONE functioning system and you can then make endless copies. And again with smart machines you won't need brain trusts to service them, you'll have parts monkeys that do what the machine tells them to. The few employees left will be controlled by machine, probably with headsets (like in a sci-fi i once read years ago) and you will have ONE guy servicing DOZENS of machines. in my own area a factory that once employed over 5000 is now run by less than 20 guys. THAT is the future, and unless we are gonna be Luddites and smash the machines it is simply unavoidable.
Let me put it THIS way: what would YOU do with the millions of unemployed that currently have no place in a technological society? not everyone can be educated and there are more unemployed college grads than ever before. what would YOU do with these people? with their families? Short of a final solution SOMETHING has to be done with them, because the poor simply won't go quietly into that good night, the Arab Springs have shown that. I'd say the only reason we don't have our own Arab Spring now is the dole keeping the poor docile but that is unsustainable. so what would YOU do to fix it?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I was not even talking about a smartphone at all. My phone service is with Verizon.
This is about the mobile hotspot. That specifically was capped as of the next billing cycle. My connections are via laptops primarily. Since I route most, if not all traffic, across the VPN to my data center I would never stay under the cap.
I'm not talking Netflix. Just RDP connections, SSH shells, etc. Transferring 1MB files around each time I make a change in the code adds up pretty damn quick. Not to mention downloading a log file locally, pushing an update to a server, etc.
Agents can push around 50 megs back and forth for a single transaction with a customer. Whether it is real estate, insurance, or medical, quite often you will find that the contracts and documents can easily be that big by the time you are done. If an agent has a good day and does even a couple transactions, you just exceeded your cap for the month.
Have 2 or 3 agents on a single hotspot and you are screwed.
Our usage is not unreasonable. If they would raise the cap from 3 to 10 I think it might work. 15 would give us some breathing room.
Hey, I was just talking about the issues associated with automating fast food restaurants, not trying to solve all of society's problems!
As far as the latter conversation goes, though, I find your alarm kind of strange. Isn't a Utopian society where the humans can have lives of leisure because the machines are doing all the work the goal here? It seems that way according to a lot of sci-fi...
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
That's kind of like saying that the problem with water is that it's wet.
Sounds like a consumer smartphone plan isn't the right choice for you then. On business plans, I think you can easily get 10-15G for maybe $150/month. And if you're in "real estate, insurance, or medical" with "2 or 3 agents", I think you can afford it.
"Affording it" is just being stupid. Sorry.
It's that kind of mentality that leads to "bailouts". If you are in a small-medium sized business paying $150 per month per mobile location is just inefficient and wasteful. 10-15GB per month is not actually worth that much. The carriers are just taking you for a ride.
So in the end all you end up doing is greatly increasing costs and then trying to pass those costs off to the consumers. Now you are less competitive. That's how other people come in with different solutions and less overhead and eat your lunch. Next thing you now company is going down the tubes.
The price points they come up with for this crap is just egregious. I can get dual bonded T1 connections for around $500 month with equipment lease and a service contract. How on Earth can Sprint have the balls to tell me that it costs me $150 per month to send 15 fucking gigs on their LTE network?
At a minimum of $7500 per month I would sooner look into other solutions involving mesh networking and some sort of cooperative between businesses running long range wi-fi out of each business. Present the idea to the local Chamber of Commerce and a couple of business councils and you might just create a pretty robust network.
$150 for such a pitiful cap is highway robbery.
Sorry, buddy, 10-15GB per month is worth whatever the people providing it say it is. Your remark about how you can get 3mbps wired for $500 a month paired with your complaint that $150 for 10 times that out of thin air seems a little strange.
You really don't get it, do you? People like you are the reason there's a cap to begin with. What you are doing -- trying to run your business off of cellphone data links at consumer single- or family-user prices -- is exactly like going to an all-you-can-eat buffet and sneaking food out to feed your friends. Yours is the very definition of unreasonable use.
If you really think your company is "going down the tubes" if you have to pay for business-class internet access (as opposed to violating the spirit of consumer low-volume carrier agreements) then that suggests to me that your business plan needs some reworking.
Yeah.... riiiiiggghhhhtt.
The same people that are saying unlimited text messaging needs to be $10-20 a month can be trusted to tell me that 10-15GB on 4G (true 4g) is $150 month.
Believe that and I have a bridge to sell you. Text messaging has markups in the hundreds of thousands of percent. Probably more. You don't know why, you are just one of the reasons why text messaging was artificially inflated in costs without a revolt. I was one that revolted and continues to do so because I know it costs them next to nothing to "send" a message.
My use is not unreasonable at all. Business class would actually need to be business class. Meaning, I would expect for $150 per month a much larger cap, preferred access to bandwidth, performance guarantees, escalation lists, etc. All normal stuff you receive in business class offerings. They are trying to pass of personal plans, at unreasonable caps anyways, as business. That's just bullshit.
It is not unreasonable either to ask for a shared pool of bandwidth for all devices.
Their infrastructure can handle way more than what I am trying to pull out of it. What it really comes down to is how much they are trying to oversell their bandwidth and deliberately creating overusage fees from customers because they know they have set the caps too low.
Why would they create a hotspot capable of 8 devices connected to it if their infrastructure could not handle the load? Streaming music (not Netflix), and just regular usage from a laptop can exceed the caps quite easily. Selling you a device where you can allow 8 times the load just allows them to encourage these fees.
The companies I consult for, and the industries I am involved in cannot afford $150 per mobile link in this economy. If you just stupidly spend it the only thing you have done is raise costs up (quite considerably). If you actually care at all about the company and are thinking more than 1 year in the future, you don't commit to such stupidity.
If the carriers want to oversell their bandwidth, price fix, and gouge consumers I am not obligated to pay for it. I cannot in good conscience advise anyone to pay those prices. I know it is a rip off.
You can't see what they are doing, fine. I don't know how they convinced you that normal usage was so low.
This isn't fair to say: smartphones, including the iPhone, still have unlimited data. As far as I can tell, that's still the best smartphone data policy of any major carrier, and Sprint's metered data plans are still very competitive.
I also don't think it's fair to call this being nicked-and-dimed, because you're being billed under a flat-rate model, but there's also additional usage charges. I wouldn't mind a metered connection so much if they didn't sell it as flat-rate. If I were paying 2 cents a MB, regardless of usage, I might actually come out cheaper sometimes. I might not do as much stupid stuff that "hogs" up cellular bandwidth on my smartphone. Like waiting until I get home on wifi to update apps, and silly stuff like that which wouldn't really detract from my enjoyment of my smartphone.
Unless I misunderstand what you're referring to (smartphone vs. USB modem), I believe you're mistaken.
I just terminated service with Sprint and I had a tethering app (EasyTether - http://www.mobile-stream.com/easytether/android.html) that allowed me to use my Android phone as a USB modem. I still use that app with my new phone on my current carrier (T-Mobile). In both cases the internet traffic goes through the USB cable. I regularly do work over a VPN connection using this app, at 4G speeds a lot of times.
Anyhow, they have EasyTether available for several different types of devices and it's only $9.99. I also know that they offer a 'lite' version for Android that you can try for free.
(And, no, I don't work for them or get anything for mentioning their product. I just use it and it works amazingly well.) Cheers!
Well, let me be more blunt: I'm not going to subsidize a bunch of doctors, real estate agents, and lawyers who are running a business off a $30/month smartphone plan. I hope your provider sues you for theft of service and breach of contract. If you want 15G/month, you should f*cking pay for it yourself. Of course, what mobile phone companies should do is simply have metered service a, say, $10/Gbyte for consumers and $20/Gbyte for business users (with the latter offering better service, support, and reliability).
Wow, a real estate agent complaining about the phone company screwing them and overcharging them. Look in the mirror, man. Your industry caused the real estate bubble, and getting paid a percentage of transaction costs is the biggest fraud imaginable. If anybody should be forced to go to a "flat rate", it's you people.
Who said I was in real estate? Your emotional response is clouding your reading comprehension skills.
I consult and develop solutions for companies. In real estate I mainly deal with communications between those companies and sometimes mobile. However, that actually stopped after the collapse.
Subsidize what? That is a fucking myth. First off, I have a mobile hotspot, not a smartphone plan. I was paying $50 per month, not $30. My provider cannot sue me for breach of contract. Federal prevents them from doing so since they made a material change to the contract.
I don't know where you get those prices, but they are outrageous. It does not actually cost that much at all.
That is the subsidy myth. You get so mad because you believe you are paying for other people's bandwidth and not getting your fair share. My turn to make an assumption about you.... bet you are Republican huh? :)
lol
Moving on though..... all of the carriers, including landlines, oversell their bandwidth. That is the biggest fraud imaginable. It is akin to a Ponzi scheme. So your complaint about not having enough bandwidth is not my fucking fault. Look to the carriers. They both sold us "unlimited", but the reality is that even if it were unlimited 3mb/s connections to our homes the carriers are not actually delivering enough bandwidth if everybody decided to use their connection to full capacity at any one moment.
I love metered bandwidth plans.... when they are reasonable and not designed to fuck you. I have an excellent plan at my datacenter, where it seems that bandwidth is much better understood by all parties and a hell of lot less bullshit gets to pass. I pay for ceiling and floor. My floor is guaranteed, but up to the ceiling is based on current usage from everyone else. I pay a rate dependent upon the *average* rate I transmitted at, which is calculated by total bandwidth consumed over time. My rate goes DOWN, not up. If I consistently have my average at over half the difference between my floor and ceiling it is agreed that I need to raise my floor. Raising my floor is what actually makes it fair for everybody. We have a shared pool of bandwidth that allows us to burst to much higher speeds for short periods of time. The burst capacity is around 3-4 times the floor. This allows the entire datacenter to easily plan for how much bandwidth they actually need to support everybody there.
It may sound complicated at first, but is actually quite transparent and fair.
What we are talking about with Sprint is anything but fair. I don't know where you get this idea that 15GB is unreasonable.
They claim that 4G is capable of 10Mb/s. Let's just say it is only around 2.5 Mb/s, which is what I actually tested. The fact is that 15GB represents only ~400Kb/s average transfer rate for the month. At 2.5 Mb/s you will reach the 3GB cap in just a few hours, and any of the caps within the day.
It's ridiculous to sell a connection that you reach your cap on within 1 day of a 30 day billing period.
It's called price gouging and fucking the consumer, yet you still want to stick to this idea that I am somehow taking away from you. That is laughable at best. If they did not oversell it, there would be no problems at all getting enough bandwidth to the towers and making reasonable contracts.
They won't do it though. They will just repeat what Clear did, oversell the fuck out of it, piss you off, and then you will be raving like a lunatic how it is other people hogging the bandwidth that are causing the problems.
Put your thinking cap on for one fucking second.....
If a 10Mb/s connection on a landline costs you around $50-$60 per month, and you have no caps, or let's say a reasonable cap of 250GB then what the wireless carriers are *really* saying is that their wireless internet costs nearly $1000 per month to give you the landline equivalent.
Do you really think that is anywhere near true? All the fiber optic cables and route
:) tried that. I even tried it with a hot spot modem. I'm pretty sure they (T-Mobil) are doing TTL checking to block it. Adding a box running proxies that uses the phone as a modem is going to be my next attempt.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
That's true, but I cringe if I walk into McDonalds with someone and they start making custom requests. No pickles on that, only ketchup here, no tomatoes on that one. Best case is your order is wrong, because it will be.
Cheap storage VM.
Wireless internet is a premium service. Businesses who decide to use it do so because it INCREASES profitability. They can get more done with it than without. If people didn't value the service, they wouldn't be paying for it and the price would go down.
Business works because people add value to raw materials. Whether it is the breadmaker trading 10 loaves of bread for a set of horseshoes, or an auto manufacturer selling $1000 worth of iron and plastic for $50,000, we pay a price because it is worth it to us. If we don't like the price, we don't pay it. If everyone had the stones to say "no" when a price goes too high, none of this would be a problem. But we don't.
Distance is irrelevant, the limit on cells is the size of the radio band available (hence "bandwidth") and how much of that users are using. Verizon has 10 MHz 3G bandwidth, probably corresponding to about 10 Mbps that's shared between all users of that cell site at all times.
Let's use your numbers, shall we? If you actually use 400kbps steady stream, that's about 1/20th of Verizon's bandwidth per tower. Let's say the tower costs $1 million (low end of your estimate). If you and 20 other people like you use 400kbps, the tower is full and can't do anything else. So, just to pay for the tower, Verizon needs to recover $50000 from each user like you. In addition, they actually still need to run a network infrastructure, pay for Internet access, etc. $1000/month seems quite reasonable for that. But it's worse than that: if you use 400kbps on average, but only use the device during working hours, that's about 1.6Mbps or 1/6th of the tower, so now they need to make $160000 from you just to recover your portion of the cost of the tower.
Sounds to me like it stopped because you didn't have any idea of what you were doing.
Perhaps that's a McDonald's problem, not a "fast food in general" problem. I have no problem making custom requests at Burger King, Checkers or Wendy's.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Well, I got the stones.
It is not really my stones either. I spoke with all of the major carriers, even Sprint, who I hate with a passion. After getting specific details on their business offerings, how many accounts were needed to qualify, etc. I presented my research to the owner of a large business.
His words, essentially, "Are they on crack?".
Not only would it be incredibly difficult and involve vigilant policing of the devices to ensure no overage fees, I calculated the average amount of data transmitted for a single transaction. I pointed out that the standard cap would not cover them, and the larger cap barely could do so.
It was not economically viable to do so. Therefore, I have no wireless options to present to businesses at this point. Certainly not in this economy.
I also stand by my statement that the bandwidth is being oversold and the carriers are price fixing.
They don't need to be reasonable either. In fact, telecoms have a sordid history of being unreasonable. Only through increased competition did the prices lower at all for long distance calling.
Just like Apple says it is not interested in business clients, the wireless carriers are not interested in providing data to business clients either at fair rates.
The sad thing is that we are not talking about bandwidth hogs either. 3GB is an extremely small cap that anyone can exceed in a very short period of time. This can happen without their knowledge. WIndows updates? Anti-virus updates? That can be considerable. Downloading a 50MB program adds up.
You say we would pay the price if it was worth it to us, but you also need to factor in ignorance. The carriers get away with these super premium charges because of the personal consumers and they oversell and play the averages games.
The last people they want participating are businesses. They usually have CTO's that can read contracts and calculate bandwidth costs.
Distance is irrelevant, the limit on cells is the size of the radio band available (hence "bandwidth") and how much of that users are using. Verizon has 10 MHz 3G bandwidth, probably corresponding to about 10 Mbps that's shared between all users of that cell site at all times.
We are talking about 4G.
Let's use your numbers, shall we? If you actually use 400kbps steady stream, that's about 1/20th of Verizon's bandwidth per tower. Let's say the tower costs $1 million (low end of your estimate). If you and 20 other people like you use 400kbps, the tower is full and can't do anything else. So, just to pay for the tower, Verizon needs to recover $50000 from each user like you. In addition, they actually still need to run a network infrastructure, pay for Internet access, etc. $1000/month seems quite reasonable for that. But it's worse than that: if you use 400kbps on average, but only use the device during working hours, that's about 1.6Mbps or 1/6th of the tower, so now they need to make $160000 from you just to recover your portion of the cost of the tower.
Still talking about 3G huh?
Sounds to me like it stopped because you didn't have any idea of what you were doing.
Sounds like you are predisposed to throwing around insults instead of cogent arguments. I would imagine cogent arguments are difficult when you have a reading comprehension problem such as yours.
By all means continue to support the carriers when they are overselling their bandwidth, price fixing, and gouging the consumer.
If you knew at all what you were talking about you would know that it is possible to deliver the bandwidth and 15GB does not need to cost $200 per month. Clear is using WiMAX and that has the bandwidth to deliver (although not in my city anymore due to overselling) and that technology falls short of LTE, by a large margin.
LTE has the ability to deliver more bandwidth currently. WiMAX will ultimately evolve to be roughly comparable to LTE in terms of capacity and bandwidth.
All of this scarcity that you think exists is ARTIFICIAL.
There is not enough competition. The players are price fixing. Period.
No, we are talking about the physics and economics of wireless cellular communications. They principles stay the same regardless of what standard you are using, only the numbers change (much of US "4G" is 3G anyway).
Your idea that wireless is just like wired except companies have to pay for building a few towers with a range of many miles is ridiculous. You just don't understand how cellular technology works.
All true in the US, albeit for completely different reasons than you imagine.
You just don't understand how cellular technology works.
Well then you don't understand it either. All of the numbers you pulled were either out of your ass, or for 3G.
You keep coming back an argument that I don't understand wireless, when I do.
There is a limited amount of spectrum. You use different technologies to use that spectrum to the greatest efficiency you can. That includes working around interference, signal range, signal penetration, etc.
In that regard, a wireless tower is no different than a Wireless N access point. What you think I don't understand, is that there is a limited number of connections that can be made, and a limited amount of bandwidth provided to all connections at any one time.
What you are wrong about, is the number of connections and total bandwidth per cell tower. They have a much greater range than your standard access point, up to 20 miles or so, but I am not sure off the top of my head what the range for a LTE tower would be. Standard spacing I think is a couple of miles per mast, regardless of technology used on the tower. Multiple spectrums and technologies can co-exist on a single tower.
Obviously... the more towers you have means the greater number of connections per area covered, and greater amount of total bandwidth to deliver.
What I said about wired and wireless being no different is accurate. Planning for wireless cell towers is no different than planning for wireless access points in a large building. The bandwidth is already being run under the ground and distributed. Those costs *will* be roughly comparable to cablemodem/DSL. The difference is going to be that a single tower can service far more connections in a given area and will offset all the equipment you need to distribute cablemodem/DSL into neighborhoods and into each individual house.
When looking at the cost of a tower versus the costs of the additional fiber runs, routers, street to the MPOE, etc. I don't think you are going to get that dramatic of a difference.
So if you understand "cellular" as well as you say you do... then tell me the specs for an LTE (4G) tower. What is the total number of connections per tower? Is it flexible? Meaning, can the number of connections grow past a certain point while degrading the existing connections, or is there a fixed amount that cannot be passed (GSM vs CDMA)? What is the total bandwidth that can be delivered to wireless connections from a single tower (single spectrum)?
I think you don't know what you are talking about because the literature puts your numbers off by an order at least. Even 1st gen WiMAX exceeds the numbers you put out.
As I was saying, I was using _your_ numbers, just to illustrate a point; the actual cost structure is much more complicated.
The point is that cell service is fundamentally limited by radio bandwidth, tower density, and peak usage. If your infrastructure is maxed out, then if people start using twice as much data, you need twice as many towers. That's fundamentally different from wired.
You're confusing limits with actual performance. WiMAX and 4G increase the limits of the technology, but they don't use bandwidth a lot more efficiently. If you replaced all 3G towers and phones with 4G, nothing much would change or get faster. 4G just allows companies to put in more towers, support faster rates, and and support more users, but they still need to make the investments to actually do so.
As I was saying, I was using _your_ numbers, just to illustrate a point; the actual cost structure is much more complicated.
You pulled the 3G bandwidth out yourself; those were not my numbers.
The cost structure is not more complicated at all. Just different.
The point is that cell service is fundamentally limited by radio bandwidth, tower density, and peak usage. If your infrastructure is maxed out, then if people start using twice as much data, you need twice as many towers. That's fundamentally different from wired.
Nooo. It is exactly the same as wired.
A fiber optical cable is fundamentally limited by physics just as much as as radio bandwidth is limited by physics. Once the cable is laid in the ground, there is a fixed amount of bandwidth that will flow across it. The most you could ever do is swap out the technology that is pushing the light across for something more efficient. However, many technological improvements in bandwidth also involve different fiber optical cables.
There is NO difference between wireless and wired networks till you reach a certain point. You could refer to it as the "last mile" if you want. It is just smaller pipes feeding into bigger ones and then ultimately huge bridges in between networks. You would understand that as the network hand offs, which are governed by peer and transit agreements.
Wired infrastructure can max out just as much as wireless.
There should be NO IMPACT from people using twice as much data on a wired network, or a wireless network. The only reason why there is comes back to my original point.... they are overselling bandwidth which should be illegal.
Of course you are going to point out that without "sharing" the bandwidth it would be impossible to deliver a connection to as many people as we do. That is not true. What would have to happen is a greater level of transparency and honesty about costs. Just as I mentioned previously with my metered bandwidth plan at my datacenter, it is possible to do this in a way that the consumer could understand.
What will happen when unlimited disappears completely and the costs are transparent is that the consumer will be able to figure out that Netflix costs them $20 per month, but streaming a single 2 hour HD movie will cost them $0.35. I am pulling that number out of my butt, but the point is that it will be a known cost. I can calculate all my costs at the datacenter.
As for wireless, the costs are not that difficult to figure out. Since the "last mile" is wireless that means you are not spending any money at all with extra cable runs in the streets, routers, and connections to individual houses. We are more than likely talking about a diameter of 6 miles per tower, if we are talking about normal traditional spacing in between towers. That is more space than you are seemingly willing to acknowledge. That's about 30 square miles of coverage. I don't think you realize how much money it costs to do cable runs under the street, or how much a single router in the ground costs, the maintenance, etc.
Having your infrastructure, with the exceptions of the major "arteries", above ground reduces costs. Even with more towers per area, we are not talking about 20x the costs of bringing broadband to individual homes in a wired fashion.
You're confusing limits with actual performance. WiMAX and 4G increase the limits of the technology, but they don't use bandwidth a lot more efficiently. If you replaced all 3G towers and phones with 4G, nothing much would change or get faster. 4G just allows companies to put in more towers, support faster rates, and and support more users, but they still need to make the investments to actually do so.
I have no idea what you are talking about.
Limits vs Real World Performance applies to everything. Gigabit Ethernet has limits on paper, but actual performance depends on numerous factors, including
Just the original O-band on fiber is 1260-1360nm, giving you 18000000 MHz bandwidth on fiber, vs 20 MHz for Verizon's 4G over the air.
They are very different, because the limit on wired infrastructure is available processing speed, while the limit on wireless is available bandwidth and spectral efficiency.
We agree on that, which is why I left it out of my calculations.
What you don't understand is that it is not "wireless capability with the latest technologies" that matters, it is mostly bandwidth. Theoretically, 4G gives you a peak spectral efficiency of 8 Mbps/MHz and 3G gives you 2 Mbps/MHz. But under real-world conditions, both currently give you 0.5-1 Mbps, and 4G can raise that to maybe 2 Mbps/MHz over the next decade with a lot of extra hardware being deployed. (And the only reason 4G can even do that is MIMO; that's a one trick pony.)
Think of 4G as a Porsche and 3G as a Honda Civic. The Porsche "is faster" than the Civic on an uncongested highway or the racetrack, but in city traffic, the two are the same. If you actually want faster performance out of the Porsche, it isn't sufficient to buy the faster car, you also need to build more highways and raise the speed limit. Likewise, if they actually want faster performance out of 4G, companies need to build a lot more towers (plus invest a lot more money in the existing ones).