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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."
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.
Welcome back to AT&T of yesteryear where douchebag hipsters on their iPhones hog all the bandwidth
Yes they are. Smartphones still are and will be unlimited for the foreseeable future. They never advertised unlimited for the USB modems. Stop trolling.
just jail brake your phone and make it a hotspot
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.
Honest off-topic question from a non-USAian. Why is it deemed necessary to miss-spell a person or an organisation's name to convey displeasure or digust. Are terms like "rethuglicans" and "libtards" really perceived as clever? Where did this practice originate?
In your case, would it not be more satisfying to say, "buh bye, Sprint, you bunch of cunts?" Is the verbosity that off putting?
The beaverisation of America is getting way out of hand.
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"?
Normal smartphone use is still unlimited.
For how long?
Smartphones still are and will be unlimited for the foreseeable future..
until next week?
until next month?
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.
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 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.
That depends on if they have enough money, but a safe bet would be yes.
Out of all the tier 1 US carriers, Sprint's plans are IMO the best. Except for the stupid $10/month "smartphone data" fee, which is bullshit.
Unfortunately I live in the taint of the country, and don't have any hope of actually getting 4G data on my 4G phone until Sprint completes their LTE network vision and I get an LTE capable phone.
Hopefully Gingerbread will finally go OTA this week and make me forget these things.
Then that would be "non-American", not "non-USAian".
You just went full retard. Never go full retard.
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make install -not war
In NYC my Sprint 4G smartphone doesn't get 4G hardly anywhere, and outside NYC I have yet to see it get 4G. Much of the time the phone doesn't even get 3G.
Sprint's plans are just about the cheapest, especially for 4G. But you don't get what you don't pay for.
I fully expect LTE to be even worse. Not technologically, but because Sprint has always sucked and reamed its customers, and gradually lowers expectations even more.
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make install -not war
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.
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.
There is a reason it's called a "cellurar network".
Because it uses a proprietary compression algorithm?
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?
It's like a restaurant that offers an "all you can eat" buffet and doesn't allow your elephant in.
You don't pay for your data usage. You pay for the average data usage of everybody who has the same contract as you. So they disallow types of use that on the average lead to more network use, and allow types that on the average use less bandwidth.
So if you pay for "up to 5 GB" you are actually charged for "average use of anyone on the 5 GB plan", which is a lot less than 5 GB.
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.
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.
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
Obama isn't beholden to the telecoms the way he is to Wall Street, is he?
His recent attempt at net neutrality basically exempted cell providers from most of the regulations, what do you think?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
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
Every time an American (I say that only to speak to you in your native language, normally I have no problem doing so but I don't want to appear complacent to your stupidity) says something cartoonishly asinine like this they reinforce the stereotype of the dumb jingoistic cowboy whose knowledge of anything outside the US border consists of "here there be dragons."
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
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.
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.
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.