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Ask Slashdot: Is It Worth Being Grandfathered On Verizon's Unlimited Data Plan?
An anonymous reader writes I understand a lot of people dislike Verizon in general, but assuming for a moment that they were your only option for a cellular service provider, is staying on their grandfathered unlimited data plan still worth it? Their recent announcement to not throttle traffic is inpiring, but I just don't know the long-term benefits of staying on this plan. I fear there is a tipping point where enough people will swap over to a metered plan and Verizon will ultimately abandon the unlimited altogether and assume the risk of losing a percentage of those remaining folks, at which point all of us who bought unsubsidized phones will have wasted the money doing so. Does anyone have any insight on this? Useful answers to this should take into account the problem with the question of "How long is a piece of string?" Give some context about how much you pay, and how much you use -- and how much that would change if the price were different.
$45 unlimited. nuff said.
Kids + tablets + streaming videos = Massive GBs used per month
Because they extend it to the latest device you own -- unless -- unless you purchase that device at full price. They are going to go all capitalist on you somehow...
Disclaimer: very recent Verizon customer that got smart and went Virgin Mobile for $35 month, unlimited data, unlimited texting, 300 minutes talk (5 hours) and very satisfied.
You could definitely get cheaper UNLIMITED DATA elsewhere. But would you be happy with the COVERAGE? At some point you may want new EQUIPMENT, to which Verizon will tell you that your new phone isn't compatible with the "grandfathered" rate plans. The real questions to ask are "am I happy with the coverage" and "Will I be happy with this phone forever?" If the unlimited data works for you now, keep it for now. But at some point, you'll be forced to make a decision. All the other arguments about "unlimited" data are irrelevant. There are much better UNLIMITED deals elsewhere for the money.
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
I don't know about Verizon, but AT&T takes care of its long-term customers. There has not been any indication that they will end the grandfathered plans.
$40 unlimited. nuff said.
You drive 400 miles, each way, 3 times a week? I'm presuming you're a trucker or something similar and not a masochist.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Not unlimited, but I pay ~$33/month for service on two phones. Can't imagine using enough minutes/texts/data to actually make it up to unlimited plan prices.
The final straw for me was when i wanted to add a data hotspot to my iphone 4s while i was on the train to San Diego. I didnt want to pay the extra $20/month just to internet connection share but i needed it. The guy told me that they werent allowed to make any changes to 3g plans at all any more. It was upgrade to a 4g plan and new phones or fuck you. I ordered a Moto G LTE the next day and went to T-mobile and am very happy with my service so far. I save almost $70/mo in the switch. (3 lines total, 2 [1GB] lines and an unlimited line +5G hotspot for $160/mo.)
Good-bye
I was a hold out. I purchased at full price my Samsung S4 ($700 with taxes) and my wife's iPhone 5S ($800 with taxes). I calculated that the break even point was about 2.5 years. Then my wife wanted text messaging that we had turned off to save money. Then Verizon reduced the cost of their data plans. I looked at my data usage and saw that it was low. I turned on wifi on both phones and my data usage dropped. I called one night and asked if there were any promotions to get me to switch. After promotions of $10 month/line for paying full price for the phones and choosing a low data usage plan, I saved $60 a month. The few months I go over, will still be cheaper than keeping the unlimited plan. Did I make a mistake? Only time will tell.
Cricket (AT&T Prepaid) does unlimited voice + 3G of data for $45, 10G of data for $55. So they're happy to have you at $65 with a contract...
Stupid analogy, that.
Useful answers to this should take into account the problem with the question of "How long is a piece of string?" Give some context about how much you pay, and how much you use -- and how much that would change if the price were different.
The second half of the commentary in the summary is a bit easier to digest. Yes, it all boils down to math. The key is, Verizon has probably calculated how the math will benefit them in the long run, and customers effectively can't, so the game is rigged from the start.
Let's give an example. Verizon bases their "limited" usage caps based on the average usage of their aggregate customer base (plus a little wiggle room, I guess). So on average, the data usage of a given customer won't go over the limit. However, the usage of a particular customer might exceed the cap at particular times. Travel/vacation time is a good time for this. You use more data while running the GPS-based turn-by-turn navigation while driving to your destination. Once there, you want some entertainment during the evenings, but you're not at home where you can use your home-based internet via wi-fi, so you stream some Netflix via 4G. Since your phone can output 1080p via HDMI, you use that cable you bought to plug into the HDMI port of the television at the place you are staying. Depending on the length of your stay, that's a significant spike in your data usage.
Under the unlimited plan, you either get throttled at some point (but now you don't) or you just don't notice the fact that you wandered above the average usage for the week or two you were traveling, because unlimited. Under capped, metered data plans, you are subject to overage fees based on a cap that has been fine tuned to be just above the threshold of "normal" usage, so your bill is higher. It may be only for those few weeks, so easy to absorb, but add that up across the entire customer base and Verizon has made more money than they would have with the unlimited data plans in place.
*That* is what it's all about. So unless you absolutely have to, you might as well stick to your grandfathered unlimited plan, because once you give it up, you will be fleeced, even if just a little bit.
It isn't really unlimited though, After 5Gb they have the option of terminating your contract, throttling you, or cutting you off. It is there in your contract. Nothing is unlimited, most of the services that claim to be unlimited have break-over points where they shunt you onto 3g or severely limit your speeds. I would claim collusion, but they have way more resources and lawyers than I do.
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Until recently, I used to think that I needed the unlimited plan because I never wanted to hit the limit on data. After reviewing our bill, 2 of the 3 phones we had still had unlimited plans along with purchased minutes costing us about $320 a month for all 3 phones. After using the online tool to see how much data we use monthly, combined we all used less than 10gb so, I switched us over to the shared family plan for $145 instead of $320, and then got us all on the AT&T Next plan for annual phone upgrades and I'm still saving $70 a month! Milage varies depending on if you jailbreak/tether your current phone a lot. VZ has the same kind of plans which could save you some money if you have multiple phones. If not, then it might not save you much money and not be worth loosing that unlimited plan
Between wifi at work/home/parents, I use maybe 1.5gb in an extreme month. lots of travel with maps/radio apps. Otherwise it's barely over 500mb per month.
You could try finding a mnvo for Verizon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
The two big catches with the unlimited plan are
(a) you can't buy a discounted phone (which someone above has already mentioned)
but the big one is
(b) you can't hotspot or share the account with other devices
(a) is less of a problem these days: There really aren't discounted phones, just installment payment plans. And I got my latest phone from a relative who's an exec at Verizon (no, I can't get you one too)
(b) is nearly a dealbreaker. I don't like touchscreen typing, so any message more than two lines long I want to use my laptop or tablet keyboard for... but I can't if I'm not in a free wifi zone. Is it worth losing unlimited to be able to occasionally tether? Maybe. At one point there were apps that would let you tether without rooting the phone, outside of the provider's knowledge, then they stopped working, maybe they work again.
Anyone have experience with non-root tether apps on Android?
Design for Use, not Construction!
Letting customers continue to feel like they are "getting away with something" by NOT doing something to them and hence locking them into a relationship with the vendor, keeping them from looking into other possibilities.
Seems like genius.
...and the day they take it from me is the day I leave Verizon. I have somehow managed to get subsidized phones and keep my unlimited data plan. Most recently was with the October '13 glitch that let me get a LG G2 and keep my data plan. I travel extensively to rural areas and use the hell out of my data plan. Verizon's network coverage is still untouchable, as is their ability to nickel and dime their customers.
I've been limited for 15 months now, and I haven't changed my habits. I only use about 0.5 GB per month because I'm always on WiFi at work and at home and I rarely play videos while I'm out. I haven't missed unlimited, and I haven't felt restricted.
My wife's usage was basically the same as mine until the past few months, when she started using Spotify and YouTube to entertain our toddler on the go. If she's careful not to use YouTube much while she's out, she now uses 1.5-1.8 GB per month. This weekend she forgot she had disabled WiFi and used YouTube for an extend period. Now she's at 1.5GB with 2 weeks to go.
Check out T-Mobile. I live in Chicago, and they're great. Yes, almost everyone I know uses either Verizon or AT&T. But they complain about overage charges and dropped calls. I don't have that problem.
Seemingly every year or two T-Mobile actually lowers their price. I used to pay about $150 for two lines. Now I pay $80 total for both lines, with completely unlimited voice, text, and data. They include 1GB of 4G LTE data per line per month, and then I pay an extra $10 per line per month to bump both of them up to 3GB of LTE each. But even if I used 15GB per month, I still wouldn't be charged more than the $100 ($80 + $10 + $10) that I normally pay. After I go beyond 3GB, my data speed gets dropped down to 3G. But I can continue to use as much data as I want. I just switch to wifi for data when I get home, and I have never had a problem with going over 3GB.
I traveled to another country over the summer, and I was even able to use my phone for free over there. It was awesome!
There's no downside to T-Mobile. There's no contract, no overage fees, no nonsense. If they have LTE coverage in your city, check them out.
http://www.t-mobile.com/covera...
I'm presuming you're a trucker or something similar and not a masochist.
The two certainly aren't exclusive. :)
You can no longer get subsidized phones through Verizon if you want to keep your Unlimited. Your options are to get a subsidized phone and move down to one of the metered plans or purchase a phone at full price and keep your unlimited (that is, until Verizon pulls the plug and you have the choice to going metered or switching carriers).
As someone on the grandfathered Verizon unlimited plan, I'm seriously considering buying an unsubsidized phone.
My wife traded it for a 5GB plan, and has gone over her data plan with only limited youtube usage. Once XLTE gets implemented, that means you can burn through your data even faster.
It's either that or go to Sprint, which I understand in recent years has turned down the "suck" lately, and actually has decent speeds, coverage, and unlimited data.
The best part of being grandfathered onto the unlimited data plan with Verizon is unlimited tethering!
I pay $29.99 for Unlimited Email & Web, and $30.00 for "4G Smartphone Hotspot" - which is also unlimited. So I get unlimited LTE tethering, which is great - I work from home so I use this to go work from the park, etc.. for a change of scenery. Use about 20GB of data per month that way.
Downside was paying full price for an iPhone 5s.. I am thinking about buying iPhone 6 - with VoLTE I could be on the phone and tether at the same time! That was only thing keeping me from using LTE full time and getting rid of my cable modem connection.
I am grandfathered in with unlimited data with 450 minutes of talk and 1000 text messages a month for ~$78 a month. For me it is woth it. I NEVER go over minutes or texts. I only use ~1GB a month of data so I don't NEED to unlimited. The main reason I don't resign then? 1) To stick it to the man, Yeah! 2) It will cost me MORE ($90+) to go to 2GB a month b/c now unlimited voice and text are included. No thanks! I would resign if I could keep at the same cost but it is not worth it to me. I have an old Motorola 4 that needs replacing but I plan on just buying a Galaxy 4 sometime in the future. I don't need the newest phone and I really don't use my phone too much anyway. I just need Strava and a way to check email. I think it's crazy that cell providers keep charging more for the same tech (Texting). I guess I'm just turning into an old fart who dosen't care about the bling bling and just needs something that works.
Those on corporate plans (including those of use through combined purchasing partners via professional/industry organizations) can still upgrade and keep unlimited. It's not an option for new subscribers, but I upgraded last summer and my wife last spring and both kept our $20 unlimited data plans. (I know, crazy - definitely legacy. $27 for 400 pooled minutes, and 250 texts/phone, plus $20 for the unlim data). Tethering isn't allowed, but violations aren't rigorously enforced, so I tether with my rooted handset on occasion.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
For me, it's been great. I've been on a year long road trip and I kept my unlimited account to use as a backup. Turns out the internet service provided at rv parks/resorts has sucked fetid donkey balls at nearly every stop. If I hadn't kept my unlimited Verizon account, this trip would have had some really annoying stretches. Instead of being my backup, it's been my primary access most of the time and I've moved hundred of gigs during some billing periods. I'm [almost] embarrassed by the amount of data I've moved the last two billing periods because I was giving Verizon a big "F you!" in anticipation of being throttled. :) I'm about a week from closing on a house so I'll be going back to cable. With the threat of throttling hanging over my account, I was planning to switch to one of those $40-50 deals. But, since Verizon's flinched on throttling people like me, I'll keep my unlimited account as a backup for as long as they let the data flow.
On a more philosophical tangent, I don't see how people put up with metered service on cell phones these days. I've got half a dozen apps that all want to sync all my pics and video automatically. I'd be paranoid that I missed a setting on some new app and it's going to eat up a gig of data before I catch it.
40 minutes already and no comment with a score over 2!
I'm on AT&T, the data portion of my bill is $30/month (grandfathered on the old Unlimited plan), and I have an iPhone 5S.
My last billing cycle I used 4.5GB of data. This billing cycle (which just started today) I've already used 300MB.
the 2GB data plans from AT&T start at $40/month and $15 for every 250MB over that. 4GB plans seem to start at $70/month.
With my usage it's pretty clear that there is NO advantage to dropping my unlimited data plan. I use far more data than I do talk time or text messages, and I would be paying AT&T more than twice what I currently pay for my average level of usage.
/~mikeg
So my wife and I both switched from Verizon Unlimited to Republic Wireless this past January and I've already saved enough money to cover the cost of the two Moto X's I had to buy. I can see Republic Wireless not working well for everyone though. I happen to live in the Chicago Area where coverage from every major provider is basically the same. I actually get better service in the loop with my Republic Wireless phone than I did with Verizon because Sprint's towers are less congested.
However, I wouldn't ever tell my Mother-In-Law to switch to Republic since she lives so far north in Michigan that they deliver the mail by snow mobile and talk with Canadian accents. Sprint basically has zero coverage up there and when my wife and I visit we have to put our phones on airplane mode with only WiFi so the battery doesn't die really fast. Verizon has full coverage with 4G LTE there so the choice is obvious.
So, it's come to this.... Massive random cell division and mutations
rewriting history since 2109
You could definitely get cheaper UNLIMITED DATA elsewhere. But would you be happy with the COVERAGE? At some point you may want new EQUIPMENT, to which Verizon will tell you that your new phone isn't compatible with the "grandfathered" rate plans. The real questions to ask are "am I happy with the coverage" and "Will I be happy with this phone forever?" If the unlimited data works for you now, keep it for now. But at some point, you'll be forced to make a decision. All the other arguments about "unlimited" data are irrelevant. There are much better UNLIMITED deals elsewhere for the money.
I have gotten comments and run into situations where my T-mobile data and voice coverage in major metropolitan areas are better than Verizon. If you're in a big city or dense areas, it's not clear to me that Verizon is better. T-mobile has also been looking to improve their non-metro coverage [1]. And they've purchased 700Mhz spectrum from Verizon also good for non-dense coverage [2]. Finally, T-mobile "uncarrier" push is constantly striving to improve customer features and services. They are setting the pace with which other carriers follow.
I currently very rarely go outside of big metros so T-Mobile is a great choice for me - and I've had HD Voice for the past year and absolutely love it. Welcome to the club, ATT/VZ - glad you are finally rolling that out.
There is at least one carrier making it their focus to improve their coverage both voice and data significantly over the past 2 years, and T-mobile is definitely on that list.
[1] http://www.fiercewireless.com/...
[2] http://www.telecompetitor.com/...
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
gave up my AT&T long ago and never looked back. i rarely stream music, netflix or youtube. with phones being able to store over 100GB of data you can just carry it around instead of paying money for bandwidth
$10 a month buys spotify premium with lots of features including online caching
you can download podcasts and large youtube videos to watch offline
you can't cache netflix, but any other movie can be stored locally
porn is easy to download a bunch of videos on wifi and watch later at your leisure
my 4 line AT&T plan used to run $250 a month and now it's $187 including my Note 3 on NEXT payments. if i could get an AT&T plan for like $50 a month for 4 lines and a gig or two of data i'd do it in a heartbeat. carry around a cheapo phone for emergency data and buy a tablet with lots of storage to use more often
verizon has been known to have periodic "accidents" and unoffician promotions where you can upgrade with subsidized pricing and unlimited data
Did they change it or something? I have that plan, except its 5GB of 4G data. (And although I've never hit it, I was under the impression that it was unlimited 3G afterward.)
Also, VoIP is zero pennies more if you use Google Voice (with Hangouts). Otherwise, the cheapest third-party VoIP providers tend to charge something like $2-$3/month.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I purchased online through BestBuy.com and just switched my SIM out of my GS3... kept my unlimited and got cheap phone... also do wifi with FoxFi...
I'm not the original anonymous questioner, but I'm in the same boat. I live in a rural area where Verizon has the only coverage, and I've been on an unlimited plan for years. My phone is a Galaxy S (that's S #1) that's getting a bit old; it chokes on a lot of modern websites and apps. I never go above 2 GB/month. I don't even think it's possible, as my old phone is 3G and barely handles Youtube.
I would have switched plans before, but Verizon didn't give me any incentive other than a new phone. My monthly rate would have stayed the same (or even went up, depending on the store personnel I had) while I got less bandwidth. That's unacceptable. If they cut my monthly rate by $20 then I'd leap at the new contract. Any phone I get from them under a new contract would also be stocked with their worthless software; I'd have to root it to clean it out. It's worth it to me to pay full price for a new phone just to avoid the bloatware, let alone the loss of bandwidth that I may or may not use.
TLDR: A new contract means they're going to restrict my bandwidth, make me pay the same amount, and pile bloat on top of any phone I get. I think it's still worth it to me to buy a new phone at full price and keep the unlimited plan.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
I use mine for just about everything. My data usage is usually about 5G a month which is right at most company's largest caps. I could downgrade if I were by myself but then I would have to be careful. Screw that! But.. my phone shares the plan with my wife. She uses 3 or 4 times what I use. How? She watches Netflix at work all day. they don't mind her doing that but she keeps it off of their network just to keep it that way.
Don't want to pay full price for a phone? Go used. Big deal if you are a generation or two behind. A generation in phones is what? 6 months? Yesterday's shiny is still awesome so long as you aren't even considering today's shiny! You can have that stuff next year! My Droid Bionic still runs every app I chose to install just fine. The lapdock is great! I get stuck in hospital waiting rooms A LOT due to a family member's health issues. The lapdock let's me get shit done so when I finally get home I can enjoy my time. I use VNC and RDP apps to get into my home and work computers. ...and that would be one reasom I am NOT interested in a limited data plan. Pandora during the daily comute is good too. The radio mostly sucks these days.
Well.. your life is your own, what you will use your phone for is different from me but I really believe that if you aren't using a TON of data you probably just aren't taking advantage of everything your phone should be doing for you.
I was on the grand fathered plan until corporate made me switch. I rarely use more than the data cap, but when I travel I prefer to use my cell phone instead of hotel wifi. I have already run into problems with forced disconnects and throttling. They say that they do not do it but my experience tells me otherwise.
I am still waiting for the call from the accounting drone about overage charges. Of course I saved the email where I told them that when I go over, I tend to go WAY over and that by forcing me off of the plan they are going to end up paying more.
Like most "unlmited" plans, it's not really unlimited as it has a high speed cap. Unless you pay for a higher cap, the service is throttled severely to 2g speeds after the high speed cap is exceeded.
Twice I have let Microsoft do a pretty big update via my phone just because I didn't have to be concerned about an over limit. Do I even use 5G? No. So it's more about peace of mind. There, you got a piece of my mind.
Yesterday I just changed me & my wife from our AT&T legacy unlimited plans to a shared 10gb plan (think it's doubled to 20gb due to some promo). I think we'll end up saving over $30 a month and going from 1400 minutes to unlimited. I looked at the stats & combined in the past year our biggest usage month was about 5gb.
Not sure if you can look up the data usage on Verizon, but you can find it for AT&T. If your not using much compared to a capped pan & there is a savings, your probably better off changing.
I noticed the AT&T app now permits tethering to boot (not that it mattered, I'm rooted & running Cyanogen, so could tether natively, although in theory they could still detect that & do something about it, I never abused it though).
Really can't use T-mobile through combination of LTE, Wi-Fi calling and limited free data roaming? Your highest data use to date would be prohibitively expensive on best limited plan? Then stay on your current plan while it lasts and look at your options then. I definitely wouldn't pay month after month to just preserve what you might need some day.
"You drive 400 miles, each way, 3 times a week?"
That's nothing compared to some of the crap the 'local' truckers here in California have to handle.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The real question is not about unlimited data, but about speed and unlimited data. There are numerous providers who will put you on an unlimited data plan using the Verizon network. They will do it at a cost lower than Verizon charges. HOWEVER, none of them will let you get anything but 3g. The only ones that are allowed to use Verizon's LTE network will not sell you an unlimited data plan as far as I know. Straight talk is one example. If you check phone compatibility, they'll tell you you don't need a sim card. That is a friendly way of saying 3g only since the Verizons sim card enables the LTE network and without it your CDMA(3g) only.
Useful answers to this should take into account the problem with the question of "How long is a piece of string?" Give some context about how much you pay, and how much you use -- and how much that would change if the price were different.
WTF? Are we all children now? Would you like to tell us how we should answer in other posts now, Timothy? If the OP couldn't form his question to include what details he was actually looking for, you should have either accepted his post as-is or rejected it. Your clarification is, IMHO, insulting.
So, here is my experience. For me, I believe it is worth paying for. I have the old $30/month unlimited data plan with Verizon. I also pay them another $20/month for mobile hotspot with the same device (Droid DNA). I was never told that I wouldn't be able to add the hotspot to my phone because I had unlimited data, I simply called Verizon and after a minute or two they told me my hotspot was active. Simple as that. Minutes later, I was driving on the NY Thruway with navigation running, my daughter watching Netflix on her iPad via the new hotspot, and my teenage sons surfing I don't know what via the new hotspot in the back of the van. For all this, the gross cost is 50 per month, BUT, working at my company entitles me to a 22% discount on my bill, so call it more like 40/month. I originally had a Droid Bionic and purchased a Droid DNA outright in order to remain on the plan. It wasn't my experience that purchasing a new phone wouldn't be "compatible" with unlimited data, my old phone was a 4G LTE data phone and so is the new one. The salesperson was very good at offering (IMHO, PUSHING) the 10GB shared plan at the time (Sept 2013, I think), and remarked that my family usage was nowhere near 10GB and wouldn't get overage charges based on current usage. I steadfastly clung to my unlimited data, because as Inigo Montoya would say, I know something you don't know.... As these phones advance and new ways to use our always on data connections are invented, data usage is not static. It is only going to increase over time. You might not be a Netflix user now, but get caught up in The Walking Dead while on the road, and unlimited data beckons. I thought I was a little out of control using 10-15GB a month now but there's an article on here where people were boasting about using a TB! I've never experienced throttling and Verizon's description of its old policy was actually fair - they claimed they would only throttle IF the node you were on was crowded, and you were an above average data user. Otherwise they left you alone to use the network as you pleased. Overall, considering the subsidies for a phone amounts to $450/24 or $18.75 per month, I feel like I'm paying $57.75 a month for the privilege of unlimited data on a premium network (my perception as of now), and I can tether up to 5 devices to it at any time. It's worth it to me.
Interesting you say "they" and not "we." Do you, perchance, enjoy the taste of potato spirits and cabbage soup?
I came here today to promote prepaid. I had AT&T until they screwed me. Then I had Verizon until they screwed me. I like prepaid because it is completely impossible to get screwed. They cannot possibly overcharge me.
I pay $32 a month ($2 taxes) and I get what I need. I don't get a large amount of data and I don't need it because I'm always near wifi. I've never been anywhere near my data cap and if I were to hit it then I'd just simply stop getting data, which is what I want, instead of getting a huge unexpected phone bill. If I wanted more data I could call up and buy it right away, which I don't think will ever happen.
Frankly I use the voice and text so little that I think I could fit in the smaller plan for $14 a month. I might try that eventually. (This is PagePlus Wireless in Wisconsin.)
Prepaid means no more getting screwed.
Addendum to what I said here -- http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
My main beef is that Verizon won't bring FiOS to my neighborhood. No amount of little people money (i.e., short of offering to bribe them with several million dollars) is going to convince them to bring FiOS to my suburban neighborhood. There's FiOS 1/8th of a mile down the road; in fact, my community is surrounded by people who have FiOS. But Verizon stopped expanding FiOS, and Comcast hasn't installed replacement copper cables in our area despite us being their customer for a decade and complaining about it on a bi-weekly basis.
So the copper sucks (it's unreliable); the ADSL sucks (the speeds are just too slow, AND it's unreliable); and the amount of money it would take to move Verizon to install FiOS simply isn't available.
Sprint in my area is extremely marginal. I'd have to find a Yagi LTE antenna and point it exactly in the direction of the tower -- and then I'd only have LTE through the house's wifi, but if I were out and about in town, I probably wouldn't have any data. The tower is several miles away and just barely registers as a signal at all, but usually we get no data. So I returned my Sprint device after trying this for several days.
What's left? Well, either live in the 20th century without access to the global economy; or use Verizon Wireless LTE. Verizon's refusal to expand FiOS has left me with no options.
Moving is not an option due to the immense cost of housing. Our house is paid off, and we spend the money we'd be paying on a mortgage, on other things. We would have to severely curtail online spending, luxury spending, penny pinch on utility use, etc. if we were to move. Having a paid-off house in a world where everything is expensive and everyone is living beyond their means, is the difference between being able to afford stuff and always being broke.
Unlimited data on LTE is really a lifesaver. But it's ultimately Verizon Wireless' parent company, Verizon, that is to blame for any undue congestion we may cause by using a combined 200 GB or so per month of LTE data. It's their greedy refusal to expand FiOS to neighborhoods that might take more than a few years to make ROI, despite receiving vast amounts of public funding that were earmarked for FiOS, then turning around and spending that money on LTE instead.
Hey. If they want to offer me a great service, at a great price, and live within the restrictions the FCC has placed on the airwaves, they can kindly shut up. Verizon Wireless has no right to complain about my usage of their service. I am acting entirely within the ToS and the law. I value that service and will continue to use it as long as they offer it. If they ever stop offering it, I'll have to see about bribing Comcast to replace the damaged copper that gives us about 50% uptime on a modern cable modem.
I am hopeful that, in the future, the spectral efficiency and tower density improvements can converge together sufficiently that Verizon will be able to offer a legitimate unlimited data plan to NEW customers, eliminating the fear that us grandfathered folks might soon be put out to pasture. If that's a pipe dream, then they better show up at the end of my street with a reel of fiber, or I'm going to see about taking public action to get my neighborhood some actually decent access to the 21st century economy.
The greatest tragedy of a capitalistic society is when nobody's selling what you're buying. Such wasted potential. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.