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Verizon To Disconnect Unlimited Data Customers Who Use Over 100GB/Month
Verizon Wireless customers who have an unlimited data plan and use significantly more than 100GB a month will soon be disconnected from the network unless they agree to move to limited data packages that require payment of overage fees. Ars Technica reports: Verizon stopped offering unlimited data to new smartphone customers a few years ago, but some customers have been able to hang on to the old plans instead of switching to ones with monthly data limits. Verizon has tried to convert the holdouts by raising the price $20 a month and occasionally throttling heavy users but stopped that practice after net neutrality rules took effect. Now Verizon is implementing a formal policy for disconnecting the heaviest users.In a statement, Verizon said: "Because our network is a shared resource and we need to ensure all customers have a great mobile experience with Verizon, we are notifying a very small group of customers on unlimited plans who use an extraordinary amount of data that they must move to one of the new Verizon Plans by August 31, 2016." a Verizon spokesperson told Ars. "These users are using data amounts well in excess of our largest plan size (100GB). While the Verizon Plan at 100GB is designed to be shared across multiple users, each line receiving notification to move to the new Verizon Plan is using well in excess of that on a single device." FYI: The 100GB plan costs $450 a month.
to finally have found out the limit of unlimited!
Welcome to 2005.
"Unlimited" to Verizon means "unlimited as long as you use less than 300 kilobits per second continuously". Which just happens to be almost exactly the minimum bandwidth for a Skype video call. Ponder that for a moment.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
But I do not think it means what you think it means.
What does unlimited mean? And why do you get penalized if you actually use it as such?
Combifoutuien? Baise le pape!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If they didn't want unlimited use, they should never have offered it. It has pretty much always been a lie from many of these companies, and they should be fined for it. Unlimited with an asterisk defining the limitations of unlimited is not acceptable.
I must have been mistaken about the definition of unlimited. Stupid me thought it meant unlimited.
Verizon must use a different dictionary than I use.
What do the contracts say? Do they have a clause saying "Your unlimited plan is subject to our whim"? No? If they can't kick them off because the plans are obsolete, how can they kick them off with a retroactive policy? I see popcorn and lawsuits.
unÂlimÂitÂed
ËOEÉ(TM)nËlimidÉ(TM)d/
adjective
not limited or restricted in terms of number, quantity, or extent.
... pray I don't change them again.
. . . .that contracts are one-way. Now, if **I** had unilaterally decided to walk on a Verizon cell contract mid-way, I'd be paying termination fees, etc.
Guess some Corporations are More Equal than the rest of us.
Not that it's really news. . . .
/Oblg. You keep using this word "unlimited". It doesn't mean what you think it means
If Verizon is advertising their services as unlimited but it is not then it is fraud plain and simple.
But I guess accurately calling it Nearly Unlimited won't get as many suckers ^H^H^H customers as they want.
I hope they get sued.
--
Note to Redditards: The downvote button is NOT for disagreement but that "this post adds nothing interesting to the conversation."
Their unlimited plan is unlimited. But if your unlimited usage is exceedingly high they can decide they don't want to sell you an unlimited plan anymore.
I know people who setup a wifi hotspot with their unlimited Verizon plan and then serve dozens of people on job sites for months on end uploading media and video. They're not normal users. I can understand why Verizon wouldn't want them anymore.
Similarly I use 10TB of backblaze for $50/year. I'm I imagine not-profitable. So I could understand if they told me that I have 2 months and then they don't want me as a customer anymore even though it's Unlimited. It's unlimited but not every unlimited customer is one they want. Maybe you go over one month and they allow you to spike for free. But I can see how a sustained money loser is not someone they are interested in keeping on. (Then again with backblaze I've converted numerous people to be customers and became a cloud storage customer at work so I imagine their generosity has paid off now.)
Pray I don't alter it any further.
- Someone's dad
This doesn't surprise me from a company that can't comprehend that there is a difference between 0.002 dollars and 0.002 cents.
So in essence..... fraud.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
merely 120 movies a month at .7 ish gig a movie? Streaming is now hammering these tosspots who failed to invest in infrastructure (i.e. laying fibre to the home)
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
"In a statement, Verizon said: "Because our network is a shared resource and we need to ensure all customers have a great mobile experience with Verizon, we are notifying a very small group of customers on unlimited plans who use an extraordinary amount of data that they must move to one of the new Verizon Plans by August 31, 2016.""
Try upgrading your networks. It's what every network admin worth their salt inevitably does, because it works. Traffic spike? Sure, trace it, maybe limit it if it's questionable or unwanted, block it if it's illegal, etc., etc. However, as a general rule, taxes will rise, as must network capacity -> anyone here complaining that 10/100 network is perfectly fast enough, and Gig-E is overkill, would be laughed at for eons. In a few years, 10 Gig-E, or 100 Gig-E will be the norm.
What more, if I remember correctly, Verizon has received kickbacks, tax reductions, etc. to help them finance upgrades for their networks so that this would never be an issue. I could check Verizon's financial performance over these past ten years, then look into their book-keeping (Hollywood accounting), but me thinks they have not been running at a loss. So...in the black + gifts from the US / State / Municipal governments + not upgrading their equipment = a lot of spare dosh. Has Verizon issued some dividends, or should we be looking at embezzlement charges?
At the very least, failure to use working capital correctly (maintaining / growing the business, by buying the equipment that allows them to keep / expand their dominance in their current area) is a failure of corporate duty, and a reason for someone to be fired.
FTA: "These users are using data amounts well in excess of our largest plan size (100GB)."
Well duh, isn't that the whole point of getting an unlimited data plan? Using more data than the capped ones?
While Bangladeshians make only $36 a month... That makes U.S. based internet connection to be the world's most expensive utility right after equatorial Africa.
I am a holdout on a very old plan - two phones with unlimited data and a few other random devices. I went in to purchase a kids smart watch the other day and the VZW salesperson leaves for like ten minutes and comes back with "we can't add this phone to your plan". So if you want it you can move to this limited plan - oh and save some money!
I walked out. If I am going to be forced to live with less and be penalized for going over, why should I stay with VZW? They make me feel like a criminal instead of a customer that has been with them for 15 years and pays well over 200 dollars a month.
This will replace DSL in non fios areas as they profit big time with 100 GB at $375
These Verizon clowns are trying to have their cake and eat it too. If you say it is unlimited, it is unlimited. If you do not want for it to be unlimited, call it something else. Verizon are adding insult to injury by resorting to such puerile tactics, that will fool very, very few of its customers, actual or otherwise.
I don't care if it sits ion the courts for years, can Verizon be held liable for fraud?
When the $20 price increase happened there were plenty of people who were like, well I wasn't really using it, but now I'm definitely going to abuse it. So they spiked their usage super high. Now Verizon is saying, hey this is mobile data, not home internet like some people are using it for. Keep in mind that these plans haven't been sold in years, back before constant high def video streaming was a thing.
Not that I'm defending the move, but really, if you're burning through that much data on a phone, you aren't really using the plan as it was originally designed.
It's like rich people who abuse loopholes in the tax system, sure, it's legal, but that doesn't make you any less of an asshole for abusing it.
>The 100GB plan costs $450 a month.
Jesus christ people are suckers. I want to find the first consumer who looked at an internet plan with a monthly cap and overage fees and thought "Hmm, this seems fine to me." and slap them in the face. For a stupid scam like that to catch on there needs to first be an alpha idiot.
Meanwhile I'll be over here on my ~$80/month cap-less dsl connection using 100 gb per *day* when the need arises with no retarded fees or price gouging.
I received a phone call from the vzw loyalty team this morning they wanted to do an account review but as was on the way to work (talking on cellphones while driving is still legal here) I said not right now and they left it at that.
I suppose this must be what they wanted to talk about.
My home line is over 133GB this month and I still have 23 days left on this billing cycle. So I suppose i'll be switching to one of att's unlimited plans this month I figure that will run me about $2,000 to buy one but still no one else will bring internet out here for that price so oh well.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
They *are* two-way. They are, de-facto, in material breach of contract. They agreed to sell you unlimited bandwidth, if they don't you can sue them in court. People have taken cell phone companies to small-claims court for violating these contracts and have won continuation of their service.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Look, there's nothing wrong with being a rational actor on both sides here. The original contract is over and every single person on one of these plans is month to month. A partnership or business relationship not otherwise restricted will only exist for as long as it makes sense for both sides.
You idiots abusing a shared resource have pushed Verizon into accepting a PR hit in exchange for not having to deal with your douchebaggery any more. So be it. This is why we can't have nice things.
Anyone who's ever worked at an ISP knows about the predictions network engineers have to make when deciding how oversubscribed one network segment will be, and what kind of utilization can be allowed. These are consumer plans, not business SLA hookups, and if they can save themselves headaches by kicking the %.00001 off their network, it's fine by them. If you want to pay $500/month for 100GB of transfer, find a local ISP who can metro-link you an Ethernet hand-off and be done with it. Wireless networks were not meant for that level of individual usage.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
OK, I am the first to say VZW is the worst, but in this case people can't complain. They were stupid enough to sell "unlimited" data, so they would now be in the wrong if they made the "unlimited" have a limit (yes, they would love to do just that of course), but instead they are just deciding it makes no financial sense to them to keep these customers on. Similar to how you decide VZW makes no financial sense to you and you drop them, a company can do the same (following the terms of the contract), the aren't obliged to give you what you want, so in this case they are right to do that instead of finding a more sneaky way to limit or charge you.
And 100GB is of course quite a lot of data, if you want that much data of your mobile connection, sorry, nobody will give it to you cheaply.
In fact, it goes the other way around, they are giving you increasingly faster mobile connections (at least in cities, forget more rural areas), without making data cheaper. You simply have less time to run your connection at full speed, before you hit your data cap - in the most common max speed / included data combinations you can max out monthly caps in just a few minutes. No, it makes no sense, the only things that would actually help customers are signal coverage and some modest 3G in places where you currently have no signal or just GPRS/Edge, plus some reasonably priced data packages, and the only thing really advancing is max speed at a sweet-spot in the city...
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
telcos:bandwith::Lucy:football
When are we finally going to wise up, put all these useless marketing pukes up against the wall, and shoot them?
In Sweden we pay 399 SEK for 100 GB, i.e. $46/month. (http://www.tele2.se/handla/mobilt-bredband-4g/)
What's up with the mobile broadband market in the US?
My sister-in-law had a voice-only plan that was $15 per month and kept it for over a decade. While using the toilet at work, her phone slipped out of her pocket and fell into the toilet. Of course, it was an auto flush toilet. Bye-bye, phone. The carrier refused to sell her a new phone on the old plan. That's how she got an iPhone and became a data junkie like the rest of us.
I've downloaded 95GB since 11pm yesterday, purely because I happened to buy the latest Humble Bundle, which includes (amongst others) NBA 2K16 at over 44GB of downloadable game.
100GB per month? Per day, perhaps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2dmfnSarDI
If you people would wean yourselves off your compulsive over-use of your phones instead of being glued to them 24/7/365, you probably wouldn't even need any of their overpriced dataplans to start with, and none of you would be faced with this problem in the first place.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
If it's really "a very small group of customers", why do Verizon care?
And when they claim data hog, show them European prices - they are MUCH MUCH cheaper than American.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Their unlimited plan is unlimited. But if your unlimited usage is exceedingly high
By definition, a usage "exceedingly high" implies there is a limit. If there is no limit, you cannot exceed it.
If they don't want you to have multiple users on the plan or use it for business reasons, fine--put it in the terms. There are already ways of doing that without lying.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
ie; cell phone usage.
I love these PR things where it's just flat out contradictory statements: such a small portion of people *but* they are causing such a big problem *but* if they pay more money the problem is solved.
Although, they must have a pretty good network if people can get over 100gb per month. On my provider that would probably take a year.
All you can eat, should be all you can eat.
Yet, another failure of the federal trade commission.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Verizon agreed to give you unlimited data for 2 or 3 years, and you agreed to continue to use (and pay for) that service for 2 or 3 years. After that term, the agreement became month-to-month. Either side can choose to cancel it at the end of any month for any reason (actually I believe both sides have the right to cancel service at any time in the month, the company just prefers to do it at the end of the month to keep their bookkeeping cleaner).
Verizon did not agree to give you unlimited data for $x/mo until the day you died. And even if they did, I suspect you wouldn't have signed up for it since it would've required you to pay Verizon $x/mo until the day you died.
So THIS explains how my Super was selling Internet to everyone in my building for $50 bucks a month (he called it the "grandfather plan"), and why the service crapped out whenever he took his mobile outside to take a phone call!
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
So Verizon is basically saying they are unable to provide adequate service unless they kick off some users. They should lower their prices then. In the last couple of years the quality of my Verizon services has gotten noticeably worse. Dead zones, slow response (should it take 24 hours for an SMS to be delivered to someone 10 ft away?), etc. I have actually wondered if they are removing cell towers in the area because coverage is so spotty, where before it seemed excellent. Verizon used to be good but they are turning into a third-rate provider. I'm considering cancelling my mobile altogether since U.S. technology companies seem unable to provide the service they charge me so much money for. As a benefit I would no longer have a phone number so so more cold calls. Ugh.
"Because our network is a shared resource and we need to ensure all customers have a great mobile experience with Verizon,"
So you're saying wireless isn't as fast as wired and is like cable. Thanks for being honest Verizon. Now let's stop pushing this wireless crap down peoples throats and roll out some more fiber. Now stop preventing Google Fiber from competing and sell off you FIOS division so someone else can do it spread fiber since you won't do it.
Yes-- according to Verizon, "unlimited" has its limits.
The point is, if you get cut off after reaching a limit... it really isn't unlimited, is it?
I really do hope somebody hits them hard for false advertising
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I used to use clear.com with their 4G modem. I typically used between 60-80 GB per month on my home network. Just me and my wife. Generally 2 lap tops and 2 phones connected 24/7. We are not gamer's or power users but, could do anything internet related. Watch netflix and you tube. Stream music,whatever. $49.00 a month. The service was unlimited and, I have no idea what power users consumed. We used it 3 years until Sprint bought them out and,just to shut them down. I can see why. $450.00 for 100 GB. This is roughly +8X what I was paying. Unless you are on some old mobile plan, you are being ripped off,period. They have all the band width they need and more. Alas the younger generation has bought in hook,line and,sinker to the data plan scam. I switched to century link DSL. I have up tp 5 or 6 devices up on my home wifi at any given time. Our 2 cell phones are on 2 GB plans. More than enough when not near a wifi source. Our city buses are integrating wifi. It's time to cut back on data if you can. How long can people pay ultra premium costs for the cheapest commodity out there?
100gb per month over a 3G network?
Good lord. Does no one connect to wifi any more?
Unlimited means all you can eat with your unmodified cellular device, NOT tethering as a replacement for high speed internet connection. Why can't you drive your truck up to an all you can eat joint and fill up with food?
This reminds me of a restaurant much favored by my crowd when we were in college. It had a prime rib buffet at a very reasonable price. It had a sign over the slicing board, "All you can Eat - $7.99" (it was a long time ago). One of my pals had an unquenchable hunger for prime rib, and would eat pounds and pounds of it at a sitting there. After a month of pretty frequent visits, one night, he finished a big plate of it, and ankled over to get his second serving. The owner was standing in front of the station and said "You can't have any more". "But the sign says, all you can eat!" my pal complained. The owner said "That's all you can eat" and just glowered at him until he left. That's pretty much what Verizon is doing.
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
I never connected to their us gov faggot ass shit.
You are comparing apples to oranges.
Population density of Denmark: 130 persons per sq km.
Population density of USA: 35 persons per sq km.
He said "Nordic Countries", not "Denmark". It's not hard to understand why you would conflate those terms when we look consider the other Nordic population density numbers.
Population density of Sweden: 21.5 persons per sq km
Population density of Norway: 15.5 persons per sq km
Feel free to explain again how Manhattan's population density in not high enough to secure the sort of internet access pricing that people in Finland enjoy.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
First they came after the people using 100Gigs, I said nothing because I didn't use 100Gigs. Then they came after the people using 50Gigs and I said nothing because I didn't use 50Gigs. When they came for me there was no one left to speak for me.
Fraudulent advertising has consequences in real countries.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Some months, I use less than a gig on the unlimited 4g plan I am a part of. This is because I use wi-fi when available.
Surely, Verizon has enough of this type of situation that it really does even out.
...
T-mobile just deprioritizes users that went over a certain amount of data compared to the rest of the users. This way service for these other users is not degraded. But if the network has spare capacity? Knock yourself out!
They also throttle you to slower speed rather than charging overages if you exceed your cap on a limited plan. So you can still check your e-mail/facebook till you get to WiFi or pay/wait for more data.
Disconnecting is drastic and customer hostile. What if you just have a buggy app that keeps using data?
I wonder how they use that much data on a cellphone. The only way I can think if it's a hot-spot and they are torrenting 24.7.
I still have the unlimited plan for myself and my daughter. This month I used 14.5 GB and my daughter used 7GB so it looks like we will be left alone. But on my bill is states " Unlimited Plan" in several places online and on paper bill. Just saying .......
I think it should come as no surprise that they did this. Verizon simply doesn't want to offer unlimited plans. They wanted to end them sooner but got a lot of backlash for it. Their solution is to gradually cut unlimited users back until the segment that still has unlimited cannot cause sufficient outcry.
It's rare to say that Australia has better internet but I'm guessing Verizon sets the bar quite low.
Anyway, I'm on a mid-tier ADSL plan with my ISP iiNet for AU$60 per month. Initially it started around 100+100GB monthly quota, but every year or so they email me to let me know they are increasing the quote. First it went to 200+200GB, then 1TB anytime.
Just two days ago they emailed me to let me know they were removing all limits. Apparently 1TB per month wasn't competitive enough and want to give me extra!!
Move to Europe, a standard monthly package of 500 GB is not unusual and if you go higher and don't want to pay extra you can accept the throttling. And 500 GB is not much actually about 1,5 hrs of high quality streaming per day plus a few ISO's and you're there... US companies seem to be in dire need of a realitycheck
....so why should it make any difference if you use 1 MB or 10 TB? Internet data is a not resource that had to be generated or extracted such as water or electricity. We're just paying for the packet-switching infrastructure so, in theory, everyone should have unlimited data. Caps are a totally artificial way for them to generate revenue by playing on the ignorance of the masses
I used MTNL(Delhi, India). My monthly bill was 1000 INR/month and my data always went beyond 100 GB. Company still has the same plan.
I don't want to comment on verizon's choice. Poor customers.
23.5% in 2014
28.6% in 2015
You don't have profit margins like that in competitive industries. They obviously can afford to keep those users on, this is just an attempt to get more fees out of them.
Unlimited is unlimited. If you cannot provide that, than you cannot advertise it as such either.
Verizon is basically saying "go away" we don't want you as customers anymore.
A) You use "significantly" more than 100 GB.
B) Our largest plan is 100GB (and costs 450$ a month!!!)
Verizon is just stupid. I had an unlimited plan that I had kept for over eight years.. Without notice they decided to raise my price. I considered that a breach of contract but they did not. That was enough to move me to another carrier with unlimited data. But the stupid part is, I rarely use a lot of data. Once in a while I am on a drilling rig location and have to transmit a lot of data over my phone, because our satellite connections tend to suck, so I will run my computer through my phone. So maybe once a year I use a lot of data, for a week or two. Then I rarely use any. But I can't afford to be throttled or to be limited when the time comes that I need the data, and I can't afford to be stuck renegotiating with a moron at customer service when I need to use it. I am sure I use less data overall than the average kid playing Pokemon Go, but Verizon only cares about being greedy. It has nothing to do with bandwidth. I will never go back to Verizon in my lifetime.
I moved several TB last month (and the month before and the month before that)
Nobody has ever said that the threshold is 100 GB! Verizon reps specifically danced around saying the exact number in every statement they've made.
The article claims the 100 GB figure as fact, which is extremely intellectually disingenuous.
In fact, there are compelling rumors (but still not facts, so please don't update the article claiming this as the truth) that only users with 500 GB or more data usage per month (on average, per-line) will be disconnected or forced to go metered. The original guy who leaked the info on Reddit is now saying he heard from Verizon management that the threshold is 500 GB.
But until people start getting letters and we can collect a representative sample of who did and did not get letters and chart that against their monthly usage, STOP claiming that you know any number to be true and accurate. This is the first step in being an ethical journalist and Slashdot can't even do this.
As I understand it, Verizon has not had an "unlimited" plan for many years! It was stopped a long time ago.
They just let people continue as they were to avoid controversy.
So now they say: Hey, that was stopped years ago. And also, you are being a dick. So stop or we cut you off.
Sorry, but they have a right to do that. They are not your parents...
I presume Verizon has an "Infinity" plan which maxxes out at 80Gb? The competition must be rubbish (speed, quotas) because surely this sort of "customer service" makes Verizon highly unattractive to consumers?
The whole aversion to unlimited plans on the provider side started with the introduction of the iPhone that insisted on repeated calling home. Then there came "streaming services" as a way to keep DRM on content as you weren't allowed to download but required bandwidth heavy handshaking the whole time a display was in progress.
The end result was that business users who loved the unlimited plans because they allowed not only working from home but a wholly un-tethered work model were left out in the cold.
AT&T kept the unlimited plans but if you wanted to use your data for a laptop you were left wanting. You could pay through the nose for an addition limited plan to "allow tethering" to your plan. In other words; you had to pay for your data twice with their model.
Verizon simply deleted all their unlimited data plans and forced users to plans that had HUGE charges for data overages if you used your data for computer access.
Thus was the promise of technology turned into a false hope yet again. One can only hope that the regulators will someday get hit with a clue bat and use a regulatory model where data is data you can use in any fashion you want once you pay for it. Yeah, clueless regulators, voice minutes is just one use for a data stream and NOT something separate except for in the delusions of the greedy.
NRRPT/RCT
I make use of such a grandfathered plan, I ding about ~200G a month, but I know others are up into the TB level. I haven't received a notice about anything yet... am curious to get some sort of a crowd asserted level of abuse that they're actually turning off...
I have unlimited data w Verizon. But I cant figure out how to create a hotspot for my other devices. Pdanet fix fi etc don't work. Is USB the only way? How are some using 100+ it can't be in their phone ? Will someone teach me?