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Verizon Says It Knows You Don't Need Unlimited Data (digitaltrends.com)
Ed Oswald, writing for DigitalTrends: While the wireless industry is moving back to unlimited data, one carrier is not. Verizon chief financial officer Fred Shammo told attendees at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in New York on Thursday that his company doesn't think you need it, and slammed current offerings. "At the end of the day, people don't need unlimited plans," Shammo said. While this is not the first time he's said this -- in March he claimed unlimited data "doesn't work in an LTE environment," and in 2011 he helped Verizon move away from unlimited plans -- it's now an entirely different market.
I'm only level 23 and I need those pokemon NOW!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I would rather know what I am using and pay for what I use in at least a somewhat transparent fashion, than pay the exact same as all other customers and never really know what I am paying for. Verizon's system for me has been reliable and fast, and I pay for it, which I'm happy to do.
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
We dont need unlimited data and verizon dont need unlimited profits via rip offs.
I don't need infinite data. However, I do need a large amount of data without the fear of overage charges.
If they want to set a limit of say, 1 TB a month and then throttle, I'll consider that unlimited. But 15 GB and then overage charges? No, that's bullshit.
Just because you can't see an immediate need for something doesn't mean that it's not there. I don't get why people in cities get huge trucks, but I'm sure they have their reasons. I get unlimited data, not because I run around streaming movies, but because every now and then I need to not get dinged for every gigabyte over, especially when the gigabytes start climbing. It's fine if you don't want or can't offer unlimited data, but don't tell people they're wrong when they say they want or need unlimited data.
How about, if you have to have caps, you simply throttle speeds so that emails and navigation are still possible, rather than gouging people on overage charges?
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
The problem is weather or not we NEED unlimited data. The problem is that we don't want to pay out the ass, at extortionate rates, if we happen to go over our allowance. I don't want to worry about a surprise $100 on my bill because my phone decided to download the latest OS update.
Nothing is unlimited.
Bandwidth X 27hrs X 7 days a week.
That's the limit.
If that does not work for your LTE network....then you shouldn't advertise unlimited data.
That still applies right?
You don't offer what I WANT, I don't buy services from you. You don't get to decide what I NEED.
There are two problems at work here:
1. Wireless companies 'overbook' their networks when they sell, sell, sell to too many people.
2. Too many people spend too much time mucking about with their phones
If people broke their addiction to their phones and spent more time doing other, more productive/creative/healthy things, then this wouldn't be a problem.
That being said, wireless companies also price-gouge everyone for their 'services' and it would be nice if they could be reined in somehow. They're almost as bad as the pharmaceutical industry.
Unlimited data requires infinite bandwidth which requires infinite power. We definitely don't need unlimited data.
We need max LTE bandwidth 24x7.
OK, sure, I don't need Unlimited Data. So that means it doesn't cost Verizon anything to offer it to me.
Likewise, I don't need unlimited voice call minutes... and it doesn't cost cell providers anything for giving it to me.
Almost every single cell provider, excepting the lowest tier pre-paid options (and even there declining),
does provide unlimited voice, despite nobody actually using/"needing" unlimited voice calls.
(nobody can actually use "unlimited" anything, if only because the length of a day is limited)
Obviously, people who use very little data will tend to seek out limited plans if they save $$$ that way.
Plenty of people do use alot of data though, and any limit just means a potential threat of getting hit with big charges/impinging on their usage.
The benefit/attraction of unlimited plans is essentially similar to insurance, in that even if your normal usage fits into X data limit 95% of the time,
an unlimited plan means you aren't hit for charges that extra 5% of the time.
In the end, it really just seems like Verizon is trying to avoid discounting their limited plans, because logically
if people are going to give up the protection of the "insurance" of unlimited plans, they will want a tangible benefit for doing so.
Fuck being charged $5/gig over limit
People don't "need" unlimited data, what they need is "unmetered" data.
In a LTE environment, someone can saturate the hell out of the cell and thus render everyone in a one mile radius of it unable to use it. That is the tradeoff of CDMA-based technology (LTE is a CDMA technology) TDMA-based do not have this limitation because you're limited to a time slot. TDMA however doesn't allow for low-latency applications and the more users there are, it slows down for everyone equally. So TDMA forces carriers to actually have enough capacity, while CDMA only forces carriers to make cells small enough to not be blown away by one user monopolizing it.
At the end of the day, "unmetered" is what all carriers should be aiming for, and only differentiating their plans by bandwidth pipes. eg a GSM/LTE 5G path would allow users to pay for "voice","voice, text and data", or "voice, text, data, video" or "voice, text, data, video 4K" Someone paying for a "4K" connection and not using it with a 4K TV still gets the bandwidth of a 4K connection to use, but a "IPTV" offering by the same carrier would suck up all the bandwidth allocated. 4K would be kinda wasteful on LTE, but beside the point.
Same with landlines. It doesn't matter that fibre is in the neighborhood, you want to differentiate the plan based on what the user intends:
A) 4$/mo Home security (approximately 5Mbps, bi-directional, good enough for a single HD stream at 10fps)
B) 15$/mo Basic Internet (Asymmetric 25mbps down, 5 up, good enough for two 1080p HD streams at 30fps or one 60fps (ATSC is 19Mbps, ATSC QAM-256 Cable is 38.8)
C) 25$/mo Basic Internet Family (Symmetric 80mbps, good enough for two 4K streams or 4 HD streams, essentially "4 20Mbps streams")
D) 50$/mo Deluxe Internet (Symmetric 160mbps, 4 4K streams, good enough to have family members stream to each other at 4K television quality)
E) 100$/mo Professional Internet ( Symmetric 1Gbit , basically capacity for 25 4K channels, or 100 HD channels, simultanously, basically this option is "I'm hosting everything at home, the cloud hosting can bite me")
In the case of C,D and E, it's assumed that people would be doing backups over the internet, likely to other family member locations, if not a cloud service. Once you get over 100Mbps it becomes viable to do so. So if you live in Seattle and your family lives in New York, you could effectively use each other as a backup and cut all the cloud storage providers out of the picture.
So when you're on your LTE device, you can access the storage from either location or while on the road.
Captcha: asinine
...as some may call it.
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
What we don't need is fees _after_ we use a service. I'm fine with data caps, but there needs to be a popup where you confirm the charges for the additional data, and each additional charge, not afterwards when you get slammed with a $300 bill.
There's an oligopoly of wireless companies and they all primarily use a model where you get billed _afterwards_ for as much as they can trick you into using. And you always pay far more for "overages" than the same service cost if paid upfront. And of course they decline to mention the taxes and fees when advertising wireless service, just to make the actual bill even larger than advertised.
Obviously, a model where most people use inexpensive phones they purchased upfront and use pre-paid services is much better. Especially one where you could choose from competing pre-paid service cards to refill your phone at a shop somewhere and still have the same phone number and phone. (does it work this way in the rest of the world? I thought it sorta did)
Nobody needs unlimited data, because nobody can use infinite amounts of data, they just need as much data as they use.
The problem is, nobody knows how much they need, because it's impossible for the average person to gauge data usage.
How much data does going to facebooks website take? Will I get the regular version of the site or the mobile version? Do I have a lot of pictures posted on my wall this time or not? How many times will I go there? Does my provider count facebook data against me or is it included in some fucked up social media exclusion promo? That's just one website. Throw in youtube, netflix, music streaming, mobile gaming, how is anyone supposed to fucking know what they need?
That's why everyone wants unlimited plans, so they don't have to worry about it.
They also said you don't need contracts anymore, but anyone who's twisted the arm of a Verizon rep knows the loyalty program for customers of 10 years+ are eligible for 2 year contracts at heavily discounted prices with enough data for the average user. 65 bucks for me with 5gb monthly.
If only it wasn't Verizon... because the way they've dicked with my bills over the years and required numerous angry calls to keep them in line has gotten pretty exhausting. They are one of the most dishonest companies I've ever dealt with besides Comcast and if it wasn't for the loyalty discount I would be done with Verizon by now.
not having to think about how much data I have used.
unlimited voice minutes and unlimited text messaging or nationwide calling or ...
I'm with Shamu, here. Pay for what you use, instead of trying to squeeze an "unlimited" square peg into a finite round hole.
So Verizon just needs to bill $0.001 for every MB used, and everyone would be happy. No bullshit about tiers, overages, etc. If you're on WiFi all month, your cell bill would be $0. After all... "At the end of the day, carriers don't need tiered plans." Tiered data just "doesn't work in an LTE environment."
That leaves some paperwork/billing issues, but they're easily solved by only sending out a bill after a subscriber has accumulated at least $5 in charges, however many months that happens to take... Telna is a cheap wireline long-distance service that bills customers just like that, so it works.
And don't worry about voice minutes, as they're just small streams of data, themselves, and can go over WiFi as easily as it can cellular, leaving you again with a $0/mo bill when you're staying on WiFi all the time.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
What is Safety Mode?
Safety Mode is an optional feature of the new Verizon Plan that lets you keep using data at reduced speeds after your data allowance is used up for the month. You can stay online without worrying about overage fees.
Who is eligible for Safety Mode, and how much does it cost?
Safety Mode is included for no additional charge on ALL sizes of the new Verizon Plan.
No other plans are eligible for Safety Mode at this time. If you want to use Safety Mode to prevent overages, you can switch to the New Verizon Plan online.
http://www.verizonwireless.com/support/safety-mode-faqs/
Unless Verizoncan offer a metered plan with SIGNIFICANTTLY HUMONGUS savings compared to the unlimited competition, I'll choose unlimited any time.
Otherwise, the first time I slip up with an OTA update, the choice of a slightly more expensive unlimited plan will pay for itself.
Besides, peace of mind has no price.
Besides, is more easy to do our financial planning with a constant quantity than a variable one.
Besides, who knows what services can catch my eye tomorrow, either as a passing fad (leading to a couple of months spike) or as a daily driver...
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
It is what they find convenient or desirable, which is to use the service to the capacity that is being offered without concern about the details of the frequency or amount one is using it, and not getting surprised later on with higher overage charges than one was expecting.
I have unlimited nationwide roaming and long distance on my cell phone plan, and it's kinda nice to be able to freely use my phone wherever I am without worrying about any long distance charges that would otherwise apply.
With so-called unlimited data, it's the same thing... or at least it should be.
If there are so many people using unlimited data services to such an extent as to affect a significant number of other customers that are not using as much data, I would think that the better thing to do would be to raise the price of the unlimited plan to reduce demand for it. While this might seem to bite for the consumer who wants a bargain plan, their provider does have a legitimate right to charge what they find appropriate for their service. If one can find a better deal with another provider, they should obviously go there.
Of course, that brings us full circle.... back to how so-called unlimited plans started in the first place... as a means by which the providers could be competitive, try and offer superior services to the alternatves, and try to win subscribers from their competitors through better pricing or plans that are more convient for the user.
In the end, though... the ball is not in the consumer's court on this. It's always been in providers. If offering real unlimited plans isn't viable, then they fucking need to just stop it, or raise the prices and stop trying to pretend that they can one-up a competitor when they clearly can't (or else they wouldn't be complaining about the volume of use by people who want unlimited plans in the first place).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
and it would be nice if they could be reined in somehow.
Actually, there's a real simple way to put a stop to this. Use your phone to make phone calls. Stop doing stupid shit like watching movies on a 5 inch phone screen.
I'll settle for Kbps x 2.6 Gb per month.
It's about consumers not having to monitor their usage so that they don't get screwed with insane overage fees that are calculated per additional MB.
The wireless industry makes a lot of money by penalizing people who go over their usage caps, and that's what this is about. Once you take away that fee structure--whether it's through throttling or unlimited plans--the wireless providers no longer get that huge profit. They say it's about ensuring nobody overwhelms their bandwidth, but this is a complete lie, and Verizon's claims are evidence that they know they are lying. This is about the industry's desire to profit by making it inconvenient for customers to continually monitor their usage, then slamming them with overage fees when they use "too much," despite the cost of such service being no greater than it was when the customer was below their usage cap.
If the regulatory agencies grew a pair and decided to force the wireless companies to bill proportionally to the actual data used regardless of amount used, then we can have a fair discussion about what constitutes "unlimited" data and what the market actually wants. If I pay $35 for 5 GB of data/month, I should pay about $70 for twice that amount; similarly, I should pay about $7 if I only use 1 GB in a month. The whole idea that I pay $X for Y GB/month, and if I don't use all of it, I still pay $X, yet if I go over, I am penalized $Z for each additional GB or fraction thereof, is plain robbery.
the commons that is. The air waves. If we don't feel Verizon is doing a good enough job shepherding them then I don't see any reason to leave them in charge (outside of outdated notions of ownership that ought not to apply to a natural resource like airwaves).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I'm in NZ and we have lightning fast 4G speeds. Some of the fastest in the world.
This is because we don't have unlimited phone data caps. It only takes a few people to take advantage of unlimited to ruin it for everyone. It's easy to get a plan that provides you with enough data.
Personally, when I'm out and about, I want my data arriving to my phone (or laptop tethered to it) as fast as possible, I don't need massive amounts over my phone.
Frankly, I don't need data period. I am around WiFi most of the time and can download music to listen to while driving.
However, I want unlimited data and selling people the things that they want is how capitalism works. Enjoy seeing T-mobile erode your market share.
And this, up to reading this, potential customer knows he wants no bullshit overage fees which is the real reason they won't do unlimited plans.
So stop charging me for unlimited data overages.
Stop doing stupid shit like watching movies on a 5 inch phone screen.
Heard of tethering? The phone is a data device, and once downloaded the data can go anywhere, like onto a 50-inch screen.
Your #2 in other words, "People should stop liking what I don't like."
It's none of your business what other people do with their phones. Bitching about other peoples' "addiction" to their phones makes you an asshole.
Um, the term "use" certainly applies in a relatively normal fashion - whatever data distribution hub I'm connected to has a finite bandwidth, and every MB/s I'm using is a MB/s no one else can use. Unlike much infrastructure, usage level doesn't really increase the rate of wear and tear, but you still have a finite resource to allocate at any given moment.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
640K should be enough.
because its de rigeur now to carry a 50" tv on your shoulder instead of a ghetto blaster. idiot.
and thats exactly where, and why you're wrong. why should *I* have to subsidize idiots use of their phones for other than just. fucking. talking. because of those idiots phone use, *I* have to pay more, watch where I drive/walk because those fucking idiots arent smart enough to look up from their phones. jesus. you're a part of the problem, not the solution.
my sprint plan is 37 a month after tax unlimited everything. i use it to output WiFi when I'm out and about and want to use my laptop. i watch movies dl stuff make 2 hour long phone calls send receive pics emails weather alerts play games. read entire books let my kids play games...it's a freaking miniature computer so I'm sorry you're a bunch of idiots and can't afford under 50 a month for unlimited. nobody NEEDS Verizon. anonymous because I'm but wasting my unlimited data to make a login for this
Too bad the FTC got slapped down on prosecuting "unlimited" fraud. Really, if the FTC can't enforce truth in advertising, we should pretty much just give up. If you read any of these ISP's terms of service, you will see that there are in fact limitations to the 'unlimited' plans. They like the 'unlimited' word because... it is a fraudulent way to lie about what they are providing to make more money. Seriously, get a degree in computer engineering, then read those ToS. There are so many limitations it might make you cry like me.
Don't tether either. Get a real internet connection and stop wasting airwaves.
Verizon and the rest assume that nobody needs that much data because the phone companies make you pay out the ass for any kind of reasonable mobile data. So I never use it unless in an emergency or trying to get a bus schedule (trackthet.com works quite well) in Boston. I'm halfway into my data plan and I've used 249MB for the month. I'll use WiFi or go without.
It doesn't matter what service - vzn, t-mobile, sprint, whatever. I'll only use their mobile data under duress.
4G is useless.
--
BMO
Works great for me with their pay for what you use setup. After being under Verizon contracts for the last decade I don't miss it.
Instead of counting megabytes, like we used to count sms messages or minutes, just give unlimited usage, but limit the max speed. want the fastest possible speed, pay the highest price. lowest speed, lowest price. billing would be simple, but then there's no money made in simple billing.
1) Offer unlimited data to your 2 year on contract or balance pay customer even pre-paid client
2) in return no service adjustment or throttling or data caps will be applied to any service
3) Let the customer opt-out of it.
Make public and give Verizon chief financial officer Fred Shammo the result
Call it Verizon Shammo offer or ...
u phucks know when the kid uses spotify that you can eat 6 gb alone. that is 45 dollars more than the usual but rhape you phuckers do every month.
data caps are just a ripoff lying rent seeking phuckheds
Satellite Internet uses peak and off-peak pricing. Buyers of cellular service, on the other hand, have shown that they prefer simplicity in the billing arrangement.
But, I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.
"There are some things money can't buy. For everything else there's WimpyCard."
It's amusing to see how going into short-term debt for fast food has become the norm since the Popeye era.
Whoo! I can get a T1 if I just spend a few thousand dollars for installation and then a few hundred a month for a measly 1.5Mbps that might be able to do a single 480P youtube stream.
Not all of us have options If I could get any type of wired/fiber connection at home I'd have that instead.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
How do you recommend that people "Get a real internet connection" that is useful while, say, riding public transit to and from work?
it's impossible for the average person to gauge data usage.
In a comment to a post on the BlockAdblock blog, I suggested how to fix this at the level of the user agent. A browser can establish a 1 MB quota for each page view, pause the page's connection once the quota runs out, and give the user "Add 1 MB" and "Add 10 MB" buttons to resume downloading.
But we have that here in the US too. 45Mbps in the garage 75mbps if I go stand on top of the propane tank.
That's pretty quick. What do you consider lightning fast?
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Yeah, that is quick, Interesting. I've often found responsiveness slower in US, e.g. bringing up a google map.
Just went to fast.com on my phone, pulled 86Mbps at my desk (saw it spike to 94).
I don't have any propane tanks to climb on I'm afraid.
Wonder if it's a case of responsiveness rather than throughput? 45Mbs is perfectly fine. Probably depends on how densely populated the area you're in is as well. I'm in Auckland, but not the CBD.
I'll be back in the states in a couple of weeks (Virginia then Oklahoma), I'll have to compare speeds when I'm back on my new phone if I remember...
Seriously, if he knows we're not actually using it, the smart business tactic would be to just offer it anyway. That way we're paying for something we're not really using, or we're being offered a "gift" that sounds expensive, but isn't.
Oh wait, clearly he's full of shit, because he can't actually follow through on his own logic.
Sallisaw oklahoma home of the states first munifiber network. It doesn't go over 50MBps synchronous but hey it was the first.
It doesn't reach out of the city limits though.
ime cellular speeds are better out of town.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
american wireless companies sell shitty "plans" at shitty prices because americans are stupid as fuck traditionally. they want an iphone for 1 dolla and then pay 3000 bucks for it in 2 years and get 100 bucks worth of cell coverage.
somehow i was buying in a less densely pooulated country 512kbs unlimited 10 years ago for under 10 bucks a month on a fucking prepaid. and in case you are a dumb sob that was real unlimited where you could torrent ALL FUCKING MONTH!!! byte per byte that was like 10000 times cheaper than verizon with thei fancy network in 2016 is.
lte with limits under 100gigs is USELESS. you can't use it at advertised speed for anything.
I see a lot of criticism about the old phone subsidies system but what no one seems to ever point out is that for most plans the price per month *never* went down even after the subsidy was paid off. Essentially you had to get a new phone every two years or you were basically throwing away money. It wasn't cheaper to use a phone that was paid off on the old Cingular/AT&T plans, it wasn't cheaper to bring your own device. The price per month was the same regardless of whether or not you took their "free phone" offer.
I don't disagree that the system was a shitty deal, it's just that it was also shitty in a way a lot of people seem to forget.
Verizon does not need my money either so fuck 'em. (Still remember how they locked down their flip phones back in the day)
No way! I never want to make a phone call again. In fact being able to make phone calls is the least important thing my smartphone does.
You can be a luditte, but it's nice to watch some movies/tv/Youtube/whatever on my phone's screen once in a while. I even have my phone rooted, have Dosbox setup on it, and I actualy *program*/code on it (I write old school Dos programs as well as Linux scripts as a hobby)! Yeah, it took a while to get use to the awkward onscreen keyboard and touch mouse arrangement but it's actualy doable! On top of that, I back my written programs up online too! Holy shit in a shoebox, yes, some of use are using our smartphones as PORTABLE COMPUTERS instead of wasting time playing Candy Crush or Pokemon Go on them! You may pick your jaw up off the floor now.
Take it easy on him. He is just saying those things to look "cool", I'm sure
Hey there Mr. CFO. Time for some lessons in business. First of all, customers don't like to be told what they need and don't need. If demand exists, you provide. Or you lose customers to those who are willing to listen to demand.
The more critical lesson here is humans don't like limits. Perhaps this would be more obvious to you if your Board of Directors suddenly announced salary and bonus caps for all executives at half your current rate. You know, because one "doesn't need" to be paid more than they can consume in a year.
If Verizon customers don't speak with their wallets now on this, rest assured this will be standard practice for every major carrier within 6 months. Don't assume it won't. They're easily labeled an oligopoly for valid reasons.
Having as much data as you want changes usage patterns. I stream music and movies on my PC, and never would dream of it on my phone with Verizon. The *second* another carrier has the same coverage - Verizon is going to bleed customers who decide "actually I do want to use my phone to stream media". Since Verizon markets streaming media apps - they are feeding the very hunger that will take away customers who want to see those promises delivered on.
With the CDMA implementation used for most (all?) cellular protocols (including LTE) the only way to over allocate is to broadcast at a significantly higher power than other transmitters because CDMA can't filter based on signal strength and a transmitter can drown out other signals. However, the base station tells the transmitter what power to use to prevent this from happening. If overwhelming a base station were simply a matter of whoever had the strongest signal in a one-mile radius, CDMA would never work. In theory a cell phone manufacture could introduce a juiced phone but it would piss off the cellular providers (who would block the devices) and whatever regulatory body controlled the airwaves in that region (e.g. FCC) most likely resulting in a ban on sales and fines. It's not a good business model if you want to stay in business.
Well my phone has a bandwidth meter built in, Verizon has a website that shows usage of my data. Both have some way to break it down by app in my phone and by category on the Verizon site. Fran is right the customer doesn't need unlimited data, they might want it but my neighbor with Sprint, who has unlimited data, needs better coverage in all the dead spots that I don't have to deal with. The wireless market has pretty decent competition, so every can pick what they want (need) in cell phone plans.
Let me keep what I don't use then. If I used 2gb of my 4gb, let me rollover the 2 remaining to the next month and so on and so forth. If in 3 years I have 50GB free so be it, I paid for it.
That's why I prefer unlimited data. It's not because I plan on consuming unlimited amounts of it, but I do want to be able to go to work, plug in the headphones, and not have to think about my data plan when I decide if I want to stream music or listen to music I already bought.
Companies can make up what I "need", but the bottom line is that if your competitor offers a service that makes me happier, as in same quality and I never have to think about billing again, then I'm not your customer anymore.
Verizon can try to make a business with someone else.
then there's only profit to be made if they are buying it anyway...
Why don't you just admit that you're a bored manchild addicted to playing twitch-games and fapping to Pornhub and Youporn in a bathroom stall at your cube-farm wage-slave job instead of lying and obfuscating the truth? Really, admitting the truth and that you have a PROBLEM will make you feel better and then maybe you can get some help instead of being a slave to your phone. Or just go back to 4chan and stay there, at least then we won't have to look at your shitposts anymore.
I was once a Verizon customer, many years ago. (Actually, I started off with AmeriTech who they took over.) Back then, it was all about your analog cellular minutes per month in your plan. Even then, Verizon became unworkable for me because as I used my phone heavily for business and personal use, I kept racking up more minutes of usage in a month than my plan had. Overages were billed at something outrageous like 25 cents per minute.
I called Verizon's customer service at one point, saying basically; "Hey... look. I'd like to keep your service, but you've got to sell me a package with enough minutes so I don't keep getting these overages. Can I buy a bigger plan?" Their response was no ... they didn't sell plans larger than the one I had, and didn't feel most customers needed such a thing.
These days, everything's about the data .. not the voice minutes. But same thing seems to apply. They want to dictate what their customers need/want.
In reality? Yes, I get that LTE cellular technology isn't really capable of the traffic loads carriers would get if they just gave everyone unlimited free data usage on their devices. But that's a shortfall of the technology then. That's not the customer's fault, who know what he or she wants and is willing to pay for.
So what do I propose? I think at the very least, all of the carriers should be doing everything in their power to open up the use of wi-fi access points to their subscribers. This is one area where Comcast actually has things right. I can go all over the U.S. and as long as I'm a current Comcast broadband customer, I can log in to any wi-fi hotspot identifying itself as XFinity. It constantly impresses me how often that gets me an Internet connection when I'm out and about someplace, while others don't have a usable wi-fi.
I'm not sure why you think so, it's pretty standard to pay according to what you consume when supply (capacity) is limited. It would be silly to say:
The entire concept of paying per multiple of gallons of gasoline is ridiculous anyway.
Quite true. But having to pay for gas in batches of 100, 300, ... gallons per month which must be consumed in that month (if you go over you will be charged in 100 gallon batches at much higher rates) is also truly ridiculous. And that's exactly how you get screwed on cell data. Bandwidth is a limited and expensive resource, But current cell phone data plans are just designed to crew the consumer. Charge by actual consumption - I don't want to subsidize people spending their days watching Netflix on their cell phone, and with current data plans that's what I'm doing by overpaying for the data i consume.
And is anyone surprised that a company infamous for not listening to its customers is convinced it knows better for you than you could ever know yourself?
My personal experience with Verizon is that they can't keep their billing straight for three months running. Verizon was the local carrier for landlines when I lived in the Pacific Northwest. I couldn't go three months without bogus phone charges showing up on my home phone and having to spend hours trying to get someone to admit that the charges were not valid and would be removed in a month or two. Yeah, credit flags for non payment for not paying for bogus charges then the impossibility of getting flags removed from a credit report. Three hours calls to Pakistan didn't happen on my home phone at 2 am when I was sleeping. But, try to get Verizon to admit they made a mistake. "A visitor could have made those calls." Nope, didn't happen.
NRRPT/RCT
There's really no mystery to this: Verizon is sticking to that unconvincing party line, because they're between the proverbial rock and a hard place. The restrictions they agreed to when they purchased their Block C spectrum license state that they're not permitted to restrict the ways in which you use your data connection on their wireless network; if you want to tether your BitTorrent PC to your Verizon Wireless cell phone and let it saturate that connection 24/7, they can't stop you -- they quite literally can't even slow you down. Thus, in order to make that kind of abuse of their network exorbitantly expensive, the only option that seems to be left to them is metering. We could probably argue ceaselessly about whether or not their current metered plans and overage fees are actually reasonable based on typical user activity -- but that's another discussion entirely. The point is, Verizon is never going to back down from those meters. Because they can't.
Mind you, I'm not making apologies for them... they made their bed, (by buying that spectrum in the first place) and now they have to sleep in it. But I don't have to sleep in it with them.
If you don't need unlimited data (hint: It's true. You may need a lot of data, but with a limited bandwidth you cannot even use unlimited data), they don't need to limit it, as you won't use it anyway.
In other words, if everyone refrains from doing something you personally disapprove of, costs will go down.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I pay for a real Internet connection (40 Mb/s currently; if that proves insufficient I'll upgrade). It's pretty reliable, but the DSL I had before that wasn't, and there might be a couple of days without home ISP service. Being able to tether during those days was very convenient.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
And this is why I'm ditching Verizon as soon as my plan expires next month. Hello, T-Mobile!
Www.wifinderplanet.com is now taking pre-order interest applications for our next unlimited Data Hotspot. No contract no credit check more details coming soon!
I Say Verizon Now Knows I Don't Need It When I Can Get Unlimited Data Elsewhere.