Verizon, AT&T Made $600 Million in Overage Fees Alone in 2016 (dslreports.com)

A new study claims that Verizon and AT&T made $600 million alone in 2016 just on overage fees. And while both telcos unveiled new plans that let you avoid $15 per gigabyte overages in exchange for just being throttled (Verizon's "safety mode" and AT&T's Mobile Share Advantage) the study by Nerd Wallet found that thanks to buried surcharges and other fees, users on these new plans may not save much money. DSLReports adds: That said, the report claims whether or not you save money under these new plans depends on your (or your family's) usage behavior. "If you're on an average-sized plan and your data overages exceed 8GB per year, choosing one of the new plans will save you money, according to NerdWallet and My Data Manager's analysis," says the report. "The individual Verizon Plan will save you money if you have an average plan, even if you never go over your data limit," it continues. "Otherwise, the new Verizon plans and AT&T's Mobile Share Advantage plans won't save you money. In fact, most consumers on legacy plans would be better off sticking to them and paying the occasional overage fee."

Comments

WRONG T-Mobile does not

[SuperKendall]

I left Verizon specifically because of the upsetting and ridiculous extra charges for things like simple use of international data.

T-Mobile really doesn't pull that crap. In fact once I ran out of tethering data allowance (even though I still had data left on the plan) and T-Mobile had no way to pay them more money to increase the tethering allowance... you can bet Verizon would have had $ome way to accomplish that (BTW that tethering portion thing seems to be gone now).

I can also use data roaming internationally with NO FEE WHATSOEVER.

The real test is in the bill though, and mine has stayed the same from month to month despite traveling, some international and some not...

On a side note T-Mobile seems to actually spend money on infrastructure as over time the reception across a number of locations has improved as has the network speed. Still not up to Verizon levels out East but not too bad either.