Slashdot Mirror
Verizon Will Stop Throttling Video On Unlimited Plans If You Pay An Extra $10 Per Month (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Two months ago, Verizon implemented a change to all of its unlimited data plans that placed limits on the quality at which users could stream video. The company split its unlimited plan into two tiers, with the cheaper option restricting video streaming to 480p resolution; a higher-priced $85 "Beyond Unlimited" plan tops out at 720p video on smartphones (and 1080p on tablets). The new restrictions immediately applied to all plans and Verizon customers had no way of opting out if they wanted to watch 1080p video on their phone or even higher resolutions on capable devices using mobile data. But now Verizon will give subscribers a way to completely remove the video quality handcuffs -- for an extra $10 every month. If you're willing to pay that $10 charge, you can stream video at the maximum quality supported by any device you've got connected to Verizon, whether it's 1080p, 1440p, or even 4K. But keep in mind that the extra fee is applied per line for anyone on a family plan who wants to lift the limits. Even on a single-line plan, it adds up. Tacking $10 onto Verizon's Beyond Unlimited ratchets up the monthly price to $95. The $10 add-on will be available beginning November 3rd.
Nice try, Verizdumb. We won't be falling for that one again.
Verison, you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
You say that, but consumers will fall for this and some idiots will even defend it. Telecoms have to eat too, don't you know?
It's super cereal unlimited!
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
I'll wait for the inevitable Slashdot post 6 months from now, 'Verizon now throttling data for customer's who paid an extra $10'.
Well, I take "unlimited" to mean "unlimited quantities of data"; but of course there is no such thing: you are always limited by bandwidth. There is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth.
I have no fundamental philosophical objection to a pricing model which considers bandwidth and net data volume separately. Back in the day we used to provision frame relay circults this way; sometimes it was quite economical to provision frame relay circuits with very low bandwidth guarantees, sometimes even zero!
A service which provides the unlimited (i.e., not explicitly capped) volume with the highest technically possible bandwidth would cost more than one where bandwidth is capped. So why not sell a lower priced option?
You could argue that Verizon marketing has screwed itself by overselling what uncapped volume means. But on the flip side, if you've ever been in a position of trying to explain options like this to someone -- say a manager -- when it comes to even simple distinctions like this many people have the attention span of a concussed squirrel.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
No mobile phone carrier provider should be allowed to negatively change the terms of an existing contract, while that contract is in operation, unless they are prepared to allow all existing users on that contract to terminate early and without penalty.
It's that simple.
If they want to improve the service, that is one thing... but it simply is not acceptable to degrade a service once someone has paid for it. Imagine if you ordered a 50" 4K TV from Amazon, but they sent you a 40" TV. When you complained, they try and explain that between the moment you ordered and the moment that they shipped, the terms of the offer changed... I don't think so
If I don't stream videos why should I be subsidizing people who do?
You shouldn't. You should be able to buy a limited plan.
Telecoms have to eat too, don't you know?
Do we get to vote on this?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Say, did your plan get any cheaper?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Stop using math. Verizon is not good at math. They aren't good at calculating overages.
I wish marketing people short lives and long deaths - stuck in hellish theoretical Math courses forever trying to solve equations for "Beyond Unlimited".
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Pray I don't alter it any further. (well, opportunity and all that)
Do you stream music?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I take "unlimited" to simply mean not limited as a consequence of any particular policy. That is to say, that nobody is *actually limiting* it... it may still be limited in the sense that there is a finite bandwidth, but absent any explicit policy which specifies any upper limit, it can still be reasonably taken as unlimited.
I have unlimited nationwide long distance calling on my cell phone plan, for example. While I am theoretically limited in how much I can *actually* use that benefit because of the finite number of hours in a day and the finite amount of days in each billing period, that theoretical limit is not something that actually impacts (nor can it impact) how much I am allowed to use my phone for such purposes without paying extra fees or suffering some additional inconvenience imposed upon me which was caused solely by my own usage patterns.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The people who pay the most always subsidize the people who pay the least. Plans like this are going to make voice-only or small plans relatively cheaper because of the infrastructure capacity that needs to be built.
They can void the contract and drop you. But they won't - because it's more profitable to grandfather you in (for now)
Probably not, with the new FCC boss.
When VZW won the auction for their new LTE bands back in 2008, one of the requirements was Open applications: Consumers should be able to download and utilize any software applications, content, or services they desire
This move appears to violate that provision - it treats some content differently than other content. And before someone argues that they still offer to transport higher quality video content, I'll point out that it's a matter of degree. If they can charge $10/mo, how is that different than them charging $1,000,000 per connection and effectively blocking that content, other than in degree? The clear intent of the rules was to require VZW be blind to the content.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
They aren’t manipulating a data stream. They are throttling your connection speed which forces most streaming services to go to a lower quality stream. A VPN won’t do shit.
They don't transcode. They just simulate lower bandwidth when connecting to certain hosts (my guess, but probably).
But I don't see how this does anything for safe harbor.
My point is that while the marketing messaging may have been faulty, it's not necessarily a bad thing to give people with no data caps a choice of bandwidth options at different price points. I for one have no interest in streaming 4K video over my data connection, so I don't care to pay more just because someone else wants to.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Why should a person who streams an hour of 4K pay more than someone else who streams 4 hours of 1080p? They're ultimately equivalent in terms of network use. And, if the promise is "unlimited," any artificial limit breaks that promise.
You, of course, should be able to sign up for a cheaper limited plan, where you can choose to use it up in a day watching video, or spread it over a month streaming audio.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Do you stream phone calls?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
I find it highly unlikely that they can even tell what traffic I have on my VPN.....
Back before HTTPS was a big thing they ran a MITM proxy and compressed images on web pages. More recently they started injecting a tracking identifier into all outgoing http traffic to help advertisers (X-UIDH). They restrict the video quality by limiting the bandwidth to their servers 10Mbps on tablets 3.8Mbps on phones for IIRC 1080P and 480P for phones.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
"Pray I do not alter them further."
If they can't tell it's video, they can't throttle.
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
Seriously? Beyond unlimited? Someone at Verizon must've watched Toy Story at too low a resolution to properly grasp the mockery of the Buzz's slogan To Infinity And Beyond...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I have actually been saying this for a long time, that we need to completely eliminate the model of buying blocks of data that you don't use. Right now you buy "unlimited" which of course is impossible, since bandwidth is a limited resource or you buy an allotment of voice and data that you get reamed for if you go over that expires every month. You end up paying for data that you don't use and it's a scam that should have been outlawed long ago. It is totally skewed to the benefit of the utility. Imagine buying a car and getting an allotment of gas delivered to your house, say 100 gallons, and at the end of every month, a truck from the dealership rolls up, pumps your tank dry and then turns around and pumps back 100 gallons and charges you for 100 gallons of gas. No one would put up with that bullshit.
For both wired and wireless, we need to go to a federally regulated model that completely eliminates any monthly fee, and then companies can charge ONE rate advertised to everyone with no rebates, discounts etc. for data (this forces them to compete on an even playing field and not cut backroom deals that unfairly interfere with competition). The rate would end up being something like 1/2 cent per MB for wireless data and 2 cents per GB for wired data and you pay for what you USE each month. All voice is treated like the data that it is, so no more "voice" plans at all. It encourages Telcoms to invest in new, faster infrastructure and not try to minimize expenditures on new, faster hardware because they only make more money by providing more volume, not by overselling expensive plans and then trying to discourage consumers from using the plans they bought via data caps, throttling and other BS. The reality is nothing is unlimited and each MB you download has cost, the best model for consumers has always been the pay as you use model described above. It is harder for Telcoms because they have to anticipate demand and build out infrastructure to make more money, but that's just the business, if they don't like it, they can GTFO.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
For just $200/month more, any workers sent to locations within two blocks of your house will have been screened to ensure they aren't pedophiles with a history of kidnapping, raping and murdering children.
Verizon is all about giving you the freedom to choose the level of service you need!
What they are selling is a lie. Rent this bandwidth 100Mbps download unlimited use, 'er', except where it is limited and the 100Mbps becomes 2.5Mbps and we achieve that by spying on your usage and censoring it. Rent this bandwidth we purposefully wont let you use, so why the fuck would you rent it in the first place. That does not even touch contention, claiming to sell what you do not have to sell. The record setter for that would be the Australian NBN project, selling 860Mbps between 500 users 100Mbps at a time on decades old hybrid fibre coax and laughing at them when it dies every peak period, after school and work when everyone downloads (great scam but kind of pointless when you over load decades old gear and it just does killing tens of thousands of peoples connections for months at a time). Perhaps its too late for American companies to go with that approach, they have build too much bandwidth into the system and they don't have the total protection of a corrupt government to allow them to tell the citizenry to suck it up and fuck off (who designed it to fail on purpose to favour one corporation - News Corporation - the Fox News bunch - one sick family).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Yeah right. Even cellular Internet is slow. Why even bother to try to stream videos if its Internet is slow enough? :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Because you need more bandwidth to service the same number of customers. That's because of the mathematics of statistical multiplexing.
Let's say I'm the subscriber and you're the telco. If I'm sitting in a cell all by myself, you might as well let me have all the bandwidth in the cell because it doesn't cost you any more. But let's say I'm in a crowded cell with just enough bandwith to service peak demand. Then I try to stream 4K video to my phone and suddenly there's not enough bandwidth for every subscriber in that cell. The performance of a statistical multiplexing drops precipitously once you reach a certain threshold.
The only way you can fix that is to split the cell in two. Now everybody has enough bandwidth, but you've doubled your cost to service that subset of people.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Why even bother streaming 4k to a smartphone? Is there some a new microscope attachment for the iphone that's become bizarrely popular?
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
How soon before ISIS takes out the cable company. Hint: Islam did not like infinite being used in a military campaign name; I think they would also think "Beyond Unlimited" is not correct. Tim S.
nope. Your entire argument is based on the incorrect assumption that the bandwidth isn't distributed evenly between users (and the 4K user is allowed to burst when others aren't using their bandwidth). There's nothing that says a cell provider has to add more capacity to support multiple heavy traffic users.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Why would they reduce the cost of other plans? Plan costs has nothing about the cost of supplying the data plan, it's about maximizing revenue.
Right now you buy "unlimited" which of course is impossible, since bandwidth is a limited resource or you buy an allotment of voice and data that you get reamed for if you go over that expires every month. You end up paying for data that you don't use and it's a scam that should have been outlawed long ago. It is totally skewed to the benefit of the utility. Imagine buying a car and getting an allotment of gas delivered to your house, say 100 gallons, and at the end of every month, a truck from the dealership rolls up, pumps your tank dry and then turns around and pumps back 100 gallons and charges you for 100 gallons of gas. No one would put up with that bullshit.
You do realize that there are OPTIONS on service, right? It might just be a consumer's responsibility to assess how much cell/data service they use, and purchase the plan that BEST fits that usage. So, while your 100 gallon analogy aligns with billing structure of a common "unlimited" plan, you fail to factor in or mention that the dealership offers other billing structures (which kind of makes you dishonest...ironic).
For both wired and wireless, we need to go to a federally regulated model that completely eliminates any monthly fee, and then companies can charge ONE rate advertised to everyone with no rebates, discounts etc. for data (this forces them to compete on an even playing field and not cut backroom deals that unfairly interfere with competition). The rate would end up being something like 1/2 cent per MB for wireless data and 2 cents per GB for wired data and you pay for what you USE each month. All voice is treated like the data that it is, so no more "voice" plans at all. It encourages Telcoms to invest in new, faster infrastructure and not try to minimize expenditures on new, faster hardware because they only make more money by providing more volume, not by overselling expensive plans and then trying to discourage consumers from using the plans they bought via data caps, throttling and other BS. The reality is nothing is unlimited and each MB you download has cost, the best model for consumers has always been the pay as you use model described above. It is harder for Telcoms because they have to anticipate demand and build out infrastructure to make more money, but that's just the business, if they don't like it, they can GTFO.
In Soviet Russia, text message sends you!
All tired interweb funnies aside, do you have an example of any other public utility that viably operates this way? Even the post office has continuously raised "bandwidth" prices. I would also point back to the early days of SMS. Remember how you were charged by each text message (pay-as-you-go)? The consumer clamored and clamored for unlimited text...or oddly enough, a block of texts per month.
And in your scenario, I find it hard to believe that 1) competition will grow, and 2) that providers will add infrastructure faster. If you kneecap a market by setting a maximum of revenue, providers will be MORE focused on cost cutting to keep the margin under control. And, as those that "don't like it, and GTFO" grows, competition dwindles, and you're circling around to monopolies.
Furthermore, I would imagine you also disagree with corporate lobbying. Well, when government starts setting the price, guess which "expenditure" starts to grow?
Having said all that, I definitely disagree with the marketing of cell services, which is what most people here really seemed to be upset about. Which is why I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned how unfair T-Mobile is being when it says "Netflix for free", but then limits it to 480p. I mean how can I "and chill" at 480p? Boo needs that HD, yo!
Physically smaller, physically closer.
Not if more than one person is in the living room. How convenient is it for the SO, kids, or house guests to watch a video on your phone over your shoulder? In addition, focusing that close for long periods of time is tiring.
That's why your cost doesn't go up - it doesn't reduce the other plans. But these high-tier plans require infrastructure build-out and they're the one they can get the revenue out of.
Maximizing revenue means keeping low-tier people for incremental income when they're barely profitable.
No, my argument is based on the assumption that there is finite bandwith that is not sufficient for everyone to stream at 4K, so that when a certain number of people start doing that isochronous streams suffer and have to start buffering.. This is pretty much basic data communication principles.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
So what? There's no guarantee of available bandwidth, and the carrier is not committed to adding infrastructure to create more.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I just looked at your post history, to put this one into perspective. You don't post often. I am honored to have gained your attention. Thank you for the information.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Right, that's exactly the point. Nobody is guaranteed bandwidth, that's what makes it so cheap. Guaranteed bandwith is expensive, but that's what you need when enough people demand instant access to fat, isochronous or nearly-isochronous data streams.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
As far as I am aware, there is no wireless service that sells a reasonable (i.e. around 200% markup on cost) per MB use plan. In my analogy it is as if the car dealer has a monopoly on the kind of gas the car uses and will either charge you $50/gallon (totally unreasonable unless you only drive once a month) or requires you to buy the 200 gallons per month I used in my analogy. Sure there is a pay as you use model, but it is priced to drive you to buy more than you need and by contract the dealership can steal from you what you don't use each month and then turn around and sell it to you again...
Contrary to your assertion, other utilities, like water and electricity are required to charge you by the unit used (i.e. metered use) and are limited by law (defined by a public utility committee) on how much they can charge if they are a monopoly based on their costs and a reasonable markup. If the utility can show that the real cost to deliver the service has gone up 5%, then they can justify a 5% increase in their per unit fee (thats 5% of 2 cents/gb or $20/TB for wired data, so the increase would be $1 more for 1TB of wired data for example. The utility has to justify their operating costs (not "we paid the CEO a $20M bonus so give us more money") to the public utility committee which is publicly elected or appointed by the governor or other elected officials. No system is perfect, but it has been a near endless chain of lies, broken promises and price gouging for 20 years with the wireless providers and ISPs, and that needs to end, starting with a total restructure of how they make their money (switching to selling more data at a single, low set price with reasonable markup, driving them to increase profits by selling more data, instead of bait and switch data plans which are as much as 90% profit a.k.a. 1000% markup). Further, this moots the net neutrality debate, because the ONLY way for ISPs to make money is to sell data. If you want to watch 4K video 24/7, they will build out so you can do it because they make more money than when you watch 720p.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like