Verizon To Throttle High-Bandwidth Users 305
tekgoblin writes "Verizon has enacted a new policy today that allows them to throttle 'high' bandwidth users on their network. We're not sure exactly what 'high' means but it is probably over 2GB of data per month. This comes as the iPhone launches on Verizon's network. The policy is said to only affect the top 5% of data users on the network. When these 5% of users hit the soft limit they will be throttled during peak times of the day. From the note sent to customers: 'Verizon Wireless strives to provide customers the best experience when using our network, a shared resource among tens of millions of customers. To help achieve this, if you use an extraordinary amount of data and fall within the top 5% of Verizon Wireless data users we may reduce your data throughput speeds periodically for the remainder of your then current and immediately following billing cycle to ensure high quality network performance for other users at locations and times of peak demand. Our proactive management of the Verizon Wireless network is designed to ensure that the remaining 95% of data customers aren't negatively affected by the inordinate data consumption of just a few users.'"
Aka: (Score:4, Insightful)
Also known as: We don't want to look like AT&T when a shit ton of people start using their iPhone on our network.
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Also known as: We don't want to look like AT&T when a shit ton of people start using their iPhone on our network.
Since Verizon won't have simultaneous voice and data they probably won't have to worry about repeating AT&T's 'data delivery debacle'. Once their LTE (aka G4'ish) is available to phones (this summer?) it should help speed things along (but they're probably still going to throttle as many people as they can just to make sure 'unlimited data' is only a marketing tool and not an actual product/service).
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Except that very few phones use LTE, and nothing that Apple makes uses it. I'm guessing that they're trying to prevent people using a tether as their broadband replacement from sagging their backhaul.
And unlimited is a ruse, just like 4G is a ruse, but we knew that. Upthread they threw out 2G as a cap, but no one has any evidence at all for that, and I frequently go over that amount with impunity on their "unlimited" plan. So, be careful of the rumors you listen to.
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Well, no, not really. You can pay that if you want. Some people root their phones and tether that way. You're did it the 'ethical' way. I'd gladly pay that cost if were offered on my phone.
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LTE won't fix the problems if the problems arise from the network itself. Like most mobile providers, AT&T refuse to invest in infrastructure to ensure stability of the network. They're fine taking customer funds but not upgrading anything. Having worked for a telco, it's actually common practice to underinvest and over sell.
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It's still unlimited. Verizon is just going to control how fast you get there.
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>>How many people are a shit ton?
would you be talking about a metric or english shit ton?
(African or European?)
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would you be talking about a metric or english shit ton?
I believe, dear boy, that the term you are looking for is imperial. Mistakes like that could lead people to believe that you are from one of the former colonies.
Bandwidth, People (Score:2)
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The problem isn't the protocol, it's wireless bandwidth. Even with better hardware and better compression, there's only so much data you can cram in the airwaves.
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When 30,000+ people all get within one square mile, like at a sporting event, large conference, or a downtown area like Mahattan, etc what are they to do? They can't magically shit more airwaves in order to give everyone what you claim they paid for.
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I'm really curious what's the density of cell transceivers in places like Times Square or Cowboys Stadium but I couldn't find it.
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No matter how you slice it, there is only so much bandwidth to go around. Adding more phones doesn't magically transform RF capabilities to allow for more bandwidth.
There are many different limits and you seem to be conflating them all.
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The whole point is how finely you can slice it. You must have thought by "transcievers" I meant handsets, but I was referring to the infrastructure. And yes, that does make it possible to support more handsets in a given area.
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I'm not saying that you are wrong, just pointing out that the anti-network neutrality push is really a push for monopoly rents that has nothing to do with technical limitations.
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I think you're confused by what net neutrality means.
But in any case, the wireless spectrum has physical limitations; I don't think anyone would argue with that. From a purely economic standpoint, things that are limited are generally sold to the highest bidder. So a tiered, pay-per-use system would give the providers of the service more money than a flat system with a fixed monthly rate. This is why net neutrality is good for users, but bad for providers.
Re:Bandwidth, People (Score:4, Informative)
Net neutrality and monthly data transfer limits are orthogonal.
Net neutrality means that ISPs don't discriminate between packets with different sources or destinations. In other words, they treat packets from Google with the same priority as packets from the search engine that your neighbor just started from his house. However, once you use your monthly allowance, then the ISP shuts you off, or slows down all packets* going to your device.
* When I write "all packets" obviously, there may be reasons to treat media streams differently from emails, but again, according to net neutrality principles it should not matter who is providing the video stream or the emails.
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How much do you want to bet that what you get from Congress has nothing at all to do with your definition.
Loser streaks his state capitol? (no videos please we're both /.ers)
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Why do these people keep pushing video?! (Score:4, Insightful)
What i don't understand is why the network providers keep pushing mobile video and tethering.
T-mobile is pushing their video chat... Sprint is saying you can upload live video directly to the web etc.
The networks already can't handle the level of data usage they currently get, yet they're pushing these very high bandwidth services. Don't get me wrong, i like that my t-mo G2 with stock firmware can do wifi and USB tethering. But i would also like it if my "4G" phone on the "4G" network got more than 400kbps download rates (in one of their 4G launch cities). If there's any level of adoption of this stuff it'll bring their networks to a halt and not due to any top 5% users.
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What i don't understand is why the network providers keep pushing mobile video and tethering.
Additional fees. Tethering is an extra $20 per month (for 2GB?). I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually offer a 'professional' data plan that doesn't throttle excessive users for an additional fee.
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The charge for tethering is such a scam :p
Here in Norway you pay for data and that is that. How you use it doesnt matter as long as it goes through the phone somehow.
Disabling tethering on a phone would cause a major issue here... trying to charge for it would be commercial suicide....
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Have you never heard of high performance motor vehicles that can do 200 miles per hour or more, far in excess of the speed limit. Much the same as any product with hyped up performance, it is all about the inflated profit margin.
Of course make any attempt to use that performance and you are immediately penalised. In the case of bandwidth marketing, it has always been a lie, since dial up modems, companies always selling far more than they can actually provide.
Blaming the customer for product failure, h
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Because they want you to pay for it...they just dont want you to actually use it.
Re:Why do these people keep pushing video?! (Score:4, Funny)
There are other amusing tidbits too. My verizon droid came with skype that refuses to run unless I *disable* wifi.
I can download the non verizon version that refuses to run on 3G... but then I just get confused and want to lie down for a while.
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Wireless carriers are in a wonderful position: they can paint the picture of the moon, contract a high-flying jet plane, and deliver a toy balloon, because "everybody knows" that no matter the network, there's always things like interference and "dead zones" no matter how well provisioned the network!
Aren't getting that 10 Mbit download speed that was processed? Probably you are in a dead zone, or your neighbor's microwave is generating interference, or etc. etc.
But since the wireless service actually works
Why don't carriers just use these exact terms? (Score:3)
Most people understand that there's not enough licensed RF spectrum to let millions of users treat their cell phone as if it were a portable 20 Mb/sec cable connection running uTorrent and Netflix 24/7 at 100% saturation. So why don't the carriers advertise their service with a flat rate, but with terms like "3 Mb/s for the first 2 GB transferred per billing period, 500 kb/s for the next 2 GB, and 128 kb/s after that"?
Seems this would allow them to stick to the spirit of the law when it comes to "unlimited" service offers, while keeping the network from being either too congested or too expensive.
Re:Why don't carriers just use these exact terms? (Score:4, Funny)
I'm the CEO of Verizon Wireless. I'm intrigued by your idea. Just one question: how does your plan make us more money?
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I'm the CEO of Verizon Wireless. I'm intrigued by your idea. Just one question: how does your plan make us more money?
Satisfied customers who think you're better than your competition would be a good start. That's if long-term viability and profitability is something you want to cultivate. Otherwise, go ahead and screw them over as much as you can to pad this quarter's results, then watch them jump ship at the first opportunity.
Re:Why don't carriers just use these exact terms? (Score:5, Interesting)
Most people understand that there's not enough licensed RF spectrum to let millions of users treat their cell phone as if it were a portable 20 Mb/sec cable connection running uTorrent and Netflix 24/7 at 100% saturation. So why don't the carriers advertise their service with a flat rate, but with terms like "3 Mb/s for the first 2 GB transferred per billing period, 500 kb/s for the next 2 GB, and 128 kb/s after that"?
Seems this would allow them to stick to the spirit of the law when it comes to "unlimited" service offers, while keeping the network from being either too congested or too expensive.
Better would be a burst-allowance: 3MB/s for the first 10 MB in a minute, then 500kbps for the next 10 MB, then 128kbps after that. This would allow fast response for short queries, and not shortchange the guy who does 2GB in the first two days of the month, and then just intermittent web browsing for the rest of the month. It also shapes the traffic better, because he's not swamping the network during those first two days.
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So then Netflix or any other streaming video is now totally worthless. Thanks.
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one problem with your proposal is that it takes nearly 3 minutes to transfer 10MB at 500Kbps, so the 128kpbs limit would never be imposed. Fix the math, most likely increase the sampling period to more like 5 or 10 minutes, add a huge amount of equipment on the carrier side to track all this in real time, pass the cost of said equipment on to the consumers, and it just might work
that'll be $0.02
Re:Why don't carriers just use these exact terms? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Most people" don't know what "the licensed RF spectrum" means, much less understand its limitations.
They just know they paid for one thing and are going to get something less. I guarantee there are new Verizon iPhone users who believe they have "unlimited" plans.
2GB is far too little for "unlimited" (Score:5, Interesting)
My wife purchased her Droid Incredible from Verizon last summer. She is totally thrilled with it and her unlimited data plan. With it, she is able to look up facts and answer questions where ever she is. It has proven to be a real assist.
She uses it to listen to Pandora while she is at work. Her employer allows 0 bandwidth for personal uses, so she spends the entire 8 hours per day listening to Pandora on 3G.
At 128Kbps, 8hours/day * 22 days per month works out to 10GB/month, and that is just listening to music, not watching any video or doing any web browsing.
2GB/month is totally inadequate for anything but browser lookups. It is not sufficient for any of the media-rich apps for which Verizon advertised the device.
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Re:2GB is far too little for "unlimited" (Score:4)
Interesting perspective.
She owns an MP3 player; she has an iPod Touch. However, listening 8 hours per day while she works spreadsheets, she gets tired of listening to the same set of music over and over; hence Pandora. Since she listens to the music with a nice set of earphones, the sound quality is exactly equivalent to what she would get with an MP3 player, so quality is not an issue.
I understand the physics of bandwidth. However, Verizon sold an unlimited data plan, and advertised it as offering audio and video. If they are not going to give her what they sold her, they had better stop charging her $100/month for the privilege.
Re:2GB is far too little for "unlimited" (Score:5, Insightful)
"Contributing to the problem" is one odd fucking way of spelling "using the service she is paying for". Do you work for verizon or just shill for free?
Re:2GB is far too little for "unlimited" (Score:4)
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On the flip side, unless you stream audio/video, it's really hard to hit 2GB. I'm on the iPhone 200MB plan with AT&T (in my area I get great service, fwiw). Except one month I was out of town, I've never been over 80MB in a month, and I use my phone for work and personal stuff. Of course, I have wifi at home and at the office (though I have a PC at the office, so rarely use data svcs there anyway). Facebook, email (2 accounts, ~100 emails a day), calendaring, evernote, looking up small (1MB) PDF file
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Wow, you don't use your device at all compared to say me, and you then find that you don't use much data. What a fucking surprise. It is not the 24/7 streamer, he pays his bills, it is AT&T refusing to upgrade their network to actually provide the service they sell.
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On the flip side, unless you stream audio/video, it's really hard to hit 2GB. I'm on the iPhone 200MB plan with AT&T
I agree on the iPhone. Every other smartphone allows for free tethering, however, and when using a phone connection to power a laptop, 2 GB just doesn't seem to last very long.
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So that would keep the use case you mention down to around 2.5 G/month, just by itself.
Dropping back to 96 kb/s would allow Pandora to run indefinitely at the lowest rate I mentioned.
True enough. Continuous hi-def video streaming to mass
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I'll admit to typing 32 when I meant 64. :) At 64 kbps an AAC-class codec may still not qualify as 'lossless' to a discriminating ear, but it will sound as good as whatever Pandora is streaming now.
Are they actually streaming at 128, though? I thought they ran at 64 mono, at least on the old EDGE iPhone.
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They could achieve near-lossless quality at around 32 kb/s with state-of-the-art codecs.
No. I am an audio engineer and I can tell you that there is no codec in the world good enough to drop below 128k without noticeable loss of quality. Do you have any more "facts" you would like to extract from your rectal cavity?
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Really? What codecs have you written?
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True enough. Ever since someone first showed me an example of streaming Internet media, I've wondered how long it would take before people see just what a bad idea it is to make a packet-switched network act like a circuit-switched one. It's like painting with a screwdriver.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to find ways
Re:2GB is far too little for "unlimited" (Score:4)
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The android app actually has a "high quality" option, which IIRC sets the stream to 96kbps.
Of cousre they did (Score:2)
But at least they did it before you bought your phone, not afterward.
Why can't operators let customers decide? (Score:2)
Have two queues: Low latency and Bulk. Use the ToS field is decide which one to put it in. Give customers two quotas, say 2gb bulk and 500mb low latency. Charge more for extra low latency traffic and less for extra bulk traffic. Don't use IP addresses, transport protocols or port numbers to decide what is real time and what is bulk. That would be a fair system for making the best use of limited network resources.
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The only "fair" system would be for them to charge by the megabyte.
The entire fee structure is based on the idea of people not knowing what they're actually paying for.
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You sir are incorrect.
The fee structure is designed for people who are getting more and more accustomed to getting everything for practically nothing.
We all experience this every day. We go to Wal-Mart for inexpensive goods from China or we go to Costco or we go Target or anyplace where we can get the most ( at least we think ) for a buck.
The fly in the ointment is that we can't buy bandwidth from China or the Philippines or whatever other sweatshop country you would care to name because bandwidth is rule
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Point taken (and nicely made), but that doesn't entirely do justice to the situation.
The plain truth is that telcos want (and arguably need) a certain kind of network to maximise their profits. This implies centralised control and lots of management overhead on existing networks, with litt
Thinng the herd? (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'll be curious to see how forthcoming Verizon is about your "throttled" state. The reason is that most press reports, regarding the iPhone, talk about how Verizon is about half the speed of AT&T's network. When someone gets throttled (and doesn't know it), they'll be howling to the Internet about how Verizon's network is really really really slow.
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iPhone (Score:5, Interesting)
Look at this way. Verizon is already giving the user a slower data rate than iPhone users have come to expect. Now they are saying if you use 'too much' as defined by them, you may be effectively cut off. After all, the definition of 'too much' and 'throttling' is defined completely by Verizon. Previously 'too much' was 150 MB, and who knows what throttling is. Maybe Edge?
This reinforces my previous expectation that though Verizon has the best network in the US, they will never give the average customer a square deal or straight answer.
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Also you have to remember it is a choice (Score:2)
They either do this, or everyone just gets slower speeds. When you are dealing with wireless it isn't near as easy to scale up bandwidth as with wires. With a wire you can always add a second wire, or you can switch to a new kind of wire (or ultimately optical cable) that can take a higher range of frequencies. You could also do things like use better equipment to raise SNR.
You can't do that with wireless. The frequencies are fixed by the technologies in use and the allocations. You get a certain slice of t
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Well, sort of. They didn't announce pricing - everyone just assumed that all the services would be free. Tethering is an extra $20. For that $20, you only get 2GB of data to the tethered devices. It's only the internal usage that is "unlimited".
I mean, if you want to argue it, technically Verizon's internet isn't unlimited to begin with - you can only get 24x31x3600x()kbps per month - which isn't unlimited even if you got 10Mbps.
They saw AT&T take it up the rear by not limiting 24/7 streamers; they're n
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If this is not bait and switch, unethical advertising, and intent to deceive the consumer I don't know what it.
Even if it is, it doesn't really matter. The advertising industry has a large and well established lobbying network, especially here in the United States. The law effectively says that even if the advertising is false, and the advertiser knows or should have known that it was false, you as the consumer are limited to recovery of actual damages (i.e. refund of purchase price) with regard to the false claim and the FCC can ask them kindly to please stop saying that in their future advertisements. Certain dura
Not enough RF? (Score:2)
So why not run fiberglass cable from tower to tower, and increase the number of towers? I run a Verizon Wireless hot spot (5 connections at home), but I'm not wedded to the plan I've got (5 GB per billing cycle, which is nothing like 24/7 unlimited). There needs to be a little Federal oversight of these practices. Or a lot of Federal oversight...
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Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems.
(Jamie Zawinski, maybe?)
Anyway, you might be wondering why I would put that there. And that is because you wrote this:
There needs to be a little Federal oversight of these practices. Or a lot of Federal oversight...
Now you have two problems.
It's not so much that the phone companies are such great stewards of our spectrum that they don't need oversight or regulation, but moreso that there is already a lot of oversight, and it seems to be accomplishing only one thing: keeping the existing carriers entrenched as virtually unassailable monopolies. Any regulatory scheme you can propose to fix things must
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That is a simple problem to solve, but it must be done in steps.
1. All carriers will use one standard for 4G, does not matter which just that they are all forced to be inter-operable.
2. No carrier may ever have more than X% of the market. If it exceeds that size it shall be broken in half.
3. All devices that conform to the predefined standard shall be allowed on any carrier network.
4. Any carrier locked phones must be unlocked once the phone is paid for or after 6 months of usage on said network, which ever
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The free market does not do that when you have a monopoly or a duopoly. We have so few players in the Nationwide Cellular service market that there is little meaningful competition. To make matters worse we have multiple standards for these networks. The main purpose of that is prevent customers from being able to easily change providers.
advertising reality (Score:5, Insightful)
What I never understand is how all those companies can get away with showing ads with happy people who use tons of video streaming, internet radio/music/video download shops and other highish bandwidth stuff, claim "sign up here and enjoy all these awesome things!", when the reality is that if you actually DO use all this stuff every day, you are told to stop doing that because you are an asocial bandwidth hog.
Either advertise it and let people do it, or don't advertise it. And especially do not advertise it if you know from the start that it is not technically possible for lots of people to use these options because your network is not good enough.
Re:advertising reality (Score:4, Funny)
Either advertise it and let people do it, or don't advertise it. And especially do not advertise it if you know from the start that it is not technically possible for lots of people to use these options because your network is not good enough.
No, see you aren't supposed to do that *all the time*!
You're just supposed to watch Youtube videos while riding on horseback with your girlfriend on the beach, or while at work as a bellboy at a nice hotel. The commercial was pretty clear on this.
Here's your bridge! (Score:2)
Oh wait, you're using too much!
Here's your half a bridge!
People should work the system (Score:2)
So, if every data customer bands together and chips in an additional ~5.3% of their plan to buy "dummy" plans, they can then set up these 5% of phones to waste ungodly amounts of bandwidth, guaranteeing that these dummy plans get throttled, thereby saving the remaining real users from experiencing any throttling.
I'm sure that's not a ToS violation...
5%? (Score:5, Insightful)
5% - It seems small at first, but when you realize that they have 94.1 million subscribers in the US [wikipedia.org], that's 4.7 million people they're throttling. If they identify that number of people as using "extraordinary amount[s] of data", I'd say that there's a more fundamental problem here.
And note the part where you get throttled for your entire next billing cycle too.
I'm not a Verizon subscriber, and I still use a "dumb" phone without a data plan, but this still seems that they need to change what they're offering up front instead of giving everything and then taking it back if you dare use it.
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Converting the 5% to 4.7m people is an excellent point. 5% seems reasonable, but when there are 4.7 m "excessive users", that's a LOT of people who won't be getting what they paid for. 4.7m isn't a statistical blip or rare case.
Re:5%? -- not all 94 million people have a data pl (Score:3)
Further, I think this is actually a great idea and I already bought some iphones from verizon. I'd much rather have a responsive and reliable connection and be within a 2 gb limit than have no limit and tons of dropped calls (in certain markets at least) like with AT&T.
In certain markets, even without a limit, the poor quality of AT&T's network wouldn't even
Not a problem for new customers (Score:2)
Honestly I'm having a hard time finding fault with this so long as it's spelled out in advance in the contract that one agrees to. The problem is springing this after the fact.
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The problem with most contracts is that a legal contract (as opposed to an illegitimate and unenforceable contract) must include several things including consideration [wikipedia.org]. (And to anyone, not just gsgriffin, please go read up on consideration before my next paragraph if you don't yet understand the concept.)
The trouble is, in this context, that if the newly-lessened consideration is unconscionable [wikipedia.org], then the contract is void.
IANAL, but I do have an unlimited Verizon data plan on my Droid, and I think changing
I don't have a problem with that (Score:2)
As long as they clearly define:
o exactly when customers will be throttled
o exactly how much customers will be throttled
o allow customers to see how much they been throttled for each month
o allow customers to opt out of their contract without penalty if they don't
agree to the change
Seems perfectly reasonable if they did that.... Not holding my breath :-)
T-Mobile (Score:3)
I'm reading this while downloading a windows 7 iso over my G1's 3g connection at 4mbps. The image is well over 2 gigs. No caps for me. :)
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The T-Mobile cap is 5GB. You get throttled at 5GB.
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Not if you are flexpay. I've transferred probably over 30 gigs already this month. :P
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downloading a windows 7 iso over my G1's...
That's just wrong.
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Why?
Just a stop-gap measure, right? (Score:4, Funny)
Let's MATH! (Score:2)
"Verizon" != "Verizon Wireless" (Score:2)
Just sayin'. Verizon has lots of home users at 25/15 Mbps down/up, I hope they aren't throttling us to 2 GB/month.
This just in... (Score:4, Funny)
High-bandwidth users to throttle Verizon.
I dont get this . (Score:3, Insightful)
if you sell/rent a car to me, and then tell me that i can not use it on mondays, i shove the keys up your ass. if you drop a shady clause in the contract saying that you can modify the terms of the contract at any point at your leisure, then do the mondays thing after that, i still shove up the keys up your ass.
so at this point, i am at a loss to understand, how can american corporations violate the very BASE mechanics of trade and business, and get away with it.
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except that 99% of the users never ever get near 500MB of data.
Go download your Ubuntu ISOs from work or something.
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so at this point, i am at a loss to understand, how can american corporations violate the very BASE mechanics of trade and business, and get away with it.
I guess we frown on people shoving things into other people without prior consent.
Why not just divide datarate evenly among users? (Score:2)
The "throttling" approach strikes me a bogus.
Most of the problem occurs at "the edge". (And if it's congested in "the core" you need more core.) So why not just divide the instantaneous bandwidth evenly among all users?
With this approach the high-usage users are not throttled when they're not interfering with other users when the edge is not congested, and get no more than an equal share with the intermittent users when it is congested.
Then Don't Call it "Unlimited". (Score:2)
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Can you hear me now?
Arrrgh.
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Total possible bandwidth scales with the number of towers in a nice clean way only when the towers are optimally positioned. If I have 5 towers positioned well, and I want to add another, unless I move all but one of the existing towers I will likely get of gain of only a percent or two from that tower, rather than the closer to 20%[1] I would get if they were positioned optimally.
Moving towers is prohibitively expensive, so it is just not done. Similarly fr various reasons (e.g. NIMBY, or skyscraper/mounta
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I don't know. But apparently the Microsoft icon is still Borg-Gates, but a redesigned version of it! That simply makes no sense. Borg-Ballmer might make good sense now, or the image of a chair being thrown, but Borg-Gates is simply obsolete.