Verizon To Offer iPhone Users Unlimited Data 327
Hugh Pickens writes "The WSJ reports that Verizon Wireless, the country's largest wireless carrier, is confident enough in its network that it will offer unlimited data-use plans when it starts selling the iPhone around the end of this month, a person familiar with the matter says. Such plans would provide a key means of distinguishing its service from rival AT&T Inc., which limits how much Internet data its customers may use each month. Verizon has a lot at stake as it starts to carry the iPhone, which it is expected to announce Tuesday at an event in New York City. Verizon, more than any other US carrier, has built its reputation on its network quality, and any stumble in handling iPhone traffic will call into question Verizon's major selling point. On the other hand, if it does handle the iPhone well, then AT&T will have a harder time arguing it didn't mismanage its own network. Anthony J. Melone, Verizon's chief technology officer, says the company has invested heavily in its 3G network to handle surging smartphone traffic, including nine million Android subscribers, up from none a year earlier.'"
Competition again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps that means they will compete for business and we consumers will win?
I know, fat chance but we can still wish.. right?
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Here's to hoping. I'm an Android guy myself, but I always welcome more competition! That is, of course, assuming this is what Verizon has planned for tomorrow. If it isn't, the outpouring of douchebaggery online will be quite entertaining :)
Re:Competition again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Competition again? (Score:4, Interesting)
Read the fine print. Like every other wireless TELCO, "unlimited" does not mean unlimited.
from : http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/footer/acceptableuse.jsp [verizonwireless.com] .....This specifically but without limitation includes excessive consumption of network or system resources whether intentional or unintentional. ....
Section L
l.
Then there's this little tidbit:
We further reserve the right to take measures to protect our network and other users from harm, compromised capacity or degradation in performance. These measures may impact your service, and we reserve the right to deny, modify or terminate service, with or without notice, to anyone we believe is using Data Plans or Features in a manner that adversely impacts our network.
-
I GUARANTEE, if you are actually sucking down as much data as you possibly can, Verizon will be in your grill with a cap. They have a cap for FIOS, DSL and every other internet service they provide. Their agreement basically says "We decide if you are using too much data, and we can arbitrarily decide how much is too much on a whim."
This means there is no actual unlimited plan, just "unlimited", which happens to be whatever Verizon says it is and can change without notice.
While I will never hit their cap, there are people that watch TV on their phones frequently (cbs.com, etc etc) and you'd better believe Verizon will be on them like stink on shit just as soon as the big surge of new iPhone customers is stuck in a 2 year contract.
Verizon=AT&T=T-Mobile=Virgin Mobile
They are ALL the same as far as legal, caps etc goes.
Re:Competition again? (Score:5, Informative)
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They offer "unlimited data" just like restaurants offer "free refills". Restaurants expect you to refill a certain number of times given the size of your cup and the duration of your visit. If you start funneling your beverage into a keg you've brought in with you, someone will probably ask you to leave.
Both cases seem fair to me.
Re:Competition again? (Score:4, Informative)
This has been hashed out over and over and over again on the Android-specific fora. The plans for smartphones are unlimited. Period.
BTW, what's your source for that French plan? At Orange, I see a EUR55 plan that offers 20Mbit internet, 120 channels, and unlimited Orange in-network; if you want all numbers in France, it will be EUR110/mo. Nothing like $30/mo.
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Perhaps that means they will compete for business and we consumers will win?
Let's see: Lucifer, Beelzebub, and Legion are competing for your business, and you think that you might win? MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA
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Let's see: Lucifer, Beelzebub, and Legion are competing for your business, and you think that you might win? MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA
I want the most torture for my dollar!
Re:Competition again? (Score:4, Interesting)
Lucifer, Beelzebub, and Legion are competing for your business, and you think that you might win?
Lucifer and Beelzebub are usually used as two names for the same devil, and Legion is a demon who would probably be said to work for the devil, so that's not a great metaphor for AT&T and Verizon who do theoretically have an interest in bringing down the other guy.
A better metaphor would be Republicans and Democrats. There are real (though minor) differences, and they do really hate each other, but they'll each screw you over more than each other, and both really drag their heels to actually offer you something better than the other one.
Re:In "competition", consumers always lose. (Score:5, Insightful)
The ultimate goal of "competition" is to achieve monopoly status, by eliminating competitors. That is what "competition" means.
Once you eliminate your competitors, you can do whatever you want to the market.
Why would you want consumers to suffer through competition?
Assuming we're not talking about assasination, the way to "eliminate competitors" in a free market is to have a better product. If your product is so good that no one else can compete, then who cares? If you start trying to abuse your monopoly position, new competition will come.
Of course, there's always the modern definition of "competition", which means only compete with a couple other companies, and use your influence in the government to make competition either illegal (cell phone carriers with government issued monopolies, computer hardware companies with patents) or impossible (Walmart and Conagra with subsidies). I don't see how more government control would help that.
Re:In "competition", consumers always lose. (Score:4, Insightful)
Assuming we're not talking about assasination, the way to "eliminate competitors" in a free market is to have a better product.
I don't see how more government control would help that.
That is what government regulation is for. It is to ensure that the best product wins under its own merits and that all costs are taken into account.
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Government regulations do not have that effect. Not even close. Quite the opposite, really.
Ideals are hard to achieve (Score:4, Interesting)
That is what government regulation is for. It is to ensure that the best product wins under its own merits and that all costs are taken into account.
Government regulations do not have that effect. Not even close. Quite the opposite, really.
They do when they are designed well. Granted it doesn't happen enough, partly because well designed regulations are actually really hard to pull off, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It's not hard to find government regulations that do indeed increase competition and make commerce more competitive and consumer friendly. Unfortunately it's just as easy to find regulations that do exactly the opposite.
Government regulation results in better products (Score:5, Funny)
Government regulations do not have that effect. Not even close. Quite the opposite, really.
Copyrights and patents are fine examples of government regulation that encourages innovation.
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I don't think WalMart receives subsidies.
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Are you being sarcastic? They get millions of dollars of tax free status for up to 10 years while their competitors still pay regular taxes.
In many cases as soon as the tax free status clears and they have to pay taxes,they close.
Re:In "competition", consumers always lose. (Score:4, Informative)
Most of the anti-walmart stuff you read is FUD, targated at them because they're the biggest retailer. And despite what everyone says, they got that way by having honest business practices
Forget random FUD for and against them and just look at what the courts have said. They've paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in class-action suits after it was found that the forced employees to work off the clock (see, for instance, http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2005-11-02-walmart-employees_x.htm [usatoday.com] "Wal-Mart, which earned $10 billion last year, agreed to pay $50 million in 2000 to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that 69,000 former and current Wal-Mart employees in Colorado had been forced to work off the clock").
They've paid out millions of dollars in dozen of lawsuits over unfair practices with respect to hiring of disabled employees; they've been raided at least 3 different times for having scores of illegal immigrants working in their stores, and not just on an ad-hoc basis--the 2003 raid was of stores in over 20 different states with hundreds of workers involved (see http://money.cnn.com/2003/10/23/news/companies/walmart_worker_arrests/ [cnn.com] which notes that "federal law enforcement officials said information from an undercover investigation revealed that some Wal-Mart executives and some store managers knew of the immigration violations.").
They're currently facing the biggest gender discrimination suit in US history--see http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/06/news/companies/Wal-mart-lawsuit-to-Supreme-Court/index.htm [cnn.com]
So, yeah, "honest business practices".
The best do not always win (Score:3)
the way to "eliminate competitors" in a free market is to have a better product.
That's only one of many ways to beat competitors and not necessarily the most effective one. It's not hard to come up with examples of inferior products that ended up dominating the market. In fact if you look at many disruptive technologies [wikipedia.org] they are often inferior in many ways to the technologies they replace. Price, availability, service, control of a scarce resource such as a raw material or distribution channel, artificial monopolies in the form of patents, better sales people, better personal networ
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If you start trying to abuse your monopoly position, new competition will come.
Sure, new competition will come...if the barrier to entry is not too high.
Also, the company with the monopoly product may simply lower prices -- temporarily -- to kill the new would-be competitor. Once the competitor is dead, prices can safely be raised again.
A lot of people and companies will be smart enough to have figured this out, and won't bother trying to compete against monopoly products, because it's too risky.
The best solution to a monopoly is to not allow the monopoly to happen in the first place.
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You were wrong about many things (Score:3)
such as "If you start to abuse your monopoly position, new competition will come".
No.
Monopoly positions do not remove themselves through new competition.
They achieved their monopoly position through competition already, so any new competitor will be eliminated as well.
You have a far too simplistic view of economics. Very much a childish idealism, very dreamy, very sweet, very innocent.
I am entertained by it, which is why I am trolling you.
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The ultimate goal of "competition" is to achieve monopoly status, by eliminating competitors. That is what "competition" means.
If you're a jock, that's what it means. In the context of economics, that's not what it means. At least, not what it's supposed to mean.
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Except that is what it means economically. You cant expect the leaders of a company to sit their and work towards no ultimate goal. Humans in any endeavor do not like to feel they are running in a hamster wheel and there is no way to win. They will find a way to win and then abuse that position to its fullest because greed is good to them.
That is why the free market does not work. Or at least does not work in a way that is beneficial to the many and if it does not benefit the people, there is no reason f
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The ultimate goal of "competition" is to achieve monopoly status, by eliminating competitors. That is what "competition" means.
Once you eliminate your competitors, you can do whatever you want to the market.
Not at all. My company created a product platform. The first thing we did was establish an industry standards body and release the platform to its members. In this way we created our own competition.
Of course, we determined that customers are more likely to adopt a platform if they don't consider it "vendor lock in". And while we don't eliminate competitors, we certainly strive to dominate them. There's nothing wrong with being a big fish in a small pond we dug and filled and stocked ourselves. But yo
Maybe... (Score:5, Funny)
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iPhone has been "Coming to Verizon" for almost 3 years now. Always according to a "person close to the matter".
Maybe they'll bundle it with Duke Nukem.
Re:Maybe... (Score:4, Funny)
iPhone has been "Coming to Verizon" for almost 3 years now.
You need only wait until this time tomorrow to determine if your comment was omniscience in action or merely another nattering nabob of negativism.
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+1 Agnew reference
Re:Maybe... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's rather like predicting earthquakes. If each week a different person says there's going to be a big one, statistically speaking, eventually one of them will be right. :-)
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I think it's rather like predicting earthquakes. If each week a different person says there's going to be a big one, statistically speaking, eventually one of them will be right. :-)
A stopped analog clock is correct more often than the "iPhone on Verizon" rumors, though I think it's likely correct this time.
But wait for it - if the one that is announced is NOT an LTE phone, then let the teeth gnashing begin! :)
Meanwhile, the replacement ROM for my EVO on Sprint gives me muuuuch better battery life. (I'm usi
Really, really bad timing on your part (Score:5, Insightful)
Every other time it's been clear it's a rumor. This time it's obvious it's no rumor, there are leaks from techs testing and the news is all over the place. It's like saying that there's not going to be an eclipse just because there wasn't one all last year. New data is at hand...
But the really funny thing about your post is, you make it in the same year Duke Nukem Forever is actually set to release for real...
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iPhone has been "Coming to Verizon" for almost 3 years now. Always according to a "person close to the matter".
Maybe they'll bundle it with Duke Nukem.
There's a difference between bloggers and the Wall Street Journal. Blogs will post any damn thing, the WSJ generally shows more restraint.
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There's a difference between bloggers and the Wall Street Journal. They both have more credibility than Fox News.
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Yes, because we know that when you sign up for your first wordpress account, you do it with the solemn oath that you will only blog for truth & justice, and with the moral backbone of a Saint.
Re:Maybe... (Score:4, Funny)
Not me. I'm waiting for the Commodore 64 Phone! That, or the Sinclair ZX81 Phone. THOSE will be game changers, for sure!
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--Proud former Timex/Sinclair 1000, Timex/Sinclair 2068, and Spectrum+ owner.
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Not me. I'm waiting for the Commodore 64 Phone! That, or the Sinclair ZX81 Phone. THOSE will be game changers, for sure!
Run them in emulators on modern phones. :)
Heck, with the new dualcores, you could run each on its own core! Hmm, is two considered a Beowulf cluster?
Is that Unlimited.. (Score:2)
...or "unlimited" (subject to "fair use")?
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The latter. No company planning to stay in business long offers actual unlimited access to a resource that they only have in limited supply. Granted, it's a very high limit, but there are limits nonetheless.
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Not Sure I'm Buying It (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a fun rumor, but I'm not sure I believe it.
Verizon certainly does not want a bunch of data-sucking iPhones on their network unless they can make money off of them. So, yes, I could believe that Verizon my offer an unlimited plan for $20 more than what their 2MB/month plan costs. But I tend to doubt they're going to be offering unlimited for the same cost as AT&T 2MB/month plan.
Re:Not Sure I'm Buying It (Score:4, Insightful)
If Verizon can offer an unlimited (or, you know, unlimited until you read the fine print) data plan that's sturdy and reliable and fast, it will be an enormous windfall for them. Verizon is not only huge, but generally accepted as providing better service, especially in the northeast. Verizon wants money and to be bigger than AT&T - offering unlimited data gets more people to switch to or pick up Verizon service with an iPhone. If they aren't priced very competitive with AT&T, they'll minimize that enormous surge, which they don't want. Make less per person, get more people - totally worth it.
The true winners are, of course, Apple. Either way, millions of people will be buying iPhones for the first and probably not the last time. Toss in the iPad 2 and Lion to round out the corners and 2011 is looking up for Apple. Competition amongst telecoms is better for consumers, but it's better for producers as well.
Re:Not Sure I'm Buying It (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a fun rumor, but I'm not sure I believe it.
Verizon certainly does not want a bunch of data-sucking iPhones on their network unless they can make money off of them.
No mention of cost yet, but they have already been carrying the heavy load of Android phones for some time. They use just as much data (if not more) than an iPhone.
Quote Verizon CEO:
"Whether they are iPhones or Droids, they are smartphones," Verizon Chief Executive Ivan G. Seidenberg said in a mid-November interview. "Regardless of the mix, we are prepared to carry more data."
I would wager it will be around 30 bucks, just like AT&T's unlimited plan was before they stopped selling it (although many are grandfathered into the unlimited).
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Verizon is famous for crippling cellphones with their custom firmware.
I wonder how they plan to screw up the iOS.
Maybe a verizon store app that you can't remove?
Re:Not Sure I'm Buying It (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm betting they will be adding a small amount of crapware, but part of the reason they didn't get the iPhone 3 years ago was because Jobs wouldn't let them cripple it or control it.
Jobs hasn't gotten any more accommodating over the years so I'm guessing VZW is taking the phone pretty much as dictated.
That doesn't mean it will be as fast or as friendly as the GSM models, because CDMA does calls OR data, and unless you are on wifi concurrently, you will have to wait till your call is done to check your facebook status or send that email.
Nor do I expect a lot of iphone users to immediately jump ship. Oh, they talk big in their hatred of AT&T, but when it comes to paying off that existing AT&T phone while starting a contract with VZW for the new phone the economics of the situation will quell their bravado.
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Sprint's network, at least around here, is pretty good. Certainly better than AT&T's. That's based on coverage for me (on Virgin Mobile) compared to my wife (on an iPhone) next to me.
I guess I'm one of the people that would like an iPhone but won't give AT&T my money due to their warrantless wiretapping crimes. Alas it doesn't make economic sense for me to get a Verizon phone until my wife is off contract and is willing to switch, since two separate phone plans cost a lot more than a family plan.
Re:Not Sure I'm Buying It (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, it's expensive -- good thing my employer pays for it.
What I'm skeptical of is not that they'll offer an unlimited data plan, but of what kind of throttling they do.
I've noticed that I'm SEVERELY throttled when I do a big download.
Simple web surfing? No problem. Email? Not bad. Last month I downloaded a 17 Mb file and it took 2 hours... in the middle of the night when network usage HAD to be low. Maybe I just had a really bad connection.
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Um, what? (Score:2)
Verizon certainly does not want a bunch of data-sucking iPhones on their network unless they can make money off of them. So, yes, I could believe that Verizon my offer an unlimited plan for $20 more than what their 2MB/month plan costs. But I tend to doubt they're going to be offering unlimited for the same cost as AT&T 2MB/month plan.
AT&T's plans are 200MB/month and 2GB/month, there is no 2MB/month plan, which would be silly. AT&T's 2GB/month plan is $5/month less than their unlimited plan (which you can't get new, but some people still have.) Since Verizon currently has an unlimited smartphone data plan, and its the same $30/month that AT&T's is -- $5 more than AT&T's 2GB/month plan and $15 more than AT&T's 200MB/month plan -- I'd expect that if they offer the iPhone and keep the unlimited plan available the price w
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AT&T's 3G in most places is slightly faster than dialup. They might as well reinstate unlimited, as their network is so borked most places you cant get any speed.
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Yeah, right. (Score:5, Insightful)
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How many people will actually use an "unlimited" amount of data every month (i.e. - more than the 2GB offered for $5 less on AT&T, for example), if you can't tether?
And, if you tether without approval and manage to use 2+ GB, how quickly do you think Verizon will point to their TOS and hand you an extra monthly tethering fee?
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Fair enough, I suppose, though that's like 10 hours of music a day. Unless you were streaming at a pretty high data rate, and based on my experience with the iPhones, their fidelity really doesn't justify much quality need. Still, I can see music streaming if you don't have wifi. I can use WiFi at work (or *gasp* my desktop) to stream Pandora, or even tap into the 25GB of my own music.
Unless I'm stuck on public transportation for an extended period of time (which admittedly doesn't exist near me), I'm very
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Not everyone is able to hook up to a work wifi network, or have access to a desktop to stream music. For many people these are just not an option leaving streaming completely up to their cellphone plan. As for the data rate, I don't know what the rate is on Last.fm for my phone, didn't check.
As for your 25GB of your music, sometimes people want the radio, because its something a group of people can agree to, not just yourself.
And the 100MB barrier, as more people find out the more neat things they can do on
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Except for the fact that study after study has shown that people will pay more for the blanket of unlimited even when it's not in their economic interest to do so. It's better to soft cap the top
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How many people will actually use an "unlimited" amount of data every month (i.e. - more than the 2GB offered for $5 less on AT&T, for example), if you can't tether?
I have a grandfathered Verizon mobile broadband account with no monthly data limit, and I routinely exceed 15 Gb/mo just listening to Pandora and other internet streaming music services. I listen to these services on my Droid Incredible now, too. I am sure I'd exceed the 2 Gb/mo in the first week of each billing period if that was my cap.
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Everyone that buys a Windows 7 phone. Just sitting on the table uses 20gb a month.
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I call bullshit. We should all know the marketing definition of "unlimited" by now.
There's maxing out your total possible bitstream 24x7x30.4 days per month with your phone seeding torrents, and then there's not having to worry if you should watch that video link or not because of getting smacked with overage charges. Most users on smartphones feel limited. Hit the 99.5th percentile and call it good. 'Practically unlimited' may be the right terminology, just to keep everybody honest. Sorry, no sympathy f
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Verizon will offer unlimited data, until they don't want to anymore.
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Verizon will offer unlimited data, until they don't want to anymore.
So, like a month after they start selling the iPhone? (like AT&T did with the iPad)
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Unlimited data is usually somewhere between unlimited text messages and unlimited breadsticks.
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:5, Informative)
I call bullshit. We should all know the marketing definition of "unlimited" by now.
yeah, but it works from the tech perspective. You can cram 30-40x the cellular connections into the same chunk of frequency with CDMA that you can with GSM. I know that data is different than voice but the fact is that CDMA is a significantly more efficient use of spectrum than GSM-- it's one of the reasons you never have dropped calls with Verizon, but do with AT&T: the europeans, in their infinite wisdom, decided with GSM that a cell would be connected to only one tower. With code division multiplexing, other towers can easily listen in and pick up the call if you drop from one tower. GSM can't do that.
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It's an iPhone 4. It does not have 4G. You can call it "4G" if you like and be like At&T if it makes you happy :) it made their marketing department happy.
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While GSM is flawed, this argument doesn't apply much anymore. 3G data is transmitted via W-CDMA. The fallback to TDMA only happens when 3G service isn't available. AT&T's problems with the iPhone have largely to do with their incompetence and overselling a network poorly suited for high bandwidth data in urban areas.
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This confusion again... (resulting mostly, I guess, from how one camp couldn't come with anything better than naming their technology after basic radio method)
Generally, you're basically trying to say "notably younger technology uses more complex, more efficient on the wireless part (with some costs elsewhere) radio method" - ignoring how "GSM" camp also uses it (in the form of "3G"/UMTS/WCDMA), and actually to cram a lot more into the same chunk of the frequency (HSDPA, HSPA+). And how on Earth did you con
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I call bullshit. We should all know the marketing definition of
kinda like when hosting companies promote "unlimed bandwidth"
I don't know... I've never had unlimed bandwidth... I might fall for that. Mmmmm.... just a hint of lime...
The real truth (Score:5, Funny)
Verizon is going to announce a new Windows phone tomorrow, the Kin(g) of Kins.
- by someone close to the matter
Your move AT&T (Score:2)
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I don't know. I'm sure they'll lose people in the markets where there service is wildly oversubscribed. That will balance the traffic better, leading to better service for AT&T people who stay, and clogging more of the Verizon cells.
Neither has much magic in their plans. $15 gets you 150MB(V) or 200MB (ATT) of service - which is more than most people will ever use in a month. Low minute packages are about the same price. Phones will probably cost the same (though V's can't be resold overseas, so resal
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150MB is more than most use a in month?
How?
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I'm not qualified to have much of an opinion about these things.
Well, that really set's you apart from the rest of the folks here!
AT&T is unlimited for most users (Score:3)
2GB is actually a huge limit, when you consider that often at home or work phone users are on WiFi anyway. I use my phone all the time and usually hover around the 200 MB limit every month.
Although Verizon's "unlimited" plan might be a nice marketing feature, will it cost more? And will it really be "unlimited", because you know some guy is going to try and push the limit and it seems likely there's really a limit, just not one they advertise...
What would be way more interesting would be making tethering free - AT&T charges $20/month for it (though you can turn it on for just a day here and there and pay a pro-rated rate).
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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2GB is actually a huge limit
Its not a huge limit with tethering (of course, tethering costs extra without increasing the limit.)
Although Verizon's "unlimited" plan might be a nice marketing feature, will it cost more?
The whole thing is that Verizon won't cancel their existing unlimited plan or prevent iPhone users from getting it. The existing plan is $30/month. This is $5/month more than AT&T's 2GB plan and exactly the same as AT&T's unlimited plan (which you can't sign up for anymore, though people who had it at the time of the changeover and haven't dropped down still do.)
Seriously (Score:2)
If I make a blog post claiming that Verizon will offer free blow jobs for new iPhone buyers can I be featured on Slashdot as well?
Unlimited ? (Score:5, Funny)
The main reason people lose unlimited data (AT& (Score:3, Informative)
People frequently drop their iPhone in a mug of beer (HOW?!), or jump in the pool, or some other stupid way of destroying it, then put their SIM card in a basic phone. Then they have a store or customer support remove their unlimited data because oh it's soooo expensive, then expect to get it put back on well after it was announced that the only way to get it back was to never voluntarily remove it. If you already have a smartphone or iPhone unlimited data feature, you are more than welcome to keep it if you upgrade or simply swap phones to another smartphone or iPhone.
If it was removed because someone at Walmart bungled an upgrade or something similar, it can be restored, just don't wait six months to call in about it.
Now, maybe Verizon doesn't know, but some of the heavy abusers of cellular data with iPhones use upwards of 40-50 GB per month. You're not going to use that much data browsing the web, but with a jailbroken iPhone, you can get a 7 to 14 megabit connection shared with a whole network of computers for all of $30 per month... and that is spelled out as abuse of the service in the ToS, which is written in very basic English.
I assume that unlimited data will be revoked again once LTE rolls out, or it will be exclusive to the first iteration of CDMA iPhone.
FYI, the only data services available for the original iPhone are all unlimited data, with varying amounts of SMS message allotments. Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.
real Unlimited or Unlimited with a big slow down a (Score:2)
real Unlimited or Unlimited with a big slow down at 5gb?
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[James Earl Jones] We said it was unlimited. I find your lack of faith is disturbing. [/James Earl Jones]
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real Unlimited or Unlimited with a big slow down at 5gb?
Unlimited with a big slowdown at 5GB for $5 more than AT&T's 2GB plan would still be worth it.
AT&T claims about calls and internet false! (Score:2, Interesting)
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CDMA or the new LTE? I haven't seen an ad which claims it can't be done on LTE, just that it can't be done on their coverage. I don't think it is possible with the current 3G CDMA network which is deployed practically everywhere, but on LTE (which is just select markets) it should be possible.
How long until we learn the secret limits? (Score:4, Insightful)
How long do you think it will it be before people who have purchased the "unlimited" plan and taken it seriously will receive notices from Verizon saying that their account has been cancelled or disabled due to "excessive" use? And the representatives explaining that they just mean "no stated limit," and that they never dreamed that people would actually download _that_ much, and it is with the saddest and greatest reluctance they have been unwillingly forced to take measures against a few, a very very few evildoers in order to insure the optimum user experience for the vast majority of good Verizon customers, and anyway they never really said it was unlimited because if you scroll 61% of the way down the 150-page online terms and conditions they reserve the right to curtail the usage by any individual in the interests of the greater good of the Verizon network as a whole?
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How long do you think it will it be before people who have purchased the "unlimited" plan and taken it seriously will receive notices from Verizon saying that their account has been cancelled or disabled due to "excessive" use?
Probably never, that's my guess.
Data Usage
October November December Average
Data Used(MB) 13674.39 7884.54 10850.83 10803.25
Data Over(MB) 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Overage Cost $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00
Dear AT&T (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm ready for a new iphone, but you wont sell me one at a discount because you want to make me wait another year.
Guess what, If you want to keep me, in 1 year when I am off contract, You had better offer me a 32Gig iphone 4 for free or discount the service by $40.00 a month or I'm switching to Verizon.
If you guys are going to be 3rd rate service, then I pay far less.
Re:Article is worthless (Score:5, Informative)
AT&T no longer offers the unlimited data plan. Were you to sign up as a new AT&T customer today, you would not be able to choose the unlimited plan.
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They used to and they offered it for the iPad too as I recall. then they revoked it and scaled back to 2Gig as I recall. If you have it then the plan was grandfathered like mine. As a new customer NOW you wouldn't be able to get it. Perhaps Verizon will shame them back into offering it again?