Verizon Customers: Say So Long To Unlimited Data 303
BogenDorpher writes "Verizon will be eliminating its unlimited smartphone data plan this summer. No longer will one be able to pay $30 a month to have unlimited data. This move is designed to 'force heavy data users to pay more for mobile data.'"
Heavy users? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Heavy users? (Score:5, Informative)
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Exactly. As much data as the cellphone providers have on their customers, there really is no excuse for not being able plan for expansion where it is needed.
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How is it possible their network isn't designed for data traffic? I mean, it's not like the increase of data consumption was completely unpredictable.
To play devil's advocate, data usage had a *sharp* increase in the last couple of years. Their upgrade plans probably didn't account for it, and now are having to play catchup. Networks are huge, so between the lag before noticing "our network is going to max out sooner than thought" and actually doing something about it, a lot of time passes.
I'm not saying it was the iPhones fault, but at least in the US the timing matches up. The iPhone made smartphones more popular and more mainstream, and other compa
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The thing is, I'm a user, so I don't really care how hard it is for them to upgrade their networks, or notice when they need to. I don't care why they need to, or which phone caused it. I'll admit to being a little skeptical at the idea that they didn't see any of this coming because I and a lot of other people did the first time we picked up a useable smartphone, and we don't even work in the industry.
Anyone who used WAP browser one day and mobile Safari the next would have to be an imbecile not to see thi
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If they're going to implement high bandwidth technologies like 3G and HSDPA, they should expect that people will use them. What's the point in high speed access if you hit your usage cap in a day?
I'd just like to remind everyone... (Score:3)
Sprint still has reasonable and UNLIMITED V-T-D plans.
No, they don't have the iPhone. They DO have some pretty sweet Android phones though. Let the iSheep get raped for bandwidth, come ride the unlimited airwaves on Sprint!
(No, I'm not affiliated with Sprint at all. Just want to see my carrier of choice do well.)
Re:I'd just like to remind everyone... (Score:4, Interesting)
Be careful, the Sprint Unlimited Plan is only on their 4G service. If 4G service is not available, the phone silently downshifts to 3g where the 5gig caps still apply.
Sprint has the smallest 4g network of all the major carriers.
Re:I'd just like to remind everyone... (Score:4, Informative)
This is not true AT ALL. I don't know where you got that info, but it is absolutely wrong, as even a cursory glance over their plans (easily available online at Sprint.com) would show.
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And brilliant moves like that is why Sprint is #3 on the list of companies with the largest losses ($3.5B last year) and AT&T and Verizon are on the list with biggest profits.
Re:Heavy users? (Score:5, Insightful)
Says who? You think cellular networks predicted people streaming Netflix on cell phones?
You mean like what has been advertised on television since 3G services were turned on around the world? Naw...there's no way they could have known people would use the exact service they claimed to be offering.
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Nobody could have been expected to predict that phones would actually become usable for any amount of data use.
Really? I'm *sure* LOADS of people have been expecting/predicting this for years on end - even before 3G
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Usable smartphones did not exist before the iPhone.
The E61 may have been a good smartphone in 2006, but it's a piece of junk next to the range of smartphones available today.
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It's still able to stream music from the Internet all day, which would definitively reach the cap. Whether it's as good as a smartphone today is more or less irrelevant.
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Ah, no, you miss my point. It's not about what a phone can or can't do, but how many users are actually using those features.
Current networks were designed based on data usage patterns from before the iPhone was released. Back then, very few people were using the data-intensive features that phones had, because they were difficult to use.
Nowadays, those features have become much easier to use, so more people are using them and more data is therefore being transferred. The networks are having to deal with mo
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That's a great feature list, but it has nothing to do with my argument that there were no usable smartphones before the iPhone.
I still have my old Samsung SGH-Z560 flip phone. It has most of the features that my current iPhone has, but actually using those features is an absolute nightmare. it was built with a checklist like yours, an not the user, in mind.
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Are you really that confused? There were tons of very usable smart phones well before the iPhone was considered for designing. You may be drinking the coolade, but you are wrong. Windows Mobile, Palm, BlackBerry, and many others were quite usable and worked wonderfully. Having to use iPhones for work, I would even say they are quite a bit less useful than the old WinMo phones, with WinMo, you could run any software you wanted. Want a tether app, sure no problem.
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No angry Birds..... FAIL!
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Sit down and prepare yourself for a shock.
Despite the fact that the Nokia E61 existed in 2006, it obviously failed to make much of an impact on the wireless landscape. The poster was correct in that the iPhone and then the addition of Android phones have been what have caused this sudden data explosion.
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Spectrum is limited, but you can gain a lot from shrinking your cell size so you can reuse the same spectrum more.
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Obscene? OBSCENE? That would be heaven to us here! $80/mo for 3GB (on top of the call plan) is obscene! $80/mo for 10GB would be incredible! It'd be cheaper than land lines!
Re:Heavy users? (Score:5, Informative)
In Finland, I have the slowest dataplan of about 500kbps, unlimited, in my phone, 4,99 €/month, going down. Unlimited unlimited is now about 10 € / month, or 14€ / month including an USB modem...
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I wouldn't be sure about the going down part. Many telco-executives have talked about instituting data caps because people use too much (which is quite absurd because 1-2 years ago they pushed really hard to market usb sticks and 3G data as a replacement for cable/dsl and best offers where in the range of 7.99 / month with usb modem (unlimited) if you signed up for 24 months. Now they are slowly starting to whine. Want to buy an iPad on contract with unlimited data? Can't do that - they all have caps (excep
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I wouldn't be sure about the going down part. Many telco-executives have talked about instituting data caps because people use too much
They can talk all they want, but in a competitive market (which some european countries have, like finland and austria and even the UK) they would not be able to raise prices without losing customers and money. Of course, if the US had a competitive market people wouldn't be paying 100$ a month for a plan... in europe nobody pays more than say 35 euros a month, and that's for a bells-and-whistles plan with free ponies on the side.
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In Finland, I have the slowest dataplan of about 500kbps, unlimited, in my phone, 4,99 €/month, going down. Unlimited unlimited is now about 10 € / month, or 14€ / month including an USB modem...
Actually, I got an even slower dataplan for my daughter (we're also in Finland). It's a mere 384kbps, but otherwise utterly unlimited, and costs 3euro per month. Good enough for youtube, music, maps, etc.
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I just hope he remembers no society is perfect. Couldn't give you the imperfectness of Sweden by the way.
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Not true! Numericable(.fr) just came out with an unlimited calls/unlimited data combo for only €29 a month.
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Pfffft - looks like you read the fine print for me ; P All the same, 24€ is around $17 nowadays. And yes, the "only with home combo" and "unlimited but limited high-speed options" imposition sucks too; basically, at the end of the month, you'll have no VOIP and will have only Edge for the web.
FWIW, I'm hooked up to a 'real' unlimited mobile plan (with Orange), but it costs me €72 ($50) a month.
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On the plus side, EC commissioner ms. Kroes is still kicking a
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On the plus side, EC commissioner ms. Kroes is still kicking ass and taking names, and just launched a proposal to cap outrageous data roaming charges in Europe to €0.90/MB, lowering this further to €0.50/MB in 2014. Current charges are typically over €2/MB (in some cases it's €10). That price cap is such that one can now comfortably enable data roaming when travelling within Europe.
For anyone who wasn't aware of this:
So far, the EU has only set caps on wholesale prices for data roaming. There is a major problem — although wholesale prices have fallen below the regulated cap, retail prices remain way above wholesale prices, and the difference has even increased. In concrete terms, the wholesale price cap has been set by EU rules at €0.80 per megabyte since 1 July, 2010, and it will fall to €0.50 per megabyte as of 1 July, 2011. But although the average data-roaming wholesale rate (around €0.25 per megabyte) is substantially below the regulated maximum, retail prices remain around €2.60 per megabyte. That is a huge margin.
From here [zdnet.co.uk].
The existing cap with Orange UK (my network) is €50 when roaming, which is a massive 16MB. Since turning my phone on this morning I've already used 800kB, and I've not even done anything (presumably that's just from syncing my email, etc). I'm spending 12 days in Germany this/next month, and 5 in Czech. I shall need to get a local SIM (possibly two).
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Hate to break it to you, but worldwide a LOT of mobile operators - who have historically operated a simple billing system of "customer uses more, we charge them more" have spotted that bandwidth has a habit of getting cheaper, noted that 4G essentially eliminates dedicated voice traffic altogether (it's all VoIP) and are more than a little concerned.
There are two obvious solutions to this:
1. Keep the bandwidth cheap and make up the difference in numbers by encouraging more people to use the network more.
Pa
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No problem, they'll block IPSec unless you're on a more expensive business contract.
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We have competition in most countries of Europe. Real one. Neelie Kroes is just too damn scary for telcos to even try.
Heavy users? (Score:3, Interesting)
A finite price for something "unlimited"? Interesting. Tragedy of the commons comes to wireless.
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It's not unlimited in the sense that you can transfer an unlimited amount of data. There is generally either a set maximum data rate or the communication protocols at hand have a maximum data rate.
Re:Heavy users? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Unlimited" means that you pay a fixed price and can use the network up to the limits that are due to the technology and the infrastructure capacity, not that you can swallow up the whole Google Earth database over your mobile connection.
All carriers I have used - in Japan and Europe at least - publish information about the maximum capacity for speed, latency, etc. on their "unlimited" connections. It is then their responsibility to ensure that such capacity is available. Most users of the network understand this, and have no issues with the technology and infrastructure limits; the fixed plan within these limits is good, because you can plan ahead, and don't need to make complex calculations before opening the next email or web page.
There is no "tragedy of the commons" in this situation at all.
Re:Heavy users? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think most users understand this at all. When it says "unlimited" they take that to mean they can watch as many YouTube videos as they like, not "as many as you like so long as it isn't too many and there are not too many other people nearby using their phones and we have enough backend bandwidth and Jupiter is in ascendancy".
I can give you a real world example. Virgin Media claims that their broadband is "unlimited" but actually the package I am on (10 meg) is max 1.5GB between 4PM and 9PM. Go over that and you are punished with massive speed reductions that makes iPlayer and YouTube unwatchable. There are four of us in the house and we hit that limit every other day. All it needs is for a couple of people to watch HD iPlayer streams or someone to download a game demo from XBOX Live and we reach the limit of our "unlimited" connection.
10MB/sec speed is fine, 1.5GB of data during peek times is not.
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Virgin Media claims that their broadband is "unlimited" but actually the package I am on (10 meg) is max 1.5GB between 4PM and 9PM. Go over that and you are punished with massive speed reductions that makes iPlayer and YouTube unwatchable. There are four of us in the house and we hit that limit every other day.
Isn't this the whole problem? ISPs should not be allowed to advertise their services as unlimited, because they can never actually be unlimited. They should be forced to state their usage caps clearly and up front, instead of pretending that something's unlimited and then hiding all the limits in the small print.
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Yes. I complained to the ASA about it but they decided that because everyone lies about being unlimited under the guise of "fair use" then it is okay for Virgin to do it. I might try again by pointing out that their "fair use" policy isn't very fair, and is actually just to cover up the deficiencies in their network.
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Virgin Media claims that their broadband is "unlimited" but actually the package I am on (10 meg) is max 1.5GB between 4PM and 9PM. [...] There are four of us in the house
Right. So it's not the package "you are on" but rather "the four of you are on". Maybe that's the problem.
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I can give you a real world example. Virgin Media claims that their broadband is "unlimited" but actually the package I am on (10 meg) is max 1.5GB between 4PM and 9PM.
If they advertise that as unlimited then they are in for a good spanking...
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Well, I prefer a fixed plan and clear data rate limits (based on business or technological reasons) to a price per amount of data transferred. Making decisions when facing fixed constraints is a lot easier, and I have no extra time to waste on figuring out what is my marginal cost and marginal utility on a byte by byte basis. I much rather pay the provider to manage their resources and to ensure the promised data rate over a longer period of time than the TTL of a network packet.
There are significant saving
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No, I think you mean this:
s/This move is designed to 'force heavy data users to pay more for mobile data.'"\ /This move is designed to 'force heavy data users to go elsewhere for mobile data.'"/
Thank you very much. Have a nice day.
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They saw that AT&T rapes their customers and had no backlash, so they want to get in on the rampant raping. Just wait, all the others will do it as well. It's like printing money.
Until Americans stop being sheep and rolling over for whatever the big business does to them, this is only going to get worse.
If you do not complain you are telling Verizon and the business world, "Thank you! Oh tHank you so much, can you charge me more for something else now as well? Please? Pretty Please?"
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The price of food does go down as technology upgrades, or was that part of your point?
And buffets stay in business by overcharging so much that even the biggest eater is profitable.
If Verizon could charge $600/mo for unlimited (comparable price to eating unlimited at a buffet daily), then I'm sure they could make themselves profitable even for their heaviest users too.
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Actually, a lot of buffets have instituted 90, 60, or 30 minute time limits.
One of my best friends is the type who is in spectacularly fit shape yet has one of those envious metabolisms where he eats more than three people combined every day and doesn't really gain a pound. He's been kicked out of buffets numerous times for basically eating "too much food" (example: six plates of snow crab legs in one sitting). It's happened many times at different locales.
The prices have been steadily going up which is und
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It's worth noting that there are a lot of places that are buffets that do not advertise "All You Can Eat." Oddly enough, that's still pretty analogous to what's going on here with Verizon.
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>>He's been kicked out of buffets numerous times for basically eating "too much food"
You been here FOUR HOUR. Son-of-a-bitch! [youtube.com]
I would like to remind everyone (Score:4, Informative)
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And by unlimited, they mean unlimited connectivity to up to 5GB per month, just like sprint, their parent company.
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Just being picky, but how long do you figure that will last? I'd wager at least half of the capped data plans started out as "completely unlimited". Once someone in the higher ranks of corporate sees dollar signs in his eyes, Virgin might falter as well.
However, let's say that Sprint is pretty much the last holdout among wireless carriers. They really do offer truly unlimited and use this as a marketing tactic. Unless they have a significant amount of people moving over to them for specifically that reason,
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And by unlimited, they mean unlimited connectivity to up to 5GB per month, just like sprint, their parent company.
Virgin Mobile is a brand that uses various Networks, around the globe. Sprint in the US only.
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However, the downside is they have very few phones to choose from. Like, usually less than 5.
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Is it really unlimited though? T-Mobile claim that theirs is but actually the limit is 3GB per month.
Let me correct this (Score:3)
This move is designed to 'force heavy data users to find a better phone vendor'.
Re:Let me correct this (Score:5, Insightful)
This move is designed to 'force heavy data users to find a better phone vendor'
Nah. That's being taken care of. T-Mobile is being borged into AT&T. Sprint will be soon be extinguished or merged out of existence.
Verizon and AT&T will join together in the monetization of data users. The unlimited plans were just a temporary measure to get their users hooked. Now the surviving duopoly will apply frighteningly expensive overuse fees to encourage their addicts to pay out big bucks for large plans. It worked so well for voice. Did you expect anything else?
Welcome to Australia... (Score:4, Funny)
We're also upgrading your service with Oceanic Lag, shaped broadband, taking 100 or so of your cable channels and cutting off Huvu.
All complaints are to be directed to 'Telstra', which I've been assured is Australian for 'Know Your Place, You Filthy Peasant'.
This is why communications should be socialized (Score:2, Interesting)
Communications is a basic government service, as spelled out in the US constitution.
At this point, government should just buy-out Verizon. They're only a 100 billion company, tiny compared to the annual federal budget.
Let's limit the power of private companies to create megabusinesses through government intervention.
We need more government in our lives, and less freedom of choice.
Remember, freedom is code-word for corporate control.
I trust the hard-working government more than I trust lazy private companie
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Without that health care bill, I wouldn't have health care at all right now. I have a pre-existing condition and can't afford coverage but I get to stay on my parents plan a little longer and then will have an insurance plan fully, or mostly, subsidized by the government. There are bad parts about the plan, mainly because it didn't go far enough toward a true public option, but it has helped many people like me.
Re:This is why communications should be socialized (Score:5, Informative)
I trust the hard-working government more than I trust lazy private companies.
This is a false dilemma. You shouldn't trust either. The fact is when you give too much power to one person or group of people, they will eventually abuse that power.
The advantage of corporations is you can switch to another one if you are dissatisfied. There's only one government, but the advantage there is if you want to change something, you can convince enough other people that it should be changed, and then change it.
Each has its advantage and disadvantage in different situations, don't make the mistake of assuming one is better than the other. They are both bad.
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I don't see how you're disagreeing with the GP. You're saying they're both bad, he's saying one is worse than the other.
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Rather than have the government take over yet another aspect of our daily lives, I would propose that the better solution is the same thing that many net neutrality advocates offer when asked about how to handle the vicious, uncompetitive monopolies that dominate the home internet business.
Buy out the networks. Buy out the wireless towers and infrastructure. Make upkeep the responsibility of the government just as the roads, rail, power, and phone lines are. Let the carriers compete for access, just as we w
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Yes, but even here in New Jersey I have choices to, say, get my heating from someone other than PSE&G. You can't exactly use a Verizon service on a Sprint network without some sort of hassle. (Thankfully, B.S. roaming charges seem to be less and less prevalent.)
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The anarchist in me cringes... take two problems and just make it one really big problem? No. Corporations tend to be inherently corrupt, yes. But governments also tend to be inherently corrupt. I'd rather have two inherently corrupt beasts butting heads with each other over which one will receive control over me than a single beast taking the control over me however it sees fit. At least with the two butting heads with each other, there's potential for me to escape without significant enough notice as the two busy themselves with each other.
Wishful thinking in the near future. Maybe it was so about 20 years ago, times did change (for worse).
The better solution is to get rid of them both and ditch the internet... oh shit. *clicks Post Anonymously* ... I'm sorry Slashdot...
Can we, please, stop after getting rid of them and keep the internet?
Dear Providers, (Score:2)
please just forget all flatrates. IMHO Flatrates should be forbidden, because they are misleading at best. Flatrates are bets that 50% of the users will never go close to the limit where it would be not profitable (you dont need more than 1GB if you just have private email and open a few times per month a web page - but hey, exactly these people are the ones you can scare in the shop - they will overpay you to be sure not to overpay even more). This bet is not getting fairer by declaring "heavy users" after
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If mobile providers would be forced to compete by a single, transparent Money/GB value (maybe slightly regressive with amount of data, but *not* a factor of 10 or 100), and the customers would be free to choose the mobile phones independently, we would be spared from all this shit.
The phone company will always charge some amount to cover the cost, plus some amount that is profit. The actual cost is so many dollars or cents per GB, plus some fixed cost of having you as a customer, plus some cost to find out what your payment is. At the moment their cost to find out how much you should pay is zero. If you start metering, then you need to do it precisely because people will complain if you overcharge them, and then it gets expensive. So if you had 100 people paying x dollars each for a
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I dont think that monitoring the data use precisely is a big problem that it would be a big increase. In Germany one company has a 100MB for 2Euro/month package and their estimation (after that: throtteling) did not differ significantly from what i measured on my computer.
If it would so expensive to meter it exacty that offer would not work out.
Forcing 'heavy users' to pay more... (Score:2)
Wasn't this what the damn $30 "unlimited" plan was doing already?
Oh wait. Nobody likes when one points out the elephant in the room. Silly me!
To all you Verizon customers who laughed... (Score:2)
To all you Verizon customers who laughed at us AT&T customers when we lost our unlimited data plans... ... suck it!
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Technology drives forward, Greed pulls back (Score:5, Insightful)
Over the past 3 years or so, nearly every nationwide Mobile provider in the USA has castrated their data service. "Unlimited" data used to be slower, EDGE or early 3G a couple years back, but despite the expense you didn't have to worry about overages. Now it seems only Sprint (perhaps?) has an "unlimited" plan. ATT and Verizon, switching over to these capped bandwidth isn't simply to save money or keep network congestion down, but rather its the same impetus that had the 80s and 90s phone companies charging 25/c a minute for long distance - to jack up fees on a monopolized industry under the guise of "paying what you use". While true "unlimited" plans were few and far between over the last decade, they usually simply transitioned to slowing your connection speed if you were using a ton more data than most at an inconvenient time. Now, you're paying per kilobyte for overages, on top of stupidly high costs of data plans. Look at how even the iPhone 1's original data plan compares to those today - it was a $20/month unlimited option with 200 included SMS! Now, you're looking at well over $80, plus SMS packages for the high-end "5gb of transfer" plan! .
The problem is simple greed and it infests our entire system. Corporate giants for years told users "buy our new DSL/Cable/Fiber/3G/4G service.. and download more, more more! Get your movies! Get your music! Play Games" (Even when there wasn't much legal digital distribution, mind you). Not only did they benefit from upping subscription fees and only selectively rolling out broadband to the highest ROI areas, they also petitioned (read as: bought) government subsidy for "infrastructure improvements", common carrier agreements and more. Now, they figured out that instead of actually using our double-dipped tax dollars and subscription fees to actually expand infrastructure and give people the connectivity they want, its simpler to simply say "Sorry, you just can't download more than X per month. Yeah" and pocket the rest. Prices go up, service comes down and the user is meant to lick the boots of telecoms that have fucked over this nation's information infrastructure. There is only one solution.
We need to take that money and control out of the hands of private companies, and invest it in We The People. Nationalize our entire information infrastructure. Prior to Eisenhower's Interstate, the physical roadway system was heading towards the same kind of mess as today's information highways - unpaved roads, shoddy maintenance, only serviceable where profitable, and tolls were levied constantly. Even the fucking ROMANS figured out that the first thing to do when expanding their empire was to nationalize the roadway system and kick all the bandits collecting tolls along travel pathways the hell out. Those bandits are just named ATT and Comcast today! Right now, the wire in the ground, despite the fact its is lain with my tax dollars, is the property of a private company, which squelches competition. There's not a piece of "Big 4" infrastructure that is not taxpayer funded in some way, so we need to simply nationalize what we already own! Then we can start rolling out true universal broadband initiatives and give our nation competitive speeds and coverage. There can be a role to play for private industry, able to lease access to the public hardware to create ISPs, with the stipulation that they must simply be a "dumb pipe" and maintain neutrality - however, private industry should never forget who their masters are - We The People through our Government - rather than the Government being a toy of private moneyed interests. Some form of this is how most European and Asian nations have ascended to gigabit broadband speeds while much of our nation is floundering with 256k and big spenders in the most cosmopolitan areas are paying $50+ monthly for 20mb.
Telecoms aren't going to stop clenching their grip until we break their fingers.
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The problem from their perspective is that the usage has changed:
1) Files are bigger
2) The internet itself is much less bursty. We went from webpages which were very little data for lots of read time, to streaming movies where the ratio is constant usage. So pooling matters less
3) The original iPhone plans were much too cheap. AT&T lost money and still couldn't service the demands
Cell phones are dependent on population density in terms of costs and the US much more expensive than Asia and Europe:
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For the longest time, people here were complaining about how "unlimited" wasn't really unlimited, how it was false advertising, etc. Now ISPs/wireless carriers get rid of the "unlimited" option, explicitly state what the caps are, and people are still complaining about not having "unlimited".
Supremacy of contract (Score:2)
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Data Caps: The Future of Revenue Protection (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that the data cap moves we are seeing in the data communications sector represent a market-wide trend to protect the existing profitable "value added" services such as voice calling and premium television services. Companies seem to be afraid of becoming just another "dumb pipe" as connection speeds get fast enough to handle third party "value added" services (e.g. Netflix and Google Voice). These companies believe that, by using data caps and unregulated third party data usage meters, they can ensure the protection of their highly profitable "value added" service sector. In many respects, this practice represents a trend of "predatory pricing" and "refusal to deal" in the communications industry.
For example... In the cellular world, the 5 GB data cap effectively tolls previously "free" services such as Google Voice. On the broadband side of things, a 150 to 250 GB cap effectively limits the ability of Netflix and Hulu to compete with the first party in providing premium high definition video content.
In many ways, these data cap moves are representative of an anti-competitive protectionist oligopoly. They also represent an end-run around the principals of network neutrality. By using unregulated meters that only bill for third party network usage, these companies have effectively "rigged the pump" to ensure that they can charge almost any rate for almost any service. Better regulation and oversight is needed at the Federal Government level to ensure fairness and competition in this otherwise anti-competitive industry.
Might Be Good (Score:2)
I've shied away from getting data plans because I don't see how I could afford $60 a month ($30 for my phone and $30 for my wife's). If they get a plan like AT&T's 200MB for $15 a month, then my data plan costs would be halved and I might just consider it. (I don't think we would use smartphones for anything other than Twitter, Google searches, Facebook and the like.)
Of course, then the article said this:
I said fuck it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Turned off my Cell phone plan.
Look, this whole Cell Phone internet shit is stupid. How fucking fast do we need stupid ass shit to get to our cell phones? You have the corporations, making it so crap is bigger, streaming is important, while the cell phone co's are putting limits on downloads and charging more for over small amounts. They don't care if they sell more data plans even though there's isn't enough resources.
What is so fucking important today that needs this tech, that wasn't important 10 years ago? By the way people are, you'd think we didn't survive before the internet.
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They already DO post record profits. ATT posted 19.9 billion USD profit in 2010...
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I'm with virgin. Pre-paid. $19 gets you 1GB (with the usual "$50 value!" of phone usage thrown in.
That's pretty much all I need for a month.
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The ISPs that do this are trying to essentially control the rate of technological progress. They want to be the ones throttling it to maximize their own profits, only raising their caps when it is the most profitable for them to do so. They set the caps a lot lower than "necessary". It has also been established that a lot of these companies have been lowering the amount of money spent on network upgrades in the last decade and they're still screaming about not being able to supply the bandwidth being used b
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That's fine. Just stop advertising it as unlimited and I'll stop complaining.
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Once they work every angle for increasing profits they go after the handful using more than the average.
That "handful" is and always will be about 50% of their users.
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That "handful" (using more than the average) is and always will be about 50% of their users.
No. 50% of users use more than the median. If you have 100 people downloading one GB or less, and one person downloading 100 GB, then the average is more than one GB, and only one of 101 users is above average. Kicking off that one user would significantly reduce the cost, and the 100 users would fully agree with that.
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No, the problem is over subscription. To even consider blaming the end user (no matter their usage) for this is obscene and disgusting.
But it's nice to see company shills taking over slashdot's comment boards. How much do they pay you to talk out of your ass?
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There's a strong chance that user won't even give a damn. They're not going to curb their usage because of a minor increase in the bill. They just pay it.
So in the REAL world, this does nothing.
FYI: I'm a pretty "light" user of my iPhone. I have an "unlimited" plan grandfathered in but I keep up with my usage occasionally to see where I sit at. I don't really use it all that often. That is, any sort of heavy downloading I usually only do through wireless. I browse the occasional website