Verizon Makes It Easy To Go Over Your Data Cap 166
jfruhlinger writes "Verizon Wireless has revamped its video service; many Android phones can now stream full episodes from a number of current TV shows. You can even choose to just buy access for a day if you don't see yourself using the service often. Sounds great, right? Well, except for the part where all of Verizon's current smartphone plans have data caps — and the new service makes it awfully easy to go over them and incur overage charges."
Not all plans (Score:4, Insightful)
If you've got an Unlimited Data plan (as I have), this won't be an issue. The throttling of your service will be, however.
Fuckers.
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No, it's not. Verizon can throttle the top 5% of bandwidth consumers, but there's no "5 GB" cap. Poke around, and you'll find people who have used 40+ GB in a month.
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Citation? Currently (subject to change of course) your grandfathered if you're on the unlimited plan. Changing phones does not mean you lose your current plan.
As an aside there are still people on Verizon that came from Alltel 6-8 years ago during the merger, Verizon STILL honors the Alltel plans those people are using.
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Not any more - they got rid of that plan. As soon as you get a new phone or do anything else to change your account, you'll lose your *unlimited* and won't be able to get it back.
That may be a possibility but I haven't seen it play out with any carriers yet. AT&T, for example, is still letting me keep my unlimited plan. The moment that's gone I'm gone, I think they know that.
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You do know there is no "paper" version... The online version of the contract is "Da Rules".. About the only redress you have Is to escape without an ETF... And then have no phone...
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LOL what? do you EVEN know what your talking about? First of all any change to your t.o.s. and they need to notify you. Second the current t.o.s SAYS NOTHING ABOUT a 5 gig limit... See below, regarding extraordinary usage:
" 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
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It's unlimited in that you can trickle out data all you want, 24/7. There's no difference in bits gathered between 8:00am and 5:00pm, and bits gathered between 8:00pm and 12:00 midnight.
So you can ping your router all day, with no extra charges.
To the telecoms, unlimited is a reference to time, not bulk.
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What part of "grandfathered in" is difficult to understand? Back in the before time, unlimited really was unlimited for in-phone use. My plan is about 2 years old and I have two data metering sections on my bill. "UNLIMITED MEGABYTE ALLOW" which shows "xxxx KB/Unlimited" usage and "5GB $.05MB TETHER W/VOICE" which shows "xxxx KB/5242880 KB" usage. Tethering only comes into play when connecting a computer via USB using Verizon's connection software.
When I upgrade my phone, I'll be able to keep that unlim
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If you've got an Unlimited Data plan (as I have), this won't be an issue. The throttling of your service will be, however.
Actually, you can no longer get the plan you are referring to unless you had it prior to something like July 7. I know because I made a point to go out and purchase exactly that plan so that I would be grandfathered in for unlimited data before Verizon stopped selling the plan. Now any plan Verizon sells you has a data cap.
I'll note that this was mentioned in the article.
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They're supposed to learn from the cable companies... Duh.
Most cable companies ran 20Mb+ to everybodies house... But only sell YOU 3-5 of it. The rest they keep and use for THEIR video service... That doesn't count toward your cap... And nets them a tidy monthly fee.
In the meantime they throttle iTunes, hulu, netflix.. Silly Verizion...
Welcome to Australia (Score:3)
Our telcos have been doing this for years.
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Uh, mobile data plans are capped in MOST countries. This isn't just an Australian thing. It's the caps on wired (DSL, cable etc.) plans that are less common (although still not unique to Australia either - not that it really matters anyway given that there are caps available upwards of 1 TB/month now on major ISPs...)
Re:Welcome to Australia (Score:5, Funny)
This is correct. We banned automatic weapons in 1996 and look at us now: data limits on all our broadband plans. I hope this can be a lesson to the rest of the world.
Re:Welcome to Australia (Score:4, Insightful)
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Hmph. I've still got the 12 gauge pump and both the .30-30 and .300 lever actions, very useful. They'd have to come get them.
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So, he complains about them banning fully-automatic weapons, and you point out that he is wrong, they banned semi-automatic weapons.
My questions are:
1) Does this mean you can still by a fully-automatic weapon?
2) Expecting the first question to be "no", did they ban fully-automatic weapons at the same time, or were fully-automatic weapons banned prior to the semi-automatic weapons?
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Does this mean you can still by a fully-automatic weapon?
In US? Yes, though there are a lot of hoops [wikipedia.org] to jump through.
(note that this only pertains to Federal law; your state may have further restrictions)
A further problem is that full auto weapons cannot be legally imported into US (since 1968) or manufactured in the US (since 1986) for the civilian market, so the only thing you can buy is a gun that was imported/made before those dates. Since it is a limited pool, and guns wear out, the prices rose (and keep rising ever since) accordingly. So it is prohibitively
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Seriously? Are we Americans so arrogant that in a comment thread titled "Welcome to Australia" that we have to comment about US law?
I was obviously talking about Australia. If I wanted to know about US gun law, I would walk into my living room and ask my gun historian roommate.
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Seriously? Are we Americans so arrogant that in a comment thread titled "Welcome to Australia" that we have to comment about US law?
No, you're not, since I'm not an American. That said, I do apologize. The original post was collapsed, and I usually skirt over the titles.
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1) no.
2) in the 1930s
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It's like their government thinks they are running a penal colony or something.
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Optus' other video on demand services still had metered data on them, though. The Sky News was something of an exception. There was also a brief period when Optus offered free Youtube on it's phone contracts, but they canned that pretty quickly.
Can someone tell me what happens? (Score:2)
Scenario 2, the net keeps working and there is no indication but you silently get a huge bill [whirlpool.net.au] at the end of the month. This is really bad
Which is it?
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2.
*slowly strokes my unlimited plan in hong kong*
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
At least that is network neutrality. Would it really be better if they waived the bandwidth charge when using their movie service but made customers pay extra when using competing services (e.g. Netflix)?
Just think about what you're complaining about, and what it really means. The only problem is that the data caps are low and the overage charges are high -- and that is exactly what one should expect given the competitiveness of wireless service in the USA.
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At least that is network neutrality.
When I think of "network neutrality", I think of connections outside of their own network - control of their pipe to the larger internet. I definitely don't expect sites outside of the ISP's network to load as quickly as those inside, and I don't object to them setting up things like caching servers inside their own network.
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I hate to say it, but the overage charges are relatively not bad. $10/GB is chump change considering that it used to be $500/GB when they charged overage by the MB(USB/Mifi/whatever data plans). I realize compared to a fiber connection it is crazy high, but think about it... you have wireless data anywhere there's a phone signal! If we put our entitled consumer ego aside and judge it for what it is, it is amazing.
My soul hurts after defending VZW, but they do offer the best coverage and they are now slight
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It would be better if they would be more consistent. On one hand, they claim that bulk transfer is an incredibly rare commodity and so they must dole it out with an eyedropper for the good of the network. On the other hand, they release apps that actively encourage you to burn up as much transfer as you possibly can, and don't even let you use WiFi offload.
It would also be nice if cell providers didn't charge such rapacious 'overage' rates and then make it as easy as they possibly can to go over your cap.
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Some carriers already do this (for cable/DSL at least, don't know of any cell carriers that do it). They give cap exemptions for Netflix, Facebook and Windows Update. Some airline wifi services give free Facebook access but make you pay for other stuff.
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Seams you can give people low prices just to get the big bucks from the idiots who call them.
You stay away from me. I don't want any of your seams. That's some regular wacky doctor shit.
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What are these landlines you speak of?
I haven't seen an actual real person with a landline that has been used for anything except maybe adsl in atleast 5 years.
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I wouldn't say "simply." I would say that covers the first factor of 2 in price difference. What about the other four jumps to make 10x?
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No, they REALLY want you to use it. As they will make boatloads of money off overcharging you for that use.
It's the consumer who doesn't actually want to use it. Though sadly some won't know better until it's too late.
Sorry state of affairs. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not at all looking forward to choosing whether to lie back or bend over before I get rightly screwed by whatever carrier I go with when I return. We've really let these telcos run amok unchecked, and now look at us.
Re:Sorry state of affairs. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be ridiculous. You have lots and lots of choices in the US, when it comes to your cell phone service.
You get to choose how much, what colour, what scent, what taste, what manufacturer and what type of lube they use when they're raping your ass. That right there is hundreds if not thousands of combinations and choices.
What more could you possibly ask for?
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I'm not sure how it is in the rest of the country, but if I actually want coverage (i.e. radio signals) my list of carriers is basically 2, US Cellular or Verizon (or competitors who buy access to their networks like Page Plus).
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It's nice talking with your neighbors, isn't it?
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It's nice talking with your neighbors, isn't it?
Yeah but at A$0.10 connection fee and A$0.15 per minute, it's cost prohibitive.
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That being said, I have been talking to one of my friends who works for Verizon. Apparently, due to companies like Straight Talk (sold by Walmart), Verizon will be offering a pre-paid unlimited text/talk/data plan. Their information sheets show it available for $50/month. Now, this is on their prepaid plans only, but what is interesting, is apparently any VZW phone can work with this prepaid plan, which means I can take my Droid when my contract ends and move to prepaid.
Don't bet on it. I tried that, but Verizon has two different "data" styles, and phones that have full access to the Internet (Android, iPhone, etc.) must use the one that has caps and cannot be pre-paid. Other phones (that use more of a "walled garden" system of Internet access) can get unlimited data on pre-paid, but they generally only have access to only mobile web sites and e-mail.
You should be able to move your phone to Straight Talk, but you won't be able to get the sort of plan you are talking abou
Sprint coverage map: pure fantasy. (Score:2)
I tried a Virgin Mobile prepaid phone a few weeks ago (which uses Sprint's network and no other) - and found myself completely unable to activate the phone because there wasn't a signal, in spite of what the coverage map showed. I ended up returning the phone for a refund.
I'll stick with my TracFone for now - since I rarely text, and don't use it often, I can keep it going for less than $7/month, and I can get a decent signal just about anywhere. It sucks in other ways, though - the camera is craptastic, an
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I get that it works for you, but why do people who never use a smartphone feel the need to comment on a topic based around people who use a smart phone and use it a lot? I see this in almost every Slashdot story about cell phone service.
"Well, I use a disposable flip phone with prepaid service from Trac, never send texts, don't access the Internet and make 2 calls a month." Great. Do you also live above Grandmas garage, collect aluminum cans for a living and otherwise not participate in the same world th
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why do people who never use a smartphone feel the need to comment on a topic based around people who use a smart phone and use it a lot?
It could be because "people who never use a smartphone feel the need to" see if they can be talked into becoming "people who use a smart phone and use it a lot".
Do you also live above Grandmas garage, collect aluminum cans for a living
Someone born in a place where jobs aren't has to do what he can in order to become able to afford to move to a place where jobs are.
but not if you're running a whole business (email, voice, etc) off a smartphone
In some industries, one would need a dedicated office to "run[] a whole business" because suppliers won't ship to home offices.
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I get that it works for you, but why do people who never use a smartphone feel the need to comment on a topic based around people who use a smart phone and use it a lot?
Maybe because I wanted to get one that didn't cost more per month than my home internet connection, and wasn't saddled with misfeatures designed to con the victims, er, customers into spending even more? I'd love to be able to jump on the Internet wherever I go, whenever I want, but not if it's going to to be a neverending ripoff. Maybe you like bending over for the likes of Verizon and AT&T, but don't assume everyone else does.
As it is, the shortest book ever written is "Cell Phone Companies that Don't
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I used Sprint until their customer service essentially told me I was crazy when I tried to help them resolve a bug in their usage reporting.
I've heard that their customer service isn't in absolute last place anymore, but I've been pleased with the service I get at T-Mobile, and I'm grandfathered into an unbeatable plan.
T-Mobile will die (Score:2)
I've been pleased with the service I get at T-Mobile
You won't be pleased once AT&T completes its acquisition of T-Mobile. A recent review in Consumer Reports says that of the big four carriers, AT&T has the worst customer satisfaction.
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Well, yeah, LOL, but I sort of live in the now :) Probably have to re-evaluate next year. I'm torn between the better network of Verizon and just throwing the smartphone in the garbage and going to prepaid.
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Sprint - they still have unlimited data.
Unlimited data may not be around for long if Sprint is anything like Verizon
http://mobile.wsj.com/article/SB100014240531119033279045765266906 [wsj.com]
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My personal solution to this situation is that I am keeping my 6 years old phone and plan. Alarms do not work anymore and buttons sticking in the middle of dialing numbers, all three batteries I have go down to zero after 30 min of talk, but I am sticking to it, because I ain't paying $30 more (almost twice more) for the same service just because you decided that if I want a smartphone I have to have a data plan.
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Do what I did: buy one of these
http://pocketpccentral.net/samsung_i760.htm [pocketpccentral.net]
from ebay and put it on your verizon account. Because it is grandfathered in, you don't have to buy a data plan. You can turn the data plan on and off if you know you are going to need it for a week or so (need to go to a VZW store to do this, though).
Has wifi, so you can use all the kind-of-smartphone feature wherever you have a wifi signal and don't have to pay by the kB. And there are some WM apps, like google maps, and some dec
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But I already have very a similar smartphone. I am not sure even the grandfathered one I buy on ebay won't have the same problems I have.a
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You're right, I'm afraid. I just did a back of the envelope calculation and AT&T is making about the same amount of profit per square mile as O2.
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Err, he's right I'm afraid. Clicked wrong response.
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I'm about to return to the United States after living in the UK for 3 years, and enjoying the benefits of its highly competitive GSM cellular market
It's sort of OK, but (perhaps because of the obscene overvaluation of 3G licences when they were sold for over £20b, years ago) I only get 1GB of data per month for £25/mo, with Three - the network that boasts about how great its 3G internet is. Just don't try to really use it for a day. I've already used 950MB and I'm only halfway thro
Sprint (Score:3)
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Consumer Credit Schemes (Score:3)
diden't V-cast used to be on it's own? (Score:2)
with it's own fee and no data plan needed?
Waiting for contract to expire (Score:2)
I am sick of this whole game with the major cell service carriers in the US. Verizon's whole attitude towards their customer is 'you need us', not 'what can we do to make you be/remain our customer'. I am waiting for my contract to expire in two months, but unfortunately my phone bit the dust over the weekend and I decided to reconsider getting a new contract in order to get a discounted phone, so I go to the local Verizon store and had an experience that completely reinforced this perception that I have of
File a consumer complaint (Score:2)
Verizon: That Was Easy! (Score:2)
I think I just found VZ's new marketing campaign.
They just need to license it from Staples first.
Scared (Score:2)
scumbag verizon (Score:2)
Buys up all the spectrum, drops unlimited data plans.
Hate to give Verizon the benefit of the doubt (Score:2)
It sounds to me like the marketing department came up with a plan for a service and the billing people set the data caps. This is one of those situations where Hanlon's Razor applies pretty well, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
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...and, as someone pointed out, would it be better if using Verizon Video ignored your data caps, yet using Hulu didn't?
Don't get me wrong--the whole, "We need these data caps to make sure the network doesn't get saturated by these bandwidth hogs streaming video!" followed by "Hey! Pay us $10 per month and be a bandwidth hog!" is a bit hypocritical.
Cookies Make it Easy to Go Over Calorie Cap (Score:2)
I don't see anything wrong with Verizon offering content that is so irrestable that they end up making more money. In fact, I'm pretty sure that is their sworn duty.
Grandmother's chocholate chip cookies make be deliciously irresistable but it is still my fault if I fall off my diet.
Cheers,
Matt
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I agree. The issue I have is the hypocrisy of Verizon insisting that it needs data caps because a few people will suck up all the bandwidth and slow down service for everyone else and then turn around and offer a service that sucks up all the bandwidth and slows down service for everyone else.
Its all just incremintal steps to pay as you go... (Score:2)
Got a letter from Cogeco Cable Internet the other day. Was told that not only were they increasing the speed of my service and slightly increasing my bandwidth, that they would also be increasing the cap to which I pay when I go over my actual bandwidth cap from 30$ to 50$.
I see a movement to a model where you have to go over, and all the profit is from making you do so, and charging exorbitant rates at the same time. So while the bandwidth curve of need is an exponential curve of X, the cap curve will be m
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"Smartphones" never been very smart (Score:3)
What I find interesting. (Score:2)
I currently have the choice between unlimited for $29.99, 2 GB for $30, 5 GB for $50, and 10 GB for $80.
Needless to say, I stayed unlimited.
Can you imagine if ISPs tried to charge these batshit crazy rates?
Any Quantitative Data? (Score:2)
TFA seems to be long on speculation and short on actual data. Obviously streaming video isn't bandwidth-cheap, but does anyone have real figures on how much data streaming, say, a standard 24-minute TV show would take, and how many episodes it would take to hit the 2GB monthly cap? If they can, for instance, stream a low-quality episode in 10-20 MB then this seems like much sound and fury over very little...
Fight for your CPA (Score:2)
Write your republican reps, write your republican friends, or if you are a republican realize this is why we need a CPA.
Someone in the government needs to say "Hey, stop f'ing you customers."
In the long run people will get overage charges like they used to with long distance, local news and national news ( 20/20, dateline ) will "expose" it. Then someone will come along and say hey don't like caps, don't like overage's come to us.
I'm actually more interested in abstracting the actual network. If there are c
And now you know... (Score:2)
Now you know why they did it.
Let's start the chant....
Phase 1: Tease.
Phase 2: Deal with customers who are both pissed off and confused.
Phase 3: PROFIT!
Let's go, team!
Idiotic summary (Score:2)
It's like saying, Amazon is trying to make you spend more money by providing more attractive merchandise.
Plus you can always use wifi.
LOL! (Score:2)
LOL! Such an epic fail. PR wise.
EPIC win for profits. It's aaaall bullshit :)
Introduce extreme low caps, then introduce a video streaming service to reap insane bandwidth charges on already vastly overpriced bandwidth :D :)
Cool, i'd like to be the one who collects the overages, but i would never signup for a service like this
OK i admit i signed up to dual sim + usb 3G modem for 20€ which disallows P2P, but unlimited otherwise :) now i got a fast "permanent" connection for my garage too :D
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Umm... Me for one. I used a tethered phone as my only internet access for a couple of months. I used 12GB one month and 9GB the second month.
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I do it from time to time, but not every day. I do use my T-Mobile TV or Netflix but when I do so, I'm usually at home or near some other wireless router.
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Wow, on my home connection alone I go through about 9GB per day. According to my router logs I have one day in June running nearly 18GB down.
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Who the hell is crazy enough to try to stream a full show episode over 3G ? Get a grip, people, use wifi like everybody.
People who live in places where bandwidth isn't overpriced. I live in Sweden and I pay about 15$ for unlimited data. I could also pay less, and get 5,10, or 20GB and a throttled pipe if overdrawn. 3G is fast. It's fast enough to stream video. Heck, I even resort to setting up a portable hotspot some times just to torrent stuff.
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My GF did on a long trip somewhere. Helped pass the time :).
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I you had read the article, you would have known that the service is NOT offered over wifi. Only over 3G/4G networks.
Re:300M (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:300M (Score:4, Funny)
what the heck are you doing over in that development country you call the states?
Apparently doing something other than messing around on our phones all day. Put the porn down and step away from the phone
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um... the more expensive $20/mo option is ***300M*** ?
First off, you have the plans confused - Verizon (our most expensive carrier) has 300MB for $20 as their lowest-tier plan.
Second, Europe has a different pricing model for mobiles. In Europe, you get charged extra for calling TO a mobile from a landline. In the US, there is no difference between calling landlines and mobiles.
Both systems have their merits, but you can't just compare what the mobile users are paying without also considering what the callers are paying.
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I don't know how the bandwidth distribution works in other countries but in the U.S., the auctions of frequencies and mergers of many large players have concentrated power in a few hands. The bandwidth auctions are basically a hidden tax on the people that works like this: Company borrows a LOT of money to secure rights to use frequencies. This money is like a large voluntary tax the companies buying the rights agree to pay in advance, and then collect from the customers, with the right to keep all of the m
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DISCLAIMER: I do not have smartphones, my experience with slow smartphones (work blackberry included) and flash video problems hints that it would be nowhere that high on smartphone if both home computers got replaced by them. We have 700MB/30MB per day for a DSL line supporting 3Mbit/s (5 months worth of data.)
There's cumbersome form factor ergonomics and buffering slowness impatience to factor in, one just does not spend that much time downloading, editing a slashdot post (let alone the smartphone-unfrien
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what the heck are you doing over in that development country you call the states? ;)
I live here, but I don't consider a "developed country" or "civilized country" to be any country where Doctors without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) has operated a free clinic for people to get healthcare...
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what the heck are you doing over in that development country you call the states? ;)
Trying to figure out how to qualify for resident status elsewhere.
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"Does it seem strange to anyone else that Verizon is releasing their upgraded video service just a month or so after introducing bandwidth caps? Or at the same time they're field testing 300 MB, $20/month data plans?"
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300MB for $20 is NOT LOW COST. $20 used to be the cost of the unlimited plan. If they wanted a "low cost" plan with such ridiculously low caps, they should have started it at $5.
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I've had an android with Verizon for a year and a half, and it hasn't been till the past month or two that I've broken 300MB/month.
I've only had an Android phone for about 4 months, and my usage is e-mail and some web browsing...no social networking, streaming audio/video, etc., and I ran over 400MB last month.
And, I am grandfathered onto Verizon's unlimited plan.
As am I (and my wife, who will be upgrading soon from her Blackberry Storm). I don't know how people who use their phone for anything can afford to be on Verizon now with the tiny caps.
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I've only had an Android phone for about 4 months, and my usage is e-mail and some web browsing...no social networking, streaming audio/video, etc., and I ran over 400MB last month.
Your web browsing is the lion's share of that usage... I use my android phone for e-mail primarily... I don't actually load the web browser at all unless I need to check something on maps. No social networking, no streaming audio/video. I send a *lot* of e-mail, and I rarely break 50MB/mo. I'm on a plan with 100MB/mo of data, and it's plenty for me. I don't even bother with wifi any more, because the battery lasts significantly longer with it off, and I'm nowhere near blowing my limit. (and my overage rate
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Be careful and talk with the salesperson when you switch. When I switched BB to Droid X, I had to entirely switch plans. At the time, I switched unlimited to unlimited, but that is no longer possible.
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Good for you, you don't use your phone. Realize that some of us do.
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300M is the very lowest possible, and it is only being trialed. Read the other comments, the GP is a moron or has reading comprehension issues.