Sprint Cutting Unlimited 4G Data Plans 325
itwbennett writes "In a notice posted Thursday on the customer support section of its website, Sprint said it would impose monthly data caps on plans for all tablets, laptops, netbooks, USB and PC Card modems, and mobile hotspot devices — everything, that is, except smartphones. The caps will begin with each subscriber's next bill following notification, the carrier said."
iPhones seem to herald the end of flat-rate data. (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems like when the iPhone comes, unlimited data always goes despite the baseless concerns on data usage. All this should do is just make people figure out how to make everything look like a smartphone.
Welcome back to yesteryear when everything is nickel-and-dimed, since nobody will provide flat-rate data.
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Welcome back to AT&T of yesteryear where douchebag hipsters on their iPhones hog all the bandwidth
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Hook, line and sinker. Bandwidth is there to be used.
Hogging the network is a cop-out.
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Re:iPhones seem to herald the end of flat-rate dat (Score:5, Funny)
There is a reason it's called a "cellurar network".
Because it uses a proprietary compression algorithm?
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I actually don't object to caps for that reason. Some people use way too much and there are limits. You can't just magically increase wireless bandwidth since there is only a certain amount of spectrum you have to play with. You can do it to an extent by building out the network, having smaller segments, but there are limits to that because of interference, and also just practical limits as to where you can put antennas (never mind cost). It is a shared resource, people have to play nice and not use it full
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Perhaps this is one of Apple's goals. They want you to pay per-song and per-episode, so they're getting you used to paying per-gigabyte, too. All hail the glory of capitalism!
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Evidently, you miss the old days when Stalin gave you all the free, high-speed Internet you wanted! Uncensored too!
I'd hate to be a CLWR share holder. (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder what this is going to do to Clearwire's stock price. This is clearly a vote of no confidence in their network capacity.
Re:I'd hate to be a CLWR share holder. (Score:4, Informative)
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Goodbye Clearwire, hello LightSquared!
This (Score:2)
This makes me want to switch to a Sprint smartphone plan.
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Out of all the tier 1 US carriers, Sprint's plans are IMO the best. Except for the stupid $10/month "smartphone data" fee, which is bullshit.
Unfortunately I live in the taint of the country, and don't have any hope of actually getting 4G data on my 4G phone until Sprint completes their LTE network vision and I get an LTE capable phone.
Hopefully Gingerbread will finally go OTA this week and make me forget these things.
Re:This (Score:4, Informative)
In NYC my Sprint 4G smartphone doesn't get 4G hardly anywhere, and outside NYC I have yet to see it get 4G. Much of the time the phone doesn't even get 3G.
Sprint's plans are just about the cheapest, especially for 4G. But you don't get what you don't pay for.
I fully expect LTE to be even worse. Not technologically, but because Sprint has always sucked and reamed its customers, and gradually lowers expectations even more.
just jail brake your phone and make it a hotspot (Score:4, Interesting)
just jail brake your phone and make it a hotspot
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I'm posting this comment from my "Mobile command center": Laptop with wireless keyboard and mouse using a fold out clipboard as a table in the car, tethered to my samsung intercept running ubuntdroid on sprint.
Tweak the TTL & use a jailbreakable phone. (Score:3)
The big reason carriers want to lock phones is that you drop off the radar for data usage.
An opportunity to get out of your plan (Score:5, Informative)
They've made a material change.
Cast your contract into the fires of Mount Doom.
Only there can such evil be unmade.
Re:An opportunity to get out of your plan (Score:5, Informative)
To repeat: ANY time they alter your agreement/contract, you may cancel it with NO penalties. This is by FEDERAL LAW.
No, I'm not a lawyer, but I've used this little gem myself when a provider decided to screw up things.
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Without any penalties whatsoever?
Of course having to change provider may be penalty enough in some areas, but let's say you the contract involves a bundle.. i.e. you get Phone X together with Plan Y for the special price of $N/month with a commitment to 2 years. Say they change it after just 6 months. You can cancel - but do you get to keep the phone? Usually not - so wouldn't that also be a penalty? (havi
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You can cancel - but do you get to keep the phone? Usually not - so wouldn't that also be a penalty? (having to get a new one, re-configure it, etc.
*If* when selling these "plans" involving the phone marketing was transparent these plans would be broken open, i.e.:
Get a cPhone! Only $y month (24 month contract)
(of y the part of the phone is w, plan including gazillion minutes and whatever goodies, you can get out of contract any time by paying the remaining months * w, handset sold separately for q)
But no....that would be too open for telcos and complicated for the average consumer...but guess what, where I live this is how marketing these bundles must
Congratulations! (Score:2)
You don't have to pay penalties, but you still have to pay off your equipment. And afterwards, you're left with a device that is next to useless because it won't run on any other carrier's network.
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There's only 4 providers now. They all change terms so often you're left with NO phone providers after 6 months!!!!
The whole problem with these wireless terms now is that I had to make a 2-year deal based on advertising. Now 1 year into the deal they don't want to provide ALL the features promised... And I can't get that feature from somebody ELSE now and i could have PAID SOMEBODY ELSE just a little more. If I was using this to equip my staff for a business I would be pissed... Because I just had 25-50+ pe
Re:An opportunity to get out of your plan (Score:5, Insightful)
They made an unenforceable threat and you caved instead of calling them out just as they expect. Grow a pair next time and don't let them bullshit you.
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And replace it with who now? Verizon? AT&T? Oh so many wonderful choices.
What about Sprint source? (Score:3)
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Just like with oil... (Score:2)
Someone should tell their CTO (Score:5, Informative)
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Hey, that was one month ago! You can't expect that to be true forever, can you?
Smartphones Unlimited Until the sales dry out (Score:4, Insightful)
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Obviously you shouuld check with a lawyer first.
Sprint Cost Saving Cuts and Fees (Score:5, Informative)
Sprint has been cutting back on features and raising fees for a while now. It's getting out of hand. They're probably doing it all in an effort to make up for the $28B they paid Apple to sell the iPhone. Here is a list of some of the changes.
* Removal of the Sprint Premiere Membership Program and the removal of all its benefits
* Using your phone as a Mobile Hotspot no longer has unlimited data but is now capped. It still costs the same $30.
* Adding a $10 a month 4g charge to every 4g line on an account regardless of whether you get 4g reception or not. This charge was then expanded to include all smartphones on the Sprint network, even if they weren’t capable of 4g.
* No more Billing to Account.
* An increase in administrative fees per line.
* Raising the Early Termination Fee on an account by $150 to $350 for each phone line.
* Changing the arbitration rules for settling customer disputes in a way that heavily favors Sprint.
* Stopping people from leaving Sprint because of the arbitration changes without being charged the ETF, even though Federal Courts have ruled that changes in arbitration rules are a material change in the contract.
* Eliminating unlimited 4g data from it’s Mobile Broadband plans.
* Dropping WIMAX for their new LTE 4g network. This not only means that if you do not have 4g currently, you will never have it for your current 4g phone but also that all Sprint 4g phones being sold today, even if you are within a current 4g area, will stop operating as 4g at the end of next year because they will not work on Sprint’s new network.
Sprint sucks.
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Sprint is TRYING to die, and TRYING to get bought out by either AT&T or VZ. That is the ONLY conclusion I have to the boneheaded moves by the #3 player. It is almost like Sprint is saying "we suck more than the other guys". I used to be with Sprint, left them years ago, and I am so glad I did.
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Sprint may suck by your standards - but my 3-lin Family Plan is between $50-$60/month cheaper than with Verizon. You complain about Sprint's $10 'advanced' data fee? Try Verizon's $30 mandatory fee - which you can't ditch under any circumstances. I was a 21 year Verizon customer who switched to Sprint the day the iPhone was released there. (And the fact that I still have unlimited data whereas Verizon took it away) To me, Sprint is an upgrade.
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Dropping WIMAX for their new LTE 4g network. This not only means that if you do not have 4g currently, you will never have it for your current 4g phone but also that all Sprint 4g phones being sold today, even if you are within a current 4g area, will stop operating as 4g at the end of next year because they will not work on Sprint’s new network.
So, after they turn on LTE in the first few markets, they are going to cut the power to all their WiMax gear? Wow.. And here I thought they would do as they have publicly said, and continue to use WiMax where it is, until the equipment is replaced in 5-7 years..
Limited 4G Smartphone Coverage (Score:2)
Sprint 4G to smartphones has always been limited by the really crappy 4G coverage. Even in NYC I hardly ever get a 4G signal. It seems like even a 7 storey apartment building is enough to block 4G.
Any way you look at it, "unlimited" 4G has been a scam from Sprint.
And why does Sprint get to unilaterally delete features from its contract? What's the point of a contract then, except to force the consumer to pay and take Sprint's abuse?
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Good-bye sprint? (Score:2)
Getting tired of being nickel and dimed... (Score:2)
And T-Mo just cut off tethering for their smartphones, unless you want to pay another $15/month. Seriously, getting to the point to finding $100/month a little ridiculous (and I only use around 1gb/month in data with tethering).
Maybe I should just go back to POTS. Leave me a fucking message on my answering machine.
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Even if you have an old plan?
I thought they applied that only to new plans, and only if you weren't smart enough to tweak TTL and such.
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How do you cut off tethering on an unlocked smartphone?
They don't need new customers anymore (Score:3)
I Wish They'd Bring 4G Into My Area (Score:2)
False Advertising? (Score:2)
I don't begrudge companies changing their product offerings by any means, but what does irritate me to no end is that companies will ADVERTISE what a good deal their service is, right up until the moment they actually change it. That strikes me as borderline false advertising... Sign-up the day you see the commercial, and get the advertised deal, or wait until a few days a find there's no "there" there... What's the legal limit of how long they have to honor their advertised service levels?
Personally, I'
So much for their current commercial (Score:2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAKNjEi3Xao [youtube.com]
It's technically true. The "best" kind of truth.
Just not for anything BUT smartphones I guess...
ununlimited (Score:2)
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In your case, would it not be more satisfying to say, "buh bye, Sprint, you bunch of cunts?" Is the verbosity that off putting?
The beaverisation of America is getting way out of hand.
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That's a myopic definition, as the term actually is used by large numbers of people throughout the entire Western Hemisphere (otherwise known as "the Americas").
Anyone who lives in North or South America can correctly be termed "American," even though most of them do not live, nor are citizens of, the USA.
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Bleh. ... live in, nor...
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Then that would be "non-American", not "non-USAian".
You just went full retard. Never go full retard.
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And additionally non-American could be misunderstood as excluding e.g. Brasilian, Chilean, Peruvian or Canadian...
Yes, despite what you USAians like to think, they are American too.
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Other than Canadians, who are vassals, the rest that you listed are "South Americans" not "Americans." We know this because we're using English, not Spanish or Portuguese.
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Every time an American (I say that only to speak to you in your native language, normally I have no problem doing so but I don't want to appear complacent to your stupidity) says something cartoonishly asinine like this they reinforce the stereotype of the dumb jingoistic cowboy whose knowledge of anything outside the US border consists of "here there be dragons."
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Additionally, North America ends at Panama Canal - Central America is not a continent by itself, it's a part of North America. So even by that limited definition, citizens of Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua and most of Panama are Americans.
Unless you chop away yet another piece of your continent to fit your definition, or like to define inhabitants of Americas as sum of South Americans, Central Americans and Americans (hahaha).
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I took it to mean that the poster is an American who's currently not living in the U.S, which would explain the USAian usage. It also conveys they element that not all people who live in the U.S.A are American and to me that's a good thing.
A government official, for collusion. (Score:2)
A government official that will force the carriers to unmeter data.
Hold the carriers feet to the fire enough, and they'll provide it.
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Yes they are. Smartphones still are and will be unlimited for the foreseeable future. They never advertised unlimited for the USB modems. Stop trolling.
Re:They better stop advertising it as "unlimited". (Score:5, Insightful)
Smartphones still are and will be unlimited for the foreseeable future..
until next week?
until next month?
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Until they can get the rest of the cartel to follow suite.
Re:They better stop advertising it as "unlimited". (Score:4, Interesting)
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You're grandfathered in because you signed up for an unlimited plan before they got out of the unlimited-data business. You can't open a new account at Verizon with an unlimited data plan.
And I would venture to guess that they will eventually start squeezing those of you who are grandfathered in as well, too. They'll either force you to switch to a metered data plan in order to qualify for subsidies on a new device, or do the sort of thing that AT&T has already started doing: [att.com]
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Sprint is doing what you want them to do if you like to invest in successful companies.
What's that, killing the goose that lays the golden egg? Yeah, short term quarter to quarter thinking is far more important than the big picture.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's slash and burn capitalism. It's not about industrialism or anything resembling long term thinking. I think you hit the nail on the head. What are we building or producing anymore? I think it's all "creative financing", shuffling paperwork around. It doesn't help when we have trade policies that cut our own throats, leaving a back door for corporations to outsource everything from labor to call centers overseas. Our people need jobs, and if they don't have them, they can't buy our products or services.
Volume =/= liquidity (Score:5, Insightful)
Volume is not liquidity. If you have two computers trading a stock back and forth (in order to manipulate its price) that increases volume a lot but the liquidity is basically unchanged.
Then there are things like flash orders or whatever they're called which are neither about volume or liquidity but simply about giving an edge to those with a fast connection to the stock exchange... Essentially they can find out bid information which is supposed to be secret.
Your defense of HFT is weak.
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trading a stock back and forth (in order to manipulate its price)
This is where you fail. The act of trading does not affect price. Someone on one side other the other of the trade has to be willing to accept a lower price than before, or pay a higher price than before in order to change the price. Why? Because no one can force you to buy stock, and no one can force you to sell stock (except in a margin call)This "willingness" has absolutely everything to do with emotion and other exogenous variables and nothing to do with the amount of transactions/unit time.
Supply and
Re:They better stop advertising it as "unlimited". (Score:4, Insightful)
Smartphones still are and will be unlimited for the foreseeable future. They never advertised unlimited for the USB modems.
Given that a modern smartphone is pretty much a 3G/4G modem with a screen, and connection sharing is built into most of those devices, that's a pretty blurry line.
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I was wondering, how do they tell a smartphone from a USB 3G modem? I'd guess that if the majority of the traffic isn't web traffic with a smartphone user agent they flag you.
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Did they advertise "unlimited for smartphones" or "unlimited"?
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Several companies offer hundreds of megabytes for $25/month. For a lot of people, that's worth it just to get E-mail, chat, navigation, traffic, weather, and other stuff.
If you are paying Verizon's inflated fees, you only have yo
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I would agree with you, but I live in the ass end of the universe. I live in a dark corner of a State in the middle of "fly over land", I am sure natives living in huts on the Serengeti have more cell carrier selection than we do. We have two carriers to pick from, Bad and Worse and Verizon is the better deal.
Re:They better stop advertising it as "unlimited". (Score:4, Insightful)
Look dickweed, I don't begrudge someone making money, but for what they charge for their "unlimited" data to a fucking smart phone is akin to what you can buy REALLY unlimited via your cable, dsl, etc. I know you are going to say, "But it comes magically through the air to you!" Really? No shit? This happens so often with technology is pisses me off. They come out with something they can rape you on, they get together and set the prices to so they can all rape you together and until too many hungry fuckers get in the game and screw it up for them, they keep raping away. Remember back when we paid a quarter a minute on the phone, or higher? They had the tech to make it a flat fee and make plenty of damn money off it, but is that enough to make great money? Fuck no, they have to make OMFG money, and it's easy with these pussy politicians that they buy lock stock and barrel at prices that would make whores blush.
Don't give me your pretzel logic for defending this horseshit, unless you work for these cocksuckers. Then I understand.
As far as making money, how about someone comes over to your house and kicks your teeth down your throat if you don't give them whatever they want? That's "making money", are you going to whine about that? Of course you will, because it's WRONG. You see, that is the beauty of living in something called a "society", we get to make up the rules of what is "wrong". But of course that is currently bullshit, because we don't get to make the rules anymore, the corporate cocksuckers do because they OWN the rule makers. This is why every time you turn around to buy something or pay a bill you are getting FUCKED, they all want as much out of you as they can possibly squeeze.
But if you don't "get it", I understand. Untold fortunes have been spent to brainwash Americans into a disgusting "serf mentality" to be good little drones and wish someday they too will be like those they are told to idolize. I can't undo that kind of brain damage in a couple of posts. Sweet Jesus, if I could I would be the savior of mankind wouldn't I? Who wants that? You end up on a cross or something.
So, Fido, be a good dog and pay that high price just to check your email for more dick enlarging spam or tweeting what you had for lunch to the other dogs. Holy fuck, you sure don't want to miss out on a nanosecond of Facebook, so by all means, don't let me get in your way. I am so damn sorry I bothered to protest the high price of a trifle of data. What was I thinking? I will go gouge out my eyes with a spoon in shame for such atrociousness. Set me on fire with a flame thrower please.
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No need to hold back; tell us how you really feel.
Re:They better stop advertising it as "unlimited". (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to be the one to say this, mostly because I have no doubt I will get flamed and/or modded to hell for it, but I'm feeling adventurous this morning, so here goes:
*deep breath*
Nobody is forcing you to buy a cellular data plan, or indeed buy any cell plan at all. It is perfectly possible to live life in the modern age without any kind of cellphone, and still take part in all that modern life has to offer without having to live like the Amish. You simply have to decide what is important to you.
If having that smartphone with data plan is important to you, then so be it. Be prepared to deal with the companies that sell that type of plan in your area. If you don't like the selections of companies or the manner in which these companies conduct business, then you must decide if that is more important to you than having the phone.
If your principles are more important, then to be true to them you MUST cancel your smartphone plan and go back to a land line and/or VOIP using an answering machine. Or possibly a smartphone without a cell plan using Wifi and Google Voice.
If having that smartphone is most important, then I would say that while you still have the right to your principles and opinion, they hold significantly less weight and are worth little regard to others as you yourself clearly don't believe in them enough to alter your life to suit them. In which case you are little more than a ranting, grouchy troll.
That said, I don't entirely disagree with you, It certainly does seem that the prices for cellular data plans remain artificially high, and the dropping of unlimited plans is not something that customers should want. However, if one looks at the big picture, one realizes that prices have actually come down overall for these plans.
If you think about it, back just 25 years ago a $100 a month cell plan with unlimited talk time was utterly unheard of. The best you could do was something like 1000 minutes and the prices were closer to $200 a month. And data couldn't be had for any price. Now you can get a single person plan with unlimited talk, text and (in Sprint's case, data) for right around $100 a month. Now, you may say that it hasn't come down far enough, fast enough, but ultimately that's a function of the market. If you don't like the prices, don't take part. Cellphones are (despite the protestations of /. members) still a luxury item.
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goto parent_post;
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Hypocrisy is an argument! If it could be worse, that means your current situation is good!
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Here in Australia, the majority of internet providers for home (a)DSL/Cable provide capped plans - but don't charge anything once the plan is exceeded, they simply throttle the connection speed right down (to 64 or 128k speeds). Is that the same in the US, or do ISPs generally just go to a $ per Gb model? The mobile broadband here does generally charge per Mb once a mobile plan goes over the limit however, so a phone bill can very quickly become astronomical.
I am curious if this is the same over in the US/C
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Never heard of that practice, and no why would they. It is not like they really care how much we use they just want to make more money so throttling is counter intuitive unless you are on a unlimited plan.
And it is more like $ per Mb.
My plan for example is $.015/Mb (about $500/30GB) over 5 Gigs.
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Well, many years ago, everyone charged per Mb over the plan limit, but I think the ACCC [accc.gov.au] got involved after a number of "outrageous" bills made it into the news and told ISPs to clean up their act - or perhaps it was bad publicity over the crazy bills people were refusing to pay, but for the most part ISPs now just throttle down. A heavy user will still get the bigger plans, but users won't suddenly get slugged with a $50k bill (there were a few in this price range for a single month).
Sure, it's not really i
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Telstra still do it, my work ends up with many $500+ phone bills for the first few months after they bring someone new in to work's mobile plans - the users get given a smartphone and use a few hundred MB of data checking email, but sometime someone forgets to switch them to a $10 1GB plan and we get slugged for casual data rates. The cheeky bastards at Telstra know it is a mistake but do nothing to warn the users that their bill is going to be an order of magnitude larger.
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On another note: I wish, 128k is 1.3 gigs a day which is not bad (you could have a new movie or a few TV shows every day on that speed) and even the 64k is not horrible.
In the US and Canada is seems more like we are moving to super high speed, super low caps, and huge charges for going over and no notification.
Personally, I do not really care what my speed is, as even around dailup speed you can still get a decent amount per month downloaded. But it is easier to get a 50Mb connection, that you can only use
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Actually I have on many occasions used throttled internet here in Aus, probably more in the past rather than recently, but I never really had an issue with it. I was always with decent providers though (such as Internode) and not the likes of Dodo or TPG. Perhaps that makes the difference?
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Yes, but they are trying to apply this to existing plans. Not grandfathering in existing mobile hotspots, but screwing everybody.
Not going to happen. I will cancel, write the attorney general if I have too, and shove the ETF straight up their fucking asses.
3GB is absolutely worthless for a cap. I only have that cap on 3G right now and I don't care because I have it locked to 4G. It's a problem for business too. Verizon and Sprint just don't get it. Average use, and I mean average, would be around 20 g
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I usually get by on a few hundred megs per month, and I use my 3G constantly. It's not a problem for normal smartphone usage.
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That depends on if they have enough money, but a safe bet would be yes.
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Obama isn't beholden to the telecoms the way he is to Wall Street, is he?
His recent attempt at net neutrality basically exempted cell providers from most of the regulations, what do you think?
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At least the initials are the same (if one follows the tradition of omitting non-critical words)
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Normal smartphone use is still unlimited.
For how long?
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Re:Typical carrier garbage (Score:4, Insightful)
What's the rational behind capping one type of use, but not others? If it's network congestion, why does it matter how the network is being congested?
It's like a restaurant that offers an "all you can eat" buffet and doesn't allow your elephant in.
You don't pay for your data usage. You pay for the average data usage of everybody who has the same contract as you. So they disallow types of use that on the average lead to more network use, and allow types that on the average use less bandwidth.
So if you pay for "up to 5 GB" you are actually charged for "average use of anyone on the 5 GB plan", which is a lot less than 5 GB.
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So if you pay for "up to 5 GB" you are actually charged for "average use of anyone on the 5 GB plan", which is a lot less than 5 GB.
I am not so sure about this. Just about everyone I know with smart phone on ATT&T or Verizon is PAINFULLY aware of their data usage. These are not all technical people either. That leads me to conclude that the cap levels are set where they don't make sense for most consumers. There either to low and prevent people from using the tool the way they'd really like, or so impossibly high they you pay through the nose for something you'd never use and line the carriers pockets.
The market is not big enoug