Verizon May Switch From Unlimited to Shared Data

[cknobman]

I have sprint live in 4g market.

My plan has 3 lines unlimited data (no 5gb cap either) and my bill is $160/month (actual bill i pay with taxes and fees included, i do get an 18% discount through my company though). Plan also includes unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes to any mobile so we never use more than 5% of our actual plan minutes.

 

[tdenton1138]

OT, but withing the flow of the comments: I often wonder if I'm the only one on Tom's Hardware that likes capitalism. Verizon's profit margin last year was 5.33%. So for every $100,000 they make in gross income, they end up with $5,330 in profit. My own company makes around 15%. Am I triple raping my customers? Starbucks makes 9.33% (almost twice VZ) Is they double raping their customers? Apple's over 22% and Microsoft is nearly 32%. And of course, the hated "Big Oil" rapists like Exxon make 9.3%.

I'd love to hear from the haters: What companies do you support? Any?

 

[tdenton1138]

Drat. No edit: Is they = Are they

 

[aznjoka]

Well Verizon I absolutely loved the unlimited plan, looks like I have to switch to sprint. I'm a person who uses well more than 5 GB's and for the money it was great. But I believe this well bring a lot of customers switching.

 

[jgutz2006]

I am a sprint customer and have been for the past 5 or so years and (knock on wood) they have had the best data anywhere consistently, I still use my evo i got on launch day and i would be interested to see how much data i'm actually using because i would venture to bet that between my wife and i, we could potentially save a little bit of cash based on a plan like these. These become more useful when we get into larger family plans 3+ phones as $30 per phone could be the straw that broke the camels back for larger families. I would welcome the option for people to save money but at the same time, let those who dont want to think about their data useage opt in for the $30 unlimited.

 

[joebob2000]

[citation][nom]burnley14[/nom]I'm a huge fan of this. As someone who has still not purchased a smartphone simply due to the ridiculous cost of a data plan, this will make the cost much more manageable as all members of the family plan can split that data cost evenly (or proportionally) and each have their own smart phone without its own gouging price. That is, as long as it's something reasonable, like $50 or less for the smallest data package.[/citation]

BZZZZZZT. Wrong. Try again. If you think they will let you get away with paying less for something, you must be new here. They will keep the same $30 minimum price per line for data. The rumors of the family plan put it at $70 base plus 10 for each additional line, so 90 for the first 3 phones meaning you break even, and if you go to 4 phones you start saving money.

Verizon is for suckers. I used to be a loyal customer back when they actually had a distinguished service. Now there are too many other, cheaper options for me to even think about continuing to waste my money on them. I am counting the days until my contract is up and I can at least switch to a verizon MVNO with my current handsets.

 

[hoofhearted]

Great, tiered pricing. It is all about money and nothing about bandwidth. Why? Well, ask them to configure it such that when you reach the cap, it just "stops" until the next billing cycle. They will tell you no, this cannot be done. Why? Because they want to bank on "milking" people for "overage" penalty money. Other countries are so much better, but USA gets ganked with whit crap, overpriced and misleading. I hate cellphone companies. The companies, the people that work for them and the people that defend their ways are all slime of the earth. They do nothing but come up with complex ways to screw people out of their money.

And say you have an iphone and you dont want data, but just want a device with some useful apps, and just want to use your own wifi for data stuff. No way. They detect the id and gank you, even if you bought and paid for the phone already. This is such crap.

Why doesn't the FCC or FTC properly regulate these ass clowns? They want to cap you, charge you a penalty, then charge you based on what device you use no matter if you are using more of their bandwidth or not.

 

[joebob2000]

[citation][nom]hoofhearted[/nom]Why? Because they want to bank on "milking" people for "overage" penalty money. Other countries are so much better, but USA gets ganked with whit crap, overpriced and misleading. I hate [insert name of any large industry] companies. The companies, the people that work for them and the people that defend their ways are all slime of the earth. They do nothing but come up with complex ways to screw people out of their money.[/citation]

Fixed that for you. This is the capitalist way. If you can't compete with a better service or a lower price, simply confuse the customers, or better yet conspire with everyone else in the industry and keep prices artificially high. It's great for shareholders! Never mind if the customers are actually getting what they want.

 

[wcarthurii]

Truth is, Sprint is going to get a lot of business based on this. I know thats where im going. keeping unlimited plans, better 4g, and the phones are better than tmobile or Att.

 

[hoofhearted]

Same here with Sprint. Contract with ATT up at end of August. Plus Sprint has better cell tower coverage in my area than ATT and tmobile combined.

http/www.cellreception.com/towers/

 

[stevelord]

Do you honestly think Sprint will not follow suit eventually? Wow...............

 

[rpmrush]

I use less than 500Mb per month. I surf the net, download apps, updates and what not. Why can't they have a $10-15 plan for like 750Mb or 1Gb. They know the majority don't go over a gig. $10 a Gig plus rollover is fair.

 

[jacobdrj]

[citation][nom]SteveLord[/nom]Do you honestly think Sprint will not follow suit eventually? Wow...............[/citation]
Not if they want to grow back their customer base that had been shrinking due to their awful service post-acquiring NexTel...

I am gonig back and fourth between Sprint-Based prepaid (Boost Mobile) and Tracaphone-Based prepaid (Net10, Straight Talk)...

I am currently using the Blackberry Unlimited with Shrinkage, and could not be more pleased... Only thing I am missing is visual voicemail. I have nationwide 3G, and unlimited everything.

 

[flybri]

The thing is that this whole situation with these limits is that it's not in line with customers' expectations. A large portion of bandwidth use on broadband internet lines is now from Netflix. Netflix is starting to become available on more and more smartphones and tablets. 4G service is much faster, thus allowing people to now watch streaming movies, tv, etc. on the go. It's also being marketed as such. If you're going to significantly increase cell data speed and tell people "hey, now you can watch streaming movie and TV on your phone!" but significantly limit data, there are going to be a bunch of people who are going to have huge overage charges, and it's just not right IMO, and seems underhanded.

It's like taking someone from a Toyota to a Ferrari, and then saying "but if you go over 65mph, we charge you $X amount for every 10mph past that limit." It's enticing the customer, dangling 4G in front of their face, and when the customer goes to really "use" it, they go "nuh uh, not so fast, you're limited". Can Verizon do that? Sure. Is it right? Not in my opinion. I don't really need 4G speed to do the things I already do on 3G, such as quick internet searches and Google Navigation Directions. People are thinking of it as "wireless broadband", and that is how they expect to use it. If the limit is like 5GB or less, on a 4G connection, that is just ridiculous. I'm not a fan of throttling, but I'd say for now, if you had to do it to ensure stable connection speeds for everyone, the limit for 4G should be around 20GB or so, which will allow you to stream some stuff every month, but deter people who what to use the connection to torrent everything. There should def be no limit under any circumstance though.

 

[blurr91]

Don't think it's worth the price? Don't use it. It's a free country. You have the choice. Exercise that choice.

 

[husker]

Agreed. Think of it like this: When a particular stretch of road is first built, there are 100 cars on it a day. Then cars become more and more popular and are able to go farther and faster. The people that are charged with building and maintaining the roads realize that instead of 100 cars a day they are now expected to support 10,000 cars a day. Enter the toll road.

The last time I checked, neither Verizon nor AT&T actually designed or built the phones (although they do sell them). They are however, expected to build and maintain the network they "drive" on. People are suddenly using a network designed to handle phone calls to download movies and stream television shows. Same problem as with roads, same solution. Enter the toll data usage.

Or look at it this way: Name a number that represents the absolute maximum bandwidth of a cell tower. Now I name a future device and application that uses it all. Too bad for you and everyone else that I am hogging all the bandwidth. Should I be able to do this and not pay some kind of a premium?

 

[fir_ser]

At least they are moving from unlimited to shared, and not to just limited.

 

[nebun]

[citation][nom]SteveLord[/nom]Do you honestly think Sprint will not follow suit eventually? Wow...............[/citation]
Sprint has the best coverage from what i have seen....my coworkes have Sprint and AT&T, while I have Verizon.....AT&T users have almost no reception, Sprint has about 60-75% signal power while my Verizon phone has about 25-10% reception....at times I can't even make any calls, or if I do connect I loose the conection....so yes, Sprint is better...and I don't care if they will follow suit and go to a cap plan...i will pay for their service because of the quality of the service

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]tdenton1138[/nom]OT, but withing the flow of the comments: I often wonder if I'm the only one on Tom's Hardware that likes capitalism. Verizon's profit margin last year was 5.33%. So for every $100,000 they make in gross income, they end up with $5,330 in profit. My own company makes around 15%. Am I triple raping my customers? Starbucks makes 9.33% (almost twice VZ) Is they double raping their customers? Apple's over 22% and Microsoft is nearly 32%. And of course, the hated "Big Oil" rapists like Exxon make 9.3%. I'd love to hear from the haters: What companies do you support? Any?[/citation]

oil is posting, or posted record breaking proffits month after month, for something that use to cost less than 1$ a gallon.

oil SHOULDNT COST MORE NOW THAN BACK THAN... let me put it this way.
they get it for 10 per gallon, sell it for 20 back than (not real values, just a number so people can see what they are doing)
now they get it for 100 a gallon, and sell it 150 (as in they use to make 10 every gallon, now they make 50)

crap like this has to stop.

 

[nebun]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]oil is posting, or posted record breaking proffits month after month, for something that use to cost less than 1$ a gallon. oil SHOULDNT COST MORE NOW THAN BACK THAN... let me put it this way.they get it for 10 per gallon, sell it for 20 back than (not real values, just a number so people can see what they are doing)now they get it for 100 a gallon, and sell it 150 (as in they use to make 10 every gallon, now they make 50)crap like this has to stop.[/citation]
this is when uncle sam has to set some rules....but it will not happen because the he won't make as much revenue from the fuel tax, so it's better for ungle sam not to do anyting....dirty politics that is...if President Washington saw what has become of his so called USA he would be very dissapointed