Verizon to Ditch Unlimited Data Plans With 4G LTE

[i8cookiemonster]

If they meter the most user friendly way to do it would be the way the electric company or water company does it...in a very fine grained manner in usage tiers. That way, if you aren't a heavy user you don't pay excessively, but if you are you pay more, but less per MB. As long as they can accept charging acceptable rates per MB that is (fat chance...I guess there's the hole in my idea lol).

 

[Guest]

I think it is another way for these companies to rape and pillage the consumers. It is a way for them to charge large fee's for little service and yet demand what service we can have because of the phones they offer. look at AT&T for over 4 years now they have had the Iphone, and yet they want to charge you 50 bucks a month for unlimited data and texting, 30 a month for the apple data plan and then 20 bucks for the unlimited data, when a non smart phone can get the same unlimited data and texting for 30 bucks total. isn't a text nothing but raw data anyways?

and now with all these new phones coming out soon will all force you into a data plan even if you dont want it, what happened to buying and paying for what you need? not what the company is telling you, you have to have?

 

[dman3k]

[citation][nom]joebob2000[/nom]Good, let those leechers pay more for bandwidth. I would rather not pay the full $30/mo for a data plan of which I rarely use more than 200 MB/mo. and have never used more than 500mb/mo. If they want unlimited, sell it to them for $99/mo and let me pay $15/mo for a 500Mb/mo plan.For those that whine about the limits, I really doubt you know how hard it is to actually use more than 1GB/mo on your phone (*without* tethering to a PC)[/citation]I don't tether. I have a factory Sprint HTC Hero (unrooted) which is incapable of tethering. I use around 1 GB a month. And what I do is watch Sprint TV in the restroom and listen to Pandora radio in the car.

Not hard at all.

 

[drksilenc]

[citation][nom]joebob2000[/nom]Good, let those leechers pay more for bandwidth. I would rather not pay the full $30/mo for a data plan of which I rarely use more than 200 MB/mo. and have never used more than 500mb/mo. If they want unlimited, sell it to them for $99/mo and let me pay $15/mo for a 500Mb/mo plan.For those that whine about the limits, I really doubt you know how hard it is to actually use more than 1GB/mo on your phone (*without* tethering to a PC)[/citation]
its quite easy its called you tube and other multimedia applications like internet radio... bandwidth leacher ehh? you pay for a connections you should have it. not our fault of the isp's dont have the backbone to support what we pay for

 

[pink315]

I think this move is great, its going to get the other big three to offer cheaper and better plans. I for example, get unlimited everything through sprint on my blackberry tour for about $60. That plan includes 4G (limited headset availability, but unlocked 4g dongles for sale). I think this will be a great move to push ATAT into finally offering some better plans and data capability. T-Mobile should take the intuitive as well. Sprint already jumped to take all the pissed off Verizon customers who got tired of paying an extra fee for blackberries and who got tired of paying 100 for capped internet usage. Of course where you live will decide which network to buy into. Where I live Sprint is wonderful. Mileage may vary

 

[blbec]

It depends what the caps are. If it high enough for surfing and email fine. They just obviously dont want everyone downloading video and music over an infrastructure that doesnt have the capacity to support it.

 

[blbec]

It depends what the caps are. If it high enough for surfing and email fine. They just obviously dont want everyone downloading video and music over an infrastructure that doesnt have the capacity to support it.

 

[cracatoa]

joebob2000, I just don't think you have any idea how this works. These guys will not lower your rate because they introduce tiered pricing, they'll just make yours the new base. You find me just one instance where a company actually did something that was really good for the consumers (especially amongst cell phone companies) and not just something they said was good for you but turned out to be better for them.

Rollover minutes anyone? AT&T charges 15 - 20 bucks more per month for the same minutes as anyone else, and whatever happens with those "rollover minutes"? Nobody really uses them. They expire every year, and if you save up enough minutes for an entire month, or even 10, you don't get anything free from that.

 

[rodney_ws]

I take issue with this. Verizon charges what... $30 for a data plan for their phones and even then they cap it at 5 GB / month... and there are overage charges beyond that. Well, why not give us UNDERAGE (I made that word up) charges since most of us rarely use our allotted 5 GB of bandwidth. It should go both ways or not at all.

 

[megamanx00]

Bull poop.

 

[apmyhr]

Honestly, I'm not sure what is the right or wrong path for wireless ISP's when it comes to data plans. But news like this makes me less anxious to jump on the smart phone bandwagon (which I was planning to do with WP7). Because if I do get a smart phone, I will want to be able to consume a lot of online media.

 

[blbec]

[citation][nom]rajangel[/nom]You know. I don't even have a cell phone. I get along just fine without it. It boggles my mind why people want to shell out $100 dollars a month for these "services." It's nice to stay in touch with people. It's to the point where its becoming an accepted cultural addiction. People who use food stamps to purchase their food and stuff come through my line with droids, iphones, and other smartphones. Then they cry about how they don't have enough on their foodstamps to purchase everything they want. (This isn't everyone just most of the more selfish ones).This is a sick backwards world where we are living. H.G. Wells said our fears would kill us. I don't think that's quite the case. If anything our addictions and wants will kill us.[/citation]

I got a job that takes me out to peoples homes often. It is amazing to me to see how many have a big screen tv in the middle of squalor. There is garbage all over the yard and the place is a mess, but there is a tv, an xbox/playstation, and everyone inside has a good cell phone. Its all about priorities. (Many of these are also "undocumented" workers who don't have health insurance. Interesting eh?)

 

[icepick314]

so Verizon is pushing FASTER bandwidth so customers can hit that data limit even FASTER???

first it's Comcast internet....

geez...just what's wrong with these people?

 

[tayb]

Screw the customers? How? I pay $30 a month for data on my iPhone and there isn't ANY other options. I can guarantee I'm not using $30 worth of data checking Sportacular, sending emails, and checking the weather but I still pay $30 just like the guy who spends his time watching youtube video, browsing the web 24/7, and sending tons of massive emails. Right NOW I'm being screwed.

I will gladly welcome tiered data prices as long as the prices are fair for what I use. $30 better not be the minimum and go up from there if you break a "barrier." I want to pay per kb (yeah, it will be a fraction of a percent) and have a way to actively monitor how much data I'm using.

Also, the 4G network treats everything as data. I better not be paying for voice + texting + data when it is ALL data. No sir.

 

[Montezuma]

I will discontinue to pay for Verizon's service if they ditch their "unlimited" plan(which is far from unlimited). The cellular companies need to quit referring to their sad 5 GB data plans as unlimited. It is false advertisement and illegal.

 

[cadder]

I think they should accumulate usage statistics for all of their customers, take the maximum data used by any customer in the lower 90%, and set that as the data limit for what their monthly data plan costs right now. If you use more than that you pay more, if you use less than that then you pay less.

 

[buddhav1]

i think this attempt to meter data usage will probably go over about as well as Time Warner's Tier System for users. Glad i dumped Verizon when I did.

 

[cracatoa]

Here, I wanted to get you guys a link to a "tiered pricing" scheme that everyone remembers: TimeWarner internet.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090331_726397.htm

Notice how the BASE of their tiered pricing starts at $29.95?

Here is their current pricing without tiered usage pricing:

http://www.oceanic.com/products/internet/road-runner/pricing

Whoa! $24.95 for the cheapest? You're kidding me, right? But this tiered thing was suppose to be better for consumers!

My sarcasm is thicker than molasses and as blunt as a mallet, I admit, but you get the picture. They are not doing this for the consumer!

 

[cracatoa]

Dangit, was trying to edit this. I got something wrong. According to their pricing, base roadrunner is $31.95 a month. Where I live, they have a 768k offering for $29.95/month. Not fun trying to get a solid answer to their pricing schema, as they change it for every single region.

 

[Glorian]

I could care less, I just use my phone for calls and text, hell I would cut my unlimited texting plan but people won't stop texting me. If I need to do anything worth doing on the internet I use my laptop or home pc. I've never seen my brothers who have iphones do anything important on them, what show me a new idiot test app, pictures of breasts, pics he took of the nights they got wasted?

Now cap my home usage and I'll bring down a reign of fire that can only be rivaled by god!