Verizon Cracks Down On Unlimited Data Users, Claims Nobody Wants Unlimited Data Anyway
from the tell-us-what-we-want dept
Back in 2011, AT&T and Verizon eliminated their unlimited data plans, instead shoving users toward metered plans with limited data allotments. While the two companies did "grandfather" their existing unlimited data users at the time, they've been engaged in a quiet war to drive these users off the plans for years, ranging from AT&T's decision to block Facetime from working unless users signed up for metered plans, to throttling these users (and then in some instances lying about it). This is all of course accompanied by a constant barrage of rate hikes (AT&T imposed another $5 bump just last week).Six years after first getting rid of the plans, Verizon shows no sign of backing off its crackdown of these unwanted users. The company this week confirmed that it was taking new aim at unlimited consumers, the company confirming that it's now telling any user that consumes more than 200 GB per month that they will be booted off the Verizon network:
"Because our network is a shared resource and we need to ensure all customers have a great mobile experience with Verizon, we are notifying a small group of customers on unlimited plans who use more than 200GB a month that they must move to a Verizon Plan by February 16, 2017," Verizon spokesperson Kelly Crummey told Ars today."Of course, the biggest plan Verizon advertises is 30 GB for $130 per month. Users can call and get larger plans, but they'd best expect to take out a second mortgage to pay for them. While Verizon was busy tightening the noose on its dwindling and data hungry unlimited users, it was also busy bumping activation and phone upgrade fees from $20 to $30, citing "increased costs" that have actually declined as the company continues to set earnings records thanks to metered billing and the company's usage caps.
And while it's understandable that Verizon would want to crack down on users on older data plans that give them a better value, the company continues to insist that nobody wants unlimited data. Just last September, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo again proclaimed that nobody needs an unlimited data plan. The company went so far as to hire a consultant willing to pen a blog post in which he claimed the consumer desire for simpler, unlimited data plans was just a "gut feeling" detached from any reality:
"So, while unlimited data may sound attractive, there is no practical effect of data limits on the majority of users. Understanding this should bring rationality to a discussion that is often held on a “gut feeling” level. Keeping adequate speed and performance while allowing all users to share the limited commodity we call wireless data is the fair way to deal with wireless connectivity. And ultimately, that is what is beneficial for wireless consumers."To be clear, small cells and WiFi offloading have made great inroads in helping carriers handle the video load. T-Mobile and Sprint have certainly found a way to offer users unlimited data, albeit with some net neutrality trampling caveats. Sprint, for example, now throttles all games, music and video for unlimited data users by default, then charges them a premium if they want these services to run at full speed. To try and combat these new plans Verizon briefly tried to market its metered data plans as "limitless" (as in, they don't throttle them like Sprint) but was soundly mocked for the effort.
All told, the industry still can't quite figure out that if you can't actually offer unlimited data, you shouldn't advertise unlimited data. They're still also struggling with the concept that in a truly competitive market, consumers tell you what they want (and hopefully, you provide it). In wireless, executives still apparently think it's the other way around.
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Filed Under: data caps, grandfathering, unlimited data
Companies: verizon
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Now I don't consume 200GB a month (I don't even come close to half of that), but I definitely use more than their highest tier data cap (CAP CAP CAP CAP YES IT'S A FUCKING CAP WORD WEASELS) at a lower price.
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Products get phased out everywhere, all the time.
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Response to: clemahieu on Jan 10th, 2017 @ 11:05am
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They're not going it out of the goodness of their hearts.
They're doing it because there is a contract in place between them and their customers that they and the customer agreed to when the service was purchased. Looks like Verizon wasn't smart enough to put an end date on it.
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I personally have a fixed rate, internet, myself They can not raise the price cost on. They can give me discounts of fees but they can never raise it beyond what I agreed to on day one.
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That is hardly the point now is it? The only reason for caps and therefore getting rid of old unlimited plans is to facilitate the "introduction" of their internet "packages" offering you a cornucopia of website choices and combinations including but not limited to their very own zero based video services. You are in luck because they are creating an internet service just like your old cable tv used to be, isn't that great?
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Oh but they can. Caps are a con they came up with and people accepted without question instead of.. Well. Never mind.
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No Excuse for Data Caps
Now similarly for a mobile network. If your network is overloaded, this is an instantaneous problem at a particular tower. A tower is overloaded because too much population density is forced to use too few towers / channels / frequencies in that area.
If you have sufficient capacity at a tower for the density of people in that area, then there is no need for wireless data caps. It might be reasonable to throttle individual data streams to ensure there is enough capacity. But if this throttling reduces individual data streams to a crawl, then this is proof of having built insufficient capacity.
If you have sufficient capacity, then it doesn't matter how far into the billing cycle that you are watching Netflix. Watching Netflix on the 30th day of the billing cycle doesn't strain the network any more than on the following day, which is the first day of the billing cycle. So why have data caps?
This brings me back to: data caps are an excuse to make money on the side by having "Zero Rating" to extort third parties such as Netflix.
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Re: No Excuse for Data Caps
What you are describing has nothing to do with data caps. This has to do with overselling bandwidth. The network cannot run out of "data", it can only run out of bandwidth at times that too many users are utilizing a tower at the same time. This can be managed with throttling (or, you know, not overselling your network to begin with), but data caps will, at best, mean there will be less congestion at the end of the month when more users have reached their cap and are no longer consuming bandwidth.
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Greed
Greed = how to make more money, while doing less. the greater the ratio more money vs doing less. the greater the greed.
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I'm fine with "unlimited" plans going away because they never provided them and they never intended to. What they should sell are unmetered plans which provide access to X bit-rate for Y time-period. It's the customers' decision whether they make use of the connection or allow it to idle.
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Unintentional hilarity in their claims
While an overloaded network would interfere with a "great mobile experience", they have a lot of other more pressing problems to solve before they trot out that excuse to anything other than laughter. The average customer experience is far from "great" even in areas where nobody is overloading the network by "abusing" their unlimited data plan (that is, actually using the plan as it is marketed).
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At the LTE speeds they advertise, you can burn through your 30GB a couple hours into the month.
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That's a shed load of money.
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Not just Verizon.
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Re: Not just Verizon.
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what trump dont realize
the fact is this is the one thing i do not like about his choice...oh well at least i live in canada
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Find and Replace
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Re: Find and Replace
Air in general, contains about 20% oxygen:
By volume, dry air contains 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen,[1] 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. Wikipedia
So yes, limiting oxygen levels would actually save billions of lives and I really doubt the Telecom's would disagree as I'm sure they still want to milk every last dollar out of them.
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Is someone attempting to save your life?
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what everyone should do
then sue when they try and give you all overage fees ....
imaigne 10000000 people using 200gb then turning off the net
with my 15 megabit speed thats give or take 100GB a day so 2 days worth of internet
things to pirate, movies, tv and single player cracked games
haha
2 days at 15 megabit , at 30 megabit its a single day ....
now imagine 100 megabit 4 hrs worth think of the power savings alone.....
think of how les syou get spied on
think how much les syou get tracked
they are doing you all a favor
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Data limits
If overage or excess on a plan was paid for as a pro-rata to the basic allowance within their plan then they might have a better case for saying "nobody wants unlimited data, they can pay for what they use"
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How it should work
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/s
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Re: Re: Profit
They're already making money. Now they're just trying to screw over the customer.
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Customer confusion
But how much data does Netflix use over a cell signal and if it knows the user is on a cell phone? Even if a person watched Netflix every day while on the bus or train, that might only be 5-10 hours a week. How much data is that, really?
This is why people have a "gut feeling" that they need the unlimited plan to avoid any overage charges.
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Verizon throttleing or safety mode
Verizon is bs they should allow u to use the data from your next billing cycle if u choose to do so instead of makeing the net completely unusable i meen if they can roll over your data they can and should allow it both ways you know hell im no techspert but the cell phone works just like citizen band radio and that shit is free so do not give me the bs about user experience bla
Bla bla hell i got a notice in the mail the other day saying they put a fiber optic cable in on my property without getting my permission and they were informing me that i was owed some money for them doing this can u believe that shit just dig up my yard put thier shit in and then tell me almost a year later i should have just dug the fucker up with my rototiller and sent them this big ball of fiber optic spagetti and said ah i found this when i was planting a garden i hope its not yours or important ha ha ha chalk one up for the users
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