[Updated] Verizon Plans To Eliminate 'Grandfathered' 3G Unlimited Data Plans

[HikenGruven]

Or take a chance on Galaxy Nexus?

If I don't use my upgrade, and choose to switch to a 4G phone in the future and WISH to keep unlimited, will I be able to do this by paying full retail?

I would skip the GNex, due to the reception issues. Sure they're great for some people, but the new radios for me haven't really done anything. If you love to ROM, you'll love it.

I have the same question about paying full retail.

 

[MissionImprobable]

It is set up much the way my tivo subscription is right now. A year and a half ago, I signed a 2 year agreement to keep my service with Tivo going at $19.95/month, but I got a $300 box for $99 (or something like that). Now that my 2 years are almost up I can either stay at $19.95 on a month-to-month or commit to another 1-year with them and it will come down to $15.95/month. They just don't want to give you any benefit unless they are getting something out of you (contract commitment or sale of hardware) and unfortunately they don't see not having to subsidize a device as getting something out of the deal. I'm not saying it's the right way to do business... but it seems to be the standard model right now.

Realistically, if the never raise the rate that I'm paying and allow me to continue renewing my contract so long as I keep my phone or procure one at full price from them or get it by some other means then I would be fine with it, but yes, it seems a bit ridiculous that loyal customers are literally getting offered nothing now except special offers on devices from time to time and those coming with the requirement of signing a completely new contract. It is my hope that as technology improves someone develops a super high-efficiency, low cost means of communication, Google jumps on it and we all start getting Nexus devices and fair-priced service. Ah, to dream.

 

[fishingfooltim]

My biggest issue with this whole taking away my unlimited data, other than I was lied to when I was told that it was good till 2038 or something like that, is that Verizon continues to put apps on our phones to view videos and stream movies and advertise that you can stream movies, music and other data intensive apps yet they want to put everyone on a teired plan full well knowing that if people do that they will be getting some big data fees. If the problem with unlimited plans is that their network is not able to handle the data usage then why do they advertise to people that they can do all of those data intensive things on their phones. All in all just like everyone else has said here I don't think that it is an issue with the network not being able to handle it but more of just another way for Verizon to make more money.

 

[BlacknTan]

The whole idea behind an HTC Rezound being $600 actual price is ridiculous. The entire "subsidized phone" spiel is pure marketing crap.
What did that one site say the cost of iPhone parts was? Like $140? And the retail price is $600?

Those are just the cost of the components.

That's like saying you shouldn't pay $15 for a meal at a restaurant because the ingredients only cost a few bucks.

You have to factor in overhead. Things like research and development, marketing, product testing, and a lot of other costs.

The real cost of that phone is much higher than $140. I'm sure they are making a profit, but trust me, it's not at the margin you are thinking.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

 

[BlacknTan]

My biggest issue with this whole taking away my unlimited data, other than I was lied to when I was told that it was good till 2038 or something like that, is that Verizon continues to put apps on our phones to view videos and stream movies and advertise that you can stream movies, music and other data intensive apps yet they want to put everyone on a teired plan full well knowing that if people do that they will be getting some big data fees. If the problem with unlimited plans is that their network is not able to handle the data usage then why do they advertise to people that they can do all of those data intensive things on their phones. All in all just like everyone else has said here I don't think that it is an issue with the network not being able to handle it but more of just another way for Verizon to make more money.

Verizon isn't any different than any other corporation. Of course they know marketing those things will make them more money. They are in business to make money.

I just don't understand this outrage. Why would you ever expect any corporation to do anything but look out for its own best interests and make money? This isn't personal. They aren't out to screw people. They just care more about their bottom line than they do about you.

Sprint, At&t, Tmobile.... none of them are any better. If you think that you are deluding yourself. Corporations try to maximize their profits by charging as much as they possibly can given market forces and competition. They only care about your wallets.


Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

 

[Trusstopher]

Verizon isn't any different than any other corporation. Of course they know marketing those things will make them more money. They are in business to make money.

I just don't understand this outrage. Why would you ever expect any corporation to do anything but look out for its own best interests and make money? This isn't personal. They aren't out to screw people. They just care more about their bottom line than they do about you.

Sprint, At&t, Tmobile.... none of them are any better. If you think that you are deluding yourself. Corporations try to maximize their profits by charging as much as they possibly can given market forces and competition. They only care about your wallets.


Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

I think it's tough (for me at least) because I have always been proud to be a VZW customer because they have always had great coverage and at least tried to keep up the illusion that the customer comes first with them. Now that they have the largest customer base and they are making a crap-ton of money, the curtain has fallen and we are forced to deal with the fact that our company is no better than any other in the "we care about you" department. Even if we knew the truth that profits are their number 1 priority all along, it stings just a little bit now that it is front, center, and in our faces.

 

[huskur]

Verizon isn't any different than any other corporation. Of course they know marketing those things will make them more money. They are in business to make money.

I just don't understand this outrage. Why would you ever expect any corporation to do anything but look out for its own best interests and make money? This isn't personal. They aren't out to screw people. They just care more about their bottom line than they do about you.

Sprint, At&t, Tmobile.... none of them are any better. If you think that you are deluding yourself. Corporations try to maximize their profits by charging as much as they possibly can given market forces and competition. They only care about your wallets.


Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

The outrage is because the posters here care about their wallets just as Verizon cares about theirs.

 

[sonixmon]

I truly believe that Verizon still cares about there customers. They proved it to me when I had a hardware issue with (5+) moto devices. They stepped up and did the right thing because I was a good customer for so long, though I had to pull a few teeth they did come through in the end!

This is definitely about keeping margins up, as a former business owner I know businesses aim to make a 40% margin or about 35% profit over and above costs (including salaries). The economy I am sure has had some impact on their business as well (lost 10+ phones my business had). This is why the elected officials tell you we will tax those big bad corporations for all those profits, watch out because their prices will go up to cover these taxes! They wont just let their margins drop.

 

[cdm369]

Well, everything goes up. Always has , always will. Just want something to be in it for the consumer as well as vz. If youre going to get rid of unlimited offer some kind of discount and dont throttle us.

Sent from my HTC Rezound

 

[monkey_man]

I truly believe that Verizon still cares about there customers. They proved it to me when I had a hardware issue with (5+) moto devices. They stepped up and did the right thing because I was a good customer for so long, though I had to pull a few teeth they did come through in the end!

This is definitely about keeping margins up, as a former business owner I know businesses aim to make a 40% margin or about 35% profit over and above costs (including salaries). The economy I am sure has had some impact on their business as well (lost 10+ phones my business had). This is why the elected officials tell you we will tax those big bad corporations for all those profits, watch out because their prices will go up to cover these taxes! They wont just let their margins drop.

Hmmm.... I had problems with my Bionic and had to go through 4/5 different phones. I paid new for refurbished phone, yet it wasn't my errors. I don't know about you, but I see Verizon hassle their costumers more than helping customers. Here are few things I noticed the Corporate store did for costumers.

1. They changed return policy from 30 days to 14 days.

2. They now try to force costumers to take their insurance as any small blemish to the phone will not be allowed to return. The guy even gave some scare by saying he will mark it in the computer that costumer refused to take insurance and then gave out red sticker on the phone box.

3. Even when you are under 14 days of trial, costumer must pay re-stocking fee of $35 (i think).

4. There is one lady costumer got the cold shoulder when she asked for help with her broken MiFi.

5. There is one good rep at this store, sadly the person wasn't with the company anymore, and I wonder why. It's been a revolving door!

6. Since many people had to return their phones for problems they never had with their previous phones..... Verizon now charged us $30 fee for "smartphone education" .... Coincidence?

7. Some of the Managers I met before are clueless... there is one new rep there... was very helpful in helping me figure things out... kinda made the manager look bad tho as the smart alec manager just say "I don't thing you can do that." without showing effort and check things out. The new rep was trying to look it up for me and proved the manager wrong! Sadly the rep got some soft scolding by the manager ( those kinda thing when new guy need to get trained. I gave some comforted word to the new rep... and the person just smiled) Sadly... this person also gone when I came back few weeks later.

8. During a BoGo event back then, the Corporate Rep didn't show any effort to look what's going on.. After all this is a sale for them :icon_eek:. He didn't look anything up and just said... No we do not BoGo for Maxx but for Reg Razrs only. I left and made calls to smaller stores... weirdly, they say that they honor BoGo for Maxx.

9. Verizon decided to end the New every Two program.

These are somethings I remembered on top of my head...

 

[tjk629]

Hmmm.... I had problems with my Bionic and had to go through 4/5 different phones. I paid new for refurbished phone, yet it wasn't my errors. I don't know about you, but I see Verizon hassle their costumers more than helping customers. Here are few things I noticed the Corporate store did for costumers.


These are somethings I remembered on top of my head...

A lot of that stuff is done by all four majors. Especially that upgrade fee. In fact I think Verizon was the last out of the four to have it.

 

[monkey_man]

A lot of that stuff is done by all four majors. Especially that upgrade fee. In fact I think Verizon was the last out of the four to have it.

Yeah I know that Verizon have follow suit their competitors... but subject was about pride and how their costumers service used to be a cut above the rest. Now, we have equal playing field of which carriers to choose. ATT might have $36 upgrade fee but their Nokia Lumia cost $99 and their Samsung Galaxy S2 priced at $199. Many Verizon competitors phones selection are way cheaper in addition to their "upgrade fee" .... What's interesting? All Major Carriers have the same price set for Iphone .... Coincidence? Verizon's "top of the line" are set with price at @ $299. I hope they made changes like their competitors about phone pricing. I'm not going to discuss Network Coverage... for now.... need costumers and proper Phone Carrier ofc ... so they can expand more towers instead of expanding wallet.

 

[sonixmon]

Hmmm.... I had problems with my Bionic and had to go through 4/5 different phones. I paid new for refurbished phone, yet it wasn't my errors. I don't know about you, but I see Verizon hassle their costumers more than helping customers. Here are few things I noticed the Corporate store did for costumers.

1. They changed return policy from 30 days to 14 days.

2. They now try to force costumers to take their insurance as any small blemish to the phone will not be allowed to return. The guy even gave some scare by saying he will mark it in the computer that costumer refused to take insurance and then gave out red sticker on the phone box.

3. Even when you are under 14 days of trial, costumer must pay re-stocking fee of $35 (i think).

4. There is one lady costumer got the cold shoulder when she asked for help with her broken MiFi.

5. There is one good rep at this store, sadly the person wasn't with the company anymore, and I wonder why. It's been a revolving door!

6. Since many people had to return their phones for problems they never had with their previous phones..... Verizon now charged us $30 fee for "smartphone education" .... Coincidence?

7. Some of the Managers I met before are clueless... there is one new rep there... was very helpful in helping me figure things out... kinda made the manager look bad tho as the smart alec manager just say "I don't thing you can do that." without showing effort and check things out. The new rep was trying to look it up for me and proved the manager wrong! Sadly the rep got some soft scolding by the manager ( those kinda thing when new guy need to get trained. I gave some comforted word to the new rep... and the person just smiled) Sadly... this person also gone when I came back few weeks later.

8. During a BoGo event back then, the Corporate Rep didn't show any effort to look what's going on.. After all this is a sale for them :icon_eek:. He didn't look anything up and just said... No we do not BoGo for Maxx but for Reg Razrs only. I left and made calls to smaller stores... weirdly, they say that they honor BoGo for Maxx.

9. Verizon decided to end the New every Two program.

These are somethings I remembered on top of my head...

I feel you, I didnt say it was easy. The people in the store didnt help too much, I had to go to corporate and up the ladder some. Once I got to the right person, they looked in the records and they could see that I had some many replacements with the same rebooting issues. I simply said the phone has been unreliable for 15 out of the 18 months that I had it and calmly asked for a comparable replacement or let me out of my contract (4 months left at the time). They stepped up and replaced it, it was almost the same in spec's and it was an acceptible replacement to hold me over until my upgrade. This is what they needed to do to keep my business and it worked.

One of the ups and downs of the Android is there are different manufacturers and different roms (refering to stock) some are better than others. I like the fact that my phone is not exactly like every other Android (like it is with the iPhone). One of the things you end up dealing with is bad apples in the bunch. I am no longer a fan of Moto at all and they could care less that my issue went unresolved for 18 months, past the 12 month mark it is go fly a kite. So I returned the favor and told them to go fly one too!

Verizon has had to absorb a lot of the cost of these problem phones, I have the insurance because I cant afford to replace it at retail and my must have a smart phone for work. Without this insurance I would have been worse off that is for sure.

Anyway sorry to take this off topic, the data plans is what we were talking about right

 

[The Robot Cow]

Can we lock this thread now?
Unlimited data is coming to an end if we upgrade with a renewed contract. End of story.

 

[geoff5093]

Can we lock this thread now?
Unlimited data is coming to an end if we upgrade with a renewed contract. End of story.

I enjoy it, lets us vent a bit and talk about it.