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Verizon Planning on "Turbo" Network Speed Mode with Micro-Transaction Tiered Data
- Thread starter dgstorm
- Start date
Dude, relax. I said I understand we are both paying the same so that data is "equal". But you, me, and the next all would probably agree that the Angry Birds advertisements, and you uploading your scores to some Angry Birds server is not as important as MINE, YOURS, and the NEXT GUYS, corporate email, for example. If someone wants to seem selfless, they would lie and disagree with me. But when push comes to shove we ALL would rather those take a back seat to our email (among other things) that help us with our careers, that put food on the table and gas in our cars. Of course, this flies in the face of Net Neutrality and I don't think I want to open that "pandora's box" that would ensue if we started talking about what is MORE important in terms of what data gets prioritized.
People keep saying that they are afraid that we will start losing the speeds that you signed up for. Really? What speeds did YOU sign up for? What speeds did Verizon guarantee you, in your contract? If they said we "promise" a minimum of 5Mbps then one of two things happens: 1) You don't get that speed, you complain and they are in violation of a contract so you can either take legal action or get out of your contract or something of that like OR 2) Verizon provisions reserved bandwidth for each LTE contract they enter into so that they DON'T violate your TOS and lose customers or deal with lawyers. So are they reallllly promising ANY of us any specific minimum speeds in our contracts? I'd be VERY surprised, but I am not on LTE (yet) so I haven't seen the contract terms for LTE users.
Like I've said already, we all SHOULD expect our avg speeds to decrease over time (up to a certain point) as MORE users enter the LTE world and begin taking their share of data on the network...It's absolutely inevitable and anyone thinking otherwise doesn't understand how "stuff works".
So by your logic and your (easy to use) numbers of 10/100: We shouldn't let anyone else on a cell phone tower after we get 10 users sharing a 100mbit network? That's absurd and not realistic. Every user that hops on the same tower as you is going to cut into your bandwidth because they have to share (equally, i might add, for now). In essence, from what you are saying, I just got "throttled" from 10Mbps to 9Mbps with the addition of an 11th user, and then throttled down to 1Mbps when the 100th user hops on my cell tower. I think we both realize that isn't how it works, but shows that your definition of "throttling" for you scenario isn't accurate.
YES, prioritizing might mean throttling to you but I think everyone is forgetting that real network technology (QoS/Caching/ATM/etc) will be used here to mitigate HUGE swings in performance of our phone networks, not simple partitioning.
I know, and agree, that we all want good speed from our cellular network. I just don't think this is going to impact us at all. Time will tell
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WildcatRudy
Active Member
I use AT&T DSL at home and was looking into a few issues, when I came across this:
Verizon Wireless Says Company Won’t Throttle Speeds, Except When It Does | Stop the Cap!
Interesting...maybe slightly off-topic, but it shows that those of us with "unlimited" plans may run into a problem down the road.
Verizon Wireless Says Company Won’t Throttle Speeds, Except When It Does | Stop the Cap!
Interesting...maybe slightly off-topic, but it shows that those of us with "unlimited" plans may run into a problem down the road.
That is exactly what it means. They created tiered plans, but they sorta had to grandfather in the unlimited plans. So now they are looking for ways to force the unlimited folks into tiered plans, but redefining what a "high bandwidth user" is. So now they are claiming that anyone using more than 2GB a month, which just happens to be their lowest tier that costs what our Unlimited plan costs, and they will start throttling. VZW 3G speeds suck to begin with, but if they start throttling it back to dial-up speed, their hope is not that you will use less than 2GB a month, their hope is that you will abandon your $30 "unlimited" plan and move up to the $50 5GB plan or something.
They are trying to force you to pay more for less than what you are supposed to be getting already on your unlimited plan. This has to be one of the most dirty tricks I have seen from a cell phone company in years.
I would love to hear the opinions of the resident VZW fanbois that rush in to defend VZW and "protect capitalism" at every turn... I believe in letting corporations run themselves as they see fit, but lets call a spade a spade here... This is shady and utter BS and is making Sprint look like a better option every day...
Dirty tricks? I'd say that the TWO PERCENT of VZW customers using more than 2GB a month on the network are one of two type of people: One is people like me that don't care and will pay whatever I want to for quality service because I can and the other being the "I'm entitled to everything I didn't sign up for when I signed my contract years ago and will complain when I don't get it."
I've posted MULTIPLE times that using over 2GB of data puts you in the in the top TWO percent of data users. Users like myself could care less. we'll pay what what we want for that quality of service we want. The self entitled will think "I've been paying this price for 2 whole years and now I want what everyone else has to pay more for free." I've noticed this group blends in with the "Oh subsidized prices are ridiculous," crowd.
Im not a resident fanboi of any institution, but I am a fanboi of common sense and not showing only half the truth. This information from WildcatRudy is not the topic of this post. They do caveat this policy with ONLY on congested cell towers during peak hours and only if you are among the top 5% and only if your activity is causing an inconvenience (slow speeds) for the other 95%. SquiresSCA, did you read the whole article or just skim it? It has nothing to do with going OVER 2Gb. Not one thing in the Terms of Service says anything about 2Gb. That being said, I DO disagree with the practice of forcing you into another plan and OUT of the unlimited plan by throttling you after 2Gb. THAT is crap and should be illegal, SOMEHOW.
It states:
I think the article and the site hosting the article has their own agenda (obviously, everyone does, that's fine) and they made assumptions that anyone over 2GB is affected, I don't think that is the case here.
It states:
By alerting customers in February 2011, and including the notice in our terms and conditions as of February 3, 2011, we made sure customers knew we began reserving the right to implement Network Optimization practices. In February 2011, we began alerting customers:
So you could, in theory use 11Gb that month, and as long as you aren't hitting a congested cell site, be fine right? At least that is my take on it. Still, let me reiterate "I DO disagree with the practice of forcing you into another plan and OUT of the unlimited plan by throttling you after 2Gb. THAT is crap and should be illegal, SOMEHOW".- Data Management – (note: now named “Network Optimization” to more accurately describe the tools) – Verizon Wireless may reduce data throughput speeds in a given bill cycle for customers who use an extraordinary amount of data and fall within the top 5% of data users. The reduction will only apply to those using congested cell sites and can last for the remainder of the current and immediately following billing cycle. The reductions will only apply when appropriate in locations and at times of peak demand.
- Data Optimization – (note: now named “Video Optimization” to more accurately describe its function) – Verizon Wireless is implementing optimization and transcoding technologies in its network to transmit data files in a more efficient manner to allow available network capacity to benefit the greatest number of users, and although unlikely, the process may minimally impact the appearance of the file as displayed on the mobile device.
I think the article and the site hosting the article has their own agenda (obviously, everyone does, that's fine) and they made assumptions that anyone over 2GB is affected, I don't think that is the case here.
How does going over 2GB automatically put one in the top TWO percent? That's a bit disconcerting! If this is the case, then obviously my comment above is not accurate and then i totally see the slimey-ness! ;-)
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liftedplane
Gold Member
You don't seriously believe that if you use over 2GB you are automatically a high data user. do you? If unlimited was so hard on the network tell me why you can still get unlimited data with a Droid x2 on a prepaid plan? Plans - Verizon Wireless that doesn't make sense to me.
I was going to write more but I honestly can't believe you think using over 2 GB puts me in the 2% automatically, I signed up for unlimited data, period, unlimited data on my phone when I want it how I want it, (tethering aside) Therefore I am indeed "entitled" to it. I shouldn't have to pay more just because someone in verizon wants to line their pockets more. Sure charge what you want, the problem is VZW is getting pretty ridiculous with their data and "protecting" theses innocent make believe users, (maybe release stats showing why instead of expecting people to just take you at your word) I've talked with corporate reps and such, they said when VZW made the change from unlimited to tiered there was quite a backlash, and lots of people did leave. I just hope someone else can come into the market and give them a run for their money. Make it more competitive.
I haven't read Verizon's official policy but if this 2GB thing is true, that's crazy. I have no problem with Verizon throttling data or setting up tiers or whatever they're doing...but the assertion that 2GB represents a significant amount of data is UTTERLY RIDICULOUS. 2GB is not that much data, especially when you consider people like me who use from 1.5.0 to 2.5 GB per billing cycle. There's no way they can convince me that people averaging 1.5 to 2.5 GB per billing cycle are putting a "strain" on the network.
liftedplane
Gold Member
that's what I was thinking... I use between 1.5 and 3.0 gigs a month depending on how much I'm traveling, hell I don't even tether anymore because my phone can do just as much as my laptop in most cases (aside from the occasional MMO, but that's what wifi's for and most places have it free now)
Tiered data is fine, 2gb is a little small, 4GB sounds more like it, my brother just got his first smartphone, and... without using netflix, without streaming anything but some pandora, he's already hit over 1gb in 10 days, I had to tell him to slow down because he'll eat through his data in no time. and that's on a 3g phone.
No crazy conspiracy theories here unfortunately. I believe it because it's true.
Average U.S. Smartphone Data Usage Up 89% as Cost per MB Goes Down 46% | Nielsen Wire
liftedplane
Gold Member
however using over 2gb puts you in the top 3% (more lke the top 3.5%) still... that's not per carrier, and most statistics like that are rarely 100% true, I guess I'm just jaded and don't believe everything that's shoveled to me. I'm honestly only worried about vzw usage, not mobile MB usage nationwide
1) Yes, dirty trick when they call a plan "Unlimited" to begin with. And after you sign the contract, they decide to change the terms to make unlimited equal 5GB. Then a few months later they decide to change the definition again and call 2GB unlimited. They are the ones advertising all the things you can do with unlimited plans. Downloading music, streaming video, harnessing the power of blah, blah, blah... And then when you do all those things that they promoted and used to lure you into that device and plan, they turn around and tell you that you are using "too much" and charge you more? It is a classic bait and switch.
2) I signed a contract. They keep changing it after I signed it and what they are doing now is NOT what I signed up for. That said, they should let me out of my contract, as the current one is not what I signed for. I realize that they have to right to just do whatever they want to the contract, but they should be forced to let me opt out when they change it into something that I do not agree with, did not sign for and would never sign for.
3) Users like you "paying whatever they ask" is *why* they are doing this. 2GB isn't much data over the course of a month. It only takes 2 hours of Netflix *PER WEEK* to put you over that limit, not including anything else you might do. 2GB in today's world with phones like these, isn't that much if you use the phone as it was intended, as a multimedia device. Yes, most people just use it as a phone and to check Facebook, but why should I be penalized because I use it the way it was designed, the way it was sold to me and as outlined by the contract THAT I SIGNED? What we are pissed about is them constantly changing the contract AFTER we signed it, in order to charge us more and deliver less than both parties originally agreed to.
How you can defend that is beyond me...