Verizon to drop Unlimited Data on 7/29, tiered pricing to follow?

[JCo352]

People can complain all they want. However, it is the future. You will have a few choices in the future.
1. Leave Verizon, but chances are the same or similar tier will be at a new provider. Maybe some of those smaller providers will not follow suit, but then you will not have the same coverage in most areas in the USA.
2. Stay and pay the price.
3. Drop your usage. Spend less time on the phone and more time getting outdoors.dancedroid
3. Throw the phone in the drawer and go back to the days when land lines were the only means of communication.

Verizon as well as the other companies are in business to make a profit. Their costs for equipment, land leases, employees, benefits, etc., go up every year. They are then forced to raise their rates to pay these higher costs and to still make a darn good profit for their share holders. Failure to do so results in cuts in service and then eventually out of business sales.

I would imagine they are paying a high price to go LTE, who do you think is going to pay for this? We are and if we want good service, faster speeds, new ideas, then we have to pay.

And by the way, to those who are name calling, I have to ask, would you do that in person, or only via the internet? Just a rhetorical question since I know the answer and I will not be visiting this thread anymore. When the name calling starts, I figure the thread has degenerated into a kindergarten atmosphere, something I can do without.

Now, how do I turn off that Instant Notification request....:icon_evil:

I don't agree with tiered data packages, but what you say does make sense. And as far as the name calling, I am more apt to do it in person, than over the internet, internet gangsters annoy me.

 

[JCo352]

Is Verizon charging for this Kool-aid? And if so how much are they charging?

What I'm hearing is a whole lot of whining from people who have been taking advantage of the system tethering and the like.

10+ gigs a month? That's ridiculous. If I were to replace my home broadband with this, I'd fully expect to pay more than $30 a month and would not consider it the least bit unfair.

Well, I don't use 10gb a month and I am "whining". I barely use 1.5gb a month, but I still like knowing it's unlimited, so I don't ever have to worry about going over if I happen to use a lot more data one month. I'm really not to worried about it since I will probably be grandfathered in, but if that is not the case, I think they should at least offer 5gb for $30 a month.

 

[rlarson_mn]

Well, just to offer a new spin on all this....

I currently pay $50 a month for home broadband, speeds of @16mb/s down (which is more than sufficient for a single user for pretty much everything).

Now,don't know if it has to do with CPU and graphics processors, but browsing is obviously much faster on my PC.

However, if LTE comes out and I can tether to get speeds of 6-8mb/s, should I complain about dropping my home broadband and paying another $15 to tether? I'd save $30 a month.

Good point, I am in almost the same exact condition you are in. It would be a savings for me also of the amount you mentioned. $360 a year savings would give me a new Droid X!

 

[baaldemon]

What does "oversold" their infrastructure mean? Would you prefer they auction capacity? The fact is, everyone DOESN'T use the bandwidth at the same time and it's only logical that if people are using 4X the amount of other people, more of those types of users are going to create problems for others. So either they pay for it, or are discouraged from doing so by higher prices.

It has NOTHING to do with koolaid. People are always well served to pick-up an economics text book. Let's say they have 100 blocks of availability. Based on ordinary use, let's say they can actually sell 400 blocks with no service problems. Now, do the math if you sell to people who use 4 blocks vs. 1 block.

You still don't seem to understand how it works. So let's take your 4to1 scenario. Because I use more data doesn't mean I actually use up more "blocks" my connection is there and always simply uses 1 block. Now if all 400 people the sold to are on and getting email at the exact same time, no matter how much data I use makes no difference to their bandwidth issue at that point in time, they still cannot handle the load. Now let's say its 3am and very few users are using data, but I'm streaming a movie, that has no impact on the bandwidth issues that happened at an earlier point in time. Total amount of data usage has no relation to point in time bottle necks because of oversold infrastructures. Which is why active connection throtling makes more sense, because it helps the point in time throughput issues that are what actually causes the bandwidth issues. Limiting to a specific amount does not do anything for those issues, which is why they claim they need restrictions.

Go ahead and base traffic throttling on data use if you want to, I'm fine with that. But a hard limit has no true effect on the real bandwidth issues.

Its not the users fault that while the wireless and isp companies have been raking in profits ,and taking government subsidies, that they have failed to expand their infrastructure to handle their new customers.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

 

[clucernoni]

What does "oversold" their infrastructure mean? Would you prefer they auction capacity? The fact is, everyone DOESN'T use the bandwidth at the same time and it's only logical that if people are using 4X the amount of other people, more of those types of users are going to create problems for others. So either they pay for it, or are discouraged from doing so by higher prices.

It has NOTHING to do with koolaid. People are always well served to pick-up an economics text book. Let's say they have 100 blocks of availability. Based on ordinary use, let's say they can actually sell 400 blocks with no service problems. Now, do the math if you sell to people who use 4 blocks vs. 1 block.

You still don't seem to understand how it works. So let's take your 4to1 scenario. Because I use more data doesn't mean I actually use up more "blocks" my connection is there and always simply uses 1 block. Now if all 400 people the sold to are on and getting email at the exact same time, no matter how much data I use makes no difference to their bandwidth issue at that point in time, they still cannot handle the load. Now let's say its 3am and very few users are using data, but I'm streaming a movie, that has no impact on the bandwidth issues that happened at an earlier point in time. Total amount of data usage has no relation to point in time bottle necks because of oversold infrastructures. Which is why active connection throtling makes more sense, because it helps the point in time throughput issues that are what actually causes the bandwidth issues. Limiting to a specific amount does not do anything for those issues, which is why they claim they need restrictions.

Go ahead and base traffic throttling on data use if you want to, I'm fine with that. But a hard limit has no true effect on the real bandwidth issues.

Its not the users fault that while the wireless and isp companies have been raking in profits ,and taking government subsidies, that they have failed to expand their infrastructure to handle their new customers.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

This guy has it right...it makes no sense, but they have to base it off of something. I would much rather have them throttle my speed during peak hours than restrict how much i can use.

 

[kodiak799]

You still don't seem to understand how it works. So let's take your 4to1 scenario. Because I use more data doesn't mean I actually use up more "blocks" my connection is there and always simply uses 1 block.

Good lord. VZW has "400 blocks" available throughout the day before the network slows down. If you use 4 blocks, there are 396 blocks left before the network bogs down at some point in the day. So, YES, you using more data means other people with more normal use would be adversely affected, and for this you should pay a premium.

Let me put it more simply for you. VZW has 100 blocks at any given time. They can sell to 100 users who use the network 24/7 (and no spare capacity), or they can sell to 400 users who use it a few hours a day (and actually have spare capacity at various times in the day). In neither scenario would there be a network slowdown. Now, if you have the first clue about economics you would understand why the 100 heavy users will pay more.

Let's consider another scenario. 400 users or whatever and you are at capacity. Then because of new apps and what not those users all double their usage and all users experience slowdowns at all times of the day. How do you provide better service outside of adding new towers? Either cap usage so it is fair to everyone, OR you raise prices to deter usage and maybe get some people to go to another carrier. In a true free market, you would in fact auction off capacity to the highest bidders and we could assume those moaning the loudest as if unlimited data is some sort of inalienable right would be shutout.

 

[NeoandGeo]

Sorry to have to throw a name. But kodiak is an idiot. 400 goes to 396, and it doesn't come back.

Pathetically stupid logic.

 

[NeoandGeo]

The most logical implementation is to throttle the heavy users, not cap them.

 

[baaldemon]

Let me put it more simply for you. VZW has 100 blocks at any given time. They can sell to 100 users who use the network 24/7 (and no spare capacity), or they can sell to 400 users who use it a few hours a day (and actually have spare capacity at various times in the day). In neither scenario would there be a network slowdown. Now, if you have the first clue about economics you would understand why the 100 heavy users will pay more.

You are still treating bandwidth like a tangible commodity, it is not. Networking infrastructure again is not built based on total amount of data, its setup as total of data transmitted/received per second. So yes there is a theoretical limit as to how much data can go through speedxwhatever time period you want. But that is not where there issues are coming from. Your 4to1 scenario above stills runs into issues if all 400 userds try to use data at the same time. Limiting the total amount of data for those 400 users makes no difference if they all use it at the same time.

The problem is not an economics problem, its a networking problem. I understand that overselling their network makes economic sense, but data limits don't stop the actual network infrastructure issues, because the issue is not that they are hitting the total limit of how much data can go through their infrastructure over a period of time, its that they are hitting point in time limitations because it can't hold up to the total number of clients at a specific point in time.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

 

[kodiak799]

Sorry to have to throw a name. But kodiak is an idiot. 400 goes to 396, and it doesn't come back.

Pathetically stupid logic.

LOL...Wow, you guys don't understand the first thing about capacity planning and utilization. Before you call me an idiot, perhaps you can explain why the concept of frequency*rate*time is key to this debate and why that would be relevant between heavy and light users.

Not sure how I can make this any simpler, but we'll take another stab at it.

VZW isn't selling you a "block" to use whenever. They are selling 10 people a block which, based on normal expected use, the "block" should be utilized 100% at peak times. If people subsequently double their usage (or people use way more than normal), you end-up with an overloaded network. If you are on 24/7, then you and those other 9 people always see a slowdown because the block is always already taken up by you. To provide good service, VZW really needs to sell that block just to you. Again, do the math, it's relatively simple.

It should be common sense that people only polling for email a few minutes an hour aren't using near the bandwidth or posing the same capacity constraints as someone running flash for the whole hour. What you people are failing to grasp is heavy users are also likely to be taking more bandwidth at peak hours. And it's basic economics that the latter will pay more because more of the former can utilize the same bandwidth.

 

[NeoandGeo]

That is why you throttle heavy users. Capping is only a means to generate outrageous overages, and prevent having to upgrade your network even though you know more and more smartphone users are coming online every hour.

Also I have been watching slingplayer mobile nonstop the past 3 days in commemoration of this thread, and rumor.

 

[Larry Mahnken]

I hope they put the cap at 5 GB, not 2 GB. I listen to MLB games on At Bat, and that's about 2.5 GB a month right there.

 

[kodiak799]

You are still treating bandwidth like a tangible commodity, it is not. Networking infrastructure again is not built based on total amount of data, its setup as total of data transmitted/received per second. So yes there is a theoretical limit as to how much data can go through speedxwhatever time period you want.

And that's why heavy users will pay more because they are more likely to be utilizing the network (and receiving more data) more at peak times. i.e., I can sell that block to 100 email users because the expected distribution of usage will be within capacity constraints....ORRRR I can sell that block to 1 person watching a flash movie.

But if those 100 email users increase their usage, start wanting to also browse the web, then the higher than expected frequency, time and data requirements are going to see overloads at times - a person expected to use 10% of the block on average is now using 20% and we have problems because optimal subscribers has dropped from 10 per block to 5. And the immediate solution is to either cap usage, which may or may not be sufficient, or attempt to incentivize people to shift their usage patterns through various pricing plans (i.e. unlimited data after 9PM).

 

[clucernoni]

Sorry to have to throw a name. But kodiak is an idiot. 400 goes to 396, and it doesn't come back.

Pathetically stupid logic.

LOL...Wow, you guys don't understand the first thing about capacity planning and utilization. Before you call me an idiot, perhaps you can explain why the concept of frequency*rate*time is key to this debate and why that would be relevant between heavy and light users.

Not sure how I can make this any simpler, but we'll take another stab at it.

VZW isn't selling you a "block" to use whenever. They are selling 10 people a block which, based on normal expected use, the "block" should be utilized 100% at peak times. If people subsequently double their usage (or people use way more than normal), you end-up with an overloaded network. If you are on 24/7, then you and those other 9 people always see a slowdown because the block is always already taken up by you. To provide good service, VZW really needs to sell that block just to you. Again, do the math, it's relatively simple.

It should be common sense that people only polling for email a few minutes an hour aren't using near the bandwidth or posing the same capacity constraints as someone running flash for the whole hour. What you people are failing to grasp is heavy users are also likely to be taking more bandwidth at peak hours. And it's basic economics that the latter will pay more because more of the former can utilize the same bandwidth.

But also think about it this way..Let's say Verizon limits us to only 50 MBs per month...so they cut usage BIG TIME. But what if we all log on tomorrow at noon and use 1MB of that data at the same time. The data rate will still be very, very slow. So in that case, capping data usage didn't solve the problem at all. The fact is that while capping data will make people use the network less often, it won't necessarily make it any faster or the experience any better for anyone...Especially if people still use their allotted amount of data during the same time as they do now, but cut out the extra uses during "off-peak" hours.

Some people will be more careful with how they use their data, which is what Verizon wants, but others will simply suffer because the times that they use their data, the network isn't congested anyway.

Could we perhaps see something similar to the "Day Time" minutes and "After 7pm" minutes? Basically, Verizon needs to lessen the load during "peak" hours, so why not just cap data during those times only? I stream movies to my Droid at 2am sometimes...network load isn't a problem at that time at all, but it would still count against my data cap.

 

[clucernoni]

(i.e. unlimited data after 9PM).

Yes I think this is the true solution to the problem. That way, people will shift their usage and maybe won't download that large file at 3pm in the afternoon if they can wait til after 9pm to do it. It makes sense to me. Just cap the peak hours.