Verizon's LTE Growing With Few Speed Bumps; Verizon Still Moving Toward Tierd Pricing

[CalvaryMike]

A couple of weeks ago, I receied a letter from AT&T that they are capping my HSI at home!! :icon_evil:

 

[kodiak799]

I just can't see myself consuming a ton of data on a tiny smartphone screen. If I watch netflix, it will be on a tablet or laptop (or bigger). Probably why tablet/laptop/datacard plans have been capped at 5 or 10 gigs from the get-go.

Now, because of that constraint, they were able to offer unlimited data on smartphones. But the reality is tethering provides a work around that natural constraint, so here we are. And the irony is that, for the most part, people who are complaining are the ones who brought us to this point with excessive tethering!

 

[czerdrill]

I welcome a 2-5GB cap as $30 for the 1/4GB I use a month is highway robbery and don't see myself ever using anymore then 2-5 (and haven't even come close to that yet). However, I agree with what people are saying when they're introducing services like Netflix/Hulu which by nature are going to use tons of data only to cap you and charge overages haha. Wifi FTW, I guess....

 

[OneTenderRebel]

2 to 5 gigs would be great but I have heard, again HEARD, that 4g eats data like crazy. Anyone who uses 4g alot care to confirm or dispute that feel free cause I am interested.

To be or not to be........................wait what was the question? This signature has been Tapatalk approved.

 

[elvis_marmaduke]

I just can't see myself consuming a ton of data on a tiny smartphone screen. If I watch netflix, it will be on a tablet or laptop (or bigger). Probably why tablet/laptop/datacard plans have been capped at 5 or 10 gigs from the get-go.

Now, because of that constraint, they were able to offer unlimited data on smartphones. But the reality is tethering provides a work around that natural constraint, so here we are. And the irony is that, for the most part, people who are complaining are the ones who brought us to this point with excessive tethering!

Yeah, but they are putting that stuff on devices now which is essentially not being supported by the networks... kinda stupid imo, we will figure out ways around it to piss them off probably

Sent from my DROID2 using DroidForums

 

[must_i_register]

I fail to see the reason for buying the phattest, fastest phone on the market just so that I can get to my download limit quicker. This is nothing more than a new version of the old minute plans for cell phone airtime.

 

[kodiak799]

I welcome a 2-5GB cap as $30 for the 1/4GB I use a month is highway robbery and don't see myself ever using anymore then 2-5 (and haven't even come close to that yet). However, I agree with what people are saying when they're introducing services like Netflix/Hulu which by nature are going to use tons of data only to cap you and charge overages haha. Wifi FTW, I guess....

I agree, however 5 gigs is still a boatload of data. I believe a 90 minute movie compressed for a smartphone is only 150 megs. Hi-def Pandora will burn about 60 megs an hour.

So......4 gigs would be about an hour of Pandora a day and half a dozen movies a month. It's hard for me to imagine people needing more than 5 gigs. I suppose video calling might run 200megs an hour.

Oddly enough, my biggest usage culprit is downloading all my apps after flashing a new rom (when I'm not on wifi and don't use titanium). Rom + apps could hit 200 megs.

The vast majority of people going over 5gigs a month are tethering and/or downloading mostly illegal torrents. If you're VZW, that <5% of users are people you either want to charge more or you don't care if they leave, because they "cost" you money.

While we're on the subject, I saw a blurb where VZW was going to start selling video monitoring services to businesses over LTE. So what this all really boils down to is not bending over customers but guaranteeing bandwidth be available to sell to these businesses. Again, probably like 98% of users consume less than 5gigs. If you have wifi at home, I don't know how you could possibly use more than 5gigs (unless you're on your phone at work instead of, you know, working... in which case you might soon be spending a lot more time at home).

 

[czerdrill]

I welcome a 2-5GB cap as $30 for the 1/4GB I use a month is highway robbery and don't see myself ever using anymore then 2-5 (and haven't even come close to that yet). However, I agree with what people are saying when they're introducing services like Netflix/Hulu which by nature are going to use tons of data only to cap you and charge overages haha. Wifi FTW, I guess....

I agree, however 5 gigs is still a boatload of data. I believe a 90 minute movie compressed for a smartphone is only 150 megs. Hi-def Pandora will burn about 60 megs an hour.

So......4 gigs would be about an hour of Pandora a day and half a dozen movies a month. It's hard for me to imagine people needing more than 5 gigs. I suppose video calling might run 200megs an hour.

Oddly enough, my biggest usage culprit is downloading all my apps after flashing a new rom (when I'm not on wifi and don't use titanium). Rom + apps could hit 200 megs.

The vast majority of people going over 5gigs a month are tethering and/or downloading mostly illegal torrents. If you're VZW, that <5% of users are people you either want to charge more or you don't care if they leave, because they "cost" you money.

While we're on the subject, I saw a blurb where VZW was going to start selling video monitoring services to businesses over LTE. So what this all really boils down to is not bending over customers but guaranteeing bandwidth be available to sell to these businesses. Again, probably like 98% of users consume less than 5gigs. If you have wifi at home, I don't know how you could possibly use more than 5gigs (unless you're on your phone at work instead of, you know, working... in which case you might soon be spending a lot more time at home).

Yeah you're right. I don't anticipate ever using that much especially since I'm on wifi 99% of the time, but as far as a low tier I think 2 to 5 is more then enough for any user

Securing a brighter nba/nhl future via tapatalk

 

[kodiak799]

Yeah you're right. I don't anticipate ever using that much especially since I'm on wifi 99% of the time, but as far as a low tier I think 2 to 5 is more then enough for any user

I care far more about speeds than caps (but it is a little frightening they've been talking about speed tiers, too). 3G is slow as it is, ok when you top out at the healthy average of 1.2mbps, but get in a sketchy signal area and you get 1/4 that speed and it's unbearable.

And you're right about wifi. If they had a 500meg-1gig tier for $15-$20 a month I'd have to strongly consider switching.

 

[elvis_marmaduke]

http://www.att.com/standalone/data-calculator/index.html

Data gets used up quicker than I think some people realize

Sent from my DROID2 using DroidForums

 

[Amagine]

From my perspective, I'm a fiber engineer for a long haul fiber telecom company, I can kind of see where they are coming from. Though I'm not for the method they wish to do it.

"it's just a pipe"

I keep hearing the phrase and whether you believe it or not, once you get to the tower everybody using that tower is on a share bandwidth medium. IF you want to use the term of pipes, then what each of our phones is doing is putting water in those pipes. There's only so much water, light, electrons...etc you can shove down a pipe at once. So I can see why they are trying to get usage on the consumer end as static as they can.

Bigger pipes

Now one of the things the carriers are doing is switching many of their towers from a copper backhaul (T1-DS3) to Fiber Optics. Traditionally, the towers back to the central office, or tower to tower is done by trunks and trunks of copper DS3 connections. Then fiber between the CO's. Now with the advant of LTE, many of them, namely Verizon and Sprint are going Fiber to the tower. And to do that, even if FOP tech is relatively cheaper than it used to be, isn't with out its investment costs. I have no doubt Verizon is spending several hundred million to a few billion right now in infrastructure.

There is no curve

You may say that this should put them ahead for a little bit, right? I doubt it. The data "curve" isn't a curve, its a freaking brick wall and will remain so for quite sometime until nationwide broadband is truly perfected. Do I think we will ever go back to an "unlimited" system again? Sure, but it will be a while and it will be hard for them to be convinced to do so. With LTE the technology is certainly there to provide an incredible experience on these phones. But it also leads to the issue of, what if the lowest common denominator (think walmart trac phones) is a droid or iOS device with a data plan? What then?

Personally, I'm ok for them having a cap, but make it where I'm disabled after that hard cap. Or you can slow me down. Or you can do like cable does and throttle the hell out of everybody at CO. This way even us guys with the no throttle hack is still managed. And I don't mean this in a way that impedes net neutrality, just kinda like a dam during a flood.

At this stage of the game, I use Wifi when ever possible, I only use slacker for a couple hours a day, and why the hell would I want to use my phone to DL a movie? Really? a XooM I can see. But I don't use the tester tablet at work on 3G that much either. I consider myself an average to above average user of my phone and didn't ever crack the 1.5 GB this last couple months.

Just be smart about this people. Yes it sucks. It's kind of like when we did a national 55 mph zone. But most of you all that remember that era managed through it right? We can do the same here.

 

[MoeDaddy]

I'm sorry but with 4G no way is 5GB enough, apps are downloading/uploading more data all the time. With the new apps that we will have, the live content, the movies, videos, music, widgets, etc... there is no way they can go below 5gb. With 4g people will be watching the highlights of the big game moments after it happens, news apps will show video broadcasts instead of text stories, the cloud trend will demand syncing and streaming and all this will chew data up like mad. 5gb will be a drop in the bucket. For 3g sure 5gb is huge but 4g no. I understand tiered data and why but they have to go at least 5 as the min and that will be pushing it in a couple of years...

 

[TheOldFart]

AT&T Data Calculator

Data gets used up quicker than I think some people realize

Sent from my DROID2 using DroidForums

I ran mine. It was 0.55 GB and that was my estimation of the high end. I have never actually used more than 500MB in any month since I got my Droid November of 2009. Normally I only use 200MB. I'm guessing there are a lot of people like me. My wife uses less than 200MB in a high month, so we will welcome tiered pricing if we can get what we use for $15 or $20 a month. It will also make our web browsing faster because it will control the high users who tether and slow down the network.

 

[jroc]

I just used that calculator.

My upcoming usage will be pushing 2GB, thats with streaming music and no streaming video. I think ppl that stream music AND video will be hit hard by no unlimited plans. (the Tune In Radio app finally works like its supposed to, so my music streaming usage is about to jump.)

I checked my actual usage and starting with the Droid 1 I hit 1.8GB , 970MB and 570MB before getting the Droid X. That was using chrome to phone alot and downloading ROM's and apps alot at work, used to look at Youtube going to and from work, used to browse the forums alot on my phone.

Since going to the Droid X my usage dropped to the 100MB-500MB range. That was also the time I got tired of doing the ROM thing with the Droid 1 and when my X became my main phone. I also got alot more busy at work. I also dont use the web alot anymore.

Also, where I moved to recently doesnt have good reception so I have to use Wifi at home. Didnt have to do that before. That dropped my data usage alot too.

 

[scion676]

Nicola Palmer, Verizon Wireless VP of Network Operations recently indicated that Verizon's implementation of their LTE network is going with fewer speed bumps than expected. Here's her exact quote,

"Frankly I expected some speed bumps. The surprise here to me is the speed bumps were very few and far between and they didn’t do any damage to the undercarriage."

Sadly, we get one good quote form one Verizon exec, and another "not-so-cool" quote from a different exec. Nicola Palmer is yet another senior official at Verizon who said that unlimited data will not last forever, and that Verizon will move to tiered pricing. Here's his quote,

"Unlimited billing on data is simply unsustainable for the industry."

Although we already reported in the past that Verizon would eventually eliminate their unlimited data plans and move to tiered plans, it's not great hearing it reinforced again. I suppose this is a "good news, bad news" story.

Source: PhoneArena

this is amusing timing considering today's events with the nationwide outage...