Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Verizon Clarifies Discontinuation of Grandfathered Unlimited Data: Applies to New Subsidized Devices

Like it or not Data is a commodity. As long as the necessity grows and people become more dependent on it, someone's going to make as much money off it. I have no problems with companies forcing those who use 5+gb to pay for their usage.
 
doctorossi said:
I don't understand the contention that buying at the unsubsidized rate is a workable solution here. If you buy the phone unsubsidized, you still have to pay the same plan rates that pay the carrier back (and then some) for the subsidy, so... a ~$500 premium just to keep your unlimited plan? How does that constitute the best deal for even the top data users?

Is there something wrong with my math?
Click to expand...

Depends on what sort of math you are doing, really. At $10/GB, if you are going over 2GB a month (on a limited plan) you make up the cost of your subsidy (ok, $20 shy) in the life of your contract. So, it all depends on just how much data you are actually consuming. For the vast majority of users, I suspect paying outright for your phone won't constitute a savings of money.
 
realmike15 said:
As soon as AT&T does this... hello Sprint!
Click to expand...

Lol, i love people that compare sprint and At&t or the evil V empire. Sprint is so slow, you cant even reach 3GB in 30 days.

The truth is that these companies offered unlimited plans when throughput was 10% of what it is now on AT&T. The business case for the offering changes when the potential bandwidth goes from 3GB to 40 or 50GB. Its not just data but usage. Customers getting AT&T LTE speeds that are comparable to wi-fi will start using it as a primary connection. This bogs down the network and there has to be a way to control it. There needs to be a price to compensate for the usage.

Regardless of the comments I will receive about bandwidth being free, the truth is that It is not free. These companies can't build the networks fast enough. If it where easy and profitable, Apple would be working on their own network.
 
Smartphone users had it made until everyone and their grandmother got one and went online. Now ETFs are higher, fixed price unlimited is going away, New Every Two rewards are gone, etc.

Such is progress when things get popular.
 
Docbml said:
when i hear CEOs and companies talk like this all i here is "bla bla bla take your money bla bla and no, we won't upgrade our network enough to handle increased bandwidth"
Click to expand...

The complaints remind me of an entitlement mentality. Let the market set the price. There are enough carriers. No one is entitled to have private companies give them a service for free or break even. Apple is the king of overpriced products, but we want them and are willing to pay. Its good business.
 
Docbml said:
The other important thing to note with carriers like this is that it is not about the bandwidth but simply the money. For example, AT&T will charge you extra if you go over the amount of data that you get in a a month. However, if you are on the more expensive 3GB plan you get an extra 1GB of data for 10 dollars. If you are on the 300MB plan your extra 10 dollars gets you 300mb of data if you go over. You are paying 10 dollars either way, shouldn't the amount of data being given be equal since more AT&T is running out of bandwidth? No because they don't care about bandwidth, just money. These carriers refuse to put enough money into infrastructure and then blame the consumer if we use the network too much. LOL. The best thing i ever heard was from att, they had a graph showing how over the years there have been more smartphones on the market and thus their networks have had an increased work load. to me all they said was "we have more phones now but only did marginal improvements so we can complain later how we can't handle it". It would be like the government saying that we can't buy any more cars because we are out of road space.
Click to expand...

You need to quit pulling info from where your sitting. Do some research on how much these carriers spend on infrastructure. Its not that they don't spend, its that the cant physically do it fast enough.

And you analogy totally does not fit. There is NOT enough spectrum to run multiple networks (LTE, 3G, etc) at he same time and you cant take one down without completing theq other AND transitioning customers.

Enough of the back seat telecom CEOs on this board. They know what they are doing.
 
nikhsub1 said:
How much data are you people using? I have never been over 1.5GB ever in the history of owning phones, I've had every iPhone FYI. I mean, to pay $899 for a phone that you can get for $399 just so you can have unlimited data seems stupid to me, unless of course you are using stupid amounts of it... Are you guys tethering full time to your phones and don't have broadband at home? I mean, I know it's fun to complain about things but seems to me that most are complaining about something that will never affect them in the first place/
Click to expand...

Last month I was at about 12gb.. that is on my unlimited iPad, though.
 
I am done with phone contracts anyway, I was planning on buying my future devices cash. I have my unlimited LTE, with $30. Unlimited hotspot and I am just going to use that as long as pos. I will buy devices cash so as not to loose that.

And I plan on using over 10 gigs a month as I have been, in fact I won't worry till I hit 50 or so. I have unlimited hotspot meant to tether up to 10 devices at a time. What did they think I was going to do with it when they sold it to me? Make tea.
 
Vizin said:
I think the lesson here is that companies should never advertise anything as unlimited. These agreements almost always have some kind of "excessive usage" clause, and it's just not possible for every customer to take full advantage of it when the backend resources are finite.
Click to expand...

That is exactly what The AT&T CEO said last week and folks ripped him for it. AT&T made a mistake in the initial unlimited offering. The did not anticipate the iPhone success and the bandwidth needed. A fully understandable and honest statement from the CEO.
 
MortalDays said:
This depends on whether Verizon letting customers upgrade to Unlimited 4G data plan if the new iPhone were to bought outright.
Click to expand...

That's what we need to know. I'm glad to hear that buying unsubsidized will keep unlimited (helps that my upgrade date isn't till next March, a long time to wait anyway)...but is that only if you're *already* on 4G?

If so, I see only two options:
1) Get the cheapest LTE Android you can find on Craigslist
2) Go the other spectrum and get the best Android available (hopefully the Galaxy III will be out before the deadline) and hope not to lose too much in resale when the next iPhone comes. The main benefit there would be having a better phone in the meantime, since I doubt you can just activate the Android and go right back to the iPhone 4/4S.

Either way it'd definitely be an extra cost. 🙁
 
Everything is Amazing and nobody's happy

I feel like most of these people are just bitching to bitch.. These companies don't owe you a single thing. You talk about unlimited data like its your right and if you can't have it anymore then everyone can go to hell. You guys don't know anything about much time and money goes into building the technology you use and need everyday. Every time I read that a a cell company has changed it plans and people start going crazy, it reminds of this clip from Conan with Louis CK. Watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk
 
nikhsub1 said:
How much data are you people using? I have never been over 1.5GB ever in the history of owning phones, I've had every iPhone FYI. I mean, to pay $899 for a phone that you can get for $399 just so you can have unlimited data seems stupid to me, unless of course you are using stupid amounts of it... Are you guys tethering full time to your phones and don't have broadband at home? I mean, I know it's fun to complain about things but seems to me that most are complaining about something that will never affect them in the first place/
Click to expand...
On 3G? 1-5GB
On 4G? 20-100GB

EDIT: For me it comes down to this:
I'd rather pay for the convenience of not needing to worry about my data usage. I also am looking forward to not having to worry about an ETF if I decide to drop Verizon. I fully plan on going month to month when my contract is up. The one thing that will stop me though is if the iPhone 5 is locked against U.S. GSM carriers like the 4s is. You can unlock the 4s for overseas but not U.S. GSM carriers (without hacking the phone - which to me is a pain in the ass since you lose updates). If I pay full price for an iPhone 5, I better have full use of the damn thing.

----------
natedoggfdfl said:
I feel like most of these people are just bitching to bitch.. These companies don't owe you a single thing. You talk about unlimited data like its your right and if you can't have it anymore then everyone can go to hell. You guys don't know anything about much time and money goes into building the technology you use and need everyday. Every time I read that a a cell company has changed it plans and people start going crazy, it reminds of this clip from Conan with Louis CK. Watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk
Click to expand...

When they have trouble making a good profit, then I'll concede that unlimited data is too much of a burden on them. But that isn't likely to happen anytime soon.
 
natedoggfdfl said:
I feel like most of these people are just bitching to bitch.. These companies don't owe you a single thing. You talk about unlimited data like its your right and if you can't have it anymore then everyone can go to hell. You guys don't know anything about much time and money goes into building the technology you use and need everyday. Every time I read that a a cell company has changed it plans and people start going crazy, it reminds of this clip from Conan with Louis CK. Watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk
Click to expand...

Exactly right!
 
Macboy Pro said:
You need to quit pulling info from where your sitting. Do some research on how much these carriers spend on infrastructure. Its not that they don't spend, its that the cant physically do it fast enough.

And you analogy totally does not fit. There is NOT enough spectrum to run multiple networks (LTE, 3G, etc) at he same time and you cant take one down without completing theq other AND transitioning customers.

Enough of the back seat telecom CEOs on this board. They know what they are doing.
Click to expand...

LMAO right. ATT was riding the iphone exclusivity for over 3 years. Did they "fix" the network? if u remember correctly service was horrid. Att was at first denying it then as soon as it lost exclusivity agreement with apple all of a sudden they started spinning their "network upgrade vision". BS. They could have invested money and built it out but instead they decided to please shareholders and screwed themselves over.

Main reason why we dont have enough spectrum is because we have no standards. Everybody decides to build their own network. WHY? instead of having a building decorated with ATT/Sprint/VZW/TMO equipment why can't they have one standard nationwide and then have 4 buildings with towers instead of one zapping every frequency of the spectrum because our "All knowing" companies couldn't figure this out from the beginning.
 
Ill be updating my device soon for the last time then i guess.

----------
kdarling said:
Haha! Thanks! Loved it!

Every bit of it is true. People ignore that our world today is so amazing, and many things kids feel entitled to didn't exist a very short time ago.
Click to expand...

Kind of like how babyboomers feel entitled to their schmegadildo retirement pensions while kids these days pay skyrocketing tuition just to compete in a uber-competitive market for an entry level position?
 
Docbml said:
when i hear CEOs and companies talk like this all i here is "bla bla bla take your money bla bla and no, we won't upgrade our network enough to handle increased bandwidth"
Click to expand...

Do you really believe that? The far and away largest expense for every cell carrier is continually upgrading their networks....mostly duplicating infrastructure that other cell phone companies are building/have built.

AT&T and VZ both continued to offer unlimited data for the same price with network speeds that have increased tremendously.

----------
Macboy Pro said:
That is exactly what The AT&T CEO said last week and folks ripped him for it. AT&T made a mistake in the initial unlimited offering. The did not anticipate the iPhone success and the bandwidth needed. A fully understandable and honest statement from the CEO.
Click to expand...

And remember, AT&T made that original offer because Apple didn't want limits on the iPhone.

The original iPhone cost a LOT more than the subsidized version that came out later. And with EDGE connectivity used a LOT more data.

Their network improved by leaps and bounds. Data speeds are higher than other cell companies. But everybody expects them to continue to provide $30 unlimited service no matter how fast a network they roll out.

It was NEVER a feasible business plan. But customers have a strong attachment to unlimited data (see the torch and pitchfork reaction to every pricing thread on here), they are afraid to kill the sacred cow.

My favorite is the person who clings to their unlimited data for years, yet never uses more than a 1 gig a month. They will pay that extra money each month and cling to their precious unlimited data like their phone would blow up if they went over a data cap.

Even stranger is people who endure throttling because they don't want to be on a plan where they'd have to pay a whopping $10 if they exceed their cap.
 
That's pretty crappy.

I hope AT&T doesn't follow suit… if they do also allow unsubsidized subscribers to keep their unlimited plans. I haven't signed a contract for a while now, so this latter arrangement would be fine with me.
 
It is meaningless. The less you use your phone, the better your life becomes. People who are successful carry nothing.
 
You would be their wet dream

... If indeed you do that, I think it is idiotic to pay for a phone upfront if you are going to take a monthly plan, at least $20 of your plan goes to subsidize for your phone.

Same goes for jos who keep heir phones beyond 2 years; keep paying for what you already paid for
 
That makes no sense to me. If I have to pay $750 for an iPhone at full retail price, just to stay with Verizon, I'm going to jump ship to Sprint. My bottom line is with the price of the plan and phone. I'm sure it's just a regional issue but, I didn't have any issues with speed or connectivity when I had my HTC Evo 4G on Sprint's network here in Los Angeles.

The executives at Verizon have every right to change how they do business, but seeing how I'm the CEO Jose's Family Inc., I have the right to change who I send my business to. As soon as they formally annouce this change, I will formally annouce I'm changing my home phone, internet, Fios and wireless account to a company other than Verizon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back