Verizon to Begin Spot Throttling of High-Usage Customers on Unlimited LTE Plans

benh911f · Jul 25, 2014

Munkypoo7 said:
They technically are unlimited, the speed however is not, and that's how they get away with it

But it's all part of one plan. The speed is part of the plan. Limiting the speed is limiting the plan.

At least in my opinion.

un·lim·it·ed
ˌənˈlimitid/
adjective
not limited or restricted in terms of number, quantity, or extent.

Since the speed is being restricted, I don't consider that unlimited.

marshallbedsaul · Jul 25, 2014

benh911f said:
But it's all part of one plan. The speed is part of the plan. Limiting the speed is limiting the plan. At least in my opinion.

un·lim·it·ed

nlimitid/

adjective

not limited or restricted in terms of number, quantity, or extent.

Since the speed is being restricted, I don't consider that unlimited.

Bingo

falkedup · Jul 25, 2014

T-mobile is looking good right about now.

M5RahuL · Jul 25, 2014

Dropped Verizon when they redefined ' unlimited data ' to a 5GB Soft Cap

... I never used more than 3... maybe ~4 GB, but the whole principle of it bothered me enough to throw in the towel after almost 10 yrs with them!

TMobile has been great, in terms of coverage, policies, and customer service.

Koodauw · Jul 25, 2014

I went over the 5GB limit once with ATT. They throttled me, and essentially made any app the uses data useless.

Verizon's plan is slightly better since it would one be effect in high traffic situations, but I still think unlimited data should mean without restrictions.

tliede20 · Jul 25, 2014

auero said:
We can thank those who consume buckets of data (~20GB+) each month for ruininig it for the rest of us. I see people brag about abusing the network by downloading torrents and other crap via their phones.

I'm pretty sure their fine print states that they can do whatever they want. AT&T has been doing this for quite some time now. They're sporadic with spending me warnings.

True people like that; but regardless of that people will still bitch. I don't think I'm using enough for me to get throttled but we will see if they stay true to their percent being throttled.

Tilpots · Jul 25, 2014

Prof. said:
I support this. If you want more you should be forced to pay more.

johnnnw said:
Good

Verizon only continues to allow customers to keep their unlimited data if they either don't upgrade or upgrade with no discount. They are changing the terms that have honored for years without giving proper advanced notice. Can you imagine following their own set rules to keep unlimited data, spending $700 on a new device, and then being told they won't honor their own deal by throttling?

If you guys changed the terms of your agreement with Verizon, more power to ya. But for those of us who didn't, we're upset and have a right to be.

My question on this is how can we verify if we are on a congested tower and more specifically, what constitutes a congested tower?

aajeevlin · Jul 25, 2014

uwdude said:
It's just like if you go to an All-You-Can-Eat buffet at a restaurant. Most people take 2 or 3 plates worth of food, and they're full. But once in a while you get someone who weighs more than 500 pounds come in, and try to eat every ounce of food in the whole restaurant, and restaurants do have the discretion on these deals to cut it off after a certain amount. That's all Verizon is saying. I think it really should be more like top 1%, since those are the real offenders, but whatever.

No, then call it "All you can eat, until we decided cut you off buffet". You want to do business, then make it a honest business. You can't put up an ad for all you can eat, and cut people off when you realized that the particular customer is that 1%. Now I agree, that you should not waste food, I have seen restaurant with sign that says "don't waste food, we will make it eat it all". That's fine by me, but you should not be able to limit how much people can eat.

Plus, most buffet restaurant already make money off of the 99% of people that only eat 2-3 plates (or less). So in a way it's similar to taking a gamble, they bet that the average customer will only eat 2-3 plates, so they already charge more for those two plates. But sometimes you lose and get an eater, then you should just stuck it up and let them eat.

It's not the customer's fault that cellular companies like ATT and Verizon did not foreseen (or underestimate) the demand for 3G/4G usage many years ago. With that notion they use unlimited data to get more customer thinking that it would be a great business model. Then when the whole thing blow up in their face they want to turn around the punish the customer? If anything they should fire the group of analyst that did the projection for the usage of the 3G/4G technology.

However you want to put it, it's bad business. If you advertise something you better make sure you can deliver. Nothing against you, but I just think business should be honest and live up to their agreement.

alectheking · Jul 25, 2014

dannyyankou said:
T-Mobile's $70/month unlimited plan sounds very attractive right now.

It's now $80/month. Still pretty fair I guess. Their coverage isn't that good where I'm at though, which sucks. Still holding onto my Unlimited Verizon plan for now.

Ambush083 · Jul 25, 2014

Other countries don't seem to have this problem. We are always behind. I'm thinking that instead of throttling bandwidth like the greedy companies in the US, overseas they just build more towers to support the load.

CEmajr · Jul 25, 2014

Left them for Tmobile and not looking back.

dannyyankou · Jul 25, 2014

alectheking said:
It's now $80/month. Still pretty fair I guess. Their coverage isn't that good where I'm at though, which sucks. Still holding onto my Unlimited Verizon plan for now.

Eh, it's only $10 more than my 2gb Verizon plan and the coverage is pretty good in my area. I might do one of those test drive things.

uwdude · Jul 25, 2014

aajeevlin said:
No, then call it "All you can eat, until we decided cut you off buffet". You want to do business, then make it a honest business. You can't put up an ad for all you can eat, and cut people off when you realized that the particular customer is that 1%. Now I agree, that you should not waste food, I have seen restaurant with sign that says "don't waste food, we will make it eat it all". That's fine by me, but you should not be able to limit how much people can eat.

Plus, most buffet restaurant already make money off of the 99% of people that only eat 2-3 plates (or less). So in a way it's similar to taking a gamble, they bet that the average customer will only eat 2-3 plates, so they already charge more for those two plates. But sometimes you lose and get an eater, then you should just stuck it up and let them eat.

It's not the customer's fault that cellular companies like ATT and Verizon did not foreseen (or underestimate) the demand for 3G/4G usage many years ago. With that notion they use unlimited data to get more customer thinking that it would be a great business model. Then when the whole thing blow up in their face they want to turn around the punish the customer? If anything they should fire the group of analyst that did the projection for the usage of the 3G/4G technology.

However you want to put it, it's bad business. If you advertise something you better make sure you can deliver. Nothing against you, but I just think business should be honest and live up to their agreement.

Well it's not that you get an eater, like somebody who eats 5 plates instead of 2. We're talking somebody who comes in and eats hundreds of dollars worth of food in one sitting, for the $10 buffet (in one case I witnessed this in person, where two people who obviously weighed in excess of 500 pounds each came into a Bob Evans where we were eating, and kept ordering more and more food, with the plates stacked feet into the air on a $6 chicken deal, it was hundreds of dollars worth of chicken they ate, probably negating all the profit for that day for the restaurant- really, the plates were stacked above their heads- the restaurant was trying to shame them into stopping).

So to compare, it's the same here, we've got a few percent of people who instead of using <5 gb per phone like most people, are using 50gb+, or like that one poster posted, 400gb+.

brendu · Jul 25, 2014

Prof. said:
I support this. If you want more you should be forced to pay more.

How do you pay for more than unlimited?

MacrumoursUser · Jul 25, 2014

uwdude said:
Well it's not that you get an eater, like somebody who eats 5 plates instead of 2. We're talking somebody who comes in and eats hundreds of dollars worth of food in one sitting, for the $10 buffet (in one case I witnessed this in person, where two people who obviously weighed in excess of 500 pounds each came into a Bob Evans where we were eating, and kept ordering more and more food, with the plates stacked feet into the air on a $6 chicken deal, it was hundreds of dollars worth of chicken they ate, probably negating all the profit for that day for the restaurant- really, the plates were stacked above their heads- the restaurant was trying to shame them into stopping).

So to compare, it's the same here, we've got a few percent of people who instead of using <5 gb per phone like most people, are using 50gb+, or like that one poster posted, 400gb+.

Chickens eaten and gigabytes downloaded in this case is apples and oranges. If you think that 5 GB per month is so much that your speed can be adjusted to a point where you can say that you can't use any app because simply your connection is so slow nothing works then what can I say ...

I should be able to download at least 1 GB a day and only after ~ 30 GB they could start limiting the speed, but limiting to a point where I can open Zite and not wait 2 minutes until it generates my news list.

danielsutton · Jul 25, 2014

And this is precisely why Apple needs to become a service provider in its own right. Apple is hamstrung by services that are getting more restrictive by the day. And in a world where the "Internet of things" is becoming part of our nation's critical infrastructure, it is more than an inconvenience that Apple has a say over the hardware and software side of technology, but not the service side. When Verizon makes it more difficult for mobile users to go online and conduct their daily deeds, it is Apple's reputation suffers. The company needs to stop putting themselves and their customers at the behest of greedy telcos, and they need to offer their own UNLIMITED data service. They can route voice traffic over this data service as well, and then they will be in a better position to continue innovating.

Apple has enough $$$ to buy a carrier and use the license to build out better services. They should buy one of the GSM carriers, since GSM is used by much of the world, and it would help them to provide services in the home territory (the US) as well as global markets. Apple, I hope you are reading MacRumors today! Become a carrier and make us all happy!! :apple:

thehustleman · Jul 25, 2014

Wait, doesn't the FCC say that they can't throttle because of their spectrum they use?

They can't lock phones or throttle them

charlituna · Jul 25, 2014

Amazing Iceman said:
Kind of a dishonest practice.

Not really. If you ever bothered to read the terms of your contract they always gave themselves the right to throttle your speeds. "Unlimited" was always defined as merely the amount of data you received and paid for

My only question is the time table they will use. Once you are in the throttle list do you stay there for life is does it reset every month/week/day

----------

auero said:
We can thank those who consume buckets of data (~20GB+) each month for ruininig it for the rest of us. I see people brag about abusing the network by downloading torrents and other crap via their phones.

Not really since they say that it's only the top five percent. So the 20gb crowd will be the ones being throttled and the more reasonable users will be fine.

GeneralChang · Jul 25, 2014

Im having a hard time disagreeing with this idea. I feel like I should, but I cant come up with a reason why.

Of course, since I use very little cell data, Im beginning to think that if I were only charged for what I use, Id be saving money. So maybe were taking steps in that direction.

charlituna · Jul 25, 2014

danielsutton said:
And this is precisely why Apple needs to become a service provider in its own right.

And precisely why they won't. Same with being a cable company, ISP etc. Then they don't have to deal with crap like folks complaining about terms they agreed to when they signed their contracts.

Prof. · Jul 25, 2014

brendu said:
How do you pay for more than unlimited?

The article said using 4.7GB or more per month (per phone I'd imagine) puts you in the top 5% of users. Therefore they're paying $30/mo for using what should cost them between $70 and $80.

When I went to VZW they said I never ever use more than like... 1.5GB's per month so even switching to a 2GB/mo plan would still be like having unlimited data because I never ever went over 1.5GB. Ever. Essentially 2GB is more than enough for me. So If you use 4.7GBs a month and have never gone over, you should be paying $80/mo for 6GB.

charlituna · Jul 25, 2014

thehustleman said:
Wait, doesn't the FCC say that they can't throttle because of their spectrum they use?

They can't lock phones or throttle them

FCC rules and regulations are listed in title 47 of the federal code

Part 27.16 concerns use of Block C

Section e lists the prohibition on locking. No section addresses speed throttling

69Mustang · Jul 25, 2014

uwdude said:
Well it's not that you get an eater, like somebody who eats 5 plates instead of 2. We're talking somebody who comes in and eats hundreds of dollars worth of food in one sitting, for the $10 buffet (in one case I witnessed this in person, where two people who obviously weighed in excess of 500 pounds each came into a Bob Evans where we were eating, and kept ordering more and more food, with the plates stacked feet into the air on a $6 chicken deal, it was hundreds of dollars worth of chicken they ate, probably negating all the profit for that day for the restaurant- really, the plates were stacked above their heads- the restaurant was trying to shame them into stopping).

So to compare, it's the same here, we've got a few percent of people who instead of using <5 gb per phone like most people, are using 50gb+, or like that one poster posted, 400gb+.

That's not a really good analogy. Using your example, even if someone ate all the days profit it doesn't negate all the profit made on the preceding days nor the profit that will be made on successive days. Same with Verizon because they profit on the 95% that don't use a lot of data. Profit is cumulative and all the customers eating 1-2 plates are almost pure profit, overhead notwithstanding.

Pedantically, unlimited should mean just that; unlimited. We all know companies add various caveats to create their version of unlimited. They would be better off calling it something else. Scratch that, we would be better off if they called it something else. Hell, they could call it Big Cap and limit it to 100GB or whatever. Anything over that you pay extra and or get throttled. Either way you know the limitations and there's no ambiguity regarding what 'unlimited' means.

genovelle · Jul 25, 2014

charlituna said:
And precisely why they won't. Same with being a cable company, ISP etc. Then they don't have to deal with crap like folks complaining about terms they agreed to when they signed their contracts.

The difference is these companies keep changing the terms after you have made a significant financial investment.

skellener · Jul 25, 2014

...or they could add more bandwidth to the towers that are getting hit so that ALL of their subscribers would benefit. They are using public airwaves that have only been licensed to them. They do not own them.

Verizon to Begin Spot Throttling of High-Usage Customers on Unlimited LTE Plans

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