Those of you who say you are saving money with these new plans (especially those of you who are saying that you'll be saving a *LOT* with these new plans), please post here with the specific plans/options you have now, how much data and voice minutes you currently use, and what the new plan specifics are that you're planning on selecting.
Let me say that I respect a company's decision to set prices as they see fit. I don't want government stepping in and forcing companies to do anything (see: net neutrality). The problem we have today is that there's already too *much* government intervention. That's the reason why we have such few options. If we had a true free market, there would be several other companies setting up cell towers, launching satellites, or coming up with other new ideas, to create new options for people. Instead, we've got the big two (AT&T and Verizon) benefitting from their government-approved monopolies. Getting off my sandbox...
As others have said, these new plans seem to be all about AT&T and Verizon, once again, giving a nudge to people on unlimited plans. One thing I've posted about previously, which I think would be a far better idea, since it could alleviate both the carrier's and the consumer's concerns, but I don't know if it's technically possible, is for the carrier's to abandon the GB-based tiered plans, and instead of unlimited plans where the tiers are speed-based. So they'd have maybe three tiers: Slow, Medium, and Fast (maybe even a 4th super-fast tier). One of the problems with the GB-based tiers is that I don't *know* how much data I'm going to need next month, and I'm worried about overage charges. And, AFAIK, I can't control my daughter's phone so as to allot her only XX GB. Plus, I wouldn't *want* to limit her phone in that manner, anyway. I wouldn't want her to use YouTube constantly during the month, then on day 15 she hits her limit and is "cut off" from data, when I'd still want her to be capable of texting or sending emails, so as to let me know that a crazed gunman has entered her government school on day 20. It makes far more sense to just say, hey...everyone's got unlimited data. But I can pay more for maybe a family high-speed plan, or maybe even selectively decide that *my* phone will get the highest-speed option, but my wife's will get a much slower speed option.
Getting back to my original comments...if you think these new plans save you money, please reply with *specifics*. From what I can gather, the people who think these plans will save them money are people who currently buy unlimited texting and lots of minutes, *think* they don't use/need much GB, and who are interested in tethering. The funny thing is that those last two points are in direct opposition to one another. Even if you're using very little data *now*, if you think you're going to start tethering your laptop to your phone on a regular basis, and 1GB of data a month is going to cut it, I suspect you're in for a rude awakening when you get that first bill with an overage charge.
