Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Bye bye Unlimited Data
- Thread starter GravityEyes
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Hey OP -
Good for you, if you feel you have a better setup now. Don't worry about the haters. And thanks for giving other people a good idea to at least look into.
I was looking into getting my father an iphone and the new sharing plans are a bit confusing to people who are used to selecting traditional plans.
Good for you, if you feel you have a better setup now. Don't worry about the haters. And thanks for giving other people a good idea to at least look into.
I was looking into getting my father an iphone and the new sharing plans are a bit confusing to people who are used to selecting traditional plans.
It has been iterated several times that - for MY family this makes sense. And really only makes sense on family plans. Single lined plans it's a complete rip off.
See, I never questioned anyone. This time of year this forum becomes like a room full of sexually frustrated teenage boys. If the thread is not in the vein of: "I'm so bored, I want my new phone... I cannot sleep till Friday... let's over analyze tracking data..." people are pouncing on other threads. I digress.
As I've stated. I analyzed our past usage. And 6 gigs is almost twice as much data that we 3 ever used in one month. Obviously we are not heavy data users. Everyone's life styles are different.
Tethering. It's all about usage. If my wife or I will tether it will be to complete a work function that is tedious on our phones and easer to execute on a larger screen. Of course it will use a bit more data. We haves lives. We do things that don't involve our devices... we'll be fine.
I'll report back and be honest of our data usage. I can afford the overages, that doesn't concern me. I wanted the features. Again, I plotted this out, it makes sense.
Last edited:
That makes total sense. The addition of tethering is an overlooked perk to the shared plans.
The whole issue of unlimited data tends to work on the emotion of fear more than logic with a lot of people. It's human nature. People fear they will regret giving something up (or having it taken away.)
You did what makes sense for you and your family.
Thank you. My intent of the post was to help others who may also be grappling with the topic. Oddly it turns into arm wrestling matches about the merits of unlimited data and my personally usage.
I also found the shared plans confusing. The break down on the AT&T site isn't the best presentation. Adding family members to a plan does require some number crunching. There was a time where my brother and I were considering merging our accounts and adding our mother. It would have saved us all a lot of money, but we concluded the micromanagement of the account would become tiresome and could potentially cause conflicts. He ended up adding her simply do to proximity. It did save her a lot of money over the long haul.
Do you happen to know how much it costs if you start to go over you 4gb of allotted data? If anyone knows it would be really helpful...
I too am in a similar situation. I have 2 iPhones, one is unlimited and the other is a 2GB plan. We are adding a third. I've figured it out and have found I will save about $35 a month to switch to the mobile share plan.
Here's the thing. Most likely AT&T will switch everyone off of the unlimited eventually. Maybe not this year or next, but eventually. I have heard after 5GB's you get throttled and there is no way to undo that until the next billing period. At least if I go over 5GB on this one and I go over my allotted data, I can pay the $15 extra for more data without being throttled. I would assume if you are heading for an overage in a month you can go ahead and upgrade your package for another $20 and go with the 10GB as well.
Trust me, I have went over this 100 times and although I haven't pulled the trigger yet, the whole package is not that bad. Unlimited minutes and texts and about 6GB of data. Luckily my wife only uses about 200MB of data a month and me at my max was 2.1GB and that was watching Netflix movies for a whole week on vacation with it.
That being said, if I only had one phone I wouldn't change it obviously. So it is not for everyone. To each his own though, but to me if you go over 5GB and you get throttled, your phone is going to become pretty much useless for anything other than texting and receiving small emails. Am I right?
Here's the thing. Most likely AT&T will switch everyone off of the unlimited eventually. Maybe not this year or next, but eventually. I have heard after 5GB's you get throttled and there is no way to undo that until the next billing period. At least if I go over 5GB on this one and I go over my allotted data, I can pay the $15 extra for more data without being throttled. I would assume if you are heading for an overage in a month you can go ahead and upgrade your package for another $20 and go with the 10GB as well.
Trust me, I have went over this 100 times and although I haven't pulled the trigger yet, the whole package is not that bad. Unlimited minutes and texts and about 6GB of data. Luckily my wife only uses about 200MB of data a month and me at my max was 2.1GB and that was watching Netflix movies for a whole week on vacation with it.
That being said, if I only had one phone I wouldn't change it obviously. So it is not for everyone. To each his own though, but to me if you go over 5GB and you get throttled, your phone is going to become pretty much useless for anything other than texting and receiving small emails. Am I right?
I don't quite get how doubling the speed means doubling the usage, myself but this is put around the internet as if it's gospel. Source?
I dropped it last year when I moved off of my family plan onto a plan just for me. I work from home and the bulk of the other places where I use my phone have wifi, so probably 95% of the time I'm on wifi anyway. This month, I'm 1.8 GB below my 2 GB cap with 4 days left in the billing cycle. Unlimited was a nice perk to have but for me, totally unnecessary.
There's your problem...
There's the problem right there! You are asking people to THINK! Not gonna happen... I mean speaking of illogical... The assumption that "if 4G is twice as fast as 3G you will use twice as much data" is the most illogical statement of all. Makes NO sense.
There's the problem right there! You are asking people to THINK! Not gonna happen... I mean speaking of illogical... The assumption that "if 4G is twice as fast as 3G you will use twice as much data" is the most illogical statement of all. Makes NO sense.
If you are on a tiered or shared plan... it is $15 per gigabyte of data overage. Choose your plan wisely. Sometimes when you go up one GB its only $5 more per month, their system is odd that way.
----------
Its poor logic, that's all. Web pages will be served the same, emails, etc. What will use more data, proportionally is video and audio, as with higher bandwidth most services will deliver higher bit rates.
We don't know that. Old AT&T customers over at howardforums have been on grandfathered plans for 10 years, including old dumbphone data plans.
I'm keeping the unlimited.
Thanks, you nailed it. It is fear based, and admittedly it was that fear that kept me from switching years ago when there was no perk... I just thought I might save a buck. But no, I kept it plan always saying "but if I go over...."
Responsible people will think. For a few months I will monitor our data daily. Last night we already had a 'sit down' and talked about being responsible. But I reiterated to continue using your phones and devices as you need them. Both my wife and son have in the past turned off wifi as they thought it would save battery life, of course their data use soared.
Agree, the twice as much data claim is a head scratcher.
----------
By saying "major fail" I can assume you are not old enough to manage a family budget. Let alone think something like this through.
Anyhow, even with voice over LTE, it won't be coming to the US for a long time. And when it does, EVERYONE will hit overages, the carriers will adjust. Its simple. Unlimited data users are the minority.
OP, I'm with you... I've been saying this over and over. Since October 2010 my wife and I use an average of .6GB per month COMBINED. I'm on wifi at home but not at work and she is too.
We stream Pandora one all the time in the car (2+ hour trips) and still have only maxed out at 1.5GB combined.
I think any time you tell someone that they're going to lose something that they had or are going to have to pay the same price for a reduced amount of the same thing, people are going to freak. But if they stop to think about it, it's not that big of a deal.
An analogy I've made on here before:
I liken it to an "all you can eat" buffet. Right now, it's $14. If they told me It would be $12 (I will be saving by switching to share everything data plan) but I could only make 3 trips up, I would be OK with that because that's all the more times I go up anyway!
Save a couple bucks and get, basically, what I was getting out of it before... sign me up!
Well, not so much in the OP's case but you're forgetting that some of us who dropped unlimited data did so in order to be subsidized $450 for the cost of the phone. My contract is set up so that this year my line is eligible, next year, my wifes will be (it actually is right now but I sit on it). The year after, mine will be again, year after that, hers...
For me, personally, I like to get a new phone every year. You can imagine how costly this would become if I bought them unsubsidized.
So I'm saving $10-$15 per month ($120-$180 per year) PLUS getting $450 of my new phone paid for every year. And all I have to do is keep doing exactly what I'm doing becuase my 2GB limit should be sufficient.
Now does it seem a bit more logical?
Do you have a source where you read this from?
I don't have a 4G phone so I don't have first hand experience. I do have experience working with technology (I work for a very large tech company) and it's my understanding that a MB is a MB. So if I receive an email that is one megabyte, it doesn't matter if I'm getting it on my iPhone 4s, my old Samsung Galaxy phone or the iPhone 5... it is still 1 MB.
The only time it's going to change on 4G vs. 3G is for applications that optimize streaming content based on your connection speed (and I would imagine there's a setting that allows you to reduce the optimization to conserve data, but I'm not sure) like Netflix. Who watches Netflix on their phone?!
4G may encourage people to use more data, sure... But if you keep your usage and habits consistant and connect to wifi when available, it shouldnt' be a problem.
We stream Pandora one all the time in the car (2+ hour trips) and still have only maxed out at 1.5GB combined.
I think any time you tell someone that they're going to lose something that they had or are going to have to pay the same price for a reduced amount of the same thing, people are going to freak. But if they stop to think about it, it's not that big of a deal.
An analogy I've made on here before:
I liken it to an "all you can eat" buffet. Right now, it's $14. If they told me It would be $12 (I will be saving by switching to share everything data plan) but I could only make 3 trips up, I would be OK with that because that's all the more times I go up anyway!
Save a couple bucks and get, basically, what I was getting out of it before... sign me up!
Well, not so much in the OP's case but you're forgetting that some of us who dropped unlimited data did so in order to be subsidized $450 for the cost of the phone. My contract is set up so that this year my line is eligible, next year, my wifes will be (it actually is right now but I sit on it). The year after, mine will be again, year after that, hers...
For me, personally, I like to get a new phone every year. You can imagine how costly this would become if I bought them unsubsidized.
So I'm saving $10-$15 per month ($120-$180 per year) PLUS getting $450 of my new phone paid for every year. And all I have to do is keep doing exactly what I'm doing becuase my 2GB limit should be sufficient.
Now does it seem a bit more logical?
Do you have a source where you read this from?
I don't have a 4G phone so I don't have first hand experience. I do have experience working with technology (I work for a very large tech company) and it's my understanding that a MB is a MB. So if I receive an email that is one megabyte, it doesn't matter if I'm getting it on my iPhone 4s, my old Samsung Galaxy phone or the iPhone 5... it is still 1 MB.
The only time it's going to change on 4G vs. 3G is for applications that optimize streaming content based on your connection speed (and I would imagine there's a setting that allows you to reduce the optimization to conserve data, but I'm not sure) like Netflix. Who watches Netflix on their phone?!
4G may encourage people to use more data, sure... But if you keep your usage and habits consistant and connect to wifi when available, it shouldnt' be a problem.
This is not correct. You will only use twice as much data if you... use twice as much data.
LTE is faster, so you have a potential to use more data, but if you stay consistent with your current habits your usage will remain the same.
Very good analogy! And it sounds like you also have a good handle on the long tail implications. That's the key. Many people can't see past the moment, let alone 3-4 years down the line.
Very classless throwing out the insults this morning but I am not going to stoop to your level . Stay classy my friend but you made a huge mistake giving up unlimited data
and Voice over LTE will be here sooner than you think well very unlikely with AT&T since they are still upgrading Edge areasThanks, you nailed it. It is fear based, and admittedly it was that fear that kept me from switching years ago when there was no perk... I just thought I might save a buck. But no, I kept it plan always saying "but if I go over...."
OP
My family plan is the same situation. Both lines are unlimited, but we barely go over 2-2.25Gb per line - however due to work FaceTime over Cellular and using a hotspot would be perfect. With our FAN discount, its not as attractive as its only on the data part but it allows the use of two important features for us. We actually end up paying more in MobileShare too
I just switched two phones over to datashare. We didn't have unlimited, so it was the choice between the 3G plan and data share. Right now, we actually have less data than before (4G to share) for the same cost, but with the other features it made sense. After we do a month with the new phones, I will see if we need to pop it up to 6G. That will come out to about $10 more since each line will be $5 less. We also know that each year we will likely be adding another one of the kids to the smartphone list, so datashare makes sense, as no one was grandfathered into unlimited.