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LTE = Overage

C

Cabby

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 28, 2010
134
0
Now this is just a theory of course, but it seems to me that the much faster speed of LTE is going to cause quite a bit of problems for folks who aren't grandfathered in to the Unlimited Data plan.

Coming from 3G especially, let's say you can browse, request data, interact with apps, etc, etc roughly 10 times faster than you can before the IPhone 5... Would it be safe to say, you would push at least twice the amount of data as you do now?

If you can accomplish something 10 times faster, I think it's fair to say you would do more, probably not 10 times more, but easily twice as much in the same amount of time you do it now.

Are you using 50% or less (or a lot less) of your monthly data cap currently? If you aren't, you're probably in trouble. It's like leasing a car and going over on miles, you know you're over, but hey, you gotta get to work, so you can't stop driving, but you're going to have an ugly bill in the end.

Good Luck!
 
No kidding. The first thing I noticed was how much more data I was using for things which used to not use as much data. Pandora radio for instance. I could listen to pandora all day long and only use a few hundred mb. Now I have burned through 100mb listening to pandora for about 45mins.

Netflix will also be an issue. Netflix doesn't let you choose the quality of the video you are streaming. It streams at max possible quality according to your internet speed. Therefore someone with an iphone 4s will be watching netflix at a data rate of maybe 1mb a sec with ok quality while someone with an iphone 5 will be watching netflix at 5-10mb a sec with high quality. The quality difference might not be hugely noticeable on the 4inch or 3.5 inch screens but the data usage will be much much higher on the iphone 5
 
Cabby said:
Now this is just a theory of course, but it seems to me that the much faster speed of LTE is going to cause quite a bit of problems for folks who aren't grandfathered in to the Unlimited Data plan.

Coming from 3G especially, let's say you can browse, request data, interact with apps, etc, etc roughly 10 times faster than you can before the IPhone 5... Would it be safe to say, you would push at least twice the amount of data as you do now?

If you can accomplish something 10 times faster, I think it's fair to say you would do more, probably not 10 times more, but easily twice as much in the same amount of time you do it now.

Are you using 50% or less (or a lot less) of your monthly data cap currently? If you aren't, you're probably in trouble. It's like leasing a car and going over on miles, you know you're over, but hey, you gotta get to work, so you can't stop driving, but you're going to have an ugly bill in the end.

Good Luck!
Click to expand...

Unlimited LTE = No overage

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macguy360 said:
No kidding. The first thing I noticed was how much more data I was using for things which used to not use as much data. Pandora radio for instance. I could listen to pandora all day long and only use a few hundred mb. Now I have burned through 100mb listening to pandora for about 45mins.

Netflix will also be an issue. Netflix doesn't let you choose the quality of the video you are streaming. It streams at max possible quality according to your internet speed. Therefore someone with an iphone 4s will be watching netflix at a data rate of maybe 1mb a sec with ok quality while someone with an iphone 5 will be watching netflix at 5-10mb a sec with high quality. The quality difference might not be hugely noticeable on the 4inch or 3.5 inch screens but the data usage will be much much higher on the iphone 5
Click to expand...

Toggle off LTE. Problem solved.
 
Blorzoga said:
Unlimited LTE = No overage

----------



Toggle off LTE. Problem solved.
Click to expand...

Wow, since when do snarky comments warrant positive votes. The majority of people do not have unlimited LTE. ATT unlimited users are limited to 2.5gb and then are throttled. Sprint LTE users are limited by location and amount of people on the network. From what I heard sprint users are only getting 8mb download speeds on LTE.
 
I was watching live coverage of the Olympics on my iPad via the NBC live extra app, or whatever it is called. Apparently my iPad detected that LTE would be faster than my wifi connection at the time?? Not really sure what happened but about 1 hour in, I got a message saying that I had burned through most of my monthly data allowance and I was only 4 days into the month.
 
Unlimited users are not really any better off if you're on at&t. It will pretty much be unusable for stuff like netflix after 5GB. But we are better off (value for your money wise) than the rape everyone plans.
 
macguy360 said:
Wow, since when do snarky comments warrant positive votes. The majority of people do not have unlimited LTE. ATT unlimited users are limited to 2.5gb and then are throttled. Sprint LTE users are limited by location and amount of people on the network. From what I heard sprint users are only getting 8mb download speeds on LTE.
Click to expand...

AT&T LTE unlimited users don't get throttled until 5 GB
 
Moral of the story:

Don't stream music / videos on your data connection unless you want to go over your limit.

Simply be disciplined enough to do these things on WiFi.
 
I still don't and never will understand this data issue.

"I'm paying full price for my phone to keep unlimited"

"will I go over with LTE?"

"Etc. Etc Etc...."



Have any of you ever heard of WIFI? Can you afford a router? How much porn are you streaming? It's really not that big of a deal. Reallly. Who cares?!?! Data is data. Deal with it.
 
macguy360 said:
Wow, since when do snarky comments warrant positive votes. The majority of people do not have unlimited LTE. ATT unlimited users are limited to 2.5gb and then are throttled. Sprint LTE users are limited by location and amount of people on the network. From what I heard sprint users are only getting 8mb download speeds on LTE.
Click to expand...

AT&T gets throttled at 5Gb of LTE.
 
Yes the moral here, is dont use your new iphone 5 for viewing web pages, downloading emails, watch movies or TV, or listen to radio, or other music sources, like pandora or I heart radio, no slingplayer, no netflix, no hulu or hulu plus, no icoud, no dropbox, no syncing of photos with picasa or google + or icloud, no backups over the network, no restoring your phone over the network, no updating apps, no downloading of games or any apps for that mater, no video calling, no trun by turn navigation or maps downloading or updates, no updating facebook or twitter, no liking things, no posting to forums , no checking your forums......

You can use your new iphone for anything but that stuff. then you will be OK.
 
Last edited:
Big.Mac.Daddy said:
Moral of the story:

Don't stream music / videos on your data connection unless you want to go over your limit.

Simply be disciplined enough to do these things on WiFi.
Click to expand...

So you have to wait to get home to stream movies? What's the point of a smart phone. Unlimited is king.
 
skywalkerr69 said:
So you have to wait to get home to stream movies? What's the point of a smart phone. Unlimited is king.
Click to expand...

I'm just telling you how it is. Don't like it? Feel free to protest by streaming HD movies over your data connection until you get throttled / overages. I personally don't care.

And no, the purpose of a smartphone isnt to stream movies on the go. That's a recent phenomenon the carriers weren't prepared for and now put the clamps on people who do.
 
It will be interesting to see how data intensive the new maps app is. I travel a fair amount for business and used my ipad2 sitting on the seat of my car usually with the maps app running. When I got the new iPad the late display meant it needed more data and LTE meant it could get it so data usage was completely insane in comparison, so I switched to using my iPhone for mapping.
 
Copefree said:
Have any of you ever heard of WIFI? Can you afford a router?
Click to expand...

Unlimited LTE with tethering and the full phone price is cheaper than limited LTE + home internet + subsidized phone over the two years I'll have the phone. It is also faster.
 
Data is data. Speed has zero to do with usage. If you use your LTE phone the same way you used your 3G phone the data use will be the same. But the theory is that LTE speed makes people want to do things they might not do with 3G like watch movies or other bandwidth hog activities. Stay away from those and you'll be fine.
 
i still connect to as many local wifi hotspots as I can. time warner has one across the street from my work that avg 10mb.
 
If I'm home and want to stream a movie, I would do it on a different "device". Why would I stream a movie on my phone when I can stream it to my TV, laptop, tablet, or workstation with a much larger screen.

But for those on the go, I think they'll be surprised how much more data they are using to do the same thing they do now. Most streaming quality is determined by your connection speed, the faster it detects your speed, the higher the quality it's going to push to you, the more data you are going to use.

Mark my words, it'll only take a month, but plenty of "Carrier X charged me $1000 in overages! OMG!" threads will start popping up.

Disabling LTE is not an answer, and neither is dont do any of that unless you are on Wi-Fi.
 
Was it ever determined if the massive data usage is due to a bug or actual LTE usage?
 
I think some apps do small speed tests to determine the quality of what you're streaming. With a faster connection the app might be sending at a higher quality which in result uses more data.
 
Networks love this. Wifi like speeds everywhere, = $$$ for overages. This is like when there were no unlimited texting and minutes options companies would pray that you went over.
 
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