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Verizon Introduces New Unlimited Data Plans, Limits Video to 720p For All Smartphone Customers
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Yesterday I drove from Carbondale IL to Chicago and had no service or calls only service with T-Mobile about 80% of the time. My friend with Verizon had full LTE coverage the entire way. There's more to compare than just the unlimited data package.
Good thing I've been dragging my feet on converting the family account over to the new old unlimited plan. Didn't think it would happen this soon.
They are though. If they are artificially slowing down the speed to 50% of what it would be without the limit, they are cutting in half the amount of data you can download in a given period of time.
Take this very real example: through poor planning and lack of foresight, I forgot to load up some Netflix offline movies to watch on my long flight. Sitting in the terminal on LTE, I go through and decide to download the entire season of Orange Is The New Black. But because they artificially limit my speed, I am only able to download 4 episodes before the plane takes off. Without the artificial speed limit, I would have able to get the whole season. I know this because when I go to Netflix's own speedtest website, the speed shown is much faster than the speed I actually get when I download video. So the unlimited plan is speed limited, and in the little time I had, I wasn't able to suck down all the megabytes I wanted due to this limit. Since time is constant, speed and amount of data are directly related. By slowing down speed, they are limiting the amount of data you can download in a given period of time.
T-Mobile FTW!
(I pay $82/month and that's with making monthly payments on my iPhone 7. Otherwise, it's $56/month and I've had no regrets since switching from AT&T earlier this year).
(I pay $82/month and that's with making monthly payments on my iPhone 7. Otherwise, it's $56/month and I've had no regrets since switching from AT&T earlier this year).
If you read that report, it notes the decline in speed is likely artificial because the number of subscribers hadn't increased that dramatically, nor have streaming or data usage patterns changed much in such a short period of time. Most likely, I think, Verizon rolled out some new network optimization system that caused the slowdown. Maybe it was prep work in advance of launching these new plans.
I have never argued that there should be true unlimited - it's obviously impractical if not impossible. But I think the data should always come in as fast as practically possible, and the limit should be on the amount of data. That is why I will always pick the capped plan over the "unlimited" plan.
Wireless companies are the new "cable" companies with flawed business plans, when in reality are only dumb pipes of data and wireless spectrum. Apple or Google needs to just buy one so they have total control over the supply chain and user experience.
Follow the money and market caps of these digital monsters, and it's only a matter of time before the tide shifts. Its already happening in the entertainment industry. Wireless plans are commodities now, let Apple or Google buy and it provides the runways for true innovation in LTE/5G down the road.
Follow the money and market caps of these digital monsters, and it's only a matter of time before the tide shifts. Its already happening in the entertainment industry. Wireless plans are commodities now, let Apple or Google buy and it provides the runways for true innovation in LTE/5G down the road.
Mine has too. It coincides with the Unlimited return. This may help with that. I do think that is one of their hopes.
I would be ECSTATIC if I got that speed. I just got 4.7 and that is way faster than normal.
I am on the 16 GB XL plan that went away. If I read it correctly, it will be capped at 720p on our phones and 1080p on our tablets.
Agreed.
That may be part of it. There is some truth to the fact that more unlimited plans would involve more video use. I know personally people who switched to unlimited and now stream video all the time. They were always limiting what they would do before they switched.
Sure anyone can build a tower or two and collect a signal. Wireless plans are a commodity, differentiating by the towers, smartphones are a commodity, entertainment they are all commodities. In the meantime 5g in the future will be where 4g is today.
It might be my engineer brain, but to me everything is always about efficiency. When users buy capped data plans, everything is incentivized to be efficient: Users try to be on wifi whenever possible. App developers or service providers try to make their apps as lean and efficient as possible else risk losing users if the app is perceived to be a data hog. Cellular carriers try to offer the highest speed possible in hopes of profiting from overage fees. It's win-win, with the cherry of being efficient on top.
Like you said, give people the perception of unlimited, and efficiency goes to hell. Users start streaming without a care for whether they are on wifi or cellular; app developers don't care if their apps use tons of data (see, e.g., facebook); and carriers inflate the costs of the plans as their only means of increasing profits. Seems like a bad situation for everyone involved.
I have two lines unlimited everything with T-Mobile for 100 dollars a month. I was able to get that 49.99 per line special for unlimited that happened about a year ago that included around 7.5 gb of mobile hotspot data on each line as well.
I watch Quad HD YouTube videos all the time. thank you T-Mobile...poor Verizon customers. I can't believe they are even changing their old and new unlimited plans to 720p maximum quality.
I could never go to Verizon nor ATT with such a great deal with T-Mobile.
Technically speaking, your line speed enforces a cap, I've not got the fastest in the UK, but at 4-5TB use /mth, can't complain & 40GB of data on av. 100mb 4G, not too bad!
I asked this earlier: Why should anyone care about 5g if the carriers are artificially limiting the speed of LTE today?
Until T-Slo Mo improves their network where I live, it's a no go. I got the free 200 mb lifetime deal with my iPad, and their "LTE" speeds top out around 5 to 7 Mbps, whereas with Verizon, I'm always between 50 and 70 Mbps.
Cell service is local/personal. My neighbors have VZ because they moved from the northeast and that's what his work gave him. They have zero service in our neighborhood. VZ gave them one of those cell repeaters so at least they can make phone calls. TMO here works great, and is super fast. The billions of ATTs money that TMO spent on the network has done wonders for them.
I'm not going to defend VZW here, but the people using their cell connection as their sole internet connection are a problem. They are wasting a finite resource (spectrum bandwidth), that is not easily replicated. When sitting at home, hardline Wifi is much more efficient and what should be used. I suspect all providers will either stop unlimited or knock people down to 2.5-3g once they hit some absurd download number for the month.
Ah, Verizon.
First, to the T-Mobile / Sprint users: we regularly travel out into low-coverage areas with our Verizon phones. We have from time to time brought people along who have Sprint or T-Mobile. I have never had a situation where the Verizon phones failed to connect but the T-Mobile or Sprint phones worked. However, every trip the Sprint and T-Mobile phones "go silent" once we've left the main corridors while our Verizon phones continue well into the sticks. So, sorry, Verizon's network is just unbeaten out here in the West, at least everywhere we tend to go as a family.
That said, we have six lines sharing a 24GB plan right now, and are constantly running into that limit (main source of consternation in the household: "Why are you using hundreds of MB of data while sitting in your room at home???" "I didn't know my phone dropped off the WiFi!").
Switching to Verizon Unlimited would on paper be a no-cost switch ($110/month for 24GB, $110/month for Unlimited) except that the employee discount we have works with fixed data plans but oddly not with "unlimited" data plans. So it would be $20/month more to get (Feb 2017) Unlimited.
These two replacement "unlimited" plans coming tomorrow sound like they will cost even a little more ($5/month more for the single user case, but how much more for the 6-line family case?). I am going to go ahead and lock in the Feb 2017 plan for us. I can always switch to the newer plan if it looks more appealing at some point.
First, to the T-Mobile / Sprint users: we regularly travel out into low-coverage areas with our Verizon phones. We have from time to time brought people along who have Sprint or T-Mobile. I have never had a situation where the Verizon phones failed to connect but the T-Mobile or Sprint phones worked. However, every trip the Sprint and T-Mobile phones "go silent" once we've left the main corridors while our Verizon phones continue well into the sticks. So, sorry, Verizon's network is just unbeaten out here in the West, at least everywhere we tend to go as a family.
That said, we have six lines sharing a 24GB plan right now, and are constantly running into that limit (main source of consternation in the household: "Why are you using hundreds of MB of data while sitting in your room at home???" "I didn't know my phone dropped off the WiFi!").
Switching to Verizon Unlimited would on paper be a no-cost switch ($110/month for 24GB, $110/month for Unlimited) except that the employee discount we have works with fixed data plans but oddly not with "unlimited" data plans. So it would be $20/month more to get (Feb 2017) Unlimited.
These two replacement "unlimited" plans coming tomorrow sound like they will cost even a little more ($5/month more for the single user case, but how much more for the 6-line family case?). I am going to go ahead and lock in the Feb 2017 plan for us. I can always switch to the newer plan if it looks more appealing at some point.
I think it's similar to why car speedometers go up to 200mph; yet many cars are speed throttled way before that and are not track cars anyway.