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Verizon Set to Switch to Tiered Data Pricing?

hwhalers said:
When they can't get any more demographic information to sell to advertisers. So, never.

It's not free now, you're just exchanging not paying for giving a detailed consumer profile.
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If you need something, it doesn't remain free. Once everyone starts using Google (like now), the demographic information is on a diminishing returns. Google now is competing with Apple on ads so they need to find some additional revenue streams. Google will start a premium paid service and eventually move much of their services into the paid premium service.

Similar to the tiered mobile data pricing, you will see an end to the "free" internet services.
 
Funny

Did not take that long ahhh..and again we are not hearing anything about those faulty screens on the droid-x seems that even with "problems" apple and att have the upper hand.
 
ZacUSNYR said:
So many other industries have price wars going on between competitors, but it's like the cell market they all try to compete with who can charge the most fees and cents per kb for bragging rights.

It's ashame sprint/tmobile suck because if they were a good alternative it'd force big red and at&t to come down on their prices.
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Exactly. I will bet that the FCC at least sends one of their inquiry letters to Verizon and maybe both Verizon/AT&T asking them to explain these changes to less consumer friendly data tier plans. Especially if VZW mirrors AT&T's plans.

This is pretty much textbook tacit collusion.
 
Small White Car said:
So what MEANS to write is "Data caps will kill innovation for cheap people.

Well, too bad for them. They're not everyone, though.
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Or in other words, innovation is killed because people don't develop the apps in the first place because the majority of people can't use them...
 
By the way, I feel this is just one step of many the carriers are taking to take back the power over cell phone manufacturers. Ever since the iPhone obliterated the carrier control over the cell phone manufacturers, the carriers have been fighting the fact they were becoming nothing more than dumb pipes. This is one way for them to control the manufacturers because with the way technology is getting and more and more features, they can at least "throttle" the features or effectiveness of the features, and exert control of their use.
 
I think tiered is the way to go. I HATED having to pay the same amount as every other iPhone owner when it was unlimited plan only. I live in a non 3G area and it wasn't fair that I had to pay the same price for unlimited as people who could consume so much more on 3G.

In the 2 years I've had my iPhone I've downloaded less than 900MB of data. So the smaller plans work out perfect for me.
 
Rothgarr said:
I think tiered is the way to go. I HATED having to pay the same amount as every other iPhone owner when it was unlimited plan only. I live in a non 3G area and it wasn't fair that I had to pay the same price for unlimited as people who could consume so much more on 3G.

In the 2 years I've had my iPhone I've downloaded less than 900MB of data. So the smaller plans work out perfect for me.
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Tiered is fine, as long as they leave unlimited as an option for the same price it is now.
 
Scooterman1 said:
Sprint 4G on a tethered Netbook connected through an HTC EVO.

speedtemp.png
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Hence I said maybe not in your area. In general thought Sprint is no faster than anyone else and many cases slower. It's the same thing that makes AT&T suck for people in SanFran, but work great for me in my area.

John.B said:
Sprint has a history of not being able to turn those revenues into profits.

When bandwidth becomes nothing but a commodity, is there is an advantage to being the lowest cost provider? With a proprietary network? From here it looks like Sprint is leading the race to the bottom...

Looked at another way, if you are Verizon or AT&T or T-Mobile, why would you pay money to buy out Sprint when you'll automatically get a certain percentage of their customer base after they are done imploding?
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It takes a long time for a company the size of Sprint to die, if ever since they have slowed the customer bleed. If their stock reaches a low enough level and someone will buy them though. I think if we hadn't recently had a down economy someone already would have bought them. Right now the telcos number 1 priority is gaining and retaining customers. In the US nearly everyone has a cell phone so the only way to grow is to pull customers from your competitors. When that's the case why wait for them to trickle over where you have to compete openly with other providers when you can buy them outright.
 
jacollins said:
Or in other words, innovation is killed because people don't develop the apps in the first place because the majority of people can't use them...
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true, true indeed.

Rothgarr said:
I think tiered is the way to go. I HATED having to pay the same amount as every other iPhone owner when it was unlimited plan only. I live in a non 3G area and it wasn't fair that I had to pay the same price for unlimited as people who could consume so much more on 3G.

In the 2 years I've had my iPhone I've downloaded less than 900MB of data. So the smaller plans work out perfect for me.
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First off, you need to move. Seriously, come join civilization.
Secondly, if you are not using the internet more often then you are not using the FULL potential of your phone. Why not just switch to a voice only plan? I have friends that just use text and phone on their iPhone because they refuse to take advantage of all that it has to offer.

I've moved onto greener pastures now with modded 2.2 froyo, and to put things into perspective, my data usage from the iFail has tripled; its at more than 7 GBs a month now that I have something that rings true to me in America.... FREEDOM!!! [screamed in an agonizing Braveheart tone]
.
 
just to throw this out there vzw has been planning to put these caps for a while, att heard and did it right away, just like their unlimited calling plans.....lol
 
Data Usage Is Headed Upwards Only

The days of all-you-can-eat data plans are almost over. It was fine when not that many people were using smartphones. However, a lot of people are using them now. Carriers can't upgrade their networks faster than the manufacturers can come out with better phones. It's as simple as that. I'm not surprised if Verizon is heading in the direction of tiered pricing.
 
alent1234 said:
few years ago when everyone started to have cell phones i noticed that Sprint stores had the pay in cash machines and there was always a long line with what looked to be illegals waiting to pay.
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Revenues don't matter if you can't swing a profit.

Gaining or retaining customers doesn't matter if you can't swing a profit.

Not even owning pockets of a 4G network here and there matters if you can't swing a profit.

skellener said:
As soon as the iPhone becomes available to other carriers (it will eventually when they all go LTE), watch how fast AT&T dies. People with iPhone will bail in droves as soon as they can.
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But you can't snap your fingers and go straight to LTE -- there has to be backward compatibiliy to your old network until the LTE build out is complete. That will take years, esp. given that Verizon and AT&T aren't likely to have roaming agreements with each other. Verizon phones will have to be saddled with CDMA/EV-DO compatibility for the next four or five years. (And Verizon can't even get EV-DO Rev. B rolled out, for "talk and surf at the same time" functionality.)

BTW, in my area (flyover country, no less), AT&T coverage is actually pretty good. I'd take that any day over being nickle'd and dime'd to death by Verizon. YMMV.
 
John.B said:
Revenues don't matter if you can't swing a profit.

Gaining or retaining customers doesn't matter if you can't swing a profit.

Not even owning pockets of a 4G network here and there matters if you can't swing a profit.


But you can't snap your fingers and go straight to LTE -- there has to be backward compatibiliy to your old network until the LTE build out is complete. That will take years, esp. given that Verizon and AT&T aren't likely to have roaming agreements with each other. Verizon phones will have to be saddled with CDMA/EV-DO compatibility for the next four or five years. (And Verizon can't even get EV-DO Rev. B rolled out, for "talk and surf at the same time" functionality.)

BTW, in my area (flyover country, no less), AT&T coverage is actually pretty good. I'd take that any day over being nickle'd and dime'd to death by Verizon. YMMV.
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Sucks that verizon will be saddled (CDMA) with less dropped calls in my area for a while. Oh well, I'll guess I'll have to live with it. I'm 15 miles max outside of Baltimore and ATT response to the bad coverage was 'there is not enough potential customers to go through the permitting process for a tower in your area'.
 
Ah dammit. This really bums me out. I've been waiting for Verizon to pick up the iPhone since it launched, and now this takes a lot of thunder out of it. Well, there's still hope for T-Mobile offering unlimited data, I suppose. 2GB just simply isn't enough, and the extra price for tethering is so steep.
 
I dont get what this news story has to do with Apple since Verizon is likely to never carry the iphone.
 
vvswarup said:
The days of all-you-can-eat data plans are almost over. It was fine when not that many people were using smartphones. However, a lot of people are using them now. Carriers can't upgrade their networks faster than the manufacturers can come out with better phones.
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Kinda reminds me of cars and the highway... too many d@mn people :p
In the words of Luda, "Move be-acth, get out of my way"
 
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