Verizon switching to AT&T-style limited data plans

[thermal]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/20/verizon-switching-to-atandt-style-limited-data-plans-later-this-mo/

"Hang on to your megabytes, folks, because it looks like the Brave New World of limited data is truly upon us. AT&T and Verizon tend to follow each others' moves pretty closely -- the two carriers regard each other as their nearest competitors, after all -- and we're hearing that Big Red intends to move to some sort of tiered bucket strategy on July 29.

We don't have details on whether the pricing will be identical to AT&T's ($25 for 2GB, $15 for 200MB), but we imagine it'll be within shouting distance if not. Of course, Verizon has been sending this message for a long time -- even before AT&T was -- so it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that this is going down. You might say that Droid Does Caps, eh?"

 

[-PsYcHoNoVa-]

Old news.

 

[marksman]

No real surprise there. The biggest issue is beyond getting away from uncapped is having a lower tier plan at $15 or whatever they decide to go with...

 

[jplusc]

This should be good in the long run as it should lead to pricing wars eventually and more data at a lower cost. I would be very happy with a $20-$25/mo for 5GB of data with tethering included.

 

[JLEW700]

My mom has Verizon now and I plan on getting on her family plan when Verizon gets the iPhone. Would it be beneficial to pay the $30's a month now so that I can get unlimited data when they get the iPhone? Will they grandfather in like att did?

 

[ucfgrad93]

My mom has Verizon now and I plan on getting on her family plan when Verizon gets the iPhone. Would it be beneficial to pay the $30's a month now so that I can get unlimited data when they get the iPhone? Will they grandfather in like att did?

I wouldn't pay $30/month while you wait for Verizon to get the iPhone. Who knows how long that will be. Will they grandfather like at&t, my guess, is probably, but you never know for sure.

 

[ddoolin]

That sucks...there's not any good ways to weasel your way into an older, unlimited plan, either. Too bad. :|

 

[Stein357]

I hope their pricing is better than AT&T so AT&T will have to match Verizon.

 

[ClutchThese]

no suprise to me. I would never go to Verizon anyway.

 

[daihard]

no suprise to me. I would never go to Verizon anyway.

+1.

At the very least until it has been confirmed that Verizon gets the iPhone, which will NOT happen until 2012 at the earliest.

 

[ctt1wbw]

I'm still curious about this. What difference does it make how many megs and gigs you use? The bandwidth is there. All you are doing is modulating the carrier frequency by putting data on it. Does this process cost so much more money that the cell phone companies have to regulate the useage of it to this point?

 

[maflynn]

Not surprised, and I expect all carriers to adopt this model.

 

[TroyBoy30]

you do know att got the idea from verizon right? verizon announced plans to do it several months ago

 

[deeddawg]

What difference does it make how many megs and gigs you use? The bandwidth is there. All you are doing is modulating the carrier frequency by putting data on it. Does this process cost so much more money that the cell phone companies have to regulate the useage of it to this point?

Capacity planning. The more your customers use, the more you need to provide. Over the air as well as backend to the rest of the world. Ten million people using 100meg per month vs. ten million people using 10Gig per month is a big difference in how much infrastructure (both over the air and getting the data out to the core Internet routers) you need to have to support that usage, which represents a significant cost difference.

How the costs of that infrastructure balances against the price they're charging and whether they're overcharging for that service is a whole different question -- one which none of us is really qualified to discuss intelligently.

 

[hcho3]

I blame heavy users like Droid and iphone 4 users for this. These people use anywhere around 10GB a month on data.
Those heavy users should suffer, but most of us will be okay with this tiered pricing. I use less than 1GB a month and I am all down for this.

 

[Tom G.]

When I was on Verizon I found that they nickel and dimed you to death. The only surprising thing about it is they didn't do it first.

 

[Tibs066]

Verizon Data

I might be off saying this but i am pretty sure verizon has not had a truly unlimited plan for quite some time. I have had a BB for work through verizon and they cap you at the 5gigs for your "unlimited" internet on your phone.

 

[skiltrip]

Caps are a good thing for the vast majority of us. The psychology factor just takes a huge load of the network. If you know you're capped, you're gonna be mindful of what you're doing. Like shutting the lights off in your house when you leave a room. If you had unlimited electricity for one price, you'd be much more likely to just keep every light burning non-stop.

I think a lot of people with unlimited data, just let it go sometimes. Say you're streaming Pandora at work. And just let it go all day regardless if you're at your desk, or if you step away from it. You might end up using less data, but not enjoying any less, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, taking a load off the network makes it faster and better for everyone. Hopefully someday the carrier's capacity of data abilities will exceed what's needed, but it's doubtful.

 

[Sleazy E]

And once again AT&T is called the Antichrist for doing this and nobody seems to care much that verizon is . Oh the life of being top dog I guess....

 

[i hate phones]

I might be off saying this but i am pretty sure verizon has not had a truly unlimited plan for quite some time. I have had a BB for work through verizon and they cap you at the 5gigs for your "unlimited" internet on your phone.

i believe you're thinking of their mobile broadband plans (capped at 5gb)... their smartphone plans are truely unlimited.

 

[i hate phones]

And once again AT&T is called the Antichrist for doing this and nobody seems to care much that verizon is . Oh the life of being top dog I guess....

i would think the fact that this is an iPhone forum would explain that one...

 

[Mr Bigs]

When I was on Verizon I found that they nickel and dimed you to death. The only surprising thing about it is they didn't do it first.

Oh yeah AT&T is muuuuuuch better !!!!

 

[kdarling]

And once again AT&T is called the Antichrist for doing this and nobody seems to care much that verizon is . Oh the life of being top dog I guess....

It's partly about who does it first. They take the big PR hit.

For example, Verizon got nailed for raising their smartphone ETFs first.

When ATT did the same, nobody was surprised.

 

[TruckdriverSean]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A306 Safari/6531.22.7)

I know it sucks from an individual power-user's perspective, but I think tiered data is better for the long run.

"Unlimited" data plans put company profit vs. customer data usage in conflict with each other. This can discourage high-speed data rollout. (Tiered data means more usage = more profit. Offering higher speed could lead to higher profit)

"Unlimited" data plans discourage development in high-efficiency data use. "Why spend an extra day to code this app using that new high-efficiency method? The customer has unlimited data, so he/she doesn't care."

"Unlimited" data plans encourage wasteful data use by customers. As pointed out earlier, Many people treat data usage like we're in a 1950's futuristic resource utopia.

Sorry, we're not there yet, folks.

 

[Geckotek]

I blame heavy users like Droid and iphone 4 users for this. These people use anywhere around 10GB a month on data.
Those heavy users should suffer, but most of us will be okay with this tiered pricing. I use less than 1GB a month and I am all down for this.

Where did you come up with those numbers? That is completely false. Go do some research before posting false stats please.