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.
When will all major U.S phone carriers offer unlimited data for iPhone ?
- Thread starter DBZmusicboy01
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Which is crazy. If you look at what other countries pay for internet, well you quickly see we are getting robbed blind. South Korea data speeds and cost will make you vomit.
I think eventually they may switch to a model more similar to cable/DSL where you pay for a speed rather than an amount of data. Much of their congestion issues are because everybody's phone access the network as the maximum possible speed whether it's necessary or not
This is already happening to a certain extent with MVNOs. If you subscribe to Cricket (AT&T subsidiary) rather than AT&T directly, max bandwidth is lower (8 Megabits LTE). Cricket is something like $45/month w autopay for 3GB data, while AT&T GoPhone 2GB was $60/month the last time I checked.
Yeah satellite is an option, but if you have read the terms to using it you will quickly see it is just as big of a rip off as Verizon is now, actually worse IMO. Couldn't stream Netflix, download updates, watch lectures online.
I work for a major wireless carrier and we are already charging $40 for 1GB of data. It's actually pretty common in a lot of these new plans where you have the flexibility to choose as much data as you want.
I'm just glad T-Mobile still offers it.
In the Fall I use about 8gb every weekend streaming football games on the go.
In the Fall I use about 8gb every weekend streaming football games on the go.
That statement has been made in many prior threads and the reply is the same as it has always been. Data speed and your data pool are two entirely different things. Having an allocated amount of data doesn't negate the speed of LTE. Having LTE doesn't guarantee higher data usage either. If you need more data on a limited plan then you buy more data.
Probably never, AT&T and Verizon both are trying to move away from that. AT&T outright said it was a mistake (from their POV) to even offer it in the first place (they are regretting it cause they can't get people off it now but they aren't willing to lose the holdouts enough to just put their foot down so luckily people can still grandfather it. Verizon has actually gone farther in trying to push people off saying if you want a subsidized phone, you gotta go off unlimited).
I say probably cause the only way I see it happening is if T-mobile is super successful in pulling away customers. Enough so that it really starts hurting the two major carriers that they feel they need to get those customers back more than they need to try to get customers on more lucrative plans. And really, where I see them trying to compete back with T-mobile is not unlimited, but by getting rid of overage fees and doing similar plans as T-mobile.
I say probably cause the only way I see it happening is if T-mobile is super successful in pulling away customers. Enough so that it really starts hurting the two major carriers that they feel they need to get those customers back more than they need to try to get customers on more lucrative plans. And really, where I see them trying to compete back with T-mobile is not unlimited, but by getting rid of overage fees and doing similar plans as T-mobile.
Good analysis.
I guess I'm still surprised that AT&T & Verizon don't offer an unlimited tier and just price it ridiculously high (they are good at this pricing strategy already, so no learning needed).
I could see plenty of people paying for it actually.
200 MB a day? I don't know what you're doing on your phone, but I have to try really hard to use more than a gigabyte of data in a month. Last couple months, I used closer to 2 gigs, that's because I was doing some traveling and killed some time at airports with streaming video. I'm on a 10GB mobile share plan with 4 phones + iPad. We have never come close to 10 GB.
Although, I can't say I'm too surprised you don't think current plans are fair. I've looked at your previous threads and you don't really think anything that isn't what you want is fair.
Although, I can't say I'm too surprised you don't think current plans are fair. I've looked at your previous threads and you don't really think anything that isn't what you want is fair.
probably never with VzN and ATT, I feel there are pros and cons to those and say Sprint/Tmobo.
with one you have LTE basically everywhere you go, you just have to monitor your data usage.
with the latter you have unlimited data and LTE is sketchy at best.
but IMO i rather have sketchy LTE data then to have to monitor my data usage every month.
with one you have LTE basically everywhere you go, you just have to monitor your data usage.
with the latter you have unlimited data and LTE is sketchy at best.
but IMO i rather have sketchy LTE data then to have to monitor my data usage every month.
I have to say that with T-Mobile, I'm usually extremely happy.
Most all of my travel involves major cities though. But when on T-Mo LTE it works wonderfully, is very fast and has an unlimited option.
that is my feeling with Sprint, but I live in a very good "Sprint area" others are apparently not too lucky.
I am glad I have it with t-mobile and live in an area with good service. I use ~12gb/month listening to music and reading news to and from work every day.
The difference between companies going to unlimited minutes in the past versus them going to unlimited data now is 10 years ago they hadn't offered unlimited minutes yet, while now they have offered unlimited data and are trying to move away from it.
----------
They sort of do that already, Verizon at least just charges you $15 per gig that you go over and they don't shut you off, so I don't see much difference between that and a very high priced unlimited plan.
Are they thinking of it?
What's the point of LTE if we would consume all the data in so little time.
200MB for the cheapest is not enough these days. The size of webpages and Facebook and instagram takes up too much data. 200MB should be the amount per day or something.
I believe they should offer unlimited data with throttled speeds.
So you pay 1GB of non throttled unlimited LTE data. For a price and if you want more data without throttled. Than you pay more.
I think that will be extremely fair or even choose a speed option too.
3G vs LTE for speed. Something like that. Since AT&T and Verizon doesn't offer unlimited
Someday. Just not in the near future. The market will change. Remember when you had to pay for minutes? Soon they'll figure out how to milk us for something else.