The Death of Unlimited Data and/or Subsidized Plans: Tell Us What You Think

[FoxKat]

@FoxKat , I see adults with their phones to their ear and kids sending SMS's. It could be carrier SMS's or via an App like Line. I don't know.

SMS's are are cheaper than voice calls

You raise a good point. So the argument for charging for data versus phone minutes is even stronger for the carriers, especially if the kids are using Line or TextFree or WeChat or Hangouts or KIK, etc.

 

[kodiak799]

For AT&T and Verizon, I have a feeling they will simply say tough luck when you attempt to activate a new phone with an old plan

Realistically that's the only way I can see it happening - people would cry bloody murder if they just paid retail only to lose unlimited a few months later. Of course, if VZW has already eliminated the subsidy they could argue it didn't cost you anything.

But I wonder how VZW would really stop you from popping your old sim into a new phone yourself. I guess they could see you activated a new device, but their systems have never been quite that sophisticated to do anything about it.

I just don't think there's enough unlimited users left to concern VZW. They already are no longer subsidizing your phone so I think they're pretty happy with that if they can't upsell you.

 

[tech_head]

I make no changes to my plan.
I just pay my bill.
I still have unlimited.
I buy phones at retail.

 

[FoxKat]

I make no changes to my plan.
I just pay my bill.
I still have unlimited.
I buy phones at retail.

There is no doubt for those of us fortunate enough to be able to afford the full price of a phone in one fell swoop this is the safest and simplest way to protect your unlimited plans. It's unfortunately a fact that most people don't have $650 to drop on a new phone on a whim. This is why I do believe that phone subsidy won't go away completely, but will be perhaps yet another iteration of the EDGE program or something like it.

 

[thunderbolt_nick]

I make no changes to my plan.
I just pay my bill.
I still have unlimited.
I buy phones at retail.

I was doing the same thing too until I realized what it was costing me to drop that money on retail phones. I had to make a change, but I wouldn't do subsidy. That's why I decided to go ahead and go to AT&T and do the next plan. Yeah I know it doesn't really 'save' you any money in the long run but then again my bill was way more affordable. I pay $25-30 for the plan itself and another $20 to pay off the Nexus 6 that I got for $150 off! I was paying $70 for unlimited at VZW and would need to drop $600-700 on a phone if I wanted to upgrade. The only real thing I've changed: I tend to be attracted to places with Wi-fi. I work from home anyways, so I don't run into an issue of always needed mobile data. In fact, I noticed based on my bill that I rarely use it if at all.

 

[Ollie]

You raise a good point. So the argument for charging for data versus phone minutes is even stronger for the carriers, especially if the kids are using Line or TextFree or WeChat or Hangouts or KIK, etc.

It's not just the text messaging apps. As you hit on before it is the huge growth in adoption of moving everything to the internet. The cloud is being pushed by carriers simply because they know that people don't use minutes much anymore. They are even touting wifi calling with one hand while crying that they don't have the bandwidth to support unlimited data in the other hand.

 

[shockracer]

It will be interesting to see what happens to VZW customers that have unlimited data when they find a way to push those customers into a tiered plan.

We have 3 lines, 1 has 2 GB data (Mother-in-law), and the other 2 are unlimited (the wife and myself). I use 12GB and the wife uses 7GB. To go to a tiered plan we would need 22GB minimum to stay within our current usage. It is far more cost-effective to stay unlimited and buy our phones outright wether they're just released models or last year's model.

9 months ago the wife broke her HTC Rezound, we pay for insurance for all the phones, they upgraded her to the HTC ONE M7 for just the cost of the deductible. Same thing happened when the mother-in-law broke her HTC Rezound they sent her an HTC ONE M7.

We've been with VZW since 06, we both got the top of the line flip phones with the all new Vcast technology. A year later they came out with a handful of smartphones phones (I bought the Motorola Q9M) and that put on an unlimited data plan. The Wife came on to unlimited data when the HTC Incredible came out. We have been customers for almost 10 years, it's going to be vary interesting to see what they offer customers like us when they try to complete cut unlimited data.

 

[SpeJ3435]

I make no changes to my plan.
I just pay my bill.
I still have unlimited.
I buy phones at retail.

I'm am in this boat, but I don't buy new phones as there haven't been any real advancements in phones since the Galaxy Nexus and NFC. In the past, upgrading your phone meant your were getting new features and it was worth upgrading. Sure screens have gotten better and processors have gotten faster, but I don't see a difference in using a G3 4K display and my old GNex 720p display; the same goes for processors. Yes the new processors are lightning fast for gaming, but I don't game. My email and browser will only open so fast. I moved to a developer edition Droid Maxx back in September as I wanted Motorola radios again and 48 hour battery. This is why I believe the carriers are not pushing out the updates. A perfect example is the Droid Maxx had the jedi wave until the 2014 Moto X was released. The next software upgrade removed this feature as Moto was trying to sell the new Moto X's IR sensors for this feature. We have had a couple of patches since and have never gotten the jedi wave back as Moto says our phones can't do it without the IR sensors. Lie.

For data usage, I use around 6.5 gb a month (combined data network and wifi (work and home)), but when I am traveling I use 10+ gb because I'm not on my computer as much. I think people take for granted the availability of public wifi in the city and that availability reducing their data network consumption. Out in the country, it isn't available so I use my phone data more. Also, not all public wifi networks allow vpn so your data is less secure using a public wifi hotspot.

I think the end of unlimited data is coming, but once again as mentioned there aren't that many people left on unlimited. I would say 5 years because it isn't an issue. Most abusers have moved on. I just upgraded my father's phone last weekend and when they looked at my plan they saw that I had 2 unlimited lines, a 5gb hotspot, and a 4gb phone (dad's). The reps have given up trying to upsell me on getting rid of the unlimited lines. They now try to upsell me on the merging the 5gb hotspot and the 4gb phone because those plans are considered old and not shared. It would cost me much more to merge them.

If I was forced off of Verizon's unlimited, I would consider T-mobile because of the keeping your data mindset. If I have a 4gb plan and only use 2gb one month and 6gb the next month, I don't want to pay any fees for using the extra data. The catch is, I like having Verizon's reliability on making a phone call even when I'm out in the sticks.

 

[dgstorm]

I think it will be at least 2 years before all major carriers get rid of unlimited, maybe longer if you consider T-Mobile
I think Verizon will be the first to get rid of them all, but it will be difficult because of buying outright.
Sprint will go about it by no long allowing an upgrade on the old plans and forcing customers into tiered shared data. For AT&T and Verizon, I have a feeling they will simply say tough luck when you attempt to activate a new phone with an old plan
I gave up my unlimited data almost 2 years ago, willingly. Kind of. I stay with Verizon because of service, not my data plan
I would contemplate T-Mobile if their coverage was as good as Verizon at that point.

AT&T got rid of subsidies on smartphones effective yesterday, at least for 3rd party retailers. It will not be long until they are gone for good.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

I think @jackiescivic nailed it right here (underlined and bolded above). This seems like what the carriers will eventually do to eliminate unlimited data. Technically there is no reason they couldn't do that at any time. Obviously they are concerned with alienating those customers, but if they can make tiered plans attractive enough to entice more folks off their unlimited plans, then they will eventually have few enough customers on unlimited that they wouldn't be concerned about taking this "hard-line" approach.

I just remembered an interesting question that I forgot to include in the OP... The smaller major carriers (T-Mobile and Sprint) are both ramping up to improve and expand their networks. If Sprint and/or T-Mobile's networks were verifiably as good as AT&T or Verizon, would their cheaper prices be enough to entice you to try them? Basically, what level of improvement would it take to improve competition in the US carrier marketplace?

 

[cr6]

As @gadgetrants pointed out, this story comes out every year, and every year it never materializes. It simply causes people to panic and scramble to make unnecessary changes to their plans. Sure carrier's continue to make it more difficult, but certainly not impossible.

As for subsidized phones: People seem to think they can't afford to pay full cost for a device....I call BS. "Most" people upgrade every two years. "Most" people can afford 150-200 for a subsidized device, but can't afford to save 5-7 hundred over the course of 2 - 2 1/2 years? Sorry, I simply don't buy it. Especially if they sell their 2-3 y/o flagship, which there IS a market for, we see it all the time. I'm not trying to tell people how to manage their money, but if you can afford a mortgage, car payment, internet access and cell bill, you can certainly afford to save up for a new device every 2-3 years. (Sure, some folks can't and I understand that, but most of us can)
If the rest of the world can do it, folks in the US can do it as well.

I don't see long term Verizon customers (or any carrier for that matter) losing their grandfathered UD plans anytime soon, even if the carrier's "officially" do away with it. There's something to be said by staying loyal to ones carrier.
I think these are simply more scare tactics by the carrier's to get people to drop their unlimited plans "willingly". It happens year in and year out, these stories blow up on the internet, and it hasn't happened yet. The sad part is, people continue to take the bait, and drop their UD, while being made to believe they don't need it, or they can use WiFi everywhere. I shouldn't have to connect to WiFi in order to use my smartphone as a smartphone. Yet for years carriers, and the online world, try to "data-shame" you into thinking that somehow you're a bad person if you're using more than 20gig a month on anything other than a WiFi connection.
Just my 2 cents.

S5 tap'n

 

[tech_head]

There is no doubt for those of us fortunate enough to be able to afford the full price of a phone in one fell swoop this is the safest and simplest way to protect your unlimited plans. It's unfortunately a fact that most people don't have $650 to drop on a new phone on a whim. This is why I do believe that phone subsidy won't go away completely, but will be perhaps yet another iteration of the EDGE program or something like it.

I don't need to have the latest and greatest phone, so I don't pay $650.
I buy phones off Swappa. The bottom line is that it is a choice and unfortunately it's not a choice that you can redo. Either unlimited data is important to a person or not. It was important enough to me to "decide" not to take anymore subsidized upgrades.

 

[LoneWolfArcher]

I don't know how we ended up in the realm of people expecting the latest smartphone tech on the cheap. No other technology space is that the case. Proves that once a model becomes embedded getting people's thinking to change is like pulling teeth. (I offer the government being in the welfare business as an example. Suggest that it isn't the role of government and people get all hot and bothered.) Subsidized devices should never have become the norm. The cell companies did it to get people into contracts at $50+/month for a set amount of time. And now people expect the latest flagship to be offered at a greatly reduced cost as long as they agree to a contract.

As far as unlimited data goes, I get that eventually it needs to be capped. There are people that abuse it. I know one family that have a 4G hotspot and their goal was 1TB of usage in one month. (I think they hit 999 GB but couldn't make the 1TB.) But the problem is their ridiculously low limits. The 2G/month limit was dumb in a world of streaming video and audio. Especially since many automotive connected in-dash system use the phone's connection. Obviously 1TB is too high. How about the usual $30/month for say 15 GB? I'd be willing to give up my unlimited plan for a plan like that. (I am still grandfathered into VZW's unlimited data.)

 

[LoneWolfArcher]

There is no doubt for those of us fortunate enough to be able to afford the full price of a phone in one fell swoop this is the safest and simplest way to protect your unlimited plans. It's unfortunately a fact that most people don't have $650 to drop on a new phone on a whim. This is why I do believe that phone subsidy won't go away completely, but will be perhaps yet another iteration of the EDGE program or something like it.

EDGE isn't a subsidy though. It is essentially a 0% credit plan. In fact, that is how most people buy technology they can't afford: credit. Laptops, tablets, TVs, etc. Why shouldn't smartphones be the same?

 

[GAstorino]

The only thing that disturbs me is when they get rid of subsidies and unlimited data they should not then force everyone to sign 2 year contracts. Should be a month by month basis. As there are limited landlines anymore and the cell is your phone I don't recall the phone company forcing you to have there service for 2 years and they where the only game in town.

 

[LoneWolfArcher]

The only thing that disturbs me is when they get rid of subsidies and unlimited data they should not then force everyone to sign 2 year contracts. Should be a month by month basis. As there are limited landlines anymore and the cell is your phone I don't recall the phone company forcing you to have there service for 2 years and they where the only game in town.

Without subsidies there will be no need for contracts, it would all be month to month. The only way I could see them doing a contract is to lure people for "special pricing". The DirectTV way of luring you in with a discount for a year, but making you sign a 2 year agreement.