Verizon Planning on "Turbo" Network Speed Mode with Micro-Transaction Tiered Data

[Trusstopher]

I believe that Samsung did. Same thing as the diamond industry. Diamonds are the most common and abundant precious stone on the planet, literally. But because one cartel owns most of the diamond mines, they can control how many actually hit the market each year, thus keeping demand artificially thousands of percent higher than the supply, and keeping the prices 10x where they should be.

Different things at work, but both shady. I don't support either practice.

Little known fact... Engagement rings didn't become traditionally "exclusively" Diamond until a De Beers ad campaign in the late 1930s. See the last sentence of this section:

Diamond (gemstone) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[SquireSCA]

Little known fact... Engagement rings didn't become traditionally "exclusively" Diamond until a De Beers ad campaign in the late 1930s. See the last sentence of this section:

Diamond (gemstone) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Diamonds are quite possibly the largest financial scam the world has ever known, all kidding aside. But women expect them, it is programmed into our culture that diamonds=love. So as much as I despise them, it didn't stop me from dropping 5 digits on my ex's engagement ring... Could have bought a new Ducati, or the ring. I got the ring. And if you noted the "ex" label, you can safely determine how wise that investment was. LOL

Anyways, its a sham, and a lot of corporations do crap like this. I like profits, it makes everything work, but there are times when you have to just ask yourself, WTF?

 

[Raw Dodge]

Ive had it with Verizon....they are ripping us off big time....I have 2 smartphones on unlimited data plans....my monthly bill for them with 1400min, and unlimited txt,insurance on both smartphones and one dumbphone is 235.00 a month....60.00 of that is data charges...i use .75-1.8gb average monthly on my phone,and my better half works from home and is on wifi with her smartphone most of the time...she averages .3gb a month...I have hit as high as 2.75 once this summer when i went away,but my winter average is only .75gb...so basically im paying about 30.00 per GB monthly,and Im being HEAVILY throttled on my line (the one that averages .75-1.8gb)...and occasionally throttled on the other line as well...I cannot even use Pandora anymore,sending simple emails takes forever.Using the mobile browser on my DX2 is hit or miss....forget watching a video...when i first got my plan I had the OG droid 1,and everything worked as it should,it was so much faster than my dual core rooted rommed Dx2,even though on Wifi,the DX2 flies,basically im fed up,,,and now they want me to pay even more to have what I should have now? They are not adding lines to the towers as they add smartphones,so there pocketing more money and pulling back our data speeds....I hope one day the Sprint network improves enough here so i can jump ship...Im beyond aggravated...

 

[SquireSCA]

Ive had it with Verizon....they are ripping us off big time....I have 2 smartphones on unlimited data plans....my monthly bill for them with 1400min, and unlimited txt,insurance on both smartphones and one dumbphone is 235.00 a month....60.00 of that is data charges...i use .75-1.8gb average monthly on my phone,and my better half works from home and is on wifi with her smartphone most of the time...she averages .3gb a month...I have hit as high as 2.75 once this summer when i went away,but my winter average is only .75gb...so basically im paying about 30.00 per GB monthly,and Im being HEAVILY throttled on my line (the one that averages .75-1.8gb)...and occasionally throttled on the other line as well...I cannot even use Pandora anymore,sending simple emails takes forever.Using the mobile browser on my DX2 is hit or miss....forget watching a video...when i first got my plan I had the OG droid 1,and everything worked as it should,it was so much faster than my dual core rooted rommed Dx2,even though on Wifi,the DX2 flies,basically im fed up,,,and now they want me to pay even more to have what I should have now? They are not adding lines to the towers as they add smartphones,so there pocketing more money and pulling back our data speeds....I hope one day the Sprint network improves enough here so i can jump ship...Im beyond aggravated...

You might be better off leaving the Unlimited Plan and jumping onto the "double the data" 2GB plan for the same money, meaning you will have 4GB without any fear of throttling...

Or will they still throttle anything over 2GB, but just not hit you with overage charges until after 4GB?

 

[ilikemoneygreen]

You might be better off leaving the Unlimited Plan and jumping onto the "double the data" 2GB plan for the same money, meaning you will have 4GB without any fear of throttling...

Or will they still throttle anything over 2GB, but just not hit you with overage charges until after 4GB?

So when he gets his lte phone in the future he can be limited to just 2gb? i love how all these cloud services are being advertised but the total lack of data left on peeps plans will totally restrict it. im not going to watch netflix nor liten to google music if i have a 2gb limit. thats ridiculousness.

 

[Raw Dodge]

I don't trust Verizon not to throttle me..and I don't want to change my plans ....my plan is fine and I don't abuse it .Only way ill change is if they offer roll over data...say 48gb a year....instead of 4 a month .

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk

 

[SquireSCA]

So when he gets his lte phone in the future he can be limited to just 2gb? i love how all these cloud services are being advertised but the total lack of data left on peeps plans will totally restrict it. im not going to watch netflix nor liten to google music if i have a 2gb limit. thats ridiculousness.

Why would he be limited to 2GB on his LTE phone? If he gets the 2GB "doubled" plan, would that not carry over when he gets a new phone?

Besides, the 2GB throttling is coming to LTE as well. They started on the 3G phones, but they will put the same limits on the grandfathered Unlimited plans for LTE as well, probably in less than 12 months.

Let's just be honest, there will be no Unlimited plans no matter if you are grandfathered or not. They want everyone on a tiered plan, and while they cannot limit how much data your Unlimited plan gets, they can throttle it back so much as to be unusable, so the end result is the same.

And because LTE is so much faster, we will end up doing more and chewing that up even faster and VZW will add the throttling to that. Our Unlimited plans won't last another 12 months, I guarantee it.

 

[ilikemoneygreen]

Why would he be limited to 2GB on his LTE phone? If he gets the 2GB "doubled" plan, would that not carry over when he gets a new phone?

Besides, the 2GB throttling is coming to LTE as well. They started on the 3G phones, but they will put the same limits on the grandfathered Unlimited plans for LTE as well, probably in less than 12 months.

Let's just be honest, there will be no Unlimited plans no matter if you are grandfathered or not. They want everyone on a tiered plan, and while they cannot limit how much data your Unlimited plan gets, they can throttle it back so much as to be unusable, so the end result is the same.

And because LTE is so much faster, we will end up doing more and chewing that up even faster and VZW will add the throttling to that. Our Unlimited plans won't last another 12 months, I guarantee it.

Haha hopefully they throttle to 3g speeds. im content with that.

 

[SquireSCA]

Haha hopefully they throttle to 3g speeds. im content with that.

Maybe, but doubtful. This isn't about preserving the network, this isn't about being fair or doing what is right. This is about a company looking for ways to improve profits without having to do anything. The network is there, all they want to do now is charge you more for less. Easiest way to increase profits is to take people locked into a contract, and just jack up the price.

They cannot terminate the Unlimited plans because they would lose a ton of customers that way, but what they can do is restrict them and hold them back to the point that they are painful to use, and most people will abandon them and sign up for the higher priced plans. This way, we are choosing to pay more money, for less data, and VZW's hands are "clean" legally.

 

[WildcatRudy]

So we're learning now that our grandfathered "unlimited" plans are limited. I wonder how the FTC would feel about this false promise. Of course by the time the attorneys twist all the wording around...oh, never mind.

Throttling our unlimited data plan is like saying we can drink unlimited water from an endless water jug, but we can only have it as a trickle. The supply is "unlimited" but the rate at which we can consume it, isn't.

 

[WildcatRudy]

Our Unlimited plans won't last another 12 months, I guarantee it.

And even that is optimistic. I just found out our DSL service to the house is now metered also, 150GB per month. I agree it seems like they're using tiers and caps to improve profits. Internet technology advances daily, and the pipe will keep on getting fatter with each passing year. But we won't be privileged to use it unless we pay a greater amount in the future.

 

[Trusstopher]

So we're learning now that our grandfathered "unlimited" plans are limited. I wonder how the FTC would feel about this false promise. Of course by the time the attorneys twist all the wording around...oh, never mind.

Throttling our unlimited data plan is like saying we can drink unlimited water from an endless water jug, but we can only have it as a trickle. The supply is "unlimited" but the rate at which we can consume it, isn't.

Which is why it is unfortunate that the contracts we agreed to only specified an unlimited amount of data but never mentioned anything about an unlimited (or even guaranteed minimum) rate.

 

[WildcatRudy]

Which is why it is unfortunate that the contracts we agreed to only specified an unlimited amount of data but never mentioned anything about an unlimited (or even guaranteed minimum) rate.

Exactly right. As we're unfortunately finding out...

 

[SquireSCA]

So we're learning now that our grandfathered "unlimited" plans are limited. I wonder how the FTC would feel about this false promise. Of course by the time the attorneys twist all the wording around...oh, never mind.

Throttling our unlimited data plan is like saying we can drink unlimited water from an endless water jug, but we can only have it as a trickle. The supply is "unlimited" but the rate at which we can consume it, isn't.

Well, "Unlimited" has never meant unlimited. I once got a call from Comcast that I used more than 350GB in a month and they were telling me that if it happens again that I could have my service terminated. I asked what part of Unlimited didn't cover that usage? The supervisor told me that unlimited just means that they don't limit where I go on the web or what I can download, it doesn't refer to an amount of data.

So this practice is common in the telecom industry. They call a plan unlimited because it gives the impression that it means what is says and most of us don't bother to read the fine print.

It's misleading, but legal. And so our time of "unlimited" will be quickly coming to a close. And it isn't because 0.001% of subscribers tether their XBox and abuse it. It is because they realize that now that we are hooked on bandwidth hungry devices, they can charge more money and we will pay it like the lemmings that all of us are...

 

[ilikemoneygreen]

They advertised a certain area for expected speeds. i think in a court that would be a good arguement. I dont think that wording isn't where they get you. Where VZ makes it bang is their changes to your contract, the one you signed. they change it, put it out to you and for the world to see and if you dont respond about it then your stuck in...and if you dont like it you can leave. Throttling anything was not in my contract at all, but they added that one later. I hate the forceful nature of all of this. i know the big talk about at&t merging is a big deal but in truth even having just 4 carriers is a total lack of competitiveness. I cant go out and buy in to sprint, its not covering my area. So that leaves VZ. I cannot choose another cdma carrier at all. lte is still getting out and not expected for some time with at&t. At&t as a whole is boggled down enough.....