Verizon Preps for Tiered Data Plans and New Family Plans (Maybe This Summer)

[kodiak799]

Sorry but it is not hard at all to go over 2gigs on your phone I avg about 3 per month.

Do you stream music a lot? Otherwise you must surf an ungodly amount, because I get a fair amount of email and some light surfing, even some navigation, and hit maybe 300megs a month for that. I will go 500megs-1gig depending on how much Pandora I play.

Like I said, the average was 400megs, might be a bit higher now and note how you and your girlfriend 8-12X that skew the averages.

 

[dfuser312553]

I typically stay below 4gb but I've hit 17gb (doubt I will accomplish that again). I just can't comprehend switching from $30 *unlimited to $15-20 for 2-3gb or whatever paltry amount they offer. It's not a justifiable savings to me when the markup on bandwidth is so ridiculous.

 

[kptphalkon]

yes bandwidth is definitely marked up. even if it seriously chokes a companies cash flow to deliver unlimited bandwidth at the fastest speeds possible, wouldnt it make more sense to just slow the connection down a bit and keep things unlimited?

I dont know ANYONE who needs a 7-12 mb/s connection on a freakin smartphone.

 

[shizumie]

I have been with VZW for 10 years.
I have had contracts the entire time and had new devices often as I could.

When I "renewed" for device pricing, it never changed my plan. It simply locks me into it for a new time period.
I was never forced into any kind of change. Even when my plan was old and no longer offered. I just switched to the family promo that was discussed here. Before that I had a plan that was offered to me like 6 years ago and was discontinued shortly after I got it .
They just renewed the existing contract. They never once forced my plan to change.

I agree, i have upgraded and renewed my contract several times after my plan is no more and they have told me (you keep your grandfathered plan unless you cancell service or change plan) so i dont think it will be a problem if you get it. Myself i just bought a tbolt on ebay for 250. (Looked long and hard for that deal mind you) and locked in my 4g unlimited. About to do the same with my wifes line. We both want bionic but cant risk missing the unlimited data.

However i do see the plus side for big fam plans or even someone who dosent use much data being forced to a 30 $ plan when say a 10 or 15$ would be plenty for them.

I am optomistic and hope vrw does this the right way, however im glad im in the 4g plan as it sits.

Sent from my Xoom using DroidForums

 

[New2u]

Sorry but it is not hard at all to go over 2gigs on your phone I avg about 3 per month.

Do you stream music a lot? Otherwise you must surf an ungodly amount, because I get a fair amount of email and some light surfing, even some navigation, and hit maybe 300megs a month for that. I will go 500megs-1gig depending on how much Pandora I play.

Like I said, the average was 400megs, might be a bit higher now and note how you and your girlfriend 8-12X that skew the averages.

And that's fine, that is your data usage. He is merely stating what the effects of having netflix app has done to his girlfriend, and you know what, he isn't alone. There are alot of people out there that are seeing their data usage go way up because of just 1 app. Soon there will be more.

With the implementation of google music, netflix, google docs, and all these other cloud computing type apps you cannot honestly say that average user usage will not go way up. If you do deny that then you are blinded. I agree with the other user that stated they are going to tiered data before people understand how much data they will end up using. If there is an unlimited option that will be great, i'm sure it will cost a little more but i'm sure quite a few of us would jump on that offer. If I do nothing on my phone other then surf the web once a week and have my emails from work with touchdown, yeah i use almost no data. When you start adding in music, surfing the web alot, and so on i go up to around 5-6 gigs, but to me, i'm going to use my phone with the capabilities it allows me to.

If they are going to hype up all the capabilities of phones that allow you to do google music, netflix, hulu, pandora, etc... then they shouldn't balk when customers start using it. If they can't build the network to offer the services they are talking up... then don't offer the services. If they made a TV commercial that showed the awesome wonders of the netflix app, but then stated that you can only use it once a month because of network limitations, would be kind of dumb. Does 1 netflix movie to your phone only use say 200-300 megs... sure but that is 1 movie.. so with all the emails.. updates to apps, music, web surfing, web docs... i'm sure that people will stay below their 1-2 gig caps.

If you want to say that yes.. this is only a phone and this is not a replacement to an ISP, sure i understand that, and for that reason alone i don't try to tether my house from it. But when i want to use it as it was intended, and then i'm told well now you can't do everything you wanted to because we can't build a network to handle you... sorry. Then that is a lack of verizon and marketing. Don't hype products you cant deliver on.

 

[Beka27]

Verizon doesn't bring in (extreme) profits on the people who stay within their minutes and text message allowances... same thing with credit card companies LOVING the people who pay the minimum and are late/overlimit from time to time. They want people to exceed the capped plans... fees = $$$

 

[SixStringTheory]

Sorry but it is not hard at all to go over 2gigs on your phone I avg about 3 per month.

Do you stream music a lot? Otherwise you must surf an ungodly amount, because I get a fair amount of email and some light surfing, even some navigation, and hit maybe 300megs a month for that. I will go 500megs-1gig depending on how much Pandora I play.

Like I said, the average was 400megs, might be a bit higher now and note how you and your girlfriend 8-12X that skew the averages.

With just using Pandora during my ~60 minutes a day of commuting I average at least 2 gigs a month. 2 gigs might sound like a lot, but it's nothing compared to the terabytes of data I move at home (having 25/25 fiber helps). But still. 2 gigs is not a lot of data, let alone 5 gigs.

The providers speak a lot of "average users", which is fine. It may be true. But the trend of consumption will dramatically increase as services are available, meaning these paltry 2 gig plans will be woefully inadequate. Instead of fixing the terrible infrastructure in this country companies just want to limit how you use it (not just cellular). It's sad.

 

[New2u]

Sorry but it is not hard at all to go over 2gigs on your phone I avg about 3 per month.

Do you stream music a lot? Otherwise you must surf an ungodly amount, because I get a fair amount of email and some light surfing, even some navigation, and hit maybe 300megs a month for that. I will go 500megs-1gig depending on how much Pandora I play.

Like I said, the average was 400megs, might be a bit higher now and note how you and your girlfriend 8-12X that skew the averages.

With just using Pandora during my ~60 minutes a day of commuting I average at least 2 gigs a month. 2 gigs might sound like a lot, but it's nothing compared to the terabytes of data I move at home (having 25/25 fiber helps). But still. 2 gigs is not a lot of data, let alone 5 gigs.

The providers speak a lot of "average users", which is fine. It may be true. But the trend of consumption will dramatically increase as services are available, meaning these paltry 2 gig plans will be woefully inadequate. Instead of fixing the terrible infrastructure in this country companies just want to limit how you use it (not just cellular). It's sad.

+1 I agree with everything stated here.

 

[jseah]

Sorry but it is not hard at all to go over 2gigs on your phone I avg about 3 per month.

Do you stream music a lot? Otherwise you must surf an ungodly amount, because I get a fair amount of email and some light surfing, even some navigation, and hit maybe 300megs a month for that. I will go 500megs-1gig depending on how much Pandora I play.

Like I said, the average was 400megs, might be a bit higher now and note how you and your girlfriend 8-12X that skew the averages.

With just using Pandora during my ~60 minutes a day of commuting I average at least 2 gigs a month. 2 gigs might sound like a lot, but it's nothing compared to the terabytes of data I move at home (having 25/25 fiber helps). But still. 2 gigs is not a lot of data, let alone 5 gigs.

The providers speak a lot of "average users", which is fine. It may be true. But the trend of consumption will dramatically increase as services are available, meaning these paltry 2 gig plans will be woefully inadequate. Instead of fixing the terrible infrastructure in this country companies just want to limit how you use it (not just cellular). It's sad.

With iPhone, and now Android, you are seeing many more users of smartphones who would not have gotten a smartphone before. Just in passing, I am starting to see lots of "grandma" types, elderly individuals who really don't "need" smartphones, and yet they are carrying Droids and iPhones. And streaming and cloud computing really isn't being driven by cell phone carriers, it's just the natural evolution of the internet. It's not like it is Verizon (or AT&T, or Sprint, etc.) that is driving streaming services just so they can ding people for overages.

 

[TheOldFart]

With iPhone, and now Android, you are seeing many more users of smartphones who would not have gotten a smartphone before. Just in passing, I am starting to see lots of "grandma" types, elderly individuals who really don't "need" smartphones, and yet they are carrying Droids and iPhones. And streaming and cloud computing really isn't being driven by cell phone carriers, it's just the natural evolution of the internet. It's not like it is Verizon (or AT&T, or Sprint, etc.) that is driving streaming services just so they can ding people for overages.

95% of people who own smartphones don't "need" them. People survived without them quite nicely for centuries. I am amazed by the way people think that they need things. I buy a lot of things, but I can recognize that I really need very few of the things I buy.

 

[dfuser312553]

Tiers are such a step backward. It's such a perversion of of our regulatory system that this oligopoly isnt

 

[dfuser312553]

*considered a utility & treated as such.

 

[MoeDaddy]

Sorry but it is not hard at all to go over 2gigs on your phone I avg about 3 per month.

Do you stream music a lot? Otherwise you must surf an ungodly amount, because I get a fair amount of email and some light surfing, even some navigation, and hit maybe 300megs a month for that. I will go 500megs-1gig depending on how much Pandora I play.

Like I said, the average was 400megs, might be a bit higher now and note how you and your girlfriend 8-12X that skew the averages.

I don't stream music... I do have 144 apps installed and I have updates for one or more daily and these all take data to download, I have multiple widgets on my screen that also download data and sync to facebook, weather, news, twitter, etc..., I have multiple non-widget apps that sync regularly throughout the day as well. Add to this that my browser is set to desktop, so I almost always view full web sites. This all adds up.... As I said I don't stream media other than playing with netflix so maybe 30 mins total.

Whatever number VZW throws out as avg is going to be skewed because with stats you can frame them anyway you like to fit your point of view. Plus many people have smart phones and use very very little data so they skew the avg a bit too... For example, my mom and dad both have android phones, my dad NEVER uses any data and my mom plays games and does her banking on the phone so they together use less than avg, maybe a 100mg between them both. Sometimes avg isn't the best means to get a real overview on usage...

Either way it doesn't matter to me what you use or my parents use because I am paying for "Unlimited" data and I will use however much I use and not think twice about it. There is no need for me to feel guilty or look over my shoulder as I am NOT doing anything wrong. I am using what I paid for, period. Not to mention all my phones will be bought at full retail from now on so they will have to force me to goto tiered data...

 

[kyler13]

95% of people who own smartphones don't "need" them. People survived without them quite nicely for centuries. I am amazed by the way people think that they need things. I buy a lot of things, but I can recognize that I really need very few of the things I buy.

100% of people who own smartphones don't need them. It's a matter of convenience, and for some it provides proportionately more than others. I suppose it's synonymous with being brought up on the VCR in the 80's. The idea of being able to record your own shows or watch movies at home any time you want was revolutionary, and in today's pace, the concept of recording is almost a necessity. But really, I think I'd survive just fine if you took away my DVR.

 

[TXPearl]

Either way it doesn't matter to me what you use or my parents use because I am paying for "Unlimited" data and I will use however much I use and not think twice about it. There is no need for me to feel guilty or look over my shoulder as I am NOT doing anything wrong. I am using what I paid for, period. Not to mention all my phones will be bought at full retail from now on so they will have to force me to goto tiered data...

I don't think anyone is suggesting that you've done something wrong or in violation of your data agreement. But VZ reserves the right to change its pricing in response to changes in the marketplace. We now have a situation where some use very little data (your parents) and some use a ton (some dude mentioned like 20G/mo.). Should they both be paying the same monthly rate of $30? Hell no. It costs more to deliver more data, so those users should pay more and quit being subsidized by your parents.

And to whomever suggested that wireless should be more regulated.....yeah, that's what we need, more gubmint involvement.