Ask Slashdot: Is It Worth Being Grandfathered On Verizon's Unlimited Data Plan? 209
An anonymous reader writes I understand a lot of people dislike Verizon in general, but assuming for a moment that they were your only option for a cellular service provider, is staying on their grandfathered unlimited data plan still worth it? Their recent announcement to not throttle traffic is inpiring, but I just don't know the long-term benefits of staying on this plan. I fear there is a tipping point where enough people will swap over to a metered plan and Verizon will ultimately abandon the unlimited altogether and assume the risk of losing a percentage of those remaining folks, at which point all of us who bought unsubsidized phones will have wasted the money doing so. Does anyone have any insight on this? Useful answers to this should take into account the problem with the question of "How long is a piece of string?" Give some context about how much you pay, and how much you use -- and how much that would change if the price were different.
Boost mobile (Score:1)
$45 unlimited. nuff said.
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I'd rather do Tmobile $35.00 plan, only 100 minutes, but the same otherwise (I think it's 5gb).
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It will interesting to see what happens
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If you spend all your time at home/work I think you have a point. Is there free open wifi every where you go?
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I wish T-mobile's "unlimited" throttle gave you something good enough for web browsing.
When you hit the cap, they fucking throttle you to 2400 bps and you can barely check email with it.
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I wish T-mobile's "unlimited" throttle gave you something good enough for web browsing.
When you hit the cap, they fucking throttle you to 2400 bps and you can barely check email with it.
We're doing the $50 T-mobile plan with a second for $30. When I first looked at it 6 months ago the limit was 200 MB. When we signed up in August it was 1GB. When we got our first bill it was 3GB. So yeah...effectively unlimited.
Now we didn't even broach 300MB between both phones for our first billing period; but then, we're not use to having a data plan either - this is the first we've had one of any kind. But needless to say, T-Mobile is way ahead of us on the Unlimited thing. We'll see how the next bi
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Yes but you're the ideal 'unlimited' customer. You do most of your data on WiFi and don't really use much otherwise while traveling.
The 'bad' unlimited customer is a road warrior that has work VPN running for 8-10 hours a day and personal streaming, netflix, torrents, downloads, etc. running the remainder of his/her personal time. My office PC has pushed 4.3GB in the past 6 days for example. It might be a bit less if I was on a cellular connection but...not by much.
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Yes but you're the ideal 'unlimited' customer. You do most of your data on WiFi and don't really use much otherwise while traveling.
For the time being yes; but primarily b/c I'm not use to having it. As that changes, habits will change. I'm also planning on writing a number of apps that while they won't be any where near Netflix like usage, they will be ideal with regular usage. So again, that will change over time.
The 'bad' unlimited customer is a road warrior that has work VPN running for 8-10 hours a day and personal streaming, netflix, torrents, downloads, etc. running the remainder of his/her personal time. My office PC has pushed 4.3GB in the past 6 days for example. It might be a bit less if I was on a cellular connection but...not by much.
From experience in other areas, pushing that kind of data usage via cellular or wireless in general is typically not a very good practice. A system I use to work on had cellular connections so that we could support it; suppor
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So it's unlimited as long as you don't exceed a predefined limit?
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No, that situation is referred to as "More than I need".
"Unlimited as long as you don't actually use it" is not unlimited, not by any logical definition. It has a limit, therefor it is the opposite of unlimited.
Your definition is 100% marketing lies.
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I disagree. When I hear unlimited, I take it to mean that, no matter how high my data usage, the telco will never deliberately hinder my ability to continue using the service.
If they cut me off entirely, then of course it's not unlimited, but you're also on very shaky ground to argue that it's unlimited because they 'merely' cripple my connection when I go over a limit. The very existence of any such limited means it's not really unlimited.
To try to cheapen the meaning of 'unlimited' is just marketing slime
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Didn't say it was t-mobile's marketing lies. Just yours.
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Boost is one of Sprint's pre-paid brands. The network is laughably inferior to Verizon's.
Republic Wireless (Score:2)
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Republic Wireless is a MVNO that rides on Sprint's network. Hence why you can't use a GSM phone with their service. You have to buy the phone from them because no one sells "unlocked" CDMA phones. They don't sell them for the simple reason that the by far largest CDMA carriers (Verizon and Sprint) don't allow unlocked phones on their networks.
Re: Republic Wireless (Score:2)
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He said verizon was his only option. Boost is sprint.
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Maybe enough for you. For me, I would need to research more to find out what they consider high speed data (which is capped) and 3g speeds (which is what your streaming video is limited to).
Caps and throttling.
I'll never give up my Verizon unlimited. No matter how good looking the Verizon rep is, and no matter how much a month they promise to save me for switching to a new plan.
--
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Re:Boost mobile (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to suspect you have never experienced Verizon's coverage area and reliability.
Like every carrier, it varies depending on where you are. I used to swear by their coverage and reliability but then I found many places where it just fell flat. The best coverage carrier is the carrier who has coverage where you are or need to be, not the carrier who claims to have covered x% of a map.
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$45 unlimited. nuff said.
umm...excelsior?
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Just checked there website. I see no unlimitted DATA plans.
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$45 unlimited. nuff said.
$45 unlimited. Poor coverage where I am. A phone that constantly rebooted all by itself every five minutes or so. Customer support that was almost impossible to reach. Returns department that loses phones. Customer support where it took more than an hour to cancel service after they could be reached.
There's more to a good company than just cut-rate pricing. Nuff said.
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Ting resells Sprint service.
They roam to Verizon for Voice and Text if there's no Sprint service available (although, if you're in an area with marginal Sprint coverage, you may get stuck with a crappy Sprint connection while a Verizon user will get a great Verizon connection).
However, they do NOT roam to any other carrier for Data. In many sparsely populated areas outside where I live, Verizon has MUCH better data coverage than Sprint. It's not been much of a problem for me, but I don't use data much (and
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Boost: All the crappiness of Sprint's network, without the ability to at least roam on Verizon's network when you need to.
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Straight Talk is owned by America Movil, along with Trac Fone and Net10. Unlike most other MVNO's, they have contracts with all four of the Big Four carriers, though any individual handset will ride on only one of the four networks. The specific assortment of handsets they'll offer (either online or at retail) in any given location is a function of the coverage available from the Big Four at that specific location. Hence their website asks you for your zip code before showing you phones.
The retail packages
Streaming videos (Score:1, Informative)
Kids + tablets + streaming videos = Massive GBs used per month
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No (Score:2)
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Crazy. You can go to the website and add features on Verizon, which includes tethering. However you get a data bucket for the tethered data, while your phone gets to use the unlimited bucket.
I recently switched and saved $60/month (Score:2, Interesting)
I was a hold out. I purchased at full price my Samsung S4 ($700 with taxes) and my wife's iPhone 5S ($800 with taxes). I calculated that the break even point was about 2.5 years. Then my wife wanted text messaging that we had turned off to save money. Then Verizon reduced the cost of their data plans. I looked at my data usage and saw that it was low. I turned on wifi on both phones and my data usage dropped. I called one night and asked if there were any promotions to get me to switch. After promotio
How long is a piece of string? (Score:4, Insightful)
Stupid analogy, that.
Useful answers to this should take into account the problem with the question of "How long is a piece of string?" Give some context about how much you pay, and how much you use -- and how much that would change if the price were different.
The second half of the commentary in the summary is a bit easier to digest. Yes, it all boils down to math. The key is, Verizon has probably calculated how the math will benefit them in the long run, and customers effectively can't, so the game is rigged from the start.
Let's give an example. Verizon bases their "limited" usage caps based on the average usage of their aggregate customer base (plus a little wiggle room, I guess). So on average, the data usage of a given customer won't go over the limit. However, the usage of a particular customer might exceed the cap at particular times. Travel/vacation time is a good time for this. You use more data while running the GPS-based turn-by-turn navigation while driving to your destination. Once there, you want some entertainment during the evenings, but you're not at home where you can use your home-based internet via wi-fi, so you stream some Netflix via 4G. Since your phone can output 1080p via HDMI, you use that cable you bought to plug into the HDMI port of the television at the place you are staying. Depending on the length of your stay, that's a significant spike in your data usage.
Under the unlimited plan, you either get throttled at some point (but now you don't) or you just don't notice the fact that you wandered above the average usage for the week or two you were traveling, because unlimited. Under capped, metered data plans, you are subject to overage fees based on a cap that has been fine tuned to be just above the threshold of "normal" usage, so your bill is higher. It may be only for those few weeks, so easy to absorb, but add that up across the entire customer base and Verizon has made more money than they would have with the unlimited data plans in place.
*That* is what it's all about. So unless you absolutely have to, you might as well stick to your grandfathered unlimited plan, because once you give it up, you will be fleeced, even if just a little bit.
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The data bits go by pretty fast when using one's phone as a hotspot to RDP to a work computer...
Yep. I've done that too. And that's kind of the point. The benefit of the unlimited plan isn't about the constant baseline level of usage - it's more about when you need more data than normal. If you don't approach the capped limit, Verizon comes out ahead because you used "less" than your alotted limit (if you were capped). but when you exceed the capped limit under the new plans, you pay dearly, because you likely don't just go over a little bit, you go over a lot for the time when you are solely rely
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I have unlimited with Straight Talk (Score:2)
Between wifi at work/home/parents, I use maybe 1.5gb in an extreme month. lots of travel with maps/radio apps. Otherwise it's barely over 500mb per month.
You could try finding a mnvo for Verizon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
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Since I'm also in a Sprint-sucks area, I looked through all the Verizon and AT&T mnvo's a while back. All had outrageous prices if you use the phone more than a miniscule amount. Do you know of one that doesn't?
Re: I have unlimited with Straight Talk (Score:2)
Yeah I have straight talk att Sim. Make sure it's att and not T-Mobile. (Unless T-Mobile doesn't suck in your area like it does in mine). It's 45 for unlimited talk text. 3gb LTE no throttle. After 3gb it throttles to 2g speeds.
Customer service can suck. You have to know how to edit your own APN your self. But they do based on your phone number give you the right settings. I have 2 phones over 2 years with them so far. You can port your number in but if you don't pay a month you have chance of losin
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Ouch. I really need to keep it around $30/mo. or less. I mostly use the phone for talk, never text, seldom data.
I had T-Mobile for $30/1500 min. but it's all roaming here (mostly to AT&T, that part works fine) and when roaming, you can't pick up voicemail at all!
Unlimited = No Sharing (Score:5, Interesting)
The two big catches with the unlimited plan are
(a) you can't buy a discounted phone (which someone above has already mentioned)
but the big one is
(b) you can't hotspot or share the account with other devices
(a) is less of a problem these days: There really aren't discounted phones, just installment payment plans. And I got my latest phone from a relative who's an exec at Verizon (no, I can't get you one too)
(b) is nearly a dealbreaker. I don't like touchscreen typing, so any message more than two lines long I want to use my laptop or tablet keyboard for... but I can't if I'm not in a free wifi zone. Is it worth losing unlimited to be able to occasionally tether? Maybe. At one point there were apps that would let you tether without rooting the phone, outside of the provider's knowledge, then they stopped working, maybe they work again.
Anyone have experience with non-root tether apps on Android?
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You're 100% wrong about (b). I've seen me do it. I'm dong it right now. I can do it because I pay for it.
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FoxFi has long been the defacto standard for non-root tether apps but whether it works varies by phone. But, I honestly haven't used it in ages as I always just root my phones (last 4). It was so easy to root my Moto X Dev that I have never looked back. But, even having the ability, I rarely use it. I just occasionally connect to my phone with my Android tablet, but never with a PC.
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Corporate partners can still upgrade at reduced rates ($99 G3 for me this summer, $99 iPhone 5s for the wife last spring) and still keep unlimited. ($47/mo for unlimited data and metered voice/texts with low includeds)
Tethering is not allowed by the TOS, but a rooted device will tether easily and in 3 years I've yet to be caught - but I'm generally low usage compared to top downloaders. I think (but am not certain) I could pay for a byte bucket for tethering as a side fee, but it's ~$50/mo and the bucket is
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Actually, you can hotspot, but only on Android. One of Verizon's 700MHz licenses came with the stipulation that VZ has to allow any application to run. So, they can't ban the PDA Net application, which lets you run a hotspot on your Android phone. There presumably could be a comparable app for iPhone, but Apple hasn't allowed it through the app store. Don't know if there's a similar app for jailbroken iPhones, though.
Bottom line, you can definitely have a hotspot (for no extra charge) as part of your Ve
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T-Mobile doesn't care if you tether/hotspot (since March):
http://www.technobuffalo.com/2... [technobuffalo.com]
I didn't even know their policy and tether regularly, but not for large transfer communications on my non-root Nexus 5. Shoot, the carrier can't even prevent tethering on the Nexus 5, it's built into the operating system (and my phone was a private purchase). I'm guessing the carrier can tell if you are tethering, I'm not sure, but then again it doesn't matter to me.
T-Mobile's coverage isn't the best (AT&T has t
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Anyone have experience with non-root tether apps on Android?
If you don't mind getting your hands a little dirty with adb and OpenVPN, you can take a look at azilink [google.com]. It basically runs a Java-based NAT on your phone, which communicates with OpenVPN on your computer. I had some issues with the app on the phone crashing once in a while, but for the most part it works. It might work better for you.
I still have $30 unlimited Verizon data... (Score:2)
still on Verizon but no longer unlimited (Score:2)
I've been limited for 15 months now, and I haven't changed my habits. I only use about 0.5 GB per month because I'm always on WiFi at work and at home and I rarely play videos while I'm out. I haven't missed unlimited, and I haven't felt restricted.
My wife's usage was basically the same as mine until the past few months, when she started using Spotify and YouTube to entertain our toddler on the go. If she's careful not to use YouTube much while she's out, she now uses 1.5-1.8 GB per month. This weekend
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I have unlimited in V (my plan allows me to get upgrades and keep it), but I rarely use a lot of data. Even with unlimited, I suspect my wife and I combine for less than 3GB 11 out of 12 months of the year. We used to have AT&T and were on the 250MB/mo plan and ran over twice in 2 years - once when I got bored on a long train ride an was watching videos, and once when Pandora decided to start streaming in the background while the sound was off and it ran all night.
For $47 each, we've got all the data/mi
Relevant to my interests... (Score:2)
As someone on the grandfathered Verizon unlimited plan, I'm seriously considering buying an unsubsidized phone.
My wife traded it for a 5GB plan, and has gone over her data plan with only limited youtube usage. Once XLTE gets implemented, that means you can burn through your data even faster.
It's either that or go to Sprint, which I understand in recent years has turned down the "suck" lately, and actually has decent speeds, coverage, and unlimited data.
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YMMV with Sprint. Based on feedback from people who have Sprint here in southern California, the suck is less but it is by no means nearly as good as Verizon.
It depends. (Score:2)
For me, it's been great. I've been on a year long road trip and I kept my unlimited account to use as a backup. Turns out the internet service provided at rv parks/resorts has sucked fetid donkey balls at nearly every stop. If I hadn't kept my unlimited Verizon account, this trip would have had some really annoying stretches. Instead of being my backup, it's been my primary access most of the time and I've moved hundred of gigs during some billing periods. I'm [almost] embarrassed by the amount of data
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On a more philosophical tangent, I don't see how people put up with metered service on cell phones these days. I've got half a dozen apps that all want to sync all my pics and video automatically. I'd be paranoid that I missed a setting on some new app and it's going to eat up a gig of data before I catch it.
On Android phones, at least, you can set warning and cut-off thresholds in the Data Usage settings panel to ensure that you don't go over your limit. I have my Nexus 5 set to warn me at 75% and disable mobile data at 90%. Of course, that's less helpful if you have several devices sharing the same account, and you can still end up in a situation where you unknowingly burn through your months' allotment in the first day, but at least with the automatic cut-off you won't get stuck with massive overage charges.
Republic Wierless (Score:3)
So my wife and I both switched from Verizon Unlimited to Republic Wireless this past January and I've already saved enough money to cover the cost of the two Moto X's I had to buy. I can see Republic Wireless not working well for everyone though. I happen to live in the Chicago Area where coverage from every major provider is basically the same. I actually get better service in the loop with my Republic Wireless phone than I did with Verizon because Sprint's towers are less congested.
However, I wouldn't ever tell my Mother-In-Law to switch to Republic since she lives so far north in Michigan that they deliver the mail by snow mobile and talk with Canadian accents. Sprint basically has zero coverage up there and when my wife and I visit we have to put our phones on airplane mode with only WiFi so the battery doesn't die really fast. Verizon has full coverage with 4G LTE there so the choice is obvious.
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Are there any outfits that offer similar plans that are resellers for either Verizon or AT&T?
Because tho those are attractive plans for my usage, Republic Wireless is a Sprint reseller, and in my area that means 1) ALL use is 100% roaming (which causes all manner of issues, among them voicemail only works over WiFi) and 2) coverage via the actual Sprint towers that the phone will speak to is spotty at best. (Yes, that sounds contradictory, but I used a Sprint reseller before and had both a very restrict
So (Score:2)
i'll take lower price over unlimited data any day (Score:2)
gave up my AT&T long ago and never looked back. i rarely stream music, netflix or youtube. with phones being able to store over 100GB of data you can just carry it around instead of paying money for bandwidth
$10 a month buys spotify premium with lots of features including online caching
you can download podcasts and large youtube videos to watch offline
you can't cache netflix, but any other movie can be stored locally
porn is easy to download a bunch of videos on wifi and watch later at your leisure
my 4 l
Same problem; decided to stay unlimited. (Score:2)
I'm not the original anonymous questioner, but I'm in the same boat. I live in a rural area where Verizon has the only coverage, and I've been on an unlimited plan for years. My phone is a Galaxy S (that's S #1) that's getting a bit old; it chokes on a lot of modern websites and apps. I never go above 2 GB/month. I don't even think it's possible, as my old phone is 3G and barely handles Youtube.
I would have switched plans before, but Verizon didn't give me any incentive other than a new phone. My month
Yes! And use it! (Score:2)
I use mine for just about everything. My data usage is usually about 5G a month which is right at most company's largest caps. I could downgrade if I were by myself but then I would have to be careful. Screw that! But.. my phone shares the plan with my wife. She uses 3 or 4 times what I use. How? She watches Netflix at work all day. they don't mind her doing that but she keeps it off of their network just to keep it that way.
Don't want to pay full price for a phone? Go used. Big deal if you are a generati
Stay on it (Score:3)
I was on the grand fathered plan until corporate made me switch. I rarely use more than the data cap, but when I travel I prefer to use my cell phone instead of hotel wifi. I have already run into problems with forced disconnects and throttling. They say that they do not do it but my experience tells me otherwise.
I am still waiting for the call from the accounting drone about overage charges. Of course I saved the email where I told them that when I go over, I tend to go WAY over and that by forcing me off of the plan they are going to end up paying more.
Oddly enough I just said no (Score:2)
Yesterday I just changed me & my wife from our AT&T legacy unlimited plans to a shared 10gb plan (think it's doubled to 20gb due to some promo). I think we'll end up saving over $30 a month and going from 1400 minutes to unlimited. I looked at the stats & combined in the past year our biggest usage month was about 5gb.
Not sure if you can look up the data usage on Verizon, but you can find it for AT&T. If your not using much compared to a capped pan & there is a savings, your probably bet
Do what makes sense now (Score:2)
Really can't use T-mobile through combination of LTE, Wi-Fi calling and limited free data roaming? Your highest data use to date would be prohibitively expensive on best limited plan? Then stay on your current plan while it lasts and look at your options then. I definitely wouldn't pay month after month to just preserve what you might need some day.
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You drive 400 miles, each way, 3 times a week? I'm presuming you're a trucker or something similar and not a masochist.
Re:Completely, and totally worth it. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm presuming you're a trucker or something similar and not a masochist.
The two certainly aren't exclusive. :)
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Only for the unwashed masses (Score:2)
Those on corporate plans (including those of use through combined purchasing partners via professional/industry organizations) can still upgrade and keep unlimited. It's not an option for new subscribers, but I upgraded last summer and my wife last spring and both kept our $20 unlimited data plans. (I know, crazy - definitely legacy. $27 for 400 pooled minutes, and 250 texts/phone, plus $20 for the unlim data). Tethering isn't allowed, but violations aren't rigorously enforced, so I tether with my rooted ha
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verizon has been known to have periodic "accidents" and unoffician promotions where you can upgrade with subsidized pricing and unlimited data
Re: The real questions to ask (Score:2)
Your equipment cannot be incompatible with an unlimited data plan. Data transfer limits are artificial profit boosters, there is absolutely no technical reason they can't give everyone unlimited data transfer.
The great thing about grandfathered plans is that they are contractually obligated to provide the service to you. Don't give it up unless you can move to a more customer-friendly provider that does give you unlimited data.
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By denying you subsidized upgrades, Verizon has effectively increased the price of the unlimited data plan by about $18.75 per month. I come to this figure because you have lost the value of them being willing to kick in a ~$450 subsidy every two years.
So, if your wireless data rate plus around $20 per month is still better pricing than a limited data plan given your current usage, it's worth keeping unlimited.
I have unlimited data from AT&T still. They haven't gone down this road (yet). If they d
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That is an administrative rule (in order to boost profits) which can easily be broken by impersonating another device. A technical limitation would be some sort of hardware incompatibility.
T-Mobile (Score:5)
You could definitely get cheaper UNLIMITED DATA elsewhere. But would you be happy with the COVERAGE? At some point you may want new EQUIPMENT, to which Verizon will tell you that your new phone isn't compatible with the "grandfathered" rate plans. The real questions to ask are "am I happy with the coverage" and "Will I be happy with this phone forever?" If the unlimited data works for you now, keep it for now. But at some point, you'll be forced to make a decision. All the other arguments about "unlimited" data are irrelevant. There are much better UNLIMITED deals elsewhere for the money.
I have gotten comments and run into situations where my T-mobile data and voice coverage in major metropolitan areas are better than Verizon. If you're in a big city or dense areas, it's not clear to me that Verizon is better. T-mobile has also been looking to improve their non-metro coverage [1]. And they've purchased 700Mhz spectrum from Verizon also good for non-dense coverage [2]. Finally, T-mobile "uncarrier" push is constantly striving to improve customer features and services. They are setting the pace with which other carriers follow.
I currently very rarely go outside of big metros so T-Mobile is a great choice for me - and I've had HD Voice for the past year and absolutely love it. Welcome to the club, ATT/VZ - glad you are finally rolling that out.
There is at least one carrier making it their focus to improve their coverage both voice and data significantly over the past 2 years, and T-mobile is definitely on that list.
[1] http://www.fiercewireless.com/... [fiercewireless.com]
[2] http://www.telecompetitor.com/... [telecompetitor.com]
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Wrong - we recently upgraded a phone and ended up in a big fight with Verizon. When we upgraded the phone in the store we made the rep swear on a stack of bibles that the unlimited plan would not be terminated. We even made him bring over his manager.
Next month we get bill with $100 of overages and find we are now on a 2GB plan for same price as old unlimited plan. Of course we screamed. Store was locked out of computer for making changes. So we spent about two weeks harassing them over the phone. Finally w
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Verizon doesn't get why canceling those plans is very harmful to them. All they've done is succeed in getting us to stop using the phone, not in extracting more money out of us.
They've forced us into locating where wifi access points and then switching to use them. Before we were blindly using Verizon and didn't care. Now they've taught us there are options and it is likely that Verizon is not going to be one of them in the future. I'm never going to pay $10/GB in overages - the phone is just set to shut
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I've got a $30/month 5GB plan with T-Mobile. (Actually, $30.75/month including taxes -- yes, that's total.) Even through I rely completely on VoIP for all my calls, I'm still within range of Wi-Fi so often that I've never even made it to 500MB, let alone 5GB. I'm now shopping for an even cheaper plan.
There is absolutely no reason to let Verizon rape your wallet unless you consistently need to stream video somew
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Well, it wasn't that the phone was incompatible, it was that VZW was unwilling to transfer the plan to new phones. They certainly could have, it was a choice on their part.
When I got this phone I had the choice to pay full price for the new phone and keep the unlimited plan, or get the discounted phone and drop down to 2G a month. From a practical perspective, my normal data usage typically runs to between 300M and 500M a month. A road trip will double that or more. The closest I've come to running over
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My understanding is that if you upgrade your phone through Verizon you lose your unlimitted plan regardless of anything a rep claims.
Fortunately you do NOT have to upgrade through them! If you really need the latest and greatest phones you can buy them full price. But why?? They will just come out with better phones 6 months later! Buy used! Even a phone which is a few years old will still run the same apps as a shiny new one!
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Never trust an in-store rep to do ANYTHING. They will say one thing and when the plan is changed they can't get it back.
If you're going to upgrade, you upgrade at full price, and you do it from the website where you can verify yourself that the plan is still the same.
Re:T-Mobile (Score:4, Interesting)
There's no downside to T-Mobile. There's no contract, no overage fees, no nonsense. If they have LTE coverage in your city, check them out.
I second this. I also benefited from only paying $40 for using my phone as normal while traveling in France - making calls to the US, making calls to my relatives - for 2 1/2 weeks - and the bill was only $40 more... oh and that's for both me and my wife.
Also I don't have bill anxiety anymore - with AT&T and Verizon, every month I was checking my bill to see if my wife's data quota went over (she refused to pay for 2-3GB, and insisted on the 250MB plan) or if one of my calls went over my monthly quota or if my wife accidentally called her mom's mobile number instead of her home number in France (big rate difference).
Now I pay +$15/mo per line and can call mobile numbers in Europe for free. No worrying about anything. My bill has been constant for the past year and much less than we were paying with either AT&T or Verizon (oh, and we have 3 more lines for relatives on the bill too).
T-mobile has disrupted mobile carriers like Google disrupted webmail in 2004 with GMail.
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No kidding about international travel. After being so afraid of overages that I left my phone at home from a trip to Europe in 2008, earlier this year I took a work trip to South Korea / Taiwan / Hong Kong / mainland China. As I got off each plane and turned my phone on, the immediate text with "welcome to [country] standard data rates apply" was pretty awesome. I didn't take my laptop - I used my phone exclusively for two weeks.
(Verizon iPhone with a T-Mobile SIM, so yes I could get data in S. Korea des
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Seemingly every year or two T-Mobile actually lowers their price.
In all the years I've been with them, they've never once lowered their price to me. Not once. And I started with VoiceStream, that's how long I've been with them in the US.
They include 1GB of 4G LTE data per line per month, and then I pay an extra $10 per line per month to bump both of them up to 3GB of LTE each.
So the "no overages fees" claim doesn't apply to you, either. You shouldn't have to pay more to get more. That's T-Mobile's marketing. That it doesn't apply to everyone is one downside to T-Mobile.
I traveled to another country over the summer, and I was even able to use my phone for free over there. It was awesome!
Yes, isn't it? I found out that by cancelling the extra 500 texts/month for $2.99 I was paying for, based on T-Mobile service reps swearing
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I don't understand your comments about the 500 texts per month fee. Mine are unlimited.
You are on a different plan. Mine were not. I got fifty, except they never counted the texts that came through the email-SMS gateway. That's until they shut down the gateway that dealt with aliases instead of just nnnnnnnnnn@tmomail.com, then they started counting, and that's when I started asking about "no overages" and why I was paying extra for more texts. Three different CS agents told me of course I was covered so I stopped paying extra. One customer relations person from Seattle told me I was not. No
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One downside, rural coverage can be a bit limited, but that only impacts people who regularly visit rural areas. Their LTE is fantastic.
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Did they change it or something? I have that plan, except its 5GB of 4G data. (And although I've never hit it, I was under the impression that it was unlimited 3G afterward.)
Also, VoIP is zero pennies more if you use Google Voice (with Hangouts). Otherwise, the cheapest third-party VoIP providers tend to charge something like $2-$3/month.
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I came here today to promote prepaid. I had AT&T until they screwed me. Then I had Verizon until they screwed me. I like prepaid because it is completely impossible to get screwed. They cannot possibly overcharge me.
I pay $32 a month ($2 taxes) and I get what I need. I don't get a large amount of data and I don't need it because I'm always near wifi. I've never been anywhere near my data cap and if I were to hit it then I'd just simply stop getting data, which is what I want, instead of getting a huge u
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Virgin Mobile uses the Sprint network. In my area is pure shit because they over sold it. You're lucky if you're able to send or receive a call or text message at peak hours. I jumped ship after a month. Now this was in 2010. I got a buddy that had Sprint and said he soften till has problem but it's not as bad as it use to be.
I'm still on unlimited and plan to be for a while. I use on average 6gigs/month. I've used up to ~25 in a month. Verizon has never contacted me trying to get me to change my p
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Like most "unlmited" plans, it's not really unlimited as it has a high speed cap. Unless you pay for a higher cap, the service is throttled severely to 2g speeds after the high speed cap is exceeded.
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Interesting you say "they" and not "we." Do you, perchance, enjoy the taste of potato spirits and cabbage soup?