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Verizon Killing 'Grandfathered' Unlimited Plans as Carrier Mov


Guest LilBambi

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Looks like Verizon is backtracking a bit: Verizon: You can have unlimited data... just no device subsidies | Mobile - CNET News

 

 

Now Verizon says that it will allow customers to keep their existing unlimited data plans if those customers either continue to keep their existing device or they buy a new device at the full retail cost of the smartphone.

 

In other words, if you renew your contract and purchase a subsidized phone, you lose the option to keep your unlimited plan.

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Customers don't like this one bit, but the cellular companies are finding that unlimited data is unsustainable. There is just not enough bandwidth to go around, at least not here in the US.

 

Adam

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Guest LilBambi

They are trying to use this as an excuse to make more money. Sure there is a limit, but it's no where near where carriers want to say it is. ;)

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Well, certainly not here in our neck of the woods. Once you hit a really big city, though, it becomes a huge problem.

 

Adam

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Guest LilBambi

I can see that. But why make us in the rural areas suffer and pay the big bucks because they are lazy and don't want to give us wires!

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Once you hit a really big city, though, it becomes a huge problem.

Um... OK, let's see... I live in a small city (Helsinki "metropolitan" :P region has only one million inhabitants.) More precisely... here:

 

bce164f1.jpg

 

As it happens, cable is dead slow this morning (maintenance), so I hooked up with 3G (yes, 3G.) No caps. (I did notice the nifty word "unsustainable" in one of the above posts. The operators here don't seem to thing that way.) High bandwidth usage does have a crippling effect on speed, that's the party line? Ahem... uh... I did a couple of speed tests:

 

1961159857.png

 

1961155991.png

 

1961147075.png

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Guest LilBambi

I want OOKLA here !!!!

 

Can you put up a relay for us Urmas :hysterical:

 

I am green!!!! Downright green!!!!

 

Especially because I know you are unlimited and can watch videos, can do backups to the cloud, download anything anytime, and never break a sweat or have to worry about huge monthly bills!

 

Ah...the life....maybe I should move to Finland!

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Um... OK, let's see... I live in a small city (Helsinki "metropolitan" :P region has only one million inhabitants.) More precisely... here:

 

As it happens, cable is dead slow this morning (maintenance), so I hooked up with 3G (yes, 3G.) No caps. (I did notice the nifty word "unsustainable" in one of the above posts. The operators here don't seem to thing that way.) High bandwidth usage does have a crippling effect on speed, that's the party line? Ahem... uh... I did a couple of speed tests:

 

Your city is like mine..... and my data is great! I don't use it for my home connection because of the caps.

 

But, the infrastructure in the US is still being built. I am not just referring to the wireless spectrum allocation, but also the backhaul.... the physical connection to the Internet. Europe is ahead of us in that respect.

 

But frequency allocation is not universal. I am not sure what specific chunks of frequency are allotted to the cellular providers in Finland, but here in the US, spectrum is like gold. There is simply not enough to go around. That's why the 700MHz auction a couple years back was so vital. It is also why LTE is quite popular here... we can shove more data down the same spectrum that way.

 

The cellular companies are spending billions of dollars to get the network (both wireles and backhaul) up to snuff to support good speeds with no caps. Sprint is still running cap free. However, they are failing as a company and may not survive much longer.

 

Adam

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Especially because I know you are unlimited and can watch videos, can do backups to the cloud, download anything anytime, and never break a sweat or have to worry about huge monthly bills!

Urmas' ISP clever. Urmas' ISP give Urmas unlimited 3G with no extra charge when Urmas buy fast cable. Thattaway Urmas rather do biiiig video thingy and huuuge download chore with fixed connection. Ugh! Darn clever. :hysterical:

 

Urmas' cable:

1960665643.png

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Guest LilBambi

Urmas' ISP clever. Urmas' ISP give Urmas unlimited 3G with no extra charge when Urmas buy fast cable. Thattaway Urmas rather do biiiig video thingy and huuuge download chore with fixed connection. Ugh! Darn clever. :hysterical:

 

Urmas' cable:

1960665643.png

 

Urmas loves to make Bambi green!!! :hysterical:

 

I could use up my whole month's 10GB cap in about 5 seconds! :hysterical:

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm worried AT&T will ditch the grandfathered unlimited plans soon (which I am on). Then again AT&T throttles, so maybe they won't care. I think I can get 3GB of "unlimited" and unthrottled downloads and then they slow me into oblivion. I believe it used to be a nebulous "the top 5% highest data users with unlimited plans" but people really complained about it.

 

The sad thing is, it works (on me). I actively try not to use 3G for big things (like Netflix) and hold off until I get home (and can use WiFi, or just my computer). I think the most I used before the throttling was 14GB in a month (although that wasn't typical, maybe 4-5GB was closer to typical)? And now I hardly ever go over 1GB.

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Holy smokes! 14GB? How in the world did you use that much?

 

I used to watch Hulu at work when I was using the elliptical machines, but then barely cracked 2GB.

 

Adam

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Guest LilBambi

Well, here's some numbers that could really add up:

 

How much bandwidth does Netflix streaming use?

 

Netflix Movies (HD): These guys are around 3.8Mbit, which means it's about 3600MB for a 2 hour HD movie.

Netflix Movies (SD): Each of these movies are around 500-700MB each, depending on the length of the movie.

Netflix TV Shows (HD): A 30-minute TV show will be about 1500MB.

Netflix TV Shows (SD): A 30-minute TV show will be about 400MB.

 

How much bandwidth does Hulu Plus use?

 

Appx 300 Megabytes.

Which is appx 65 episodes, assuming you use *all* your bandwidth for Hulu.

==

Here's how I estimated:

1 Megabit per second * 60 seconds * 40 minutes = 2400 Megabits.

2400 / 8 = 300 Megabytes.

 

More here: Hulu Discussions: Bandwidth Usage 1 hour show

 

Our videos normally stream at 700 kbps, depending on your bandwidth,

so a twenty minute program would average around 100 MB.

 

And this from the same thread:

 

It depends on what device you are using to access Hulu, but typically if you are accessing our site on a computer, 360p streams at about 650 Kb/s, and 480p streams at 1 Mb/s.
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Holy smokes! 14GB? How in the world did you use that much?

 

I used to watch Hulu at work when I was using the elliptical machines, but then barely cracked 2GB.

 

Adam

Well one month I tried to use as much data as possible, so I pretty much just used Netflix nonstop. And I used the NHL Gamecenter app to stream video too, though I don't remember what month it was if it was even hockey season.
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Guest LilBambi

And you should be able to do that. You can in much of Europe and Asia. We are turning into a Third World Country. Sigh...

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