Verizon implements new Unlimited charge

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Kelvarr

Supreme [H]ardness
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Messages
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So we all got this news some time ago that Verizon was going to start charging $20 more per line that was still on the Unlimited Plan. Well, today, that was implemented. Actually, it was more like for my December bill (which, due to my laziness, I didn't see until it was paid, today).

Merry fucking Christmas. Here is a bill that is $40 more expensive. I never once received anything official from Verizon saying that it was going up. Even on Month-to-Month, I figured they would let you know in some official capacity so that you aren't blindsided, but apparently not.
 
I figure we will see a lot of old grandfathered unlimited users start doing band-wagon hopping now. Verizon is already among the more expensive carriers, and this just adds salt to that wound.
 
Are there any carriers left that offer real unlimited LTE? I guess Tmobile comes close with all the free streaming.
 
If you logged into your account after the change was announced there was a notice of the upcoming price change. There were also ways you could extend your contract and put off the price increase (either by using BestBuy and getting a new phone and thus getting 2 years contract, or calling support and getting a 1 year promotion added that gives you 1 year of contract). The price increase only effects people on month to month and their first full billing period after the change went into effect.
 
Erasmus354 said:
If you logged into your account after the change was announced there was a notice of the upcoming price change. There were also ways you could extend your contract and put off the price increase (either by using BestBuy and getting a new phone and thus getting 2 years contract, or calling support and getting a 1 year promotion added that gives you 1 year of contract). The price increase only effects people on month to month and their first full billing period after the change went into effect.
Click to expand...

I've been month-to-month for 2.5 years now. I was a little miffed because they seemed to do it so cryptically. And maybe it is my own fault, but I don't log on every month. In fact, if the automatic payment is the right amount, I rarely need to log on.

What made me just as mad was the CSR that tried to tell me all of the "benefits" that I would be getting by moving to one of the current plans. Such as:
  • Unlimited Calling
  • Unlimited International Texting
  • No-charge for NFL Mobile

I flat out told him that there is nothing redeeming for this new plan, other than limit my data (granted, I use less than 10GB/mo, but it is the principle and possibility). Let's see:
  • I currently have 700 minutes, but unlimited to Verizon Customers. 90% of the people I call are Verizon Customers, so I didn't even use half of my 700 minutes.
  • I don't text (or call) anybody outside of the U.S.
  • Verizon made NFL Mobile for free to all customers earlier this year. The CSR tried to argue with me on this one, saying that with my plan, it costs me $5/mo. O RLY? Then why have I watched football games on it for the whole season so far? And I haven't been charged $5.

Then, the CSR tried telling me that the price increase was because some people use it their primary internet connection and that it was never intended for that, but rather for mobile product use. The cost increase was to cover the fact that those customers used more data, so the more you use (unlimited), the more you should pay. *sigh* I had to tell him that we'll agree to disagree. Bandwidth is not a finite resource like water or electricity. You can literally create bandwidth out of nothing, so it costs $0 more to let me use 100GB as it does 10 GB.

Now, I have to investigate the new plans to decide which to move to. Probably the 12GB (plus 2GB free per line) will suffice. That would be ~$110/month vs the $190/month it just jumped up to.
 
AltTabbins said:
Are there any carriers left that offer real unlimited LTE? I guess Tmobile comes close with all the free streaming.
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Sprint and T-mobile still do (and some of their MVNOs), but they have a "deprioritzation policy" after ~23GB

(after using 23GB data.....
if cell site you're connecting to right now is congested, you get deprioritized. If you move to a new cell site that isn't congested, you get full speed
after your monthly cycle ends, you start over at 0GB usage at full priority)


Verizon doesn't have such a policy (even for their grandfathered unlimited). which means if it's congested, everyone's going to feel the congestion equally

AT&T does have depriorization for their grandfathered unlimited,at 22GB instead of 23GB
 
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Cell tower bandwidth is very finite, sorry to break it to you. You can't just turn the tower up to 11 and create more bandwidth.
 
Ocellaris said:
Cell tower bandwidth is very finite, sorry to break it to you. You can't just turn the tower up to 11 and create more bandwidth.
Click to expand...

We should just turn up buckets to 11, that would mean infinite bandwidth!
 
Ocellaris said:
Cell tower bandwidth is very finite, sorry to break it to you. You can't just turn the tower up to 11 and create more bandwidth.
Click to expand...

Yep, with landline internet the bandwidth isn't really a problem. It still isn't infinite, but it is enough where it doesn't matter. However cell connections are like a really crowded cable internet circuit. The more people that use it the slower it gets. There is only so much total capacity at any given time. The problem with cellular is they can't just deploy more lines / upgrade the lines to fiber. They are limited by the physics and the frequency bands they are given by the FCC.


That said, Verizon can implement prioritization on a per cell tower basis if they really wanted to. That would mostly solve congestion issues.
 
Ocellaris said:
Cell tower bandwidth is very finite, sorry to break it to you. You can't just turn the tower up to 11 and create more bandwidth.
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-Strelok- said:
We should just turn up buckets to 11, that would mean infinite bandwidth!
Click to expand...

Erasmus354 said:
Yep, with landline internet the bandwidth isn't really a problem. It still isn't infinite, but it is enough where it doesn't matter. However cell connections are like a really crowded cable internet circuit. The more people that use it the slower it gets. There is only so much total capacity at any given time. The problem with cellular is they can't just deploy more lines / upgrade the lines to fiber. They are limited by the physics and the frequency bands they are given by the FCC.


That said, Verizon can implement prioritization on a per cell tower basis if they really wanted to. That would mostly solve congestion issues.
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Ok, so I stand corrected on the cellular bandwidth. I'm still not sold that the relatively few Unlimited Data plans out there are causing all sorts of problems for Verizon. If they were, they would have implemented changes months, maybe years ago to correct it.
 
This'll be my last month with Verizon with this increase. I honestly rarely went above 4-6gb used, but this month I'm just sticking it to them. 45gb used so far in 11 days.
 
Sprint LTE is a joke in my area (Hampton Roads) as well as in NoVa.
The other carriers 3G is faster than Spint's LTE service.
 
I switched away from my unlimited plan this month. I'm also going to move to a different carrier once I'm through with this six month commitment for Samsung Insights. See ya Verizon.

I would have stayed indefinitely had my bill not increased. We only averaged 12GB per month with two lines. I don't understand why they had to punish everyone. Why not just hit the out of control data users with a price increase?
 
Rylan said:
Why not just hit the out of control data users with a price increase?
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Because they wouldn't make as much money that way. Seriously the only reason they're doing any of this is to gouge use as much as they can. If bandwidth were ever really the issue, they would implement this thing called QoS, or to the laymen; throttling. Not throttling after a certain data cap either (that's still a money grab to get you to change plans), but throttling if that tower/node is congested enough to warrant it. This is how a normal network is managed when the owner isn't trying to rape their customers wallets by making them pay for an imaginary data allowance.

I even sent an e-mail to Verizon's CEO ([email protected] if you want to yourself) voicing my concerns about Verizon dropping all of their decent customer incentives (new every 2 upgrades, 20 month upgrade cycle instead of 24 months), while adding additional excessive expenses like a fucking $40 "activation/upgrade" fee when you get a new phone (which they recently added to their payment plan upgrades as well). I think it used to be $20 or so, but I was always able to get my CSR to waive the fee when upgrading, now they got that shit locked down to where some special corporate supervisor would have to sign off on it and they wouldn't escalate it for me.

As expected though, that's not really his e-mail address and it just goes to Verizon's "executive relations" mailbox where a rep will e-mail you back with their contact info to call them and see if they can address your complaint(s). When I called my rep back though, she just pointed me to Verizon's new XL data plan and said she couldn't knock my price back down to $30/month even if I decided to renew my contract. You all are welcome to try as well though, maybe you'll get a rep that actually cares enough to try instead of shooting you down immediately. You may be able to contact them directly at 1-888-844-0375 if you want to skip the e-mail, the rep gave me an extension number to get her directly, but one of you should be able to get the same "executive service" from there.

In case you're curious, I sent them this wall of text just to see what they'd do about it (waste of time/effort):

Sir,

I’ve been a long time customer of Verizon’s; about a decade now as a wireless customer, and in that time the practices of your company have went from highly competitive/enticing to killing every incentive imaginable while overcharging for services and devices.

Allow me to elaborate; when I came to Verizon, there was the “new every two” promotion that gave existing customers a moderate discount ($50 I think) on phone upgrade upon contract renewal after 20 months into their current 2-year contract. Since then, Verizon has dropped this incentive, while also forcing customers to wait an additional 4 months until the end of their 24-month contract before they can upgrade. Then on top of losing this discount, Verizon has added the incredibly unwarranted “upgrade/activation fee” to the highly inflated amount of $40, considering it costs Verizon nothing for me to swap my SIM card from my old phone to the new one. I would much rather you just add the $40 to the cost of the phone and not insult us with these imaginary fees every time we want to replace our devices. There’s nothing more annoying than being told a phone is $200 to upgrade to with a contract, then ultimately having an additional $60+ in bogus fees and taxes added to it.

In addition to dropping these incentives, Verizon has also been using the most passive-aggressive tactics to force us off of the legacy plans that we’re happy with and have no intention of losing to your newer plans offering less service for more money. In my case, I’m referring to my current plan of 1400 talk & text plan with Unlimited data. Since Verizon has stopped offering unlimited data a few years ago, you have went from allowing us to grandfather our plans while renewing our contract, to not allowing us to grandfather it and forcing us to pay full retail for our phones if we want to keep our plans (or doing my method of transferring upgrades to another line so I can renew my contract while still keeping unlimited data and getting a device upgrade). Now (this is the event that triggered this e-mail) I’m informed that my bill is increasing by $20 per line (that’s on an unlimited data plan) after my contract is up (which it is on my primary line now) simply because I refuse to accept your current shared data plans, where you get to grossly overcharge on data that you pass off as a manufactured scarcity now. Never mind the fact that I’m still forced to pay subsidized pricing on my plan outside of my contract period on a phone that is well past “paid for” since I’m out of contract now.

Because as a current network and I.T. admin for my employer, I know precisely how a proper data network operates and total data used means absolutely nothing to the service provider, it is nothing more than a manufactured scarcity by ISPs in order to (attempt to) justify your excessively expensive rates and plans - $10/GB overages are nothing short of outrageous in terms of actual cost to the provider and what’s charged to the consumer. If you truly cared and ran your network properly, there’s this thing called Quality of Service (QoS), or what the laymen calls “throttling”, something your competitors utilize after they’ve reached their data cap instead of using it as an excuse to tacking on another $10 per GB used like Verizon does. It baffles me when I think of how fast your LTE network is and that one can blow through your largest monthly data plans in a matter of minutes if they wanted to. Bandwidth used should charged and restricted by speed used and availability, not total data used.

I have more issues and criticisms I would like to address, but I feel that I’ve ranted enough here now. I honestly don’t even expect you to reply to or read this message personally. But to whoever you have screening these messages, I would be very appreciative if I could get some kind of acknowledgement for these concerns I’ve brought up and something besides a higher bill for the same service I’ve been getting for the past several years. I know this is a for-profit business, but it doesn’t take a marketing genius to understand that if you want to keep gaining and retaining customers, you should treat them right not only so they stay with you, but so they will refer others to you as well. I just want to give you an opportunity to do something right before I make a decision to take my business elsewhere soon. Because I feel like your only interest right now is milking your customers for every penny you can, which is expected, but I feel you’re past the point of reason at this point.

Thanks for any consideration,

T4rd
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-Strelok- said:
We should just turn up buckets to 11, that would mean infinite bandwidth!
Click to expand...

Lol, nice, I doubt anyone here will get the reference though. :D
 
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If you want them to start taking you seriously fix the grammar in the first sentence, don't make comparisons to a world class network and out them publicly instead of privately but they probably still don't care about us little guys leaving when they prefer to focus on growing their clientele of premium paying business customers. It also doesn't help that virtually all major US carriers are raising prices. Best preparation anyone could've done is be carrier independent by using something like Google Voice # with Hangouts that'll work on any dumb wireless pipe and leverage pay as you go Google Fi service and free WIFI.
 
T4rd said:
Because they wouldn't make as much money that way. Seriously the only reason they're doing any of this is to gouge use as much as they can. If bandwidth were ever really the issue, they would implement this thing called QoS, or to the laymen; throttling.

Not throttling after a certain data cap either (that's still a money grab to get you to change plans), but throttling if that tower/node is congested enough to warrant it. This is how a normal network is managed when the owner isn't trying to rape their customers wallets by making them pay for an imaginary data allowance.
Click to expand...

they tried?

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/wirel...stomers-only-after-it-no-longer-matters.shtml

so now, it's clear that they are optimizing revenue through price increases, instead of "trying to enhance revenue behind a throttling policy"

i guess that's part of FCC... everything should be clear cut and not hidden behind fine prints
 
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Suckas.

Renewed my contract on 11/28/15, avoided the price hike for 2 more years, got a Note 5 for $50 and used 270gb last month.
 
I have 3 UDP lines on my account. We have always been responsible users when it comes to data. We always switched to wifi when available, though I have no idea why. I used 1 upgrade in July, and 1 in August. Those lines are good for 2 years. My contract is up in April. I'm going to swallow the increase, but I will never use wifi again.

Unfortunately, Sprint & T-Mobile have poor coverage in my area, so they're not an option. AT&T is Verizon, and Verizon is AT&T. Same wolf, different color fur. I am hoping by summer of 2017, Sprint & T-Mo will have expanded their coverage.
 
lodingi said:
AT&T is Verizon, and Verizon is AT&T. Same wolf, different color fur.
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AT&T is the industry villain because they always set the bad example first to make it easier for other carriers to follow. To be fair to Verizon there's no throttling, a loophole to subsidize upgrade to keep old pricing for another two years, still haven't broken Foxfi free tethering app and coverage/throughout are better in my area. AT&T was as bad Sprint in my home. Even Tmobile is much better but they jacked up their unlimited plan to $95/month and Foxfi doesn't work.
 
mi7chy said:
AT&T is the industry villain because they always set the bad example first to make it easier for other carriers to follow. To be fair to Verizon there's no throttling, a loophole to subsidize upgrade to keep old pricing for another two years, still haven't broken Foxfi free tethering app and coverage/throughout are better in my area. AT&T was as bad Sprint in my home. Even Tmobile is much better but they jacked up their unlimited plan to $95/month and Foxfi doesn't work.
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True. Verizon cannot throttle data as part of the agreement they made with the FCC when they acquired the 700 MHz spectrum. You can believe Verizon would throttle if they can get away with it. They did attempt to throttle not too long ago, only to be shot down by the FCC.
 
mi7chy said:
If you want them to start taking you seriously fix the grammar in the first sentence, don't make comparisons to a world class network and out them publicly instead of privately but they probably still don't care about us little guys leaving when they prefer to focus on growing their clientele of premium paying business customers. It also doesn't help that virtually all major US carriers are raising prices. Best preparation anyone could've done is be carrier independent by using something like Google Voice # with Hangouts that'll work on any dumb wireless pipe and leverage pay as you go Google Fi service and free WIFI.
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Grammar is fine, they just don't give a shit. Maybe if you want anyone here to take you seriously, you can stop trying to be a grammar Nazi.

lodingi said:
True. Verizon cannot throttle data as part of the agreement they made with the FCC when they acquired the 700 MHz spectrum. You can believe Verizon would throttle if they can get away with it. They did attempt to throttle not too long ago, only to be shot down by the FCC.
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I was speaking about all of their other tiered plans, not unlimited data. This is how Tmobile and a lot of other MNVOs handle their data plans and it's much more reasonable than just charging you excessively for extra data.
 
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Just helping out since I know what's next to Columbus GA. If you want them to pucker up it has to sound like it's written by an attorney.
 
I'm not in Columbus anymore, I was just stationed near there at the time I signed up. I honestly don't think anything can make them pucker up other than a mass exodus of accounts from their network.
 
paperwastage said:
Sprint and T-mobile still do (and some of their MVNOs), but they have a "deprioritzation policy" after ~23GB

(after using 23GB data.....
if cell site you're connecting to right now is congested, you get deprioritized. If you move to a new cell site that isn't congested, you get full speed
after your monthly cycle ends, you start over at 0GB usage at full priority)


Verizon doesn't have such a policy (even for their grandfathered unlimited). which means if it's congested, everyone's going to feel the congestion equally

AT&T does have depriorization for their grandfathered unlimited,at 22GB instead of 23GB
Click to expand...

the most I have gobbled up on T-Mobile was 30GB I routinely run over 20 on night shift
 
Left Verizon last month for Cricket. Great reception on AT&T towers(better than Verizon in my area), Cost is half of what Verizon was charging me, & it includes 10Gb data.
On Verizon I never used wifi & routinely used around 15Gb month. Now, with turning wifi on, I never exceed more than 8Gb. I also have a wider selection of phones going GSM.
 
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Fuck, so this price hike permanent if you didn't renew your contract before it started?
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
T-mobile still offers it....on occasion
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Not on occasion.. It's every day of the week..

With unlimited talk text & data on T-Mobile its priced as follows currently

1 line 95
2 lines 140 (70 per)
3 lines 180 (60 per)
4 lines 180 (45 per)
5 lines 220 (44 per)
Each additional line adds another 40

So for a single line it's not very good, but for families it's pretty damn competitive, especially once you hit 4 lines.

I switched from Verizon to T-Mobile almost 2 years ago. Service "was" noticeably less. However after getting my LG g4 get service everywhere I was with Verizon and a few remote places where Verizon doesn't..
 
bastage said:
Not on occasion.. It's every day of the week..

With unlimited talk text & data on T-Mobile its priced as follows currently

1 line 95
2 lines 140 (70 per)
3 lines 180 (60 per)
4 lines 180 (45 per)
5 lines 220 (44 per)
Each additional line adds another 40

So for a single line it's not very good, but for families it's pretty damn competitive, especially once you hit 4 lines.

I switched from Verizon to T-Mobile almost 2 years ago. Service "was" noticeably less. However after getting my LG g4 get service everywhere I was with Verizon and a few remote places where Verizon doesn't..
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you just need to watch. I have unlimited everything for 2 lines for 108$ every month including taxes. No issues with tmoblie coverage. This was a promo over a year and a haft ago. Grandfather plan. If I switch I loose it.
 
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Vengance_01 said:
you just need to watch. I have unlimited everything for 2 lines for 108$ every month including taxes. No issues with tmoblie coverage. This was a promo over a year and a haft ago. Grandfather plan. If I switch I loose it.
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You are correct. That plan was discontinued last July. I got it the last week it was available. There are a couple differences between this one and the current though. New one for 140 for 2 lines includes twice as much hot spot and gets the free calls and roaming for Canada and Mexico which the plan that you and I have lacks.
 
Where I live (Canada, I know.. lol, right?) its $15 for an extra 1gb of data. I pay $75 for 2.5gb of data with no unlimited option.

I WISH we had the US plan options. lol.. $20 to keep unlimited? I would be jumping through hoops.
 
auntjemima said:
Where I live (Canada, I know.. lol, right?) its $15 for an extra 1gb of data. I pay $75 for 2.5gb of data with no unlimited option.

I WISH we had the US plan options. lol.. $20 to keep unlimited? I would be jumping through hoops.
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Yeah, it's all relative, which is the only reason I'm still staying with Verizon right now. I was getting a $20/month off promotion before the change, so this price hike pretty much just negated that. But my wife's line/contract expires in May, which will be another $20 price hike if I keep her on unlimited data as well. Right now I'm paying $210/month for 3 lines, 2 of which are on unlimited data and 1 line is a 2GB plan.

I want to switch to T-Mo so bad, but the coverage just isn't there still around my relatives that I visit frequently enough to make it annoying. I'm really glad that all these newer unlocked phones are coming out with full US carrier compatibility though so I can get one on Verizon and test out other carriers with them as well to test the waters before I drop Verizon. Plus, the less Verizon has control over my phone, the better.
 
Meanwhile, in Fi-land

Last month's usage (for Nov 20 - Dec 20)
Unused data Credit for 0.482 GB at $10/GB ($4.81)
Service credit on 12/19 ($25.00)

Next month's charges (for Dec 20 - Jan 20)

Fi Basics Calls, texts, 24/7 support $20.00

Data 1 GB at $10/GB $10.00

Taxes & government surcharges
State 911 Tax $0.08
Telecomm Relay Systems Surcharge $0.06
California Teleconnect Fund Charge $0.13
California High Cost Fund Surcharge $0.04
California Advanced Services Fund Charge $0.06
Universal Lifeline Telephone Service Surcharge $0.66

Other fees
PUC Fee $0.02
Federal Universal Service Fund $1.21
Federal Regulatory Assessment Fee $0.13

Bill Total: $2.39
Click to expand...
 
Ruoh said:
Meanwhile, in Fi-land
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Meanwhile, in UDP-land

8agutahy.jpg


That'd only be what.. like $10,543.43 on Fi.. excellent value! :p
 
Is that your screenshot? If you're seriously using 1TB of data per month and expecting sympathy, that's fucking ridiculous. If you are actually using 1TB of data/mo on a regular basis, your usage is actually impacting other people in your cell, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. LTE isn't built out anywhere in the world to support customers regularly using 1TB of data per month, and not even 5G is being developed with that in mind as a normal use case (it's supposed to be able to handle hardline level loads of ~250GB/mo from the higher tiers of users).

If you're actually using 1TB of data per month, you are basically the reason why Verizon is raising the rates, because it's not sustainable to offer 1TB of data per month per customer on any existing infrastructure.

If it's not your screenshot, it's still a terrible example for the argument you were originally trying to make.
 
CEpeep said:
Is that your screenshot? If you're seriously using 1TB of data per month and expecting sympathy, that's fucking ridiculous. If you are actually using 1TB of data/mo on a regular basis, your usage is actually impacting other people in your cell, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. LTE isn't built out anywhere in the world to support customers regularly using 1TB of data per month, and not even 5G is being developed with that in mind as a normal use case (it's supposed to be able to handle hardline level loads of ~250GB/mo from the higher tiers of users).

If you're actually using 1TB of data per month, you are basically the reason why Verizon is raising the rates, because it's not sustainable to offer 1TB of data per month per customer on any existing infrastructure.

If it's not your screenshot, it's still a terrible example for the argument you were originally trying to make.
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You realize 5G is 1Gbps right? I hope to god and pray to any deity in the world you are incredibly mistaken.

If I get a cell phone connection with 1+Gbps I better be abel to do 1 TB in a month. That is a mere 2 hours of data transfer.

If I can not use the internet at 100% for a mere fucking 2 hours there is something seriously fucking wrong.

100 bucks a month better get me at least 2 full fucking hours of air time!

with the notion that a customer should get a measly 2 hours of use that would mean on Sprints LTE I should be able to get 50-100GB of data month with no bitching.
 
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