Verizon To Disconnect Data Hogs On Unlimited Data Plans

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Are you one of those people that believe "unlimited" actually means "unlimited?" Well, if you are, and you are a Verizon customer, you'd better read this article. Apparently Verizon will be completely disconnecting users that consume more than 100GB of data a month unless they switch over to The Verizon Plan by August 31.

Come August 31, if Verizon deems your account as using “an extraordinary amount of data” each month, you could see your line completely disconnected. In other words, Verizon may shut you down by the end of August. According to sources of ours, Verizon is working on an Unlimited Data Plan Migration for the highest unlimited data users on their network. Starting tomorrow, July 21, Verizon will begin notifying users who have been flagged as using that “extraordinary” amount via mailer and through bill messages and explain to them their options to stay with Big Red.
 
Unlimited is such a vague term though.

Reasonable usage is a much more descriptive term. Not sure why they didn't use that?
 
DrLobotomy said:
Unlimited is such a vague term though.

Reasonable usage is a much more descriptive term. Not sure why they didn't use that?
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Because it sounds better for marketing.... just means a bunch of lawyers are gonna comb over that ToS and file for a class action lawsuit.
 
As a guy who doesn't do much with his phone, I'm assuming you're burning 100gb using streaming services alone.......or via pairing up a laptop (?).....
 
I feel like I'm the only person left on the planet that has a smartphone and barely uses data. I'm coming in at ~20MB a month and I think most of that is my phone doing stuff in the background since I don't use the internet on it.
 
LigTasm said:
I feel like I'm the only person left on the planet that has a smartphone and barely uses data. I'm coming in at ~20MB a month and I think most of that is my phone doing stuff in the background since I don't use the internet on it.
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You are not alone.
 
LigTasm said:
I feel like I'm the only person left on the planet that has a smartphone and barely uses data. I'm coming in at ~20MB a month and I think most of that is my phone doing stuff in the background since I don't use the internet on it.
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I use about 1 GB per month. (that's certainly more than your 20MB, but still a very small amount by modern standards)

That's mostly web browsing for me.

This month will be a bit higher as I went to a concert and recorded a few videos uploading them to Facebook.
 
Saki630 said:
Unlimited should be Unlimited. When is that word going to mean what it means?
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I agree with clamping down on unreasonably high usage. Mobile data should only be used as a temporary supplement to wired home internet, while on the go.

That being said, they shouldn't be selling it as "Unlimited", unless it truly IS unlimited.

They should do what Netflix has done, and ungradfather everyone, moving them to their current plans.
 
I use 1-2gb, 5-6 if I travel that month. It's from streaming videos from my plex server, which I do a lot more of when I am out of town and stuck in a hotel.
 
So unlimited really means less than 100GB a month. I'll set the bar there from now on and if they cancel my account I'll go somewhere else.
 
I have unlimited with t-mobile and according to my account they will probably stop me after I hit the 9999TB cap listed. I'm serious it list a 9999TB Cap. Also they don't throttle me and I have binging turned off. However I don't think I'd hit 100GB even. Currently I'm on a high usage month and running close to 40GB and that is outside my normal 20GB.
 
I use 60-70GB/mo on my G-UDP... I keep it now out of spite, even though they increased my rates 45/mo for my wife and I...
 
I use maybe 300mb a month, I might hit a gig if I'm traveling. But I don't stream videos to my phone or use it as a hotspot.
 
LigTasm said:
I feel like I'm the only person left on the planet that has a smartphone and barely uses data. I'm coming in at ~20MB a month and I think most of that is my phone doing stuff in the background since I don't use the internet on it.
Click to expand...

You are not alone, i don't have a smart phone. I have an old lg flip that only gets about 6-8 calls a month. When i am away from the house the cell is off most of the time, no one can bother me.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
Unlimited and limiting that amount by any number should result in companies getting sued for false advertising.

That said....If you need that much data a cable/fiber/dsl connection is so much faster and cheaper.
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This is America, where our lawmakers are protecting the freedoms of corporations to advertise in ways that benefit them. As for the other options being faster, that's very true, but there are plenty of spots in the country that don't get serviced that way. Their options are satellite, cell phone, or dial-up.
 
Eh... unlimited use of YOUR PHONE to access data, people who go over are simply using their unlimited data to tether to home computers because they don't have (or don't want to pay for) decent internet access. Can't say I blame Verizon.
 
I just wish that they'd fix the wireless networks. Trying to watch video on my phone is an exercise in frustration, so of course it's easy to stay below my crappy bandwith cap

100gb? Even running 24/7, is it even possible to pull that much down with Verizon's speeds?
 
gsilver said:
I just wish that they'd fix the wireless networks. Trying to watch video on my phone is an exercise in frustration, so of course it's easy to stay below my crappy bandwith cap

100gb? Even running 24/7, is it even possible to pull that much down with Verizon's speeds?
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No. Its not possible. They are making up this imaginary customer to excuse themselves for lying.
 
gsilver said:
I just wish that they'd fix the wireless networks. Trying to watch video on my phone is an exercise in frustration, so of course it's easy to stay below my crappy bandwith cap

100gb? Even running 24/7, is it even possible to pull that much down with Verizon's speeds?
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On 5mbps, just under 48 hours.At 2mbps, just under 5 days. Those speeds are actually kinda low for a decent modern wireless connection. So yeah, you can blow through 100GB just on a phone over the course of a month pretty easily without even running it at full blast.
 
gsilver said:
I just wish that they'd fix the wireless networks. Trying to watch video on my phone is an exercise in frustration, so of course it's easy to stay below my crappy bandwith cap

100gb? Even running 24/7, is it even possible to pull that much down with Verizon's speeds?
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Well if you tether 24/7 and are too cheap to get an ISP, then yes you can easily get through 100gb.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Eh... unlimited use of YOUR PHONE to access data, people who go over are simply using their unlimited data to tether to home computers because they don't have (or don't want to pay for) decent internet access. Can't say I blame Verizon.
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As someone who held on to an unlimited contract for years I can state matter of factly "Your Phone" was never a clause. It was Unlimited Data and included tethering. Limiting the amount of data is flagrant bait and switch false advertising. Verizon and every single other company (Includes ISP's and the data cap nonsense) should be able to be sued heavily for this. So yes I do in fact blame Verizon and every other company and you should as well. Don't go making excuses for corporations purchasing politicians to protect their interests while screwing you over.
 
Even on my highest usage months, I rarely hit 1GB, and I use my phone for work.
Lots of emails and I even use remote desktop on occasion when I'm away from a computer.

Most the time I'm on WiFi (home and office), which does reduce my data usage a lot .
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I agree with clamping down on unreasonably high usage. Mobile data should only be used as a temporary supplement to wired home internet, while on the go.
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Even if you agree with data caps, you can't tell someone "pay me and I'll give you unlimited X" and then come back and say "you're using over the limit for X". That's just common sense.

And why should mobile data only be used on the go? Verizon is turning tremendous profits every quarter, in spite of ridiculous compensation for its executives. In 2011 for example, the Verizon CEO was paid $21,000,000+ in total compensation. Think about that for a moment, imagining it as food. Think about how much food 500 of his employees on average are given a day. Each person getting say three meals a day, and then you have this one guy alone sitting there trying to figure out how to eat a huge pile of one thousand five hundred meals that day.

And we want to pretend that consumers aren't putting forward enough resources to pay for expansion of the carrier's network capacity?

Do not, my friends, become addicted to mobile data!
 
I have been doing phone sales for years now, started when the iPhone was just that, before iPhone 3g. As far as I can remember the Verizon unlimited plan did not cover tethering, I had to pay an extra 30$ a month to use my phone for tethering and I received 3gb a month for that at first, then 5gb later. Of course you could do things to get past paying that, but again this was before the original droid showed up.

100gb is reasonable, and I am sure verizon has either already found a loophole that let's them do this legally or figured out how much it will cost them with a lawsuit vs how much they are "artificially losing" from these people using 100gb+ a month and found the cost acceptable.

I mean, most people who signed up for the unlimited plan back then we're on the 3g network. Verizon could say that for those people if they want to pay the old price for the really old plan then fine but we are only going to give you the old speed that was avalible at that time. No 4g for you. People would flip of course, and I would be right there with them, but at some point something is going to have to give and the only way a company as big as verizon will care is with a massive (and I mean massively massive) number of people leave. I don't see that happening, where I live it's verizon, At&t, or nothing. And the big A is just as bad as the big V in my experience, at least verizon actually warns people before policy changes like this. Can't tell you how many times we found out about At&t price changes days after it went into effect (example : when they started adding upgrade activation fees to contracts)
 
Dekoth-E- said:
Unlimited and limiting that amount by any number should result in companies getting sued for false advertising.

That said....If you need that much data a cable/fiber/dsl connection is so much faster and cheaper.
Click to expand...

I remember when I moved back in with my parents for a bit after college. The only internet available where they lived was dial-up or satellite. luckily I had an unlimited 3g smartphone. ( This was around 2007) I was still able to use internet and play some games via usb tethering. Kept my unlimited until 4G was released and then was able to do a lot with wifi tethering. I now live in an area that has a gigabit connection ( I use 200 mbit ). Im paying the extra $5 suddenlink charges me for unlimited since we do a lot of streaming ( and updating star citizen PTU builds). I still have a 16 gigabyte plan on 3 phones though since I do occasionally head back to my parents for the weekend and they still cant get anything other than dial-up, Mobile broadband, or satellite.
 
My folks are on Verizon unlimited...they live outside of town where the options are slim to none for ISPs, all of which are slower and/or more expensive than Verizon.

I don't think they use 100+ GB a month, but they might.
 
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I've hit 1 TB before, but I was tethered to my laptop and was still waiting for my DSL to get hooked up. Then my usage dropped to about 2-3 GB a month.
 
bigdogchris said:
If you're going to offer "unlimited" bandwidth, you better base that off 24/7/31 usage at maximum available throughput. If you don't like that amount of data then either slow down your speeds or don't call it unlimited.
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It's unlimited access, I don't think I ever saw any marketing say unlimited bandwidth...
 
I borrowed my dad's phone while bored and watched a few Youtube HD videos. I was sure it was on wifi until I got a message, that in around half an hour of usage, I've burned through 2GB of my dad's data plan. Yikes! I checked the phone and lo and behold, wifi was off. I can see how others can use 100GB since most of the time, unlimited plan are shared between several lines.
 
Hi All

Folk who think Verizon will be sued for false advertising fail to take in consideration 2 things. 1st, our government has been bought & paid for by big business & special interest. 2nd you can bet your bottom dollar, that Verizon has ran this pass their lawyers & have gotten the green light from them to proceed.
 
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